BitGo: Crypto Water Cooler — May 15
GM. It’s Wednesday, May 15.
Newsmakers
Big TradFi Players Test Unified Settlement Platform
Today’s U.S. financial system relies on many separate entities to manage settlements between parties. This adds steps and slows transaction finality. To address these inefficiencies and ideally create a frictionless, interoperable, 24/7 settlement platform, several major U.S. financial services companies. — including Citi, Visa, Mastercard, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo — have joined forces to test shared ledger technology for multi-asset settlements.
In the Regulated Settlement Network (RSN), wholesale central bank money, commercial bank money, U.S. Treasury securities, investment grade debt, and other assets will be tokenized and settled on a single platform. This proof of concept (PoC) builds upon a cross-border settlement pilot project begun in late 2022 and will focus on delivery versus payment transactions.
Participants will analyze whether it fits within current laws or if changes would be needed to operate within the U.S. legal framework.
BNY Mellon, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, and others will offer subject matter expertise while the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association will provide oversight. Deloitte will provide consulting services. The New York Innovation Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will be a “technical observer” watching over the research and experimentation.
In the UK, a similar PoC of the Regulated Liability Network took place in 2023. The BIS Innovation Hub Swiss Centre, Swiss National Bank, and World Bank are currently working on Project Promissa, a similar PoC with the International Monetary Fund as an observer.
Read more →Deloitte
The SEC, Congress, and the Fate of Crypto Accounting Rules
When financial institutions hold clients’ crypto, they are expected to follow appropriate accounting procedures. What those are, however, has become the subject of a tug of war between the U.S. SEC, House of Representatives, and the White House.
Last week, the House passed Resolution #109 opposing SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) №121, published March 31, 2022. The Bulletin lays out how financial institutions should account for crypto in their custody on their balance sheets, and was initially published as staff guidance only. At the time of publication, banks and industry groups objected to the requirement to report crypto as a liability measured at fair market value at time of acquisition and at subsequent reporting dates. Since banks must maintain a strict ratio of capital reserves against liabilities, market volatility effectively shut them out of the crypto custody business.
In October of 2023, the Government Accountability Office cried foul, saying the bulletin was actually a rule. As such, under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), the SEC should have submitted a report to the House, Senate, and Comptroller General. This difference matters because, under the CRA, if an agency rule is reversed, it is erased and similar rules are blocked going forward.
That’s a problem because SAB 121 covers many other aspects of crypto custody such as who holds cryptographic keys; who manages the assets’ internal recordkeeping; who is securing the assets from loss and theft; whether general creditor claims could be satisfied in the case of bankruptcy filings; available insurance coverage; and more. All of these guidelines would presumably be blocked as well.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said that overturning SAB 121 would disrupt the SEC’s efforts to protect consumers, so he would veto the resolution.
Read more →Congressional Research Service
Fantasy Top Turns Twitter Clout Into a Sport
Crypto Twitter has no shortage of colorful, outspoken characters and, if there is one thing they love to talk about, it’s . . . Crypto Twitter. Fantasy Top, the latest entrant in the quest for a breakthrough Web3 SocialFi app, is making a splash by capitalizing on both and throwing in a dash of GameFi for good measure. Launched just two weeks ago on Ethereum L2 Blast, Fantasy Top has generated 15,649 ETH in trading volume and, with $11MM in fees, is already among crypto’s most profitable applications, according to DefiLlama.
Fantasy Top takes the premise of fantasy sports games where fans assemble lineups of their favorite players — only, in this case, they buy NFT cards (.4 ETH/pack) of their favorites among 120 possible Crypto Twitter influencers. If their lineup generates more engagement in games on Fantasy Top’s website than their opponents, they win. Rewards so far include ETH, Blast Gold points (which will eventually go towards Blast’s token when it launches), FAN points, card packs, and more.
Influencers earn a 1.5% fee from the trading volume on their cards plus a share of all pack sales. And, unlike other popularity-monetizing applications such as Friend.tech, where influencers need to engage on the platform, Fantasy Top influencers can just do what they normally do — Tweet — to reap the benefits. Some influencers have said that they will share 100% of their initial revenue with their NFT holders, creating an interesting dynamic between influencers and their followers.
Whether Fantasy Top can sustain the momentum is an open question. The app is already contending with bots that are being used to drive up Tweet views and influence game outcomes. Fantasy Top ended its first competition early because of this interference, and one influencer temporarily locked her account because of these concerns.
There’s also the philosophical question of whether the game will change how influencers act on Twitter when they know their every move will be affecting the game. Then there’s the more practical question of “whether a fantasy sports riff featuring Twitter influencers has the depth and intrigue to maintain momentum after the initial novelty and Blast network incentives fade” as Decrypt’s Ryan Ozawa so aptly put it. Read more: Decrypt
Read more →The Defiant
News In Brief
Business of Crypto
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Regulation and Security
DeFi and Web3
Midweek Market Pulse
Total Market Cap: $2.26T — 7 day change as of Tuesday 5/14/24 12 PM EST: -3.8%
The crypto market hit a lull this week as the total crypto market cap drifted down 3.8% to $2.26T.
Bitcoin (BTC, -3.1%) has been chopping in a relatively narrow trading range, seemingly awaiting catalysts — either of the positive or negative variety. There will be plenty of macro news this week that could move the market one way or the other.
Yesterday, the market heard from Fed Chair Jerome Powell during a moderated discussion with Klaas Knot, the president of the Netherlands’ central bank, at the Foreign Bankers’ Association in Amsterdam. Powell largely reiterated the Fed’s “wait and see” approach to interest rates as inflation is still above its 2% goal, saying that the Fed will “need to be patient and let restrictive policy do its work.” The market yesterday also received Producer Price Index (PPI) data; while inflation for April was higher, inflation for March was revised lower.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) data will be released today, giving an indication of what direction inflation is heading. Equity markets have been equally subdued, but Wall Street trade desks believe the data will bring significant volatility.
Elsewhere in Ethereum (ETH, -5.6%) news, Vitalik Buterin put forward EIP-7706, which aims to overhaul Ethereum’s gas model. The measure would implement a new form of gas for call data, reducing costs for these less computationally intensive transaction types.
Toncoin (TON, +11.9%) was a major outlier, moving up the ladder to become the eighth-largest crypto by market cap. The Telegram-associated coin’s total value locked (TVL) has surged more than 10X from under $20MM in February to $209MM today.
Lastly, the apparent reemergence of Roaring Kitty,(the ringleader of 2021’s GameStop “meme stock” frenzy), posted a simple meme on X on Sunday night (his first post in nearly three years)that not only sent shares of Gamestop skyrocketing, it’s also sent a GameStop meme coin on Solana (SOL, -7.5%) over 4,000% ($) higher since Sunday morning.
In other meme coin news, Pepe (PEPE, +26.3%) continued its ascent into the top 25 cryptos by market cap on the eve of its first birthday. Its current value of over $4.5B now places it 23rd on the list.
The Last Word
Delivery Versus Payment (DVP)
noun
: a settlement process which guarantees securities are only delivered after payment is made
/ DVP reduces risk, ensuring that all parties receive what they’re entitled to in the transaction.
About BitGo
BitGo provides the most secure and scalable solutions for the digital asset economy, offering regulated custody, borrowing and lending, and core infrastructure to investors and builders alike.
Founded in 2013 — the early days of crypto — BitGo pioneered the multi-signature wallet and later built TSS to improve upon other companies’ MPC offerings. Between multi-sig and TSS, BitGo offers the safest technology on the market and safeguards over 600 tokens across a wide variety of blockchains.
Over the years, BitGo has expanded from offering wallets into providing a full-suite solution that lets clients hold assets safely and then put them to work.
BitGo launched BitGo Trust Company in 2018, providing fully regulated, qualified cold storage to complement BitGo Inc’s original hot wallet solution. In 2020, BitGo launched BitGo Prime, which allows its clients to trade, borrow, and lend. Moreover, BitGo also provides access to DeFi, staking, NFT wallets, and beyond, and serves as the world’s sole custodian for WBTC, or wrapped Bitcoin.
Today, BitGo is the leader in digital asset security, custody, and liquidity, providing the operational backbone for more than 1500 institutional clients in over 50 countries — a list that includes many regulated entities and the world’s top cryptocurrency exchanges and platforms. BitGo also processes approximately 20% of all global Bitcoin transactions by value.
For more information, please visit www.bitgo.com.
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