Riding The Wave News Summary 158
US Supreme Court halts Coinbase cases in its first crypto ruling, Crypto has a new rescuer: Wall Street, & more
Welcome to Riding The Wave. If you have questions or feedback, please reply to this email. If you are new to the Newsletter, please check out what we provide on our about page and consider subscribing. Within the Newsletter, I provide News Summaries, Weekly Status Updates, & Deep Dive Articles on Specific Topics (Ex: How do I pick which coins/tokens to buy?). More details here
News
Table of Contents
Tweets
US Supreme Court halts Coinbase cases in its first crypto ruling
Bitcoin is up 12% this month — even though barely anybody is trading it
Token issuers in Japan exempt from 30% crypto tax on paper gains
Tweets
https://twitter.com/WhaleChart/status/1673059929672785925
https://twitter.com/WhaleChart/status/1673000970542804992
https://twitter.com/WhaleChart/status/1672899469195591682
https://twitter.com/therationalroot/status/1672997747337601024
https://twitter.com/Pentosh1/status/1672652542621151239
https://twitter.com/WhaleChart/status/1672730040327368704
https://twitter.com/WhaleChart/status/1672596679025913859
https://twitter.com/TheCryptoLark/status/1672576219236257793
https://twitter.com/100trillionUSD/status/1672550933622865920
https://twitter.com/WhaleChart/status/1672547125895282689
https://twitter.com/apes_prologue/status/1671886776389214210
https://twitter.com/WhaleChart/status/1672344121955037186
https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1672321987383795712
https://twitter.com/WhaleChart/status/1672380359734853632
US Supreme Court halts Coinbase cases in its first crypto ruling
The United States Supreme Court decided in favor of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on June 23 in a partisan opinion that will halt court proceedings against the company in two California cases.
Plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuits alleged Coinbase failed to provide proper relief after users lost money and that Coinbase allegedly engaged in deceptive advertising.
Coinbase asked the district courts overseeing the cases to dismiss them on the grounds that, per the company, users signed an agreement upon creating their accounts stating that such disputes would be handled through arbitration in lieu of lawsuits.
This ruling marks the U.S. high court’s first cryptocurrency-related ruling. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion, which was supported by four of the court’s other conservative justices in a 5–4 vote.
It’s unclear at this time how similar cases against other cryptocurrency companies will be affected, and there’s no indication that this case will affect the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ongoing action against Coinbase.
Crypto has a new rescuer: Wall Street
Some of the biggest names in finance are making new bets on cryptocurrencies, adding competition and momentum to an upstart industry that is under increasing pressure from US regulators.
The world's largest money manager, BlackRock (BLK), wants to start a new exchange-traded fund that would use bitcoin as an underlying asset.
Two other sizable money managers, Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab (SCHW), are backing a new cryptocurrency exchange with Citadel Securities.
And one of the world's biggest lenders, Deutsche Bank, wants to operate a crypto custody business that would hold digital assets for its clients.
A surprise turnaround in sentiment about the industry started June 15, when BlackRock, which controls more than $9 trillion in assets, filed paperwork with the SEC to create a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
Such a fund would be tagged to the value of the original digital asset instead of merely tracking bitcoin futures. Coinbase would be the custodian for the bitcoin holdings.
"I think there's an element of — we need institutional custodians to step in and play roles and participate in digital token economies," BlackRock’s head of strategic partnerships Joseph Chalom said Thursday at the Coinbase State of Crypto Summit in partnership with the FT.
Another catalyst for the industry came this week when a new cryptocurrency exchange that has backing from Citadel, Fidelity and Charles Schwab said it had begun executing trades.
The venture, EDX Markets, began discussing its plans in late 2022 and touting itself as an operation that would "remove significant conflicts of interest that affect existing cryptocurrency exchanges."
Together those exchanges allow the trading of 19 digital currencies that the SEC has labeled as securities, meaning they need to be registered with the agency. In total the agency has designated 55 cryptocurrencies as securities in various lawsuits, according to data compiled by Cryptorank.io.
Coinbase is fighting the suit and denies the SEC's claims. On Thursday its CEO Brian Armstrong did not sound worried while speaking at a crypto conference in New York.
Instead he said in the next five to seven years the Coinbase platform could turn into a "superapp' like WeChat, which is used in Asia for everything from messaging to banking to ordering food.
Bitcoin is up 12% this month — even though barely anybody is trading it
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Riding The Wave to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.