SEC delays BTC ETF decision, Grayscale triumphs over SEC and BitBoy gets the boot: Hodler’s Digest, Aug. 27 – Sept. 2

Published

2 years ago

September 3, 2023

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Grayscale wins SEC lawsuit for Bitcoin ETF review

Crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments recently scored a big win in its battle against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

In an ongoing effort to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), the U.S. appeals court judge accepted Grayscale’s argument that the SEC’s rejection of its recent ETF application was unfair. The SEC had alleged that the GBTC didn’t have enough safe practices and fraud protection in place.

Judge Neomi Rao gave the green light to Grayscale’s request for a second review.Previously, Rao said that the SEC did not “offer any explanation” as to why Grayscale was in the wrong.

However, the victory doesn’t automatically mean Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF is a done deal. There’s still more to come…

BitBoy Crypto brand will no longer include YouTuber Ben Armstrong

The parent company of Hit Network, the folks behind the “BitBoy Crypto” brand, just gave the boot to its public face, Ben Armstrong.

The company alleged issues of substance abuse and financial damage as reasons behind the decision.

In a YouTube and social media announcement, Hit Network revealed that despite its efforts to support Armstrong during his struggle with addiction, it had decided to part ways with the influencer.

This follows Armstrong facing a series of lawsuits in recent times. He was in a class-action lawsuit where investors accused him and other influencers of promoting FTX without disclosing how much they were getting paid by the exchange.

Furthermore, during the lawsuit, there were claims that Armstrong threatened the plaintiff’s lawyers and even blew off a federal judge’s orders to show up in court. The case was put on hold in June.

SEC delays decision on 6 spot Bitcoin ETF applications

The SEC has chosen to postpone delivering a decision on six applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. The commission has opted to extend its review period by an additional 45 days, pushing the eventual decision back until October. Shortly after the news broke, the SEC also put BlackRock, the biggest asset manager in the world, in the same delayed decision boat.

Bitwise withdraws Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap ETF application

In a surprising twist following the U.S. SEC’s announcement of delays, Bitwise has submitted a request to retract its application for its Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy ETF. This application was originally submitted to the SEC on Aug. 3. It seems that Bitwise is taking a step back to reconsider its approach, despite the brief positive market sentiment that followed Grayscale’s recent SEC win.

Robinhood bought back Sam Bankman-Fried’s stake from US gov’t for $606M

Crypto and stock trading platform Robinhood scooped up more than 55 million shares of their own company that were previously owned by Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX. The purchase, which cost Robinhood roughly $606 million, was finalized this week after it filed the paperwork with the U.S. SEC. These shares originally held by Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, a co-founder of FTX, through a company called Emergent Fidelity Technologies.

However, back in January, the U.S. Department of Justice seized these shares. The purchase has been in the works for a while. Robinhood’s board of directors gave it the green light in its Q4 2022 report, and an SEC filing from August confirmed that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved the purchase without any legal complications.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $25,610, Ether (ETH) at $1,618 and XRP (XRP) at $0.49. The total market cap is $1.03 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Toncoin (TON) at 33.90%, Iota (MIOTA) at 13.13% and Maker (MKR) at 12.33%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are KuCoin Token (KCS) at 15.53%, Hedera (HBAR) at 15.02% and Astar (ASTR) at 12.82%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotes

“There are many cases where transparency is a feature, but people do not want most transactions in the economy to be public.”

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase

“Now that the courts are starting to rein in the SEC a bit, I think there’s some hope that the industry is kind of igniting again in the U.S.”

Jeremy McLaughlin, partner at K&L Gates

“In the end, we will win. You can’t steal someone’s company they built on their identity and win.”

Ben Armstrong, former frontman of BitBoy Crypto

“I definitely do think we could see in this next cycle $100,000 cost per Bitcoin, and that’s based on if BTC were to capture even 2 to 5% of gold’s $13 trillion place in institutional portfolios.”

Sue Ennis, vice president of Hut 8

“We see limited downside for crypto markets over the near term.”

JPMorgan analysts

“I spoke to a guy the other day that has 80 altcoins in his portfolio. There’s no way an individual investor can stay across and know exactly what 80 different coins are doing at any one time.”

Ben Simpson, founder of Collective Shift

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin risks ‘swift’ $23K dive after BTC price loses 11% in August

Data indicates that Bitcoin is on track for a retest of long-term support levels following a drop in BTC price as August came to a close. Reversing the gains witnessed the previous week, BTC/USD is now trading below $26,000 as of Sept. 1, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.

Initially, market participants had reasons to be optimistic as Bitcoin held a key long-term trendline and maintained the $27,000 level. However, a decision by the U.S. SEC to delay several Bitcoin ETF applications caused a change in sentiment.Bitcoin swiftly shed $1,000 in value over just two hourly candles.

FUD of the Week

Balancer exploited in nearly $900k after vulnerability warning.

The Ethereum automated market maker and decentralized finance protocol, Balancer, confirmed that it had fallen victim to an exploit, resulting in losses of nearly $900,000. This incident occurred shortly after it had disclosed a vulnerability that impacted several pools.

An Ethereum address allegedly belonging to the attacker has been revealed by blockchain security expert Meier Dolev. Following the exploit, the address received two transfers of Dai stablecoin worth $636,812 and $257,527, respectively, bringing its total balance to over $893,978.

“Balancer is aware of an exploit related to the vulnerability below,” the protocol’s team posted on X, adding that, while mitigation measures taken in recent days had drastically reduced risks, affected pools could not be paused. “To prevent further exploits, users must withdraw from affected LPs,” the team advised.

Brazilian crypto streamer loses money by accidentally exposing private key

A Brazilian cryptocurrency streamer is one of the latest victims of unsafe self-custody practices, reportedly losing thousands of dollars due to a private key accident. The owner of the Fraternidade Crypto channel, Ivan Bianco, unwittingly exposed his private key to a self-custodial cryptocurrency wallet during a livestream on YouTube.

In the middle of the livestream related to Bitcoin and blockchain games, Bianco apparently tried to access his passwords for the blockchain games platform Gala Games through a text file on his computer.

Unfortunately for the streamer, his Gala Games passwords were stored in the same text file as the seed phrase for his MetaMask wallet, which had a significant amount of Polygon (MATIC).

Exploits, hacks and scams stole almost $1B in 2023: Report

Cybersecurity firm CertiK reported that over $997 million was lost to flash loan attacks, exit scams and exploits in 2023. Malicious actors targeting the crypto space have taken more than $45 million in digital assets from their victims in the month of August alone and a total of $997 million year-to-date.

In the report, CertiK highlighted that exit scams took around $26 million, flash loan attacks took $6.4 million, and exploits took $13.5 million from their victims in August 2023. The cybersecurity firm confirmed that the total losses amounted to over $45 million.

Best Cointelegraph Features

How to protect your crypto in a volatile market: Bitcoin OGs and experts weigh in.

Crypto is a volatile place. Money can be as easily lost as made through the ups and downs of Bitcoin and the wider market. Bitcoin OGs, veterans and experts provide their opinions, tools and views on how to protect your crypto.

6 Questions for Leila Ismailova: Digital fashion and life after Artisant

Leila Ismailova began her professional career at the age of 15 as a broadcasting star in Belarus, the Russian-neighboring Eastern European country that plays home to 9.3 million citizens. She continued in the role for 10 years, she says, before reaching what she felt was a “professional ceiling” and beginning a journey that led to Web3.

Crypto Banter’s Ran Neuner says Ripple is ‘despicable,’ tips hat to ZachXBT: Hall of Flame

Ran Neuner is the CEO of Onchain Capital, founder of Crypto Banter, and a vocal crypto commentator on X. According to Crypto Banter’s Ran Neuner, following people you dislike on Twitter/X can actually make you smarter.

Editorial Staff

Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.

Politics

Tories ‘are not doing a deal with Reform,’ Kemi Badenoch insists

Published

7 mins ago

April 25, 2025

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Tories 'are not doing a deal with Reform,' Kemi Badenoch insists

Kemi Badenoch has said the Tories are “not doing a deal with Reform” after a Conservative mayor appeared to advocate for a “coming together” of the two rival parties.

The leader of the opposition criticised talk of “stitch ups” ahead of next week’s local elections and said she was instead focused on ensuring that voters have a “credible Conservative offer”.

Speaking to reporters from Stratford-upon-Avon, she said: “We are not doing a deal with Reform. There’s not going to be a pact.

“What we need to do right now is focus on ensuring that voters have a credible Conservative offer.

“When we start talking about stitch ups before an election it sounds as if we are not thinking about the people out there but just about how we win.

“Winning is just the first step – we need to talk about how we are going to deliver for the people of this country.”

Her words come after Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen suggested his party may have to join forces with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

In an interview with Politico, he said: “I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t know whether it’s a pact. I don’t know whether it’s a merger … [or] a pact of trust and confidence or whatever.

“But if we want to make sure that there is a sensible centre-right party leading this country, then there is going to have to be a coming together of Reform and the Conservative Party in some way.”

He added: “What that looks like is slightly above my pay grade at the moment.”

The intervention from the Conservatives’ last remaining mayor will create further trouble for Ms Badenoch after shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick vowed to “bring this coalition together” to ensure that Conservatives and Reform UK are no longer competing for votes by the time of the next election.

According to a leaked recording obtained by Sky News, Mr Jenrick – who lost the Tory leadership campaign to Ms Badenoch – said he would try “one way or another” to make sure the two right-wing parties do not end up handing a second term to Sir Keir Starmer.

Mr Jenrick has denied his words amounted to calling for a pact with Reform – and told Good Morning Britain: “I’ve said time and again that I want to put Reform out of business … I want to send Nigel Farage back to retirement.”

Questioned about Mr Jenrick’s remarks, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told Sky News he was not going to do a deal with the Conservative Party.

He said: “I mean he’s clearly shaping himself up to be the next leader of the Conservative Party. He doesn’t care what internal division he causes within the Parliamentary Party.

“But he’s actually mistaken. We are not going to do a deal with a Conservative Party that gave us record tax levels since the war, mass migration, I mean I could go on.”

Politics

Ethical finance must guide crypto’s evolution

Published

8 mins ago

April 25, 2025

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Ethical finance must guide crypto’s evolution

Opinion by: Daniel Ahmed, co-founder of Fasset and founding member of the Own Foundation

Crypto was born from a vision to decentralize power, democratize finance and build systems where equity prevails over exploitation. Somewhere along the way, however, the movement lost its moral compass. As speculation surged, purpose dwindled.

We must return crypto to its decentralized roots, a technological revolution built on long-term value, inclusivity and ethics rather than cyclical, speculative gains. The industry should take inspiration from emerging regions and how ethical financial investing can help to repair some of the ways our industry has often fallen short.

The rise of layer 2

When Vitalik wrote a blog post on layer 2s as a cultural extension of Ethereum, he brought up a critical point not only in business and technology but humanity — what we build in this life should be more significant than ourselves. Citing blockchains, he described how layer 2s, which he framed as subcultures of Ethereum, don’t merely differ in their technical benefits but how their positioning and intricacies trickle down into the culture of their communities.

In a space where new layer 2s are emerging rapidly, Vitalik’s insights are accurate and inspiring. When we build in a vacuum of echo chambers and monocultures, we miss out on the actual value of community in Web3.

What really brings communities together? Too often in crypto, that answer has been making people rich. What it should be is shared ideals that solve real issues. If done with purpose and conviction, this can still make people money.

While the rapid rise of layer 2 and layer 3 solutions promises scalability and efficiency, they are too often motivated by speculative gains rather than lasting value creation. If there’s any doubt, the numbers speak for themselves.

Layer-2 fatigue aside, the sheer scope of this data raises the question: Is our industry innovating just because it can, or is it creating a real-world utility that improves the lives of fellow humans? There’s nothing wrong with building something to make money, but if that’s the only reason we’re building something, that’s a problem.

Recent: Islamic finance and Web3 take stage at Istanbul Blockchain Week

We need to shift the narrative and look at how Web3 is solving actual, fundamental issues in emerging markets — particularly in regions like the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa — as a north star for how to ethically build the future of our space.

What does innovation indeed mean?

If crypto projects think innovation in Web3 is only about VC-led fundraising rounds, comparing transactions per second, or building the next great decentralized application to trade cat coins, they have probably never existed in a place where even the simplest of financial transactions is cumbersome.

In emerging markets, where people grapple with inflation, high remittance fees and limited access to financial services, we’ve witnessed how meaningful effects can transform the daily lives of millions. These are not abstract issues. They affect business owners, families, students, creators and more.

From stablecoins to secure and user-friendly payment applications, Web3 offers a unique opportunity to address these problems by creating decentralized financial systems that bypass the inefficiencies and inequities of traditional banking. For Web3 to truly make a difference in these regions, it must be designed with a focus on ethics, accessibility and long-term utility. We must lead by example.

In these markets, if innovation doesn’t create a meaningful disruption that improves people’s lives and addresses real-world problems, it’s nothing more than a buzzword. The most powerful solutions in technology are those that solve the world’s greatest problems.

Ethical finance — Web3’s future?

If you want inspiration, pay attention to those doing something different. If you want to inspire others, lead by example.

Ethical finance, particularly Islamic finance, offers valuable lessons for Web3. Dating back to the 1960s and 70s in the Middle East and North Africa (and even further to around 620 AD), this sector is built on risk-sharing, ethical investment and a focus on tangible assets.

Islamic finance has endured for centuries because it rejects speculation in favor of real, meaningful value. For example, we’ve seen the rise of ethical finance institutions like Al Rajhi Bank, one of the most prominent Islamic banks globally, known for its investments in tangible assets and community-oriented financial products.

This model, which strives to build based on morals, substance and necessity versus mere financial opportunity, can guide Web3 as it moves beyond hype-driven growth.

Build by example

As we look toward the next few years with the wind and a bull market beneath our wings, the time has come for Web3 to take a hard look in the mirror and redefine what success and innovation genuinely look like. The answer to this won’t be the same for everyone — that would be pretty boring if it were.

We must find a common ground of shared values that extends beyond technical achievements, market capitalization, total value locked or X followers but strives to innovate something more significant than any layer 2 or token.

When gearing up to launch something new, our industry must ask itself something that lives at the heart of Islamic finance: How will this product improve people’s lives? Is it true to the ethos of creating decentralized systems that are transparent, fair and built for the benefit of all?

If we can’t answer that, perhaps we should step back and ask why. Then, get back to work.

Opinion by: Daniel Ahmed, co-founder of Fasset and founding member of the Own Foundation.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Politics

Swiss National Bank chief dismisses Bitcoin reserve calls

Published

43 mins ago

April 25, 2025

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Swiss National Bank chief dismisses Bitcoin reserve calls

An official of the Swiss National Bank dismissed calls for the institution to add Bitcoin to its reserves as a hedge against the ongoing macroeconomic turmoil.

According to an April 25 Reuters report, Swiss National Bank Chairman Martin Schlegel said that “cryptocurrency cannot currently fulfil the requirements for our currency reserves” during a shareholder meeting in Bern earlier today. The comments come amid mounting pressure from the local crypto industry to add Bitcoin (BTC) to the central bank’s reserves.

Campaigner Luzius Meisser, a board member of cryptocurrency broker Bitcoin Suisse, told Reuters that “holding bitcoin makes more sense as the world shifts towards a multipolar order.” He claimed that the need is even more dire now that “the dollar and the euro are weakening.”

This is not the first time Schlegel has pushed back against the idea. Reports from early March quoted Schlegel saying that he doesn’t want to make Bitcoin a reserve asset in Switzerland, citing a lack of stability, liquidity concerns and security risks.

Switzerland’s campaign for a Bitcoin reserve

On the last day of 2024, the Swiss Federal Chancellery initiated a proposal to constitutionally mandate the Swiss National Bank to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet. The proposal needs to gather 100,000 signatures to trigger a referendum in Switzerland.

The initiative requests to change the third paragraph of Article 99 of the constitution. The relevant text currently states:

“The Swiss National Bank shall create sufficient currency reserves from its revenues; part of these reserves shall be held in gold.”

If successful, the campaign would result in adding “and in Bitcoin.” to the end of the paragraph. The initiative saw the participation of the Swiss Bitcoin nonprofit think tank 2B4CH, which was responsible for preparing and submitting the documents. 2B4CH had some ties to industry heavyweights, with Giw Zanganeh, vice president of energy and mining at leading stablecoin issuer Tether, helping launch the campaign.

The campaign is still ongoing

Meisser claims that holding Bitcoin would free the central bank from the political influence of its foreign currency holdings, most of which are in US dollars and euros. According to him, “politicians eventually give in to the temptation of printing money to fund their plans, but bitcoin is a currency that cannot be inflated through deficit spending.” 2B4CH founder and chairman Yves Bennaïm told Reuters:

“We are not saying — go all in with bitcoin, but if you have nearly 1 trillion francs in reserves, like the SNB does, then it makes sense to have 1–2% of that in an asset that is increasing in value, becoming more secure, and that everyone wants to own.”

Switzerland is a hub for blockchain enterprises, with its “Crypto Valley” in the town of Zug being the location where Ethereum was founded. The nation continues to generate crypto initiatives, with global grocery giant Spar rolling out Bitcoin-based payments in a Swiss city earlier this month.

The crypto Valley surpassed the $593 billion valuation mark, showcasing the growth trajectory of the region’s blockchain industry in 2024. Last year, the area saw the emergence of 17 crypto startup unicorns.

Magazine: Crypto Valley and the Crypto Oasis: Ralf Glabischnig