OpenAI’s Sam Altman ousted, BlackRock and Fidelity seek Ether ETF, and more: Hodler’s Digest, Nov. 12-18
Top Stories This Week
Sam Altman ousted from OpenAI, CTO Mira Murati named interim CEO
ChatGPT developer OpenAI removed founder Sam Altman from his CEO position on Nov. 17. Chief technology officer Mira Murati is now serving as interim CEO. According to a blog post, the board of directors engaged in a “deliberative review process,” which resulted in the conclusion that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.” Shortly after, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman revealed his exit from the organization.
BlackRock files S-1 form for spot Ether ETF with SEC
The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, officially filed for a spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Nov. 15. The ETF, dubbed the iShares Ethereum Trust, aims to “reflect generally the performance of the price of Ether,” according to the S-1 filed with the SEC. The iShares brand is associated with BlackRock’s ETF products. The move by BlackRock comes nearly a week after it registered the iShares Ethereum Trust with Delaware’s Division of Corporations and almost six months after it filed its spot Bitcoin ETF application. Following BlackRock’s filing, asset manager Fidelity also sought a green light for its own Ether ETF.
Australia to impose capital gains tax on wrapped cryptocurrency tokens
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has issued guidance on capital gains tax (CGT) treatment with regard to decentralized finance and wrapping crypto tokens for individuals, confirming that Australians are liable for capital gains taxes when wrapping and unwrapping tokens. The transfer of crypto assets to an address that the sender does not control or that already holds a balance will be regarded as a taxable CGT event, the ATO said in its statement. The CGT event will trigger depending on whether the individual recorded a capital gain or loss. A similar approach has been considered for taxing liquidity pool users, providers and DeFi interest and rewards. In addition, wrapping and unwrapping tokens will also be subject to triggering a CGT event.
FTX Foundation staffer fights for $275K bonus promised by SBF
An employee of FTX’s charity wing recruited by Sam Bankman-Fried is trying to get paid $275,000, the remainder of his claimed 2022 salary bonus. Ross Rheingans-Yoo’s lawyers argued in a court filing that only $375,000 of his $650,000 bonus was paid by FTX. They claim the remaining funds were owed when the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. The fate of Rheingans-Yoo’s bonus will be determined by a Delaware bankruptcy judge who is overseeing FTX’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
WisdomTree amends S-1 form spot Bitcoin ETF filing as crypto awaits SEC decisions
WisdomTree filed an amended Form S-1 spot Bitcoin ETF prospectus with the U.S. SEC on Nov. 16. The update comes a few months after WisdomTree refiled its spot Bitcoin ETF application in June 2023, proposing a rule change to list and trade shares of the WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust. The amended prospectus mentions that the WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust ETF will trade under ticker symbol BTCW, with Coinbase Custody Trust serving as the custodian holding all of the trust’s Bitcoin on its behalf.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $36,419, Ether (ETH) at $1,946 and XRP at $0.61. The total market cap is at $1.38 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Celestia (TIA) at 103.39%, yearn.finance (YFI) at 88.04% and THORChain (RUNE) at 54.38% .
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Gas (GAS) at -64.85%, FTX Token (FTT) at -35.17% and Neo (NEO) at -20.27%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
Read also
Most Memorable Quotations
“Education and utility-based projects where there is real utility for usage is how we can get regulators onboard.”
Navin Gupta, managing director of South Asia, Middle East and North Africa at Ripple
“We believe derivatives will foster additional liquidity and hedging opportunities in crypto and represent the next critical step in this market’s continued growth.”
John Palmer, president of Cboe Digital
“I am very bullish about a whole bunch of different things going on in crypto. […] It will be a multichain world.”
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple
“Phone and the internet aren’t to be blamed for terror financing and crypto shouldn’t either.”
French Hill, United States Representative
“I believe that code is a form of speech and is protected by the First Amendment.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur and U.S. presidential candidate
“The digital euro would also mean that each and every one of us could be totally monitored. […] Anyone who is against surveillance and for freedom does not need a digital euro!”
Joana Cotar, member of the German Bundestag
Prediction of the week
Bitcoin traders’ BTC price dip targets now include $30.9K bottom
Bitcoin circled $36,000 on Nov. 16 as analysis hoped for a deeper price comedown. Having failed to establish a breakout beyond 18-month highs during the week, Bitcoin was uninspiring for market participants, some of whom hoped to see a fresh correction to retest lower levels.
“Would be happy to see this latest rally complete the round trip back to $35k. Would be even happier to see a retest of $33k,” monitoring resource Material Indicators wrote in part of the day’s commentary on X (formerly Twitter).
A snapshot of BTC/USDT order book liquidity showed support building at $35,000. Material Indicators co-founder Keith Alan added that Bitcoin’s rising 21-day simple moving average had been functioning as support in recent days.
“BTC continues to fight for the range above $36.5k,” he commented.
Popular pseudonymous trader Daan Crypto Trades likewise flagged $35,700 and $38,000 as the main downside and upside levels to watch, respectively. Fellow pseudonymous trader Gaah, a contributor to on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, meanwhile warned that a steeper correction could take the market closer to $30,000.
FUD of the Week
Cybersecurity team claims up to $2.1B in crypto stored in old wallets is at risk
Cybersecurity company Unciphered disclosed a vulnerability dubbed “Randstorm,” which it said affects millions of crypto wallets that were generated using web browsers from 2011 to 2015. According to the firm, while working to retrieve a Bitcoin wallet, it discovered a potential issue for wallets generated by BitcoinJS and derivative projects. The issue could affect millions of wallets and around $2.1 billion in crypto assets, according to the cybersecurity company.
Swan Bitcoin to terminate customer accounts that use crypto-mixing services
Bitcoin services platform Swan Bitcoin warned its customers that it would be forced to terminate accounts found interacting with crypto-mixing due to the regulatory obligations of its partner banks. Customers learned about the new policy in a letter suggesting the changes are due to the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s proposed rule establishing new responsibilities on firms processing transactions from mixing services.
ENS developers urge Unstoppable Domains to drop patents or face lawsuit
The founder and lead developer of Ethereum Name Service (ENS), Nick Johnson, is urging blockchain domains company Unstoppable Domains to drop a recently awarded patent or face a lawsuit, according to an open letter shared on X (formerly Twitter). According to Johnson, Unstoppable’s recently awarded patent is “based entirely on innovations that ENS developed and contains no novel innovations of its own.” Unstoppable Domains’ founder Matthew Gould responded in the thread, claiming that there are “multiple naming systems.”
Read also
Top Magazine Pieces of the Week
I spent a week working in VR. It was mostly terrible, however…
Cointelegraph Magazine journalist Felix Ng spent a week working in virtual reality. It was mostly terrible… but does have some potential.
Breaking into Liberland: Dodging guards with inner-tubes, decoys and diplomats
“Bitcoin is really one of the most foundational parts of Liberland — 99% of our reserves are in BTC.”
No civil protection for crypto in China, $300K to list coins in Hong Kong? Asia Express
Hong Kong exchanges expand amidst continued investor interest, Philippines to issue $180M in tokenized bonds, China rules out civil protection for crypto, and more!
Subscribe
The most engaging reads in blockchain. Delivered once a
week.
Politics
Nigel Farage’s ‘fantasy’ policies will lead to Liz Truss-style economic meltdown, Sir Keir Starmer to warn
Nigel Farage’s “fantasy” policies will lead to a Liz Truss-style economic meltdown, the prime minister will warn today.
Sir Keir Starmer is set to argue that Reform UK’s pledges would cause mortgages, bills and rent payments across the country to surge.
On Tuesday, Mr Farage vowed to reverse cuts to winter fuel payments and scrap the two-child benefit cap, with an ambition to slash income tax.
But new analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggest that his party’s aim of hiking the personal allowance to £20,000 a year could cost between £50bn to £80bn a year.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Will PM’s ‘Farage lite’ strategy work?
Visiting manufacturing workers in the North West, Sir Keir will describe Reform’s economic agenda as a “mad experiment”.
He is expected to say: “In opposition we said Liz Truss would crash the economy and leave you to pick up the bill. We were right – and we were elected to fix that mess.
“Now in government, we are once again fighting the same fantasy.”
Labour is criticising Mr Farage for betting “that you can spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it”.
The prime minister will add: “Just like Truss, he is using your family finances, your mortgage, your bills as a gambling chip. The result will be the same. Liz Truss bet the house and lost.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Angela Rayner ‘hoping’ for winter fuel update
Sir Keir is referring to the former prime minister’s mini-budget in 2022, which had proposed abolishing the top 45% rate of income tax.
But this policy, among others, spooked financial markets and led to economic turmoil in the UK – with a dramatic spike in the cost of government borrowing feeding through into interest rates.
Mr Farage has argued that his measures can be paid for by scrapping net zero commitments and ending the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers.
Recent polls have put Labour second behind Reform UK, while the local election results earlier this month saw Mr Farage’s party win a parliamentary by-election, control of 10 councils and two mayoralties, while Labour lost almost 200 seats.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Farage could ‘definitely’ become next PM
Sir Keir has been under pressure from his backbenchers to regain the initiative, leading to the party’s U-turn on winter fuel payments last week.
Plans to scrap the two-child benefit cap have also not been ruled out by ministers, in what would be a second reversal of current Labour policy.
Dominic Cummings, the former top aide to Boris Johnson, exclusively told Sky News he believes Mr Farage could “definitely” become the next prime minister, with the right strategy.
Elon Musk confirmed that he’s quitting as the White House’s government cost-cutting czar after admitting it was an “uphill battle” trying to slash federal jobs and programs.
Musk’s status as a Special Government Employee leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) meant that by law, he could only serve for a maximum of 130 days, which was set to finish on May 30.
Musk confirmed his exit in a May 29 X post, thanking President Donald Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.” Reuters reported that a White House official said his “off-boarding will begin tonight.”
Musk told The Washington Post for a May 27 report that the “federal bureaucracy situation is much worse” than he expected, and it was “an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least.”
In separate comments to CBS, Musk criticized the multi-trillion-dollar tax break package that House Republicans approved on May 22, claiming it would increase the budget deficit and undermine the work that DOGE is doing.
DOGE, which is named after the cryptocurrency, claims to have saved taxpayers $175 billion since Trump’s Jan. 20 return to the White House, a figure heavily disputed by multiple news outlets, which report the figures are overstated, have multiple errors and are inaccurate.
The project’s claimed savings are only 8.5% of Musk’s initial ambition to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which he later revised down to $150 billion.
According to the Reuters report, DOGE has cut almost 12%, or 260,000, of the 2.3 million federal workforce through layoffs, buyouts and early retirement offers.
Despite the criticisms, Musk said on X that DOGE’s mission will “only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
It comes as a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to proceed that accuses Musk and DOGE of illegally exerting power over government operations.
The lawsuit, filed by 14 states, alleged that Musk and DOGE violated the Constitution by illegally accessing government data systems, terminating federal employees and canceling contracts at federal agencies.
Musk admits he spent too much time in politics
In a May 28 interview with Ars Technica, Musk, the CEO of EV maker Tesla, admitted that he spent “a bit too much time” in politics, which some critics claim has impacted Tesla’s performance.
“I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Musk said. However, he added that the time he spent on DOGE wasn’t as significant as many believed, and he blamed media coverage for overrepresenting his involvement.
“It’s not like I left the companies. It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks.”
When Musk announced in Tesla’s first quarter report that his time spent on DOGE would drop significantly in May, Tesla (TSLA) shares rose over 5% in after-hours trading, despite the company reporting an 80% drop in net income.
As of March 31, Tesla still held 11,509 Bitcoin (BTC), currently valued at about $1.24 billion.
Related: Musk confirms X Money beta testing ahead of planned 2025 launch
Tesla shares are still down 5.9% year to date, in part due to Musk diverting his attention away from the company and Tesla’s sales falling considerably in the first quarter.
However, the fall is in line with other Big Tech firms, including Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG), which are also in the red in 2025.
Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight
Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Behnam has said the crypto market will remain unregulated unless the agency he led is given greater authority.
In a May 28 Bloomberg TV interview, Behnam sided with the crypto industry on its long-standing argument that cryptocurrencies are commodities.
“If you look at existing law, the few largest tokens are commodities, which means the SEC does not have jurisdiction over those tokens, which include Bitcoin and Ether,” he said.
He added that the Securities and Exchange Commission currently cannot properly regulate crypto because its law doesn’t allow it to regulate commodities, and the CFTC cannot regulate because it is a derivatives regulator.
Without new authority for the CFTC to regulate “cash markets in digital assets, non-securities,” this will remain an unregulated space, he claimed.
Behnam comments amid increasing scrutiny of the Trump family’s crypto ventures, which include the crypto platform World Liberty Financial, memecoins and a stablecoin.
On May 28, American political strategist and political commentator Sanders Townsend said Donald Trump is boosting his family’s investments in cryptocurrency and “is using the presidency to do it.”
The administration’s involvement in the regulatory process and legislative effort is “raising red flags” among some members of Congress, and there are “well-baked rules” for any elected or appointed government official that need to be complied with, he said.
“Ultimately, until we do something, the [crypto] market will remain unregulated. Customers, investors, retail and institutional, will be more vulnerable to harm, fraud, manipulation and conflicts of interest, until the market is regulated.”
Regulation critical to financial markets, says Behnam
Behnam also weighed in on Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, backing up the need for crypto regulations.
Related: Trump’s use of presidential seal at memecoin event raises legal questions
Vance said in a speech at the event that “we reject regulators” and that crypto “has a champion” in the White House.
“Regulators are extremely important,” Behnam said. “They’re the reason American markets are the most desired in the world.”
“Consumer protections and enforcement of the law are extremely critical to the health of our financial markets,” he added.
Magazine: Bitcoin bears eye $69K, CZ denies WLF ‘fixer’ rumors: Hodler’s Digest
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway