tl;dr
• JPMorgan seems to be positioning for the inevitable with a trademark that suggests a forthcoming crypto wallet• US lawmakers, led by Elizabeth Warren, are asking Fidelity to ditch their Bitcoin retirement plan• Genesis lays out the possibility of bankruptcy• Binance CEO, CZ, and Coinbase CEO, Bria...
• JPMorgan seems to be positioning for the inevitable with a trademark that suggests a forthcoming crypto wallet
• US lawmakers, led by Elizabeth Warren, are asking Fidelity to ditch their Bitcoin retirement plan
• Genesis lays out the possibility of bankruptcy
• Binance CEO, CZ, and Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, give a nod to Vitalik Buterin's customer transparency plan
• Following Hot Wheels NFT success, Mattel will launch a dedicated NFT platform built on Flow
• Four US lawmakers are taking a deep dive into SoFi citing possible pump and dump
There is so much going on that you must filter the noise. Here is what is on my mind today.
1. I have been telling you for a while to watch what the money does. Well, JPMorgan seems to be positioning for the inevitable with a trademark that suggests a forthcoming crypto wallet. JPMorgan is the epitome of watch they do and not what they say. Jamie Dimon says he is against crypto, while his companies seem to be moving full steam into the space.
2. US lawmakers, led by Elizabeth Warren, are asking Fidelity to ditch their Bitcoin retirement plan. Warren of Massachusetts, along with Richard Durbin of Illinois and Tina Smith of Minnesota are warning Fidelity of the risks of the 401K retirement plan in a letter they each signed. Before I listen to lawmakers about money management, I would want to know their respective prowess for the crypto industry.
3. We are getting some mixed signals from crypto lender, Genesis. Although they are saying they have no imminent plans to file for bankruptcy, they are confirming it is a possibility in the future. Remember, they were heavily involved with Three Arrows Capital and may have also issued no-collateral loans to the now bankrupt company. I am digging into this because there is a clear picture being painted. Some companies in the crypto space brought bad banking practices with them and that is what is failing. The coins themselves are not. I guess there are 2 buckets we should be paying attention to: bad actors and arrogant actors.
4. Binance CEO, CZ, and Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, give a nod to Vitalik Buterin's idea on how centralized exchanges can implement more transparency for their users. The plan would be to give users a way to verify their personal balances using a combination of a Merkle Tree with security through zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge (zk-SNARK). For those exchanges that are truly keeping a separation between their own assets and those of their respective customers, it would position them as a far more trusted exchange. This would go a very long way to garnering trust from current and potential investors as adoption continues to grow.
5. Mattel will launch their NFT platform, dubbed Mattel Creations, and made a surprising change from WAX to Flow. The famous toy manufacturer with such iconic brands as Barbie, Barney and American Girl is set to make an even larger splash then it had with its Hot Wheels NFT releases. Mattel Creations currently exists, but not as a platform. Hot Wheels has made them upwards of $5M. Imagine what they will be able to accomplished with a dedicated platform hosting other conic brands.
6. Four US lawmakers are taking a deep dive into SoFi. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Chris Van Holland (D-Md.), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) sent a letter pointing to a blog post on SoFi's site citing its DOGE listing. They believe DOGE has "no special use case or features" and could be a high risk investment. It is going to be very interesting to see this play out. SoFi is a major player in the crypto space.