Week in review: Kuwait bans cryptocurrency operations and mining; Binance completes the Lightning Network rollout

Kuwait banned digital asset operations and mining; Binance completed the rollout of the Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN); a bill regulating the crypto market was introduced in the United States, and other events from the week.

XRP continued its rally as Bitcoin fell below $30,000

On July 19, XRP rose by 6.5% to around $0.79, despite a number of statements in the Ripple case against the SEC. Two days earlier, former department lawyer John Reed Stark called the court verdict “shaky,” and Chair Gary Genslersaid the ruling is under ongoing review.

However Haun Ventures head Katie Haun assessed the decision as a “good result for the industry.” In her view, an appeal by the regulator is possible, but “immediate” appeal “seems unlikely.” The agency signaled that they do not rule out such a development.

Bitcoin, buoyed by XRP’s rally, tried to hold the $30,000 level. In the second half of Tuesday, July 18, digital gold slid below the milestone.

As of writing, the leading cryptocurrency trades near $29,900.

Абсолютное большинство активов из топ-10 по капитализации завершили неделю в незначительном «минусе». Исключениями стали Dogecoin, подорожавшая на 1,7%, и Solana, потерявшая почти 13%.

XRP удержал четвертую строчку рейтинга, опережая по совокупной рыночной стоимости BNB.

Total market capitalization declined to $1.24 billion, Bitcoin’s dominance near 47%.

Binance completes the Lightning Network rollout

On July 17, Binance completed the rollout of the Bitcoin Lightning Network for deposits and withdrawals. For deposits, users can select LN as an option.

This week the exchange also shared insights into the dynamics in the digital asset industry for the first six months of 2023, and announced the twenty-fourth quarterly burn of BNB tokens. The platform burned 1.99 million coins worth over $484 million.

Kuwait bans cryptocurrency operations and mining

The Kuwait Capital Markets Authority (CMA) stated it is committed to an “absolute ban” on virtually all cryptocurrency operations in the country.

According to the circular, the measures apply to payments, investments and mining. The CMA also prohibited local regulators from issuing any licenses allowing firms “to provide virtual asset services as a business.”

Around CBDC

The chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets Anatoly Aksakov said there is a possibility of programming digital ruble transactions for specific purposes. In his words, the function could be used in citizens’ daily lives as well as in budgeting.

Meanwhile, Deputy Director of the Central Bank’s National Payment System Department Denis Polyakov said that CBDC security in Russia is ensured at the “highest level,” since its development has been conducted under constant oversight by the FSB.

In Brazil, developer Pedro Magalhães stated that the designers of the digital real anticipated the possibility of “freezing” funds and adjusting balances. The expert cited an analysis of regulator-provided code API on GithubAPI.

In the United States, a bill regulating the crypto market was introduced

The Republicans of the U.S. House published a 200-page document titled the “21st Century Financial Innovations and Technologies Act.” It requires the SEC and CFTC to craft appropriate rules and prohibits them from setting rules about how citizens can hold cryptocurrencies.

Earlier in the Senate proposed to require DeFi services to comply with anti-money-laundering measures.

Vitalik Buterin discussed the implementation of account abstraction in Ethereum

Account abstraction is seen as a catalyst that could attract one billion users to the Ethereum network, but there are some challenges in implementing the feature. This was stated by Vitalik Buterin.

According to him, the integration of the technology will enable fees to be paid not only with ETH, but also with other tokens the user sends.

What to discuss with friends?

• SBF’s brother intended to buy the state of Nauru using FTX customer funds.
• US presidential candidate promised to “stabilize” the dollar with Bitcoin.
• A hacker hacked an Ethereum-based Ordinals analogue.
• Pavel Durov admitted that he owns Bitcoin and Toncoin.

Polygon team unveils a new governance model for the protocol

As part of the Ethereum network’s Layer-2 roadmap Polygon 2.0, they will form the so-called ecosystem council with the aim of greater governance decentralization. The prerogative of the structure will be the upgrade of the smart-contract system.

To provide broader visibility of the council’s activities, a transparency dashboard will be introduced. The other two governance pillars will be the main protocol and treasury management.

Court appoints bankruptcy trustee for Prime Trust

A district court in Nevada ordered Prime Trust, a crypto custodian, to commence bankruptcy proceedings and appointed the trustee, Bank of Nevada president John Gedri.

Prime Trust’s fiat liabilities amount to $85.67 million, while assets on hand barely exceed $2.9 million. In cryptocurrency, the firm owes clients $69.5 million, but holds only $68.65 million.

What about miners?

Nasdaq-listed Meten Holding announced the purchase of 200 Antminer S19j Pro ASIC miners. The deal was paid for in METX shares worth $880,000. The devices are to be delivered and connected by July 31, 2023, after which the company’s hash rate will exceed 208PH/s.

TeraWulf also announced the purchase of Bitcoin miners, and Argo Blockchain raised £5.75 million (~$7.5 million) in a secondary offering. The funds will be used to retire debt and finance new projects.

On July 19 it emerged that Marathon shareholders filed a lawsuit against CEO Fred Thiel and nine other top executives for misappropriation of company assets for personal use.

Also on ForkLog:

• Unstoppable Domains added support for .eth domain names.
• Mantle Network launched the mainnet alpha version.
• Uniswap Labs introduced the UniswapX liquidity aggregator.
• The head of the SEC requested $109 million to bolster investor protection in the crypto market.

FTX seeks return of $71 million from its charitable divisions

The leadership of the collapsed FTX is trying to recover about $71 million from charitable and biomedical divisions of the company. According to the exchange’s lawyers, these donations were made “to personally elevate [Sam Bankman-Fried].”

Late in the week, court documents revealed that former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison knew about the multi-billion-dollar shortfall long before the FTX collapse.

Bitmain unveils the first Filecoin miner priced at $38,888

The world’s largest maker of mining hardware Bitmain unveiled Filecoin mining devices. The machines come with a hash rate of 4300 TH/s and cost $38,888.

What else to read?

In new educational cards we explain the similarities and differences between utility- and governance-tokens.

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting more and more institutional players. This is evident in new investments in infrastructure and the growing attention companies pay to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of the recent weeks are in ForkLog’s review.