Labour must explain fuzzy policy detail to get conference out of donation row’s shadow

Published

6 months ago

September 23, 2024

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Arguably, there’s a much much bigger problem for Sir Keir Starmer at the Labour conference than the freebies, the briefings and the incessant chatter about an absent chief of staff.

As you go round the Liverpool conference centre, ask Labour MPs and members of the cabinet what they want to be talking about today.

What do they want the country to hear during the next four days – the most important moment they have to communicate with voters since the general election itself?

Politics live: ‘Britain is back’, claims Lammy

It is the responses to this – and the lack thereof – that is privately unnerving so many on the conference centre floor.

But first, you get the grumbling.

One source told me Sir Keir is irritated that his family has been dragged into the media as part of this ruckus – despite the prime minister’s wife’s conscious choice to attend London fashion week after the furore about donations for clothes emerged.

Some put the leader’s failure to appear at a Saturday evening National Executive Committee (NEC) down to this grumpiness, though party sources deny this.

But it is noticeable his unyielding stubbornness in interviews – saying stopping him going to the football would be a step “too far” would suggest he does not see a problem in his approach.

It is increasingly easy to find Labour figures railing about “disproportionate” focus in the media on donors and gifts and freebies as new stories arrive hourly.

Yet, they have come unprepared to answer questions; cabinet teams still making up contradictory answers on the fly.

On Sunday morning, Education Secretary Bridget Philipson said taking donations from Lord Alli was fine because the birthday party he funded was a work event.

An hour later and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is saying that taking donations in kind – namely the New York apartment – is fine because the holiday was a private event.

How do we reconcile both? And everyone is grumpy.

Party figures are also cross because they are being surprised by events.

Sky News understands the Labour Party’s donors department was unaware of some of the freebies being handed directly to Labour MPs – they knew about the ones handed to the central party, but have not been across the full scale and detail of donations handed to individuals.

This has meant a lack of central intelligence on the critical issue of conference and meant they have been surprised by stories those thrown up by the Westminster Accounts database and the weekend papers about freebies. Not the backdrop they wanted.

And all of this is making the relationship between the Labour family and the fourth estate more corrosive.

It has been interesting to watch in recent days parts the party turning against the media – a trend unlikely to help ease Labour’s communications challenges in the months ahead.

The growing hostility is visible on social media, but it exists in person in Liverpool too.

However, if you press members of this government on what they would prefer the conversation to be – beyond freebies and power tussles – the answer is much more fuzzy.

Ministers and advisors will all tell you this conference is about communicating hope, telling the country that things aren’t so gloomy.

They talk about a house on a hill – a metaphor likely to be expanded on later in the week.

And of course there’s a desire to blame the Tories.

There’s promise of detail too, more specifics to come, starting in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech on Monday, then Sir Keir’s on Tuesday, but we’re almost halfway through the conference and they haven’t come through yet.

Somehow they are struggling to communicate how they are changing the country – a problem that risks undermining so much of their agenda if they can’t get this fixed.

Take the announcements this weekend. Today’s policy was “planning passports” for brownfield sites, yet one cabinet minister admitted to me they couldn’t explain it.

The party literature says it changes the presumption so that proposals that meet certain design and quality standards will be automatically approved.

But if this can’t be communicated, and people can’t explain why this measure – amongst many – is critical to the planning reform project, will anyone notice?

Then there’s another big policy announcement from the deputy prime minister today – the investment zones for the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.

Ms Rayner said she would “move forward” with those zones in her speech, but study the words closely.

She omitted to say what a casual observer might have thought – that these zones aren’t new as they build on investment zones announced last year in the same areas by the then Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

Asked what the difference is, I was told that the Labour ones “will go further”, building from existing investment zones “but tied in to Labour’s new Local Growth Plans”.

Can incremental reform really shake up and excite the conference and the country beyond?

Labour is promising massive change to the country, but if it is struggling to explain what it is doing and why, will it be able to bring the party and voters along with it?

And if they can’t explain why they are doing what they are doing, can we be really sure they know where they are going?

Politics

SEC postpones ruling on Fidelity Ether ETF options

Published

3 hours ago

March 12, 2025

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SEC postpones ruling on Fidelity Ether ETF options

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has postponed ruling on whether or not to permit Cboe BZX Exchange to list options tied to asset manager Fidelity’s Ether (ETH) exchange-traded fund (ETFs).

The agency has given itself until May 14 to approve or disapprove of Cboe BZX’s request to list options tied to Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), according to a March 12 SEC filing.

Cboe BZX initially requested to list options on Fidelity’s Ether ETFs in January, the filing said.

Listing options on Ether funds is an important step in attracting institutional capital to the cryptocurrency.

Flurry of filings

In February, the SEC acknowledged more than a dozen exchange filings related to cryptocurrency ETFs, according to records.

The SEC’s acknowledgments highlight how the agency has softened its stance on crypto since US President Donald Trump started his second term on Jan. 20.

On March 11, Cboe BZX asked regulators for permission to incorporate staking into Fidelity’s Ether ETF. Staking is not yet permitted by any publicly traded US Ether fund.

Staking Ether enhances returns and involves posting ETH as collateral with a validator in exchange for rewards.

Fidelity’s FETH is among the more popular Ether ETFs, with around $780 million in net assets as of March 12, according to data from VettaFi.

In February, the SEC delayed deciding on similar rule changes proposed by Nasdaq ISE and Cboe’s affiliate, Cboe Exchange — both US-based securities exchanges.

The agency intends to decide by April if Nasdaq can list options tied to BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA).

BlackRock’s fund is the largest ETH ETF, with more than $3.7 billion in net assets, VettaFi’s data shows.

It will rule on Cboe Exchange’s bid to list options on Fidelity’s Ether fund in May.

Spot Ether ETFs were listed in July 2024 and have proceeded to attract nearly $7 billion in net assets, according to VettaFi’s data.

Options are contracts granting the right to buy or sell — “call” or “put,” in trader parlance — an underlying asset at a certain price.

Magazine: MegaETH launch could save Ethereum… but at what cost?

Politics

SEC’s enforcement case against Ripple may be wrapping up

Published

4 hours ago

March 12, 2025

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SEC’s enforcement case against Ripple may be wrapping up

The US Securities and Exchange Commission may be preparing to end its enforcement action against Ripple Labs after more than four years.

According to a March 12 X post from Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, the SEC’s case against Ripple was “in the process of wrapping up” after the parties filed an appeal and cross-appeal, respectively, over a $125-million court judgment in August 2024. The civil case against the blockchain firm filed in December 2020 alleged Ripple and certain executives used XRP (XRP) as an unregistered security to raise funds.

Ripple chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty told Cointelegraph on March 11 that the SEC civil case was “far more advanced” than many of the others the regulator had dropped following the inauguration of US President Donald Trump and the departure of Chair Gary Gensler. Since January, the SEC has announced it will not pursue enforcement cases against Coinbase, Consensys, Kraken and others.

“We do have a judgment, we are on appeal — that presents some additional complexity,” said Alderoty in regard to the case potentially being dropped. “But we remain optimistic that we’ll get to a resolution with the SEC, and if we don’t, we’ll proceed with the appeal.”

According to the Ripple CLO, there were several possible outcomes to ending the SEC case if both parties were in agreement that it should wind down. If Ripple and the SEC agreed independently to drop their appeal and cross-appeal in the Second Circuit, then the $125-million judgment in the lower court would stand. If there were a dispute over the monetary judgment, then the blockchain firm and the commission would have to go “hand-in-hand” to request any modification from a judge.

The SEC v. Ripple case involved one of the first significant court rulings favoring the crypto industry when Judge Analisa Torres said the XRP token was not a security under the regulator’s purview — but only in regard to programmatic sales on exchanges. At the time of publication, no filing suggesting the SEC intended to drop the case appeared on the docket for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York or the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Change of tone at SEC under Trump

Though the SEC filed the Ripple case under Trump’s former chair, Jay Clayton, the commission stepped up the number of enforcement actions following Gensler’s confirmation in 2021.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in an interview aired in December 2024 that the firm may not have gotten as involved in US politics if the commission had been led by someone other than Gensler. Under Garlinghouse, Ripple contributed $45 million to the political action committee Fairshake for the previous election cycle and donated another $25 million in November 2024.

Ripple pledged $5 million in XRP to Trump’s inauguration fund following his election victory, and both Garlinghouse and Alderoty attended Washington, DC events on Jan. 20 as official guests. The chief legal officer personally donated more than $300,000 to fundraising and political action committees supporting the US president.

The correlation between political contributions to Trump and Republicans and the SEC dropping enforcement actions has many critics pointing to potential conflicts of interest in the administration. Coinbase, another major Fairshake backer that donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, had its SEC civil case halted in February. Its CEO, Brian Armstrong, also attended a March 7 crypto summit at the White House, along with Garlinghouse and others.

Alderoty suggested that the SEC dropping cases was “independent” of any political donations and more reflective of Acting Chair Mark Uyeda’s perspective on the industry and related regulations.

At the time of publication, the US Senate has not scheduled a hearing to consider the nomination of the potential next head of the commission, Paul Atkins. Commissioner Hester Peirce said in February that the SEC would be more likely to wait on setting a crypto regulatory agenda after a new chair took office.

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered

Politics

Memecoins—from internet jokes to crypto’s cultural engine

Published

5 hours ago

March 12, 2025

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Memecoins—from internet jokes to crypto’s cultural engine

Opinion by: Sasha Ivanov, founder of Waves and Units.Network

Not long ago, the idea that an internet joke could become a multibillion-dollar asset class seemed laughable. Today, memecoins are not just mainstream. They are reshaping entire market cycles. The US now has an official memecoin associated with the president. What started as a niche community experiment has become a financial force too big to ignore.

This isn’t simply speculation. In November 2024, memecoins accounted for 65% of the total trading volume on the decentralized exchange Raydium, an all-time high. Once dismissed as internet gimmicks, these assets have become crypto’s cultural engine. This phenomenon has been causing a slight identity crisis for believers and skeptics, who need to rethink their positions.

Whether viewed as the next retail-driven market movement or an unsustainable mania, one thing is clear: Memecoins are no longer a joke.

Memecoins are more than speculation

At their core, memecoins thrive on community belief. Traditional financial assets derive value from utility, institutional adoption or revenue models. Memecoins, by contrast, are driven by social engagement, virality and the power of collective momentum.

That makes them one of the most effective onboarding tools for retail investors in crypto. Memecoins strip away the complexity of blockchain technology, making digital assets approachable, familiar and culturally relevant. For many, they are the first step into Web3, opening the door to decentralized trading, governance and finance.

What makes them accessible, however, also makes them volatile. The same market mechanics that send memecoins soaring to billion-dollar valuations overnight can just as easily cause them to collapse within days. While one trader might turn $66 into a $3 million profit, thousands of others end up holding worthless tokens when the hype fades.

The volatility problem no one can ignore

The numbers tell the story. When Elon Musk changed his X username and profile picture, a memecoin linked to him skyrocketed to a $380 million market cap. Once Musk reversed the changes, the coin plunged to $100 million before plummeting even further.

Recent: ‘Memecoins are archetypes of the collective unconscious’

This is not an exception. This is the memecoin market in action. It is unpredictable, profit-driven and fueled by speculation. While some traders thrive in this environment, most do not. The skeptics argue that memecoins are little more than a casino with a blockchain — a game where few win and most lose.

Dismissing memecoins outright ignores a larger reality. Memecoins aren’t going away, regardless of the skepticism. They are shaping market trends. The real question is: Can memecoins transition from hype-driven speculation to a structured financial asset with governance and longevity?

Governance is the key to long-term survival

If memecoins are to evolve beyond short-term trading cycles, governance must take center stage. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) offer a model that allows holders to shape token supply, enforce transparency and influence project direction to give memecoins a real shot at sustainability.

This structure prevents centralized control by developers and whales, reducing the risk of insider manipulation, exit scams and pump-and-dump schemes. It also ensures that memecoins can integrate treasury management, staking incentives and token supply models that promote long-term viability rather than short-lived speculation.

A prime example is Floki Inu (FLOKI), a memecoin that successfully built a functional ecosystem beyond meme-driven trading. Rather than relying on short-term speculation, Floki Inu integrated non-fungible token (NFT) gaming, payments and educational initiatives, proving that memecoins can evolve into structured, community-driven assets.

Memecoins don’t need to abandon their cultural origins, but to survive beyond the current hype cycle, they must adopt governance mechanisms that promote economic sustainability.

Memecoins are at a crossroads

Memecoins have divided the crypto space into two extreme camps. On one side, memecoin maximalists insist that this bull market will be dominated by memecoins, arguing that belief and virality alone are enough to sustain them. On the other, skeptics dismiss them entirely, viewing them as pump-and-dump schemes that will eventually implode.

Both perspectives miss the bigger picture. Memecoins have proven their ability to drive market activity, but ignoring their risks is just as reckless as dismissing them outright. The real challenge is not whether memecoins should exist. They already do. The question is how to structure them to ensure security for investors, stability for the market and long-term credibility for the industry.

Builders, regulators and communities must collaborate to balance decentralization and responsible governance. Ignoring memecoins as a passing trend would be shortsighted. Failing to address their risks could be even worse — potentially leading to a catastrophic collapse that damages public trust in crypto as a whole.

Memecoins are here to stay. The real test is whether they will remain a speculative rollercoaster or mature into a legitimate digital economy sector. The answer lies not just with traders but with the builders, developers and policymakers shaping blockchain’s future.

Opinion by: Sasha Ivanov, founder of Waves and Units.Network.

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.