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Market Expert Peter Brandt Says He Owns Bitcoin And Accepts Current Crypto Bullish Narratives

Mark Brennan
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Market Expert Peter Brandt Says He Owns Bitcoin And Accepts Current Crypto Bullish Narratives

 

Peter Brandt has said that he accepts the bullish narratives around cryptocurrencies at this time.


 

Peter Brandt, a well-known investor and market expert, has disclosed that he is a Bitcoin owner and agrees with most of the current bullish narrative.

 

He did add that, though; he’ll go out on a limb to suppose that Bitcoin (BTC) will eternally symbolize the peak of human creativity and success and that mankind will not transcend its basics. This is an assumption that he is willing to make.

The veteran trader made a prediction not too long ago, prior to the current negative activity in Bitcoin’s market, that Bitcoin would not reach a new all-time high until early 2024.

How Bitcoin is Doing At the Moment

The cryptocurrency markets have been under intense selling pressure from people and institutions in the past few months, yet the Bitcoin market has shown remarkable resilience during this time.

When compared to the highest point reached during the bull market in 2017, trading volumes have stayed consistently greater during the bear market of 2022. According to CoinGecko, the daily trading volume of Bitcoin achieved a cycle high of $12 billion on December 17, 2017, while the daily volume was over $20 billion in July 2022. 

The value of one Bitcoin (BTC) dropped as low as $18.8k during the first three trading days of July. Bitcoin’s price has been climbing consistently over the previous two weeks, particularly during the past week. 

Bitcoin came into some resistance at the $24.2k price point, with more opposition waiting for it in the region of $26.7k and $27.1k. The value of one Bitcoin has increased by 13 percent over the previous week, reaching $23.4k at the time of this writing.

U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman Debunks FOX Report, Says He Never Discussed SEC’s Victory Against Ripple (XRP) With Gary Gensler

Lele Jima
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U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman Debunks FOX Report, Says He Never Discussed SEC’s Victory Against Ripple (XRP) With Gary Gensler

California Rep. Brad Sherman has debunked FOX Business Network’s (FBN) report about his comment on Ripple (XRP). 



The congressman noted in a recent tweet that FOX Business Network’s journalist Charles Gasparino misunderstood his XRP comments. 

According to Rep. Sherman, he has always been in contact with SEC’s Chair, Gary Gensler, and they sometimes speak about crypto assets. 

However, their discussion has never been about Ripple or its cryptocurrency, XRP. 

“I often speak to SEC Chair Gary Gensler, sometimes about Crypto, but never regarding XRP,” Rep. Sherman said.  

He noted that the only time he spoke about XRP with an official of the Securities and Exchange Commission was during the testimony of SEC’s Enforcement director Gurbir Grewal. 

FOX Report

It can be recalled that FBN’s Gasparino reported that Rep. Sherman expressed confidence that the Securities and Exchange Commission will win the lawsuit against Ripple. 

According to the FBN report, Rep. Sherman called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to expand the lawsuit to include cryptocurrency exchanges that facilitated the trading of XRP across their various platforms. 

Rep. Sherman’s comment sparked reactions from Ripple enthusiasts, who wanted to know why the congressman was confident that the agency would be victorious over the blockchain company in the lawsuit. 

Eleanor Terrett, a FOX journalist, explained further why Rep. Sherman believes the SEC would win the lawsuit against Ripple. 

Per Terrett, the congressman claimed XRP is a security. His conclusion stems from the fact that U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchanges started delisting the asset class from their respective trading platforms moments after Ripple was charged. 

This move, according to Sherman, indicates that the cryptocurrency exchanges also agree with the Securities and Exchange Commission that XRP is a security. 

Ripple enthusiasts like attorney Jeremy Hogan and attorney John Deaton took to Twitter to slam the congressman for saying the SEC would be victorious against Ripple in the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse knocked Sherman for urging the SEC to clamp down on exchanges that facilitated XRP trading. 

Garlinghouse noted that the congressman has chosen to ignore his legal background by advancing a “political agenda over sound policy.”

 

Three Arrows Capital Founders Finally Speak From Undisclosed Location, Refute Claims Of Fraud

Mark Brennan
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Three Arrows Capital Founders Finally Speak From Undisclosed Location, Refute Claims Of Fraud

Three Arrows Capital Founders Finally Spoke.



The founders of the collapsed crypto hedge fund 3AC have shared their side of the story from a hidden location in the UAE, according to Bloomberg.

A few weeks ago, the crypto market went berserk. This went from bad to worse after the collapse of Terra Luna and TerraUSD (UST). A number of crypto firms collapsed, with some crypto firms filing for bankruptcy. One of them is the Three Arrows Capital (3AC) based out of Singapore. Since then, the firm’s two founders, Kyle Davis and Su Zhu, have been hiding. Now, they’ve reached out to share their side of the story.

Didn’t Pull Money Out Of 3AC

Recent reports had revealed that the two founders diverted investor funds to put a down payment on a luxury yacht just before the firm went under with billions of investor funds. However, the two are now denying these claims, saying that the payment for the yacht was actually made sometime last year. According to Zhu, they put their own money into the business, trying to save it.

She said,

“People may call us stupid. They may call us stupid or delusional. And, I’ll accept that. Maybe. But they’re gonna, you know, say that I absconded funds during the last period, where I actually put more of my personal money back in. That’s not true.”

While they’ve been hiding, the two maintain that they’ve kept in contact with their lawyers and the authorities. Their hiding only sums up as a protective measure due to some people issuing death threats against them.

Zhu said,

“That does not mean that we haven’t been communicating with all relevant authorities. We have been communicating with them from day one.”

Not Extravagant

The two sought to dispel the perception that they led extravagant lives at the expense of 3AC investors. Zhu was quick to point out some facts:

“We were never seen in any clubs spending lots of money. We were never seen, you know, kind of driving Ferraris and Lamborghinis around.”

In his view, the headlines flying around about them being extravagant were as a result of the media smear campaign after the collapse of their firm and the subsequent lawsuits filed by investors.

3AC Was Too Close To Do Kwon

Going on, Zhu noted that the firm’s closeness to Terra’s Do Kwon may have contributed to its adversities when the Terra coins collapsed. The collapse of the coins was too fast and shocking. Their close relationship with Do Kwon blinded them from seeing the red flags before the collapse.

“We began to know Do Kwon on a personal basis as he moved to Singapore. And we just felt like the project was going to do very big things and had already done very big things. If we could have seen that, you know, that this was now like, potentially like attackable in some ways, and that it had grown too, you know, too big, too fast.”

The Fall Of BTC Was The Nail In The Coffin

Besides being hugely affected by the collapse of Terra, 3AC was also affected by the fall of Bitcoin from $30k to the $20k range. The firm had bought $1 billion worth of shares at Grayscale’s GBTC investment package. The fall of BTC meant a fall of the value of these shares.

“So I just think that you know, throughout that period, we continued to do business as usual. But then yeah, after that day, when, you know, Bitcoin went from $30,000 to $20,000, you know, that, that was extremely painful for us. And that was in, that ended up being kind of the nail in the coffin.”

What’s Next?

While they didn’t disclose where they were, their lawyer intimated that they may be in the UAE. However, they said they would be heading to Dubai to determine whether the earlier plans to move the firm from Singapore to Dubai were still workable.

Zhu said,

“Given that we had planned to move the business to Dubai, we have to go there soon to assess whether we move there as originally planned or if the future holds something different for us. For now, things are very fluid and the main emphasis is on aiding the recovery process for creditors.”

 

Large Institutions Sold Over 236,000 Bitcoin Since May, Says Arcane Research Analyst

Mark Brennan
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Large Institutions Sold Over 236,000 Bitcoin Since May, Says Arcane Research Analyst

Large institutions are forced to offload Bitcoin in crypto winter.


 

In a Twitter thread on Thursday, Vetle Lunde, an analyst at digital asset analysis firm Arcane Research reveals that large institutions have sold at least 236,237 BTC since May. 

“236,237 BTC. That’s the amount of known selling of bitcoin since May 10th by large institutions. Most of the selling is related to forced selling, and some is not,” Lunde wrote at the beginning of the thread. “The 236,237 BTC number is derived from massive institutional blow-ups and other large known selling seen in the last two months. The number does not account for other natural capitulation and hedging activity that usually occurs during crypto bear markets.”

Lunde notes that it started with Terra selling over 80k BTC to save the Terra USD (UST) peg. Meanwhile, public miners, on their part, sold a total of over 19k BTC, selling about 4,400 in May and about 14,600 in June as the market conditions worsened, necessitating the sale of their BTC rewards to improve liquidity. 

Additionally, Lunde estimates that the sale of 75% of their Bitcoin holdings by Tesla amounts to about 29,060 BTC. Notably, as Celsius revealed struggles with insolvency concerns, an unknown entity redeemed 24,510 BTC on the Canadian purpose ETF. Furthermore, in July, Celsius, through DeFi loan repayments, freed up 21,962 WBTC.

It is worth noting that while Lunde believes that the selling during this period far exceeds his estimates, he believes that contagion-related selling is done for now. According to the analyst, he expects the markets to range in the short term. Furthermore, Lunde adds that he expects macroeconomic conditions and crypto market correlation with US equities to be the key market drivers.

However, the analyst notes that correlation is likely to drop as large corporate institutions like Tesla reduce their stake in the market. After a difficult couple of months, the crypto markets staged a rally over the last few days, pushing the market cap above $1 trillion following an unexpected boost in social media sentiment. 

At the time of writing, the crypto market has gained 2.5% in the last 24 hours, sitting at the $1.06 trillion mark. Notably, Bitcoin is trading above the $23k price point, while Ethereum has clinched the $1,600 price point. Both are up 11.49% and 31.84%, respectively, in the last seven days.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Says The SEC Prefers To Operate In The “Dark” 

Albert Brown
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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Says The SEC Prefers To Operate In The “Dark” 

Garlinghouse joins CFTC Commissioner Pham to criticize SEC’s regulatory approach.


 

Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, has commended CFTC’s Commissioner Caroline D. Pham for calling out the Securities and Exchange Commission over its crypto regulatory approach. 

The Ripple CEO took to Twitter to describe the comments made by Commissioner Pham as powerful.  

“Powerful words from Commissioner Pham: ‘Regulatory clarity comes from being out in the open, not in the dark,” Garlinghouse tweeted. 

According to Garlinghouse, the Securities and Exchange Commission seems satisfied with operating in the dark rather than being transparent with its policies. 

“Unfortunately, the SEC seems more than content to operate in the latter,” he said. 

CFTC Commissioner Slams the SEC

Yesterday, Commissioner Pham slammed the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ishan Wahi et al. She described the lawsuit as another example of the SEC’s adoption of the “regulation by enforcement” approach.  

Commissioner Pham argued that the allegations leveled by the SEC against Wahi could have severe future consequences beyond the case if not addressed by policymakers. 

“Major questions are best addressed through a transparent process that engages the public to develop appropriate policy with expert input—through notice-and-comment rulemaking pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act,” Commissioner Pham said. 

SEC Ignores Calls for Clearer Crypto Regulations

Interestingly, CFTC Commissioner Pham’s comments correspond with the views held by cryptocurrency experts. 

The cryptocurrency community has called on the agency to provide clearer regulations to enable the nascent industry to thrive. However, the SEC has ignored these calls, as it believes its laws are clear enough. 

Aside from Bitcoin, the Securities and Exchange Commission considers other cryptocurrency assets as securities. 

Ripple Fighting for the Entire Crypto Industry

In December 2020, the SEC charged Ripple and two of its executives, including Garlinghouse, for conducting unregistered security offering in 2013. 

The lawsuit has been ongoing for more than a year, with Ripple committed to following the case to its logical conclusion for the good of the entire cryptocurrency industry. 

It is noteworthy that a win for the SEC would see the agency continue its “regulation by enforcement” method over cryptos. 

However, if Ripple wins the lawsuit, the SEC would be compelled to provide regulatory clarity for the nascent asset class. 

California-Based On Demand Printing Company, Now Accepts Shiba Inu (SHIB) as Payment

Zabi
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California-Based On Demand Printing Company, Now Accepts Shiba Inu (SHIB) as Payment

California-Based Automated Printing and Fulfillment Company, PRINTFUL, Now Accepts Shiba Inu (SHIB) as Payment.



Now, Shiba Inu enthusiasts worldwide can print their custom products on-demand using Shiba Inu (SHIB) as a form of payment via BitPay.

PRINTFUL prints custom products on-demand for online businesses, and ships each order to their customers around the world announced that they are now accepting 13 major cryptocurrencies, including Shiba Inu (SHIB), as a form of payment in exchange for their services via Bitpay.

 

The complete list of supported cryptocurrencies includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogecoin (DOGE), USD Coin (USDC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Dai (DAI), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Gemini Dollar (GUSD), Pax Dollar (USDP), Binance USD (BUSD), and Ripple (XRP).

According to Printful: “You can choose crypto as your payment method when manually creating new orders or add crypto funds to your Printful Wallet. Both options are available only if you are a registered Printful user and have a Printful account.”

Printful is a California-based automated printing service, officially launched by Draugiem Group, an umbrella organization that actively supports and develops new business ideas, in 2013. PRINTFUL began its journey as a startup focusing on fulfilling and shipping printed products such as posters, t-shirts, canvases, and more for small and medium-sized online businesses. Since its inception, the company has continued to achieve major growth milestones. It is now recognized as one of the leading global companies, with more than 200K customers.

Is The SEC Going To Sue Coinbase After Insider Trading Charges? Attorney John Deaton Thinks So

Mark Brennan
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Is The SEC Going To Sue Coinbase After Insider Trading Charges? Attorney John Deaton Thinks So

John Deaton sees Coinbase as the next possible target for the SEC.



John Deaton, on Wednesday, in an interview on The CLAMAN COUNTDOWN on Fox Business, predicts that the US SEC will soon go after Coinbase or another crypto exchange as part of its crypto enforcement efforts.

“I believe Gary Gensler is going to sue in exchange, whether it’s Coinbase, or Binance or another exchange in the United States by the end of the year,” said Deaton as he explained that SEC wrongfully appears to think that the crypto industry is full of bad actors.

On Thursday, the SEC and the Department of Justice filed independent cases against a former Coinbase product manager and two others in an alleged insider trading scheme. According to the filing by the DoJ, Ishan Wahi, who gained employment at Coinbase in October 2020 as a product manager assigned to an asset listing team, from June 2021 to April 2022, on at least 14 occasions, broke Coinbase policy and tipped his brother Nikhil Wahi or his friend Sameer Ramani on the coins to be listed on the leading exchange.

As per the filing, all parties involved used this information to purchase these coins in advance, making gains of about $1.5 million within the period.

However, while both the SEC and the DoJ filings charge only Wahi and his associates, the SEC filing takes a worrying angle as it labels 9 of the assets listed by Coinbase as securities. 

“We are not concerned with labels, but rather the economic realities of an offering,” Director of the SEC enforcement unit Gurbir S. Grewal said, however, adding, “In this case, those realities affirm that a number of the crypto assets at issue were securities, and, as alleged, the defendants engaged in typical insider trading ahead of their listing on Coinbase. Rest assured, we’ll continue to ensure a level playing field for investors, regardless of the label placed on the securities involved.”

The nine crypto assets fingered by the SEC as securities include; Power Ledger’s POWR token, Flexa’s AMP token, Rally’s RLY token, DerivaDEX’s DDX token, XY Labs’ XYO token, Rari Capital’s RGT token, Liechtenstein Cryptoassets Exchange’s LCX token, DFX Finance’s DFX token, and Kromatika Finance’s KROM token.

Notably, in response, Coinbase has denied claims that assets listed on its platform are securities. “No assets listed on our platform are securities, and the SEC charges are an unfortunate distraction from today’s appropriate law enforcement action,” Coinbase wrote in an update to its blog on Thursday.

Furthermore, the leading exchange has petitioned the US SEC to create clear rules for securities in the emerging market as it believes the old rules in traditional finance can not apply.

It is worth noting that the SEC is currently locked in a legal battle with Ripple as it claims the XRP token issued by the firm constitutes unregistered security. These cases could prove to have wide-reaching effects on the crypto markets on what constitutes a security and how much enforcement powers the SEC is given over the sector.

John Deaton currently represents XRP holders in the capacity of an amicus curiae in the Ripple case.

SEC vs. Ripple: SEC Object to Judge Sarah Netburn’s Ruling Ordering SEC To Disclose William Hinman’s 2018 Speech 

Mark Brennan
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SEC vs. Ripple: SEC Object to Judge Sarah Netburn’s Ruling Ordering SEC To Disclose William Hinman’s 2018 Speech 

The agency wants to compile its objections to three of the court’s orders over Hinman’s document in a single brief.  



The Securities and Exchange Commission is requesting to file two separate briefs supporting its objection to Judge Sarah Netburn’s ruling, where she ordered the SEC to surrender William Hinman’s documents to Ripple.  

In a letter filed yesterday, the SEC requested permission to file a 30-page opening brief and another 10-page reply brief in support of the agency’s objection to three orders issued by Judge Netburn regarding the disclosure of drafts of a 2018 speech made by Hinman. 

According to the SEC, it intends to save the court’s time by filing its objections to the court’s three orders in a single brief. 

“The SEC respectfully seeks to leave to file a 30-page memorandum of law in support of its objections (10 pages more than the court’s practices),” an excerpt of the SEC’s request reads. 

Furthermore, the Securities and Exchange Commission also requests permission to file a 10-page reply brief within seven days after the Defendants respond to its upcoming objection to Judge Netburn’s ruling. 

The agency noted that Ripple and individual defendants, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, opposed the request. However, the SEC did not disclose further details why Ripple objected to the request. 

SEC’s Efforts to Protect Hinman’s Documents

Recall that the Securities and Exchange Commission made several attempts to avoid disclosing the drafts of a 2018 speech made by its former director of Corporate Finance. 

The SEC’s first attempt to protect the document was based on deliberative process privilege (DPP) and was denied in April 2022. 

However, the commission made yet another attempt to keep the documents from being used to support Ripple’s Fair Notice Defense. 

The SEC claimed that Hinman’s document is protected by attorney-client privilege and cannot be used as evidence in the lawsuit. 

Despite the SEC’s attorney-client claim over Hinman’s document, Judge Netburn denied the motion last week, as reported by TheCryptoBasic. In the ruling, Judge Netburn noted that the SEC’s argument is inconsistent. She added that the purpose of the communication that led to Hinman’s 2018 speech was not to provide legal advice to support the SEC in conducting its operation. The SEC was ordered to surrender Hinman’s documents to aid Ripple’s Fair Notice Defense.

The SEC was given 14 days from the order to file an objection. Since Magistrate Netburn denied the SEC’s attorney-client claims on July 12, 2022, the agency’s objections to the order are due July 26, 2022. 

Following the SEC’s request, it is evident that the agency would file an objection to the court’s ruling over Hinman’s documents. 

The development has sparked reactions among XRP enthusiasts on Twitter. One of the Ripple enthusiasts who commented on the recent development is attorney Jeremy Hogan, a partner at Hogan & Hogan law firm. 

He said in a tweet: “The SEC is actually going to object to Judge Netburn’s scathing Order regarding attorney-client privilege and ask Judge Torres to overturn the Order. This is the Order in which Judge Netburn called the SEC’s argument hypocritical. Someone needs to talk them off the ledge.”

Vitalik Buterin Says Ethereum Will Be 55% Complete After ETH 2.0 And Process 100k TPS “By The End”

Albert Brown
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Vitalik Buterin Says Ethereum Will Be 55% Complete After ETH 2.0 And Process 100k TPS “By The End”

 

Ethereum is moving towards a proof-of-stake system that will make the blockchain more scalable and faster.



For some time now, the crypto community has awaited the launch of Ethereum 2.0. The new system is touted as the ultimate proof-of-stake blockchain that will take Ethereum to the next level and kill the competition.

During the recent EthCC (Ethereum Community Conference) held in Paris, France, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said,

“Ethereum can go up to being 55% complete after the ‘merge.’ We’re getting close, which is really amazing.”

Buterin went on to explain that besides the initial stage, the new merge will occur in four stages, namely “surge, verge, purge, and splurge.”

Increased Transaction Speed

Basically, this shift to proof-of-stake and increased scalability is aimed at making Ethereum more decentralized. Currently, the Ethereum blockchain processes transactions at around 12-15 TPS (transactions per second). The new ETH 2.0 proof-of-stake system is expected to scale this up to around 100,000 TPS. That’s a huge jump that could make Ethereum the ultimate go-to chain for dApp developers and other DeFi protocols.

Buterin said,

“At the end of this roadmap, Ethereum will be a much more scalable system. By the end, Ethereum will be able to process 100,000 transactions per second.”

Will It Lower Transaction Fees

However, while the new system will be faster and more scalable, it’s unlikely to solve the issue of high transaction fees immediately. This is because network demand is likely to increase as efficiency increases. That’s not to say that the transaction fee will forever be high on the Ethereum blockchain. As a matter of fact, this issue is marked to be solved later after the establishment of ETH 2.0.

ETH Surges Before Merge

News of the coming merge is already affecting the ETH market. The coin has gained by over 30% over the last few days. At press time, ETH is trading at around $1,577, with a 5.9% gain on the daily and a 32% spike over the last seven days.

Korean Investigators Raid Home Of Terra Co-Founder As Investigation Of Terra Collapse Heats Up

Mark Brennan
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Korean Investigators Raid Home Of Terra Co-Founder As Investigation Of Terra Collapse Heats Up

Daniel Shin comes under scrutiny in the Terra collapse investigation.


 

In a report today, Bloomberg has confirmed that investigators included the home of Terra Co-founder Daniel Shin and the offices of his payment app Chai Corp. in the raid on Wednesday that saw prosecutors seize records of several crypto exchanges.

According to the report, investigators also went through two other firms affiliated with Shin as part of their latest investigative efforts into the Terra debacle in May.

It is worth noting that Korean authorities launched an investigation into the Terra collapse as they suspect that the firm may have defrauded investors and Terraform Labs Founder Do Kwon may be guilty of tax evasion.

As part of their efforts, on Wednesday, investigators carried out a raid on several crypto exchanges. As reported by The Crypto Basic, investigators seized records in their search for evidence that could point to wrongdoing on the part of Kwon, Terraform Labs, and affiliated firms.

Notably, in June, Kwon, on his part, had granted an interview with the Wall Street Journal, where he denied any wrongdoing. “There is a difference between failing and running a fraud,” Kwon said, explaining that he took each action with the conviction that Terra USD (UST) would thrive and made no attempt to deceive investors.

Despite these statements, it is worth noting that authorities discovered a shell company allegedly used by Terra to launder funds. The firm, Flexi Corporation, allegedly received proceeds from OTC sales made by Terra.

Notably, Kwon and Terraform Labs are also under investigation in the US. The US SEC believes Terra may have breached investor protection rules in how they marketed the UST stablecoin.

It is worth noting that South Korea and US prosecutors met on July 6 to enhance communications in investigating the Terra ecosystem collapse.

At the time of writing, Kwon and Shin are believed to be in Singapore. Despite the investigations and allegations, Kwon has gone on to launch Terra 2.0. Notably, following the Terra ecosystem collapse due to the de-pegging of the UST token in May, about $40 billion of investor funds were wiped off the markets.

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