SEC Plans to Sue Ripple for Securities Violations: Reports

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told Fortune Magazine today that he expects the SEC to sue the company imminently for selling unlicensed securities. XRP, Ripple’s cryptocurrency, is valued at $23 billion, the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap

Garlinghouse said that he believes the SEC will name him and co-founder Chris Larsen as co-defendants in a lawsuit, which he expects to be brought in the near future.

The price of XRP had dropped more than 13% by late Monday, below 50 cents.

Garlinghouse told the Wall Street Journal that a representative of the Commission told Ripple late Monday that it would be filing its lawsuit in federal district court soon.

In a prepared statement, the CEO said Ripple intended to fight back: “The SEC is fundamentally wrong as a matter of law and fact. XRP is a currency, and does not have to be registered as an investment contract. In fact, the Justice Department and the Treasury’s FinCEN already determined that XRP is a virtual currency in 2015 and other G20 regulators have done the same. No other country has classified XRP as a security.”

Ripple issued XRP in 2012. The SEC, apparently, believes that XRP, unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, is a security and should have been registered with the Commission as such. Ripple holds some 6.4 billion XRP. It periodically sells the cryptocurrency to the public from an escrow account that holds another 48 billion.

The right side of history

The issue of whether XRP is a currency or a security has been argued for years among crypto enthusiasts. “This is an attack on all of crypto. While other countries are embracing the future, the SEC continues to lash out in fear,” tweeted Michael Arrington, founder of Arrington XRP Capital.

Garlinghouse told Fortune that Ripple is preparing to fight the lawsuit. “I think we have to stand up for all of crypto—and not let the SEC bully the entire industry,” he said, adding “We’re going to be on the right side of history.”

A Ripple statement issued after the news broke said in part: “The SEC has permitted XRP to function as a currency for over eight years, and we question the motivation for bringing this action just days before the change in administration. Instead of providing a clear regulatory framework for crypto in the U.S., [SEC Chairman] Jay Clayton inexplicably decided to sue Ripple–leaving the actual legal work to the next Administration.”

“This is an attack on the entire crypto industry and American innovation,” the statement said.

“This complaint is wrong as a matter of law,” said Michael Kellogg,  attorney for Ripple’s counsel, Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick. “Other major branches of the U.S. government, including the Justice Department and the Treasury Department’s FinCen, have already determined that XRP is a currency. Transactions in XRP thus fall outside the scope of the federal securities laws. This is not the first time the SEC has tried to go beyond its statutory authority. The courts have corrected it before and will do so again.”

An SEC lawsuit would be yet another parting shot at the crypto industry from the outgoing Trump Administration. Outgoing Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is pushing a proposed rule by FinCEN that would regulate digital currencies. Specifically, the rule would impose onerous restrictions on banks and other “money services business” in relation to so-called “unhosted” crypto wallets.

Bigger Than Netflix? Filecoin Hits 1 Exabyte of Storage

In a fireside chat as part of Decrypt’s Around the Campfire series, Protocol Labs CEO and founder Juan Benet indicated the Filecoin network is exceeding expectations for large-scale storage.

Filecoin, which took in $200 million from a 2017 ICO, launched in October of this year. According to Benet, since then, the decentralized blockchain network for renting out and borrowing computer storage has reached one exabyte of storage capacity—about the size of Dropbox when it filed its IPO in 2018.

“Being able to reach a scale to compete with and contend with the traditional cloud is something that many people said was impossible,” said Benet. “When we first set out to do this, so many people laughed at us and laughed at me directly, saying, ‘You’ll never get a decentralized network to exceed a few petabytes, maybe 10 petabytes.’ And now we’re passing one exabyte.”

For those who lose track of bytes as soon as they get any higher than what’s available on an iPhone, an exabyte is “a hundred times more than what people said was possible,” noted Benet. “And this is just the beginning of the network.”

By comparison, Twitter produces about 4.3 petabytes a year, or 0.0043 exabytes. Data company Zeenea estimated in March 2019 that Netflix stored 60 petabytes of movies and TV shows, or six percent of Filecoin’s current capacity.

So, an exabyte is a lot of storage.

There’s still a lot of excess capacity on the network, however, which relies on miners for storage. According to Filecoin’s storage stats, last checked on November 19, 761 gigabytes of data are currently being stored on the network.

Filling that capacity is what Benet and Protocol Labs have their eye on. The founder pointed out that Ethereum and other blockchain networks aren’t meant for hosting applications end to end: “You cannot store, say, an entire chatroom…on Ethereum.”

Now that capacity is expanding to be able to compete with legacy products, he said, the next step is: “Start moving lots of applications over to this network. Beyond that, we start looking into the frontier of new kinds of use cases and new kinds of applications that people haven’t built before.”

It’s an “if you build it, they will come” moment for Benet and the Protocol Labs team. They’ve built the field. Now they’re waiting for the players.

JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon: Bitcoin Still ‘Not My Cup of Tea’

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon expressed his continued disinterest in Bitcoin at an event this morning, quipping that “it’s not my cup of tea.”

The event was the New York Times’ Dealbook summit, which is hosted by reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin; in addition to Dimon, today’s guests include Elizabeth Warren, Lebron James, and Ruth Porat, the CFO of Alphabet and Google.

He had more positive things to say about the blockchain itself, though, commenting that “the blockchain itself will be critical to letting people move money around the world cheaper,” and that JPMorgan will “always support blockchain technology.”

Dimon famously called Bitcoin a “fraud” back in 2017, so his comments today aren’t exactly surprising, even if they’re somewhat at odds with JPMorgan’s general ethos surrounding crypto.

Last month, the bank told investors that “the potential long-term upside for Bitcoin is considerable.”

Meanwhile, Bitcoin investors have continued to earn big payoffs this week, as the price hovers around $18,000 per coin.

Mysterious Ethereum Ad Offers Reward for Solving This Puzzle

A viral marketing campaign has sprung up in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Plastered across metro stations is the message, “SOLVE THE PUZZLE, CLAIM THE REWARD.”

The poster then points commuters to an Ethereum address that contains the reward, 7 ETH, as well as hash tags #0xPOLAND and #0xPOLANDHEIST.

The Twitter account that appears to be behind the campaign, 0xPoland, links to a website that displays a countdown timer, set to expire on Thursday at 9:24am UTC, and code to the smart contract.

To claim the money, according to the smart contract, one must enter the correct solution into the Ethereum smart contract. This involves calling the “reveal” function of the smart contract. Once the correct solution has been entered, the contract will wire the sender 7 ETH—supposedly.

No other information about the puzzle or those behind it has yet surfaced. The Twitter account, which appears to have just been created last week, posts emojis of bunny rabbits and a few GIFs. A couple of people have tweeted about the hash tags, but not much more.

0x is the name of a decentralized exchange based in San Francisco. It has not tweeted about the campaign, nor has anyone mentioned the campaign in its Telegram chat. One member, “Nikita,” told Decrypt that there is “no relation at all.”

There is also a Polish Ethereum development company called 0x. It is based in Warsaw. However, its Discord chat, which has nine members, remained dormant for about a year. Its Telegram chat, which contains six, is also a ghost town.

All may become clear when the clock ticks past 0. Unless Decrypt solves the puzzle first.

Crypto Exchange Huobi Reportedly Wants to Buy Bithumb

Crypto exchange Huobi is reportedly looking to takeover Bithumb, Korea’s largest crypto exchange, as per a report by local news outlet The Bell. The move is said to be a path for Huobi to gain users in Korea without having to obtain the country’s strict licenses for crypto businesses for its main exchange.

If completed, the takeover would mark a silver lining for Bithumb’s otherwise tumultuous year. The exchange had its office raided by authorities in August and is undergoing multiple legal troubles; its founders and investors are locked in a battle over company shares while the exchange faces allegations of manipulating token prices in a separate case.

But Huobi’s interest could be good news for Bithumb’s operators. As per the report, Bithumb Korea, a stakeholder of Bithumb Holdings (which owns the exchange), is reportedly selling its entire holding in the company.

What a Bithumb takeover means for Huobi

Korea’s strict regulation of its local crypto market means that local banks only deal with crypto firms that are fully compliant with internationally-accepted Know-Your-Customer (KYC) policies. So far, only Bithumb, Coinone, UPbit, and Kobit, are regulated and recognized in the country, ahead of bigger players like Binance or Huobi.

Local users, with such so-called “real name” accounts, are thus a way for Huobi to expand in the country without having to gain the legal licenses themselves.

An industry official explained, “Huobi, which is in an urgent need to issue a real-name confirmation deposit and withdrawal account, seems to be trying to solve its concerns through the acquisition of Bithumb.”

But acquiring users is not the only positive for Huobi. Bithumb, despite its ongoing troubles, enjoys an operational margin of 60% as per the report, meaning the business remains highly profitable for potential operators.

Acquisition blocked?

A conflicting report by China-based crypto journalist Colin Wu today said that while Huobi’s interest is well-known among local circles, it faces ongoing legal proceedings in China that can stall the acquisition of Bithumb. Wu claimed that Huobi is similarly interested in a $500 million sale for Japanese crypto exchange Bitflyer, but faces similar issues.

“Due to the sudden investigation in early November, both acquisitions will be suspended until the Chinese government’s investigation end. The founder of Huobi is not allowed to leave China since 2017,” he said.

But Huobi disputes such allegations. It rubbished reports earlier this month that suggested any of its executive team members or founders were arrested or detained in China.

The exchange has not responded to requests for comment by press time. Meanwhile, the focus is on Bitcoin, which touched a price level last seen in January 2018.

Trump Fires Cybersecurity Chief Who Said Election Was Secure

President Trump has fired Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), after Krebs and CISA refuted Trump’s claims of election fraud.

Krebs reportedly believed last week that he was set to be fired. CISA Assistant Director for Cybersecurity Bryan Ware resigned on November 12 due to apparent pressure from the White House.

“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud – including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, ‘glitches’ in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more,” Trump wrote on Twitter late Tuesday evening. “Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

Trump is likely referring to a tweet Krebs sent from his government Twitter account earlier in the day that read, “ICYMI: On allegations that election systems were manipulated, 59 election security experts all agree, ‘in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.'”

CISA is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security that President Trump signed into existence in 2018. It’s charged with managing threats to US cyber-infrastructure and plays a prominent role in ensuring election integrity and preventing ransomware attacks, in which independent hackers or foreign governments can cripple computer systems lest Bitcoin is paid as a ransom.

The same day of Ware’s (reportedly forced) resignation, CISA joined in issuing a letter that stated: “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”

Krebs sent a tweet on his way out the door, this time from his personal account: “Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomorrow. #Protect2020″

Senate Blocks Fed Nominee Who Wants Return to Gold Standard

Since former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen retired in February 2018, her seat on the agency’s seven-member Board of Governors has been vacant.

And President Trump’s nominee to replace Yellen—gold standard advocate Judy Shelton—is having a difficult time getting confirmed. Her nomination failed to proceed on a 47-50 vote today.

Shelton, whose last position was as the US Director to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, has called for the US to return to the gold standard. That would tie the value of the dollar to actual metal rather than the price it can fetch on foreign exchange markets

Shelton’s reasons for supporting a reversal in monetary policy— President Nixon officially ended the gold standard in 1971—are directly related to inflation. In theory, because there is a limited supply of the precious metal, using a gold standard is anti-inflationary. 

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed criticizing then-President Obama’s budget plan, Shelton said, “But what most Americans are concerned about…[is] the likelihood that the purchasing power of their wages and savings will be eroded through inflation. It’s small comfort to have more dollars rounding out the economy these next few years if those dollars are worth less.”

So, don’t expect Shelton to press Brrr on the Fed’s money printer.

Shelton’s ideas have a cachet in certain crypto-libertarian markets. In a 2018 paper for the libertarian Cato Institute, Shelton advocated for a common currency to maintain a “uniform value for every issued unit.” She advocated an approach “that permits the issuance of virtual currencies in tandem with government‐​issued currencies, adapting legal tender laws to permit healthy currency competition.”

She reiterated that in a May interview with Gold Telegraph: “I like the idea of a gold standard—it could be used in a very cryptocurrency way. The point is do you have a unified money system so that when you talk about the international marketplace everyone is playing on a level monetary playing field?”

No surprise, then, that Shelton has proposed taking a hard look at a digital dollar.

But while inflation is a common bogeyman and crypto is gaining institutional traction, Shelton’s embrace of the gold standard puts her apart from mainstream economic thought. The St. Louis Fed writes: “The gold standard is no guarantee of price stability. Moreover, the fact that price inflation in the U.S. has remained low and stable over the past 30 years demonstrates that the gold standard is not necessary for price stability.”

Senate Republicans have tended to agree. Many have been grumbling about Shelton’s nomination since Trump put it forward. That dissent has now thinned to a handful of Senate Republicans who find her views problematic enough to block the nomination.

Mitt Romney and Susan Collins voted with Democrats against a cloture motion that would have ended debate on Shelton’s candidacy and set the stage for a final vote.

Furthermore, three Republican senators were absent: Lamar Alexander, who’s indicated he’ll vote against Shelton, was away for personal reasons; Chuck Grassley was in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19; and Rick Scott has quarantined for possible exposure to the novel coronavirus.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also voted against the motion, a strategic move that allows him to reintroduce it later. But the legislative calendar and shifting seating arrangements are against Shelton’s appointment, unless McConnell can time a vote after Scott/Grassley return but before Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly replaces Trump appointee Martha McSally.

The vacant seat has been something of a thorn in the side of President Trump, whose initial nominee, Brookings Institution fellow Nellie Liang, withdrew her nomination in January 2019 after failing to get a Senate confirmation hearing. (Steve Moore and Herman Cain were also announced as nominees for one of the two empty Fed seats, but neither was officially nominated.)

Though Liang was praised by Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Republican senators reportedly agreed with banking industry lobbyists that she wasn’t sufficiently anti-regulation.

President Trump’s candidate for the other Fed vacancy, Christopher Waller, is having an easier time of things and has earned support from both sides of the aisle. Waller is the director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

‘Prejudicial’ Bitcoin Messages Won’t be Heard in Craig Wright Lawsuit

Craig Wright has had a motion to prevent Andreas Antonopoulos, a well known Bitcoin author, from reading out the content of 145 messages—signed by blockchain addresses—that claim Wright committed fraud. 

“Craig Steven Wright is a liar and a fraud. He doesn’t have the keys used to sign this message,” they read, ending on the note, “We are all Satoshi.”

The messages in question were signed by blockchain addresses that Wright has claimed to own. This implies that Wright doesn’t hold the keys to those addresses. However, the court ruled that these specific messages are too prejudicial to be heard by the jury.

“Regarding the May 4, 2019 Bitcoin message, however, the Court agrees with the Defendant that the message itself is a backdoor attempt to attack Defendant’s character for truthfulness,” the court documents said.

The decision comes as Wright and the Kleiman family try to stop each other’s experts from speaking during trial. This is the latest stage in the billion-dollar lawsuit brought by the family of the late Dave Kleiman against Wright. The Kleiman family accused him of allegedly misappropriating billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin through a partnership with the late Dave Kleiman. Wright denies those claims.

The Kleiman family is trying to have four experts speaking for Craight Wright struck off the trial on the basis that their opinions contradict the evidence Wright himself has previously produced in this trial. 

On the other hand, Wright is trying to exclude the opinions of five experts speaking on behalf of the Kleiman family, including Andreas Antonopoulos, author of popular Bitcoin book “Mastering Bitcoin.”

This is standard procedure for a trial and both camps have managed to limit in some ways what the other side’s witnesses can discuss.

Wright has also slightly restricted Antonopoulos’ testimony about pseudonymous Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto’s public communications. The Court has—in part—granted Wright’s motion on this point insofar as Antonopoulos’ testimony must be provided in the context of an opinion.  

“While Mr. Antonopoulos is permitted to testify about Satoshi’s public communications and the emails historically associated with Satoshi Nakamoto, an actual opinion must be connected to such testimony,” the court documents said. 

However, Wright came up short with a third and final attempt to restrict the influence of Antonopoulos on the trial. The Court disagreed with Wright that Antonopoulos is unqualified to testify about Bitcoin’s price, or of Bitcoin forks.

Bitcoin Finds a Home on Wall Street As Stocks Fail to Rally

Another day, another market rise. The global market cap of cryptocurrencies continues its march north, sitting at $472 billion. The last time crypto was worth this much was back in the halcyon days of January 2018 – before everything came crashing down.

While it’s still a far cry from the $716 billion recorded in those heady days, this time the markets are in better shape. For one, daily trading volume compared to the peak of two years ago is four to five times higher than it was. In 2018, the biggest daily volume was $37 billion. Crypto hasn’t had a trading day below that number since May 2019. 

The primary driver of these liquid times appears to be Bitcoin, who has found a home on Wall Street. 

Just yesterday, a senior Citibank analyst made the grandiose prediction to the bank’s clients that Bitcoin was heading for a six-figure valuation in 2021. 

The thesis was based on the trend that investors who have been roughed up by turbulence in the traditional fiat markets are looking for somewhere safer to put their money, which in this case, is Bitcoin. 

It’s a sentiment echoed by Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of SkyBridge Capital and the former communications chief of the Trump administration. 

In a filings note posted last week, Scaramucci’s firm, which manages $7.7 billion in assets according to Reuters, said it “may seek exposure to digital assets.” It noted that by “digital assets,” the firm meant Bitcoin—but was not limited solely to the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap.

While that’s been going on, Bitcoin’s price set a new record this week as it posted its best-ever three-week close in its 12-year history. 

The statistic is a signal of the market’s sentiment towards BTC, as opposed to the short sharp swings the currency has historically been famous for. In 2017, when Bitcoin hit $20,000 it pulled back quickly, suggesting the market felt the price was little more than hyperbole. 

This time, however, Bitcoin’s price hasn’t behaved as it has traditionally. The three-week metric puts Bitcoin’s value at just shy of $16,000, indicating the market’s confidence in Bitcoin is much healthier. 

Wall Street Struggles As Covid Cases Rise 

Markets are looking for signs of a quicker recovery to the COVID epidemic and last night pharmaceutical company Moderna responded in kind. 

The company’s own COVID vaccine had a 94.5% efficacy rate in tackling the virus, which pushed markets higher. But the rally wasn’t as significant as that of last week’s after Pfizer announced the results of its tests to find a cure. 

At the time of writing, the FTSE 100 was down, and the DAX and CAC 40 were both flat. On Wall Street, the S&P and Dow futures markets were both down as news emerged that new cases have risen week on week in all 50 states. 

Governors across the country are pushing for tighter restrictions to try and contain new outbreaks, dampening investor spirits. 

Market watchers are now focusing on the latest US retail sales, industrial production and capacity utilisation figures, due in the next few days.

Binance.US CEO Discusses Expansion to North Carolina

On November 12, North Carolina became the 41st US state to grant an operational license to Binance.US, the American arm of global cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Catherine Coley, the platform’s CEO, explains some of the intricacies of dealing with US regulation and expanding across the country.

“We finally launched in the state where my family’s originally from and where I spent four years of college and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill,” Coley told the Decrypt Daily yesterday.

She noted that recently the platform also launched in Georgia, Alabama and Florida. While Binance.US applied for licenses in every US state, the process of approval is not fast since every state has its own set of regulatory requirements.

“So it’s really the state regulators at each level. And each state by state has a different system, they kind of have a different application process, we similarly go through them,” Coley explained, adding “You’ve heard of the name like [the New York State Department of Financial Services] and the BitLicense. So those are some of the groups that are helping us along the way get licensed in each state, which we’re really excited about, but does take time.”

Coley also noted that while Binance.US’s app was launched in January this year, the company is currently giving it a “facelift” to make the application more streamlined.

“So we’ve launched a beta of our new app, it’s going to be coming out [as] what we called ‘app 2.0,’ said Coley, stressing that, “It’s gonna be sleeker and a little bit more streamlined. So before our app was a little bit busy, and you had to kind of figure out what you wanted to do. Even though the buy and sell crypto buttons were on the homepage, not a lot of people saw them.”

Another new feature on Binance.US—aimed at the exchange’s institutional client—is the support for the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN), a payments platform operated by California-based Silvergate Bank.

“We just also opened up SEN, so that’s the Silvergate Exchange Network. And that’s really catered to our institutional clients that are looking to move dollars in and out of exchanges pretty quickly,” Coley explained.

She added that the service offers institutional clients “24/7 free, instant transfers for dollars” on the Silvergate Exchange Network and helped Binance.US to boost its liquidity.