🦎🚀 The SEC is taking on a new opponent! ⚖️

Tuesday, May 7, 2024

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Have a fantastic Tuesday, Geckos!

The market is looking healthy but the SEC might have spoiled the fun!

In today's news:

Robinhood meets the Sheriff 🏹
In a new Mode 🪂

Read on!

24h Hot Searches Worldwide 🔥

Friend.tech (-2.7%)
Render (+5.0%)
Ethereum (-2.8%)
Dione (-2.2%)
MANEKI (-10.1%)
Solana (+0.8%)
Ondo (-5.1%)

Top Blockchains by Market Share & Trading Volume

Ethereum remained the largest blockchain by trading volume in 2024 Q1, but has been challenged by the likes of Solana and Arbitrum.

Ethereum was briefly surpassed by Arbitrum in January and February 2024, with trading volume bolstered by Arbitrum's incentive program.

Robinhood meets the Sheriff 🏹

Who is in their crosshairs this time?

Robinhood Crypto, the aptly named crypto arm of the popular brokerage firm, recently announced that they had received a Wells Notice from the SEC over the weekend, claiming that the firm had violated securities laws.

In a recent statement by Robinhood, the firm's Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, Dan Gallagher, mentions that Robinhood is willing to engage with the SEC and is confident that the crypto assets listed on their platform are not securities.

Robinhood Markets received an investigative subpoena from the SEC last year regarding the listing of several cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, DOGE, and SHIB.

Just last month, both Uniswap and Metamask also received their own Wells Notice.

However, Consensys has chosen to sue the SEC instead, citing that classifying Ether as a security would risk the future of blockchain innovation in the US.

As news began to spread, the price of BTC fell slightly by 1.8% from $64,517 to $63,000.

Editor's Take:
Robinhood's CEO, Vlad Tenev, has announced that the firm will use its resources if necessary to fight the SEC in court, making it clear that they are willing to go all out. Perhaps the SEC has bitten off more than it could chew by taking on three different companies simultaneously while facing a lawsuit from one of them. Yet, only time will tell whether things will go according to their plan.

Catch up on the most important developments of 2024 with this video featuring the highlights from our 2024 Q1 Crypto Industry Report!

Watch now

In a new Mode 🪂

Mode, a new Layer-2 built using technology from Optimism, has enabled claims for the airdrop of its native token, MODE.

550M MODE tokens will be distributed in the first airdrop phase, equating to 5.5% of the total token supply of 10B.

Distribution will be based on the amount of MODE points collected by users since the start of the year.

The first batch of points was allocated during their 'Mode Sunrise' event earlier in January, based on user interactions with DeFi and NFT protocols, as well as other Layer-2 networks.

Users would have to secure these points by bridging to Mode, and they could earn more points by referring other users or depositing into the network's native ecosystem applications.

Following the first airdrop phase, Mode will continue with the second phase of its token distribution, starting from May 5 to September 6th, with 500M MODE and 1M OP tokens up for grabs.

Learn about how crypto trading apps work and explore some of the most popular platforms on the market.

Learn more

Learn about Swell Network and how you can earn Pearls in their Voyage program that will be redeemable for SWELL at the protocol's token generation event (TGE).

Learn more

In Other News...

Inorganic Activity. 90% of Ethereum, Tron, Solana stablecoin transactions are driven by smart contracts, according to Visa.
Dormant Whale Awakens. A Bitcoin whale recently transferred $44 million worth of BTC after a decade of dormancy. The coins were initially deposited in January 2014, when 1 BTC was valued at less than $900, and had remained untouched until now.s.
Back to HODLing. Bitcoin's sell pressure has waned dramatically compared to two months ago, with more long-term investors holding onto their BTC longer, according to crypto analytics firm Glassnode.
Fantasy Top is taking over Crypto Twitter. Fantasy Top is like fantasy football, but with crypto influencers. The Blast game is the hot new thing amid a cooling crypto market.
Bitcoin ETFs Are Back? Grayscale's spot BTC ETF logs the second day of net inflows, bringing the total daily net inflow to $217M on Monday.
Money Laundering. Poloniex hacker launders $3.4M via Tornado Cash mixer.

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