EddieJayonCrypto

 12 Feb 23

tl;dr

• Gary Gensler's attack on Kraken and staking delivers a hit, but the industry shook it off• The probe into Paxos by NYS Department of Finance helps to dash PayPal's hopes of a stablecoin• More than half of Tether's stablecoin-backing portfolio is in the hands of Wall Street powerhouse Cantor-Fitzge...

• Gary Gensler's attack on Kraken and staking delivers a hit, but the industry shook it off
• The probe into Paxos by NYS Department of Finance helps to dash PayPal's hopes of a stablecoin
• More than half of Tether's stablecoin-backing portfolio is in the hands of Wall Street powerhouse Cantor-Fitzgerald
• We are waiting for the DCG sale of Genesis Holdings to the group led by Gemini Trust
• What does AI mean for the crypto space as far as investment in projects go; I see you SingularityNET

Crypto and crypto-related stocks like Coinbase took a hit when the SEC squeezed Kraken to pay $30M fine and cease its staking operations. The industry has taken it on the chin and I, seemingly, taking it in stride. Here is what is on my mind this week.

1. Crypto took it on the chin from Gary Gensler over staking and the industry is standing strong. Coinbase took a 14% hit over something that equates to only 3% of their income. That will recover fairly quickly, but do demonstrate a clear opportunity to buy on the dip. Unfortunately, the SEC has created an environment in which companies do not know what to do. Do you really think Kraken would have paid $30M if they knew all they had to do was fill out a form that can be found online and allow them to easily kick off the registration process? Straight up, Gary Gensler went out there and lied about the easiness of the process and his department's outreach. Staking programs have been around for a really long time and many companies, including Coinbase have constantly tried to get direction and guidance from the agency. I think the SEC is on the verge of being taken to court over its misleading statements, lack of regulatory clarity and egregious enforcement tactics.

2. Imagine having a stablecoin done by a FinTech like PayPal. Well, you don't have to imagine it since it is not going to happen anytime soon. PayPal has halted the launch of their stablecoin project. The SEC's regulatory enforcement tactics have spread to the state level with NY State Department of Finance investigating PayPal's primary partner, Paxos.

3. Cantor-Fitzgerald only 24 primary dealers of US Treasuries and a major player in the bond market. So it is a big deal for Tether to be able to say $39B of their stablecoin-backing portfolio is managed by them. The number represents more than half of their portfolio. This is on top of Tether announcing a $700M profit in Q4. People should start paying attention to the facts when it comes to Tether. I think they have matured and are earning respect and consideration.

4. Don't forget we are still waiting to see what actually happens when DCG sells Genesis Holdings to the group led by Gemini Trust. I am expecting this to play out over the next few weeks and then we will find out just how much money the customers ensnared in the Genesis debacle will recoup.

5. Let's dig into AI and, specifically SingularityNET. A lot of people have been asking my opinion of the token, AGIX, and the combination of crypto and AI in general. To get straight to the point, I will not be purchasing the token any time soon, if ever. I am not seeing a use case for it. AI-related tokens have generated a lot of buzz and have rocketed up. I want you to take a deeper dive into the projects. Are they really into AI? In general, people need to differentiate what should be a stock move versus a crypto investment.

6. India says over 50K people are now using the digital Rupee. This is a great news for countries looking to introduce their own CBDC, but I think they need to take this news with a grain of salt. I say this because the country's population is over 1.4B. So 50K is only four thousandths of a percent. On top of that, India's regulators are still underwhelmed by crypto.

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