The Ledger: This Week in Crypto

A full week has gone by with a lot happening in the world of crypto and blockchain. For starters, we saw a lot of reassuring regulatory moves that promised to add more clarity to the constantly churning regulatory mess that is crypto law.

Following a blanket ban in China, US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler commented that SEC would not seek to ban crypto, but cautioned that the US Congress might.

The Chinese ban has had significant impact on the crypto world, cutting the hash rate for Ethereum and Bitcoin networks, but ultimately proving a positive development in the industry's future growth, according to infamous whistleblower Edward Snowden who welcomed the move.

Kucoin became the latest exchange to fully cut ties with the Chinese market, citing regulatory concerns as the reason why. The exchange's move is motivated by the fact that Beijing authorities often target wrongdoers overseas.

Meanwhile, it transpired that many Japanese crypto owners have been systematically underreporting their earnings on crypto assets, whether intentionally or because of a lack of knowledge on how to do so.

The ban in China at first wrote off Bitcoin miners' profits and reduced them to only $20m daily. Since the ban, though, profits have bounced back to $40m per day – lower than the $60m clocked in before the restriction, but still a good sign of recovery nevertheless.

As this was happening, there was a development in the SEC v Ripple Labs case. XRP owners wanted to join Ripple Labs as defendants but a US district judge denied the motion. Essentially, the judge explained that if she allowed this to happen, XRP owners might be targeted by SEC individually.

As a result, Judge Analisa Torres explained that the defendants may attend court and weigh in with evidence, but not be a direct part of the process.

Two rather big events followed this week as the Bank of America and U.S. Bank reassessed their attitude towards crypto and introduced more opportunities for institutional and regular investors to get involved with crypto and blockchain.

Brazil announced a tougher stance on crypto crimes and said that fraudulent activities would be pursued with the full severity of the law, charting a new course of action against such fraud in the first place. This coincided with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) revealing a new task force dedicated to taking down crypto criminals.

In an official statement, US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the DOJ was fully focused on fighting the environment that had enabled crypto criminals to flourish.

Bitcoin and Shiba Inu's values increased dramatically over the last five days, marking a strong upward trend for the currencies. Not least, Axie Infinity studio Sky Mavis commented on the game, arguing that it was an opportunity for financial and economic freedom. However, Axie Infinity co-founder Aleksander Leonard Larsen cautioned that the game has become too difficult for new players to get started.

 

 

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Written by Barney

Co-founder

Barney is co-founder of CryptoGamblingNews.com. When not at work he can usually be found behind a Nikon. He's won numerous international competitions for his photography and volunteers as a content creator for aid organisations in Africa.

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