This week in Crypto (September 26 –October 2)
The past week brought us to a new and hopefully final stage in the unwinding of bankrupt centralized crypto lenders from earlier this year. FTX won the auction for Voyager Digital and its assets with a bid of $1.4 billion. Celsius’s CEO Alex Mashinsky announced he will be stepping down after the company’s creditor committee called for his removal. Since then, FTX said it is considering a bid for Celsius’ assets as well.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has made strides to further cement itself as the de-facto regulator of crypto in the US with two new enforcement actions. The first was CFTC filing of a lawsuit against Ooki DAO in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that the DAO was an unincorporated association involved in unlawful activity of running an unlicensed exchange offering margin and futures trading over multiple blockchains.
Secondly, the Commissioner Caroline Pham has proposed a new ‘Office of Retail Advocate’ for the CFTC. The new office would focus on retail market protections and look to bring the ‘shadow’ crypto financial system into mainstream regulation.
On the institutional front, SWIFT, the interbank messaging system that allows for cross-border payments, announced a partnership with Chainlink, a provider of price feeds and other data to blockchains, on a cross-chain interoperability protocol (CCIP) in an initial proof-of-concept. The partnership could have far reaching implications given the importance of both systems for TradFi institutions and the DeFi world, respectively.
This week’s long read focuses on the tempting offers in front of Maker DAO from centralized exchanges looking to make in roads into the DeFi space. The article outlines the offers from both Gemini and Coinbase to entice Maker to deposit its stablecoin reserves into their respective platforms.
Major Headlines:
FTX wins auction for bankrupt crypto lender Voyager
FTX’s Bankman-Fried considering Celsius bid: Bloomberg
What’s next for DAOs? Breaking down the CFTC’s latest enforcement action
CFTC’s Pham calls for new office focused on retail traders, with eye to crypto protections
California, New York and other U.S. states take action against crypto lender Nexo
SWIFT Partners With Crypto Data Provider Chainlink on Cross-Chain Protocol in TradFi Play
Big read:
Winklevoss Offers MakerDAO Deal But Christensen May Be Underwhelmed
Chart(s) of the week:
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