Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Tether’s excess reserves for the USDT stablecoin hit $3.3 billion in Q2.
• An attestation report for the quarter by BDO showed operational profits of over $1 billion.
• Tether’s consolidated liabilities was roughly $83.17 billion, while exposure to US Treasuries totaled $72.5 billion.

Tether Holdings Limited, the company behind the USDT stablecoin, saw its reserve assets held in excess rise to $3.3 billion in Q2, 2023, according to an attestation report for the quarter released on Monday.

The stablecoin issuer’s Consolidated Reserves Report (CRR) for the quarterly period ending June 30, 2023 was prepared by the accounting firm BDO. Per the assurance report, Tether saw its excess reserves increase by $850 million during the quarter to reach $3.3 billion.

As of 30 June 2023, Tether’s consolidated total assets were $86,499,251,218, while consolidated total liabilities stood at $83,200,775,340. According to the company, $83,178,020,411 of this was related to the digital tokens it has issued.

With USDT the firm’s largest token, total US Treasuries backing USDT by end of Q2 was $72.5 billion, details shared in the report showed.

“I am immensely proud of our most recent reserves attestation, reaffirming our unwavering commitment to transparency,” Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino said.

“Transparency is not just a buzzword for us; it is the cornerstone of our philosophy. We believe that open communication and strong financials foster trust and reliability, and this is what the global community deserves especially in a year devastated by many failures across the banking and crypto industry.”

Tether also revealed operational profits of over $1 billion for the quarter, signaling a 30% increase in operational profits QoQ. The impressive returns come after the company announced net profits of $1.45 billion in Q1, 2023.

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• Richard Heart was charged with allegedly raising over $1B through unregistered securities offerings.
• The SEC also charged PulseChain, PulseX, and Hex, alongside Richard Heart.
• In addition, Heart and PulseChain have also been charged for using part of the offering proceeds to buy luxury goods.

The US Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has charged the founder of the crypto project Hex, Richard Heart, with allegedly raising more than $1 billion through unregistered securities offerings. The SEC has also included three unincorporated businesses (PulseChain, PulseX, and Hex) in the charges.

PulseChain and Richard Heart are also both facing charges for purportedly using $12 million from the funds raised through the securities offerings to buy luxury goods, including a 555-carat black diamond christened “The Enigma.”

Details of SEC’s charges against Hex

The SEC’s lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

The SEC complaint states that the HEX founder started marketing Hex in 2018 claiming that “it was the first high-yield ‘blockchain certificate of deposit,” and started endorsing Hex tokens as an investment designed to make people “rich.”

The SEC is particularly wary of a staking function on Hex that Heart claimed would provide returns of 38% and claims that Heart intentionally tried to break the law by advising Hex investors to “sacrifice” their cryptocurrency holdings rather than invest in them.

Director of the Fort Worth regional office, Eric Werner, also weighed into the matter saying that Heart urged investors to purchase securities backed by cryptocurrency in offerings that he neglected to register and then went ahead to use some of the cryptocurrency assets to purchase extravagant luxury items.

HEX price reaction

The price of the HEX token had dipped by more than 27% to trade at $0.006461 at press time following the news of the charges.

The Hex charge came as the SEC also asked Coinbase to only offer Bitcoin (BTC) stating that all the other cryptocurrencies are securities.

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• Cardano’s network will benefit from more efficiency and fast bootstrap after Mithril went live on mainnet.
• ADA price was flat, but could benefit from new bullish momentum across the market.

Cardano has achieved another milestone with the mainnet launch of the highly anticipated Mithril upgrade.

On July 30, an announcement by Cardano stake pool operator (SPO) Banksy revealed that Mithril was now live on the mainnet.

Network efficiency

Mithril is a stake-based network of nodes that enable the creation of snapshots and certificates of the Cardano Node, allowing for a fast bootstrap and restoration.

The development promises to bring several benefits to network users, particularly in boosting the efficiency of Cardano full node clients. The upgrade will also enhance user access to Daedalus and other network applications, with increased decentralisation achieved via the ability for any number of pools attesting to transactions through an aggregator and signer.

“With Mithril, SPOs give you regular certified snapshots of the Cardano state (more precisely the UTXO set i.e. the leaves of the graph formed by its transactions over time), so you can build services without running a node. Fast bootstrap is a first use case,” Romain Pellerin, the CTO of Cardano R&D company Input Output, noted via X (fka Twitter).

ADA price outlook

A reaction to the protocol’s launch saw the price of Cardano’s native token ADA jump to near $0.32. While broader malaise across crypto sees ADA hover within a tight range above $0.30, the potential for a sharp flip higher has been added to with the new network milestone.

Other network activity metrics, as shown by the count of github commits, suggests a breakout for ADA amid a wider market rally could see bulls target year-to-date highs of $0.45.

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• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reportedly asked Coinbase to only list Bitcoin.
• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says the pressure left it no choice but to fight it out in court.
• SEC chair Gary Gensler has previously noted that almost every other cryptocurrency was a security.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has revealed that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wanted it to delist every other cryptocurrency and only offer Bitcoin (BTC). 

A report the Financial Times published on Monday claims that this happened before the regulator sued the US-based cryptocurrency exchange in June. Per the FT report, Armstrong saiys that the SEC’s demands left Coinbase with no other option but to defend itself in court.

SEC’s plans could have “ended” crypto in the US

When the SEC filed a lawsuit against Coinbase in early June, complaints included the offering of unregistered securities. 

The Commission named several altcoins listed on Coinbase as unregistered securities, with those singled out being the likes of Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and Polygon (MATIC).

“We really didn’t have a choice at that point. Delisting every asset other than bitcoin, which by the way is not what the law says, would have essentially meant the end of the crypto industry in the US. It kind of made it an easy choice … ‘let’s go to court and find out what the court says’,” Armstrong said according to details in the FT report published on Monday.

The SEC also filed a similar lawsuit against Binance in June, part of a recent regulatory crackdown that elicited sharp criticism against the agency and its Chair, Gary Gensler.

While Coinbase has vowed to battle SEC’s allegations in court, the Financial Times has quoted the government agency as noting that no such requests have been made by the securities watchdog. Gensler has however noted on numerous occasions that most crypto tokens were securities.

Meanwhile, the regulator suffered a noticeable loss earlier this month when a judge ruled in favour of the XRP creator Ripple Labs. Coinbase, which had delisted XRP, announced the relisting of the altcoin following the ruling that effectively declared it not a security.

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• The meme token recorded astounding gains in 24 hours, reaching a market cap of $70 million.
• BALD, the newly-launched meme coin that went live on Base, a layer-2 chain created by Coinbase on Ethereum, skyrocketed within hours of its launch to jump to a market cap of $70 million.

While the current price of Bald is $0.06, up by about 70% in the past 24 hours, the meme coin’s astounding gains after its launch took the crypto trading world by storm with a 40,000% jump.

Currently, data from CoinGecko shows over $66.7 million worth of BALD have been traded in the past 24 hours, while the transaction count has reached more than 14,000. BALD is listed on the DEX platform LeetSwap and trades in the BALD/WETH pair.

Wu Blockchain reported.

Memecoin BALD based on the Base network has increased by as much as 30,000x in the past 24 hours, and its market value has exceeded 70 million US dollars. At present, there are about 25,000 ETH deposited on the Base chain, of which LeetSwap BALD/WETH has more than 9,800 WETH…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 30, 2023

According to blockchain sleuth Lookonchain, BALD’s meteoric rise saw some savvy investors make huge returns. One such case involves four addresses that used 0.534 ETH (roughly $1k) to purchase 50 million BALD. The transactions occurred within minutes of Bald’s launch and accounted for 50% of the total supply.

Per Lookonchain, the addresses then quickly sold 37 million BALD to make an outsized return of 554 ETH, or over $1.04 million.

This guy spent 500 $ETH($937K) to buy 13.6M $BALD 5 hrs ago, becoming the largest holder besides the developer.

This guy is a $PEPE whale, he sold 720.8B $PEPE for 501.5 $ETH($943K) and then used the $ETH to buy $BALD.

This guy currently holds 3.72T $PEPE ($4.92M). pic.twitter.com/UITgp98Ca5

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 30, 2023

On-chain data also shows PEPE whale has bought 13.6 million BALD worth $937k – after they sold 720.8 billion PEPE for about $943k. The address is currently the largest holder of the token other than BALD’s developer.

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