The Ledger: ECB calls crypto Ponzi scheme while US lawmakers stack up BTC

The week began with a piece of good news as Binance reported that it was able to retrieve $5.8m from the Axie Infinite hack which saw investors and players lose significant assets.

The ability to retrace those transactions and retrieve them demonstrates the ability of private companies to take on hackers and track down illicit funds while returning them successfully.

This was not the only good news this week as a man in New York was charged and now faces up to 20 years in prison. One Chester J. Stojanovich was accused of crypto fraud that fleeced investors out of $1.8m. He promised to provide the investors with cryptocurrency mining equipment, but failed to deliver on his promise.

Meanwhile, a new report surfaced that indicated that crypto investors had earned as much as $162.7bn in 2021. This is a significant amount and much higher than the relatively small $32.5bn earned in 2020.

Things haven’t been looking up everywhere. For example, Indian crypto trading plummeted at some of the biggest exchanges due to a new tax law which has bitten into profitability. Many investors have deemed their efforts wasted when faced with a tough taxation law and have opted out of trading, resulting in a 40% slump in activity.

Meanwhile, Grayscale Investments has been dancing a legal tango with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company wants the regulator to approve the launch of an exchange-traded fund which it then wants to use to place $40bn of bitcoin.

This week we also revisited the issues around sanctions against Russia relative to its cryptocurrency industry and ability to dodge existing penalties. While many fear that Russia may use cryptocurrency to circumnavigate sanctions, the realities on the ground are much more sobering.

Russian crypto miners are cut off from a global supply chain that was strained to deliver hardware even before the war broke out and will be further challenged moving forward.

The news that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is buying out Twitter has had a positive impact on the value of dogecoin which jumped 12% on Monday before returning to $0.14 on Friday. Musk has been a long-time proponent of the cryptocurrency, even though most of his public endorsement moves have been done in a half-joking fashion.

Meanwhile, a new report has revealed that the people that could have a say on how to regulate cryptocurrencies in the US are direct or indirect owners themselves.

A European Central Bank board member, Fabio Panetta, blasted cryptocurrencies as a Ponzi scheme that is going to undermine the safety of the mainstream financial system and leave consumers under a collapsed “house of cards.”

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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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