Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
It was a relatively quiet week in the cryptoverse. The most significant bit of adoption news came from Buckingham Palace on Thursday when British King Charles signed his assent to a reform bill that now recognizes crypto trading as a regulated activity. Similarly, European parliamentarians announced their own crypto-focused regulatory reforms.
These were hardly discussed on Twitter, though. More attention was given to Apple’s removal of decentralized social networking app Damus from the App Store. Apple had given Damus a fortnight to remove its Bitcoin tipping feature (via the Layer 2 Lightning Network) and bring the app into compliance by integrating it with Apple’s own in-house payments mechanism.
On Monday, Damus tweeted that it had updated its app to bring it into compliance, yet was still removed from the store.
Looks like we are getting removed from the appstore even after updating our app to make it clear that no digital content is getting unlocked when users are tipped. Users are only ever tipped after posts are made, the idea that content is being sold is nonsense. We will be filing… pic.twitter.com/Su945kE37v
— Damus⚡️ (@damusapp) June 26, 2023
The following day, Bitcoin-loving Block CEO Jack Dorsey criticized Apple for encroaching on users’ and creators’ financial freedom. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong supported his argument.
It’s really crazy that Apple will unilaterally block you from running the software you want on your own device.
One of the most disrespectful parts of their culture, and it’s damaging to their brand. https://t.co/n1Mo9jPBzX
— Brian Armstrong 🛡️ (@brian_armstrong) June 27, 2023
Crypto journalist Ekin Genç shared a chart on Monday highlighting the explosive growth of Ethereum staking over the last two and a half years.
Crypto custodian and fintech infrastructure company Prime Trust LLC landed in hot water with Nevada’s Financial Institutions Division, according to Crypto Twitter news account @tier10k. The allegations are pretty damning.
Solana co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Raj Gokal got excited about Futurama’s revival on Hulu. The new episodes appear to reference crypto and COVID. How very zeitgeisty!
That day, Brian Armstrong accused the U.S. of “squandering an early lead” in the adoption and regulation of crypto before reiterating his tireless call for sensible regulation. Coinbase is a publicly listed U.S. company, but it has recently been expanding into other territories due to the harsh domestic regulatory climate.
The U.S. is squandering an early lead, in part because SBF embarrassed some politicians and regulators who now want to look tough on crypto. Pretty much everyone else has moved on though, and FTX is not really discussed in UK, UAE, etc.
The way to solve it is just get sensible… https://t.co/8HAeWiB7Mi
— Brian Armstrong 🛡️ (@brian_armstrong) June 26, 2023
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr is trying to position himself as the crypto-friendly option. Looks like he has Michael Saylor’s vote.
The next President will be a pro-Bitcoin President.
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) June 27, 2023
Speaking of Bitcoin believers, if you’ve been wondering what MicroStrategy’s chairman has been up to lately, then wonder no more. He’s still Buying More Bitcoin.
Bloomberg ETF expert Eric Balchunas explained how ARK Invest’s amended proposal to the SEC for a Bitcoin spot ETF has given the company a head start on BlackRock. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset management company, stewarding a whopping $9 trillion in assets. Of the 576 ETF applications it has made to the SEC, 575 of them have been approved to date, so it makes sense that other ETF-hungry firms are looking at BlackRock’s filing for tips for their own.
JUST IN: ARK has amended their 19b-4 for spot bitcoin ETF to include a surveillance sharing agreement bt CBOE and a crypto exchange (likely Coinbase), which makes their’s like BlackRock’s filing now, and puts them in pole position to be approved first bc they filed first. pic.twitter.com/P8PCmPdhln
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 28, 2023
Market data from Kaiko suggests that Bitcoin’s correlation with tech equities has hit a three-year low.
Finally, self-proclaimed “Internet Detective Exposing Scams” Coffeezilla jumped on a bit of content by notorious influencer/scammer Logan Paul.
Hey Logan, was promising $1.8 million in refunds to CryptoZoo victims, and 6 months later not paying “another masterclass in marketing”?
Asking for all the people who got scammed by you and the criminals you hired.🙏 https://t.co/wRS4yE24Jb
— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) June 29, 2023
Paul did not respond.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/147044/this-week-on-crypto-twitter-brian-armstrong-jack-dorsey-apple-app-store-crypto-policy
