tl;dr
• Chairman of the CFTC, Rostin Behnam, clearly stating Ethereum is a commodity• Santander proposes tokenizing Brazilian assets for use with the Digital Real• Crypto bull, Rishi Sunak, has been selected as the next UK Prime Minister• Charles Hoskinson announces the Lace wallet, expecting it to introd...
• Chairman of the CFTC, Rostin Behnam, clearly stating Ethereum is a commodity
• Santander proposes tokenizing Brazilian assets for use with the Digital Real
• Crypto bull, Rishi Sunak, has been selected as the next UK Prime Minister
• Charles Hoskinson announces the Lace wallet, expecting it to introduce the smart contract platform to over 1B users
• Is Apple on the verge of driving innovation away from its ecosystem?
There are a lot of long reach moves happening. Here is what is on my mind today.
1. Well, now you have the Chairman of the CFTC, Rostin Behnam, clearly stating Ethereum is a commodity. This is in direct conflict with Gary Gensler, Chairman of the SEC who has said Ethereum could now be a security after its move to Proof-of-Stake. While speaking at a symposium, “Regulating Financial Innovation: The Future of Crypto and Blockchain”, Mr. Benham tried to play down the turf war between the CFTC and the SEC, but it is quite evident to everyone concerned the battle has just begun.
2. Santander, is proposing a project to tokenize and trade assets with Brazilian CBDC. The proposal would give utility to the Digital Real. Santander is currently leveraging technology from ParFin to tokenize ownership rights of the assets in a transaction and handle the exchange of virtual currency. The project proposal is a part of Brazil's LIFT challenge to identify real uses for the forthcoming release of the digital real in 2024.
3. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know the UK has identified its next Prime Minister and his name is Rishi Sunak, a crypto bull. Although I expect some headway in the UK for crypto, I think it will have to take a back seat to other financial issues facing the island nation.
4. Charles Hoskinson announces the Lace wallet. He says the wallet could boost the Cardano community and smart contract platform to 1B users. This is a big announcement and during any other market would have moved needle for Cardano. Unfortunately, it is not having the impact one would expect. I think going forward there will be more weight put on outcomes for the project rather than the news, at least for the foreseeable future.
5. Real quick, I just want to touch on how Apple picks and chooses who to charge that 30% Apple Tax to. In this case NFT apps get banged for it, but crypto exchange apps seemingly do not. Apple would have you believe the iPhone is the most popular device in the world, but it isn't. I also think they are going to start driving people away as NFTs and other blockchain technologies take off.