Hodler Summary, Aug. 27 – Sept. 2 – Cointelegraph

Top news this week

Grayscale wins SEC lawsuit to review Bitcoin ETF

Crypto asset management firm Grayscale Investments recently scored a huge victory in its battle against the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

In an ongoing effort to convert the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), a US appeals court judge has accepted Grayscale’s argument that the SEC’s rejection of its latest application for an ETF was unfair. The SEC alleged that GBTC did not have sufficient security practices and fraud protection in place.

Judge Nyomi Rao has given the go-ahead to Grayscale’s request for a second review. Previously, Rao said the SEC “provided no explanation” for why Grayscale was wrong.

However, victory does not automatically mean that Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF is done. There is still more to come…

The BitBoy Crypto brand will no longer include YouTuber Ben Armstrong

Hit Network’s parent company, the people behind the “BitBoy Crypto” brand, have given the boot to its public face, Ben Armstrong.

The company alleged drug abuse issues and financial damages as the reasons behind the decision.

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

This comes after Armstrong has faced a series of lawsuits recently. He has been in a class action lawsuit where investors and other influencers have accused him of promoting FTX without disclosing how much they are getting paid from the exchange.

Furthermore, during the lawsuit, there were allegations that Armstrong threatened the plaintiff’s attorney and even overturned the federal judge’s orders to appear in court. The case was suspended in June.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is delaying a decision on 6 applications for bitcoin ETFs

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has chosen to delay a decision on six applications for spot bitcoin ETFs in the United States. The committee chose to extend the review period by an additional 45 days, delaying a final decision until October. Shortly after the news broke, the SEC also put BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, into the same boat of the delayed decision.

Bitwise Pulls Bitcoin Order and Ether Market Cap ETF

In a surprising development after the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced the delay, Bitwise has filed a request to withdraw its application for the Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy ETF. This application was originally filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 3. Bitwise seems to be taking a step back to reconsider its approach, despite the brief positive market sentiment that followed Grayscale’s recent SEC win.

Robinhood has bought back Sam Bankman-Fried’s stake from the US government for $606 million

Cryptocurrency and stock trading platform Robinhood has acquired more than 55 million shares in its own company formerly owned by Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX. The purchase, which cost Robinhood about $606 million, was completed this week after it filed the papers with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. These shares were originally owned by Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, co-founder of FTX, through a company called Emergent Fidelity Technologies.

However, in January, the US Department of Justice seized these shares. The purchase has been in the works for a while. Robinhood’s board of directors gave it the go-ahead in its fourth-quarter 2022 report, and an August SEC filing confirmed that the US District Court for the Southern District of New York approved the purchase without any legal complications.

Winners and losers

in the weekend, Bitcoin (BTC) At $25,610, Ether At $1618 and XRP (XRP) at $0.49. The total market capitalization is $1.03 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoins to gain this week were toncoin (ton) by 33.90%, Iota by 13.13%, and Maker (MKR) by 12.33%.

The three biggest losers in altcoins this week are KuCoin Token (KCS) by 15.53%, Hadera (HBAR) by 15.02%, and Astar Favorite by 12.82%.

For more information on cryptocurrency prices, be sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Unforgettable quotes

“There are many cases where transparency is an attribute, but people don’t 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 little bit, I think there is some hope that the industry can reignite in the US.”

Jeremy McLaughlin, Partner, K&L Gates

“In the end, we will win. You can’t just steal someone’s company that they built on who they are and win it.

Ben Armstrong, Former Leader at BitBoy Crypto

“I definitely think we could see in this next cycle a cost of $100,000 per bitcoin, depending on whether bitcoin takes up 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 the cryptocurrency markets in the near term.”

JPMorgan Analysts

“I spoke with a guy the other day who had 80 altcoins in his portfolio. There is no way an individual investor can stay and know exactly what 80 different altcoins are doing at once.

Ben Simpson, founder of Collective Transformation

week forecast

Bitcoin Risks a “Flash” $23K Drop After BTC Price Lost 11% in August

The data suggests that Bitcoin is on track to retest long-term support levels after the Bitcoin price plunge as August comes to a close. Reversing the gains seen last 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 for optimism as bitcoin held a major long-term trend line and held the $27,000 level. However, the decision by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to delay several bitcoin ETF orders caused a change in sentiment. Bitcoin quickly lost $1,000 of its value over the course of just two candles per hour.

Traders were speculating about the moves. “On-chain data indicates that $BTC lacks strong support below the $25,400 mark,” said Ali, a popular trader with a pseudonym. Tell X Subscribers (formerly Twitter).

On-chain monitoring resource Material Indices presented a similarly bleak picture for BTC/USD on the daily, weekly and even monthly timeframes. Using signals from one of its trading tools, Trend Precognition, Material Indicators advised that $24,750 was needed to hold the bulls for a chance to make the bounce.

FUD for the week

Balancer was exploited for nearly $900,000 after warning about a security vulnerability.

Balancer, maker of Ethereum’s automated market and decentralized finance protocol, has confirmed that it fell victim to an exploit that resulted in losses of around $900,000. This incident occurred shortly after the disclosure of a security vulnerability that affected several complexes.

An Ethereum address allegedly belonging to the attacker has been exposed by blockchain security expert Meyer Dolev. After the exploit, the address received two Dai stablecoin transfers of $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 team posted on X, adding that although mitigation measures taken in recent days have greatly reduced the risk, the affected pools cannot be paused. The team advises: “To prevent further exploits, users should opt out of affected LPs.”

A Brazilian crypto operator loses money by accidentally exposing the private key

One of the latest victims of insecure self-guarding practices is a Brazilian cryptocurrency livestreamer who reportedly lost thousands of dollars over a private key incident. owner Sibling encryption Ivan Bianco has inadvertently revealed his private key to a self-saving cryptocurrency wallet during a YouTube livestream.

In the middle of a bitcoin related live broadcast and blockchain games, Bianco apparently attempted to access his passwords for the Gala Games blockchain gaming platform 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 of his MetaMask wallet, which contains a great deal of Polygon (MATIC).

Exploits, Hacks, and Scams Stolen Nearly $1 Billion in 2023: Report

Cybersecurity firm CertiK reports that more than $997 million was lost due to flash loan attacks, scams, and exploits in 2023. Malicious actors targeting the cryptocurrency space siphoned off more than $45 million in digital assets from their victims in August alone and more than totaling $997 million so far.

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

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