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
U.S. Inflation Slowed to 8.5% in July, CPI Report Shows; Bitcoin Jumps
Tornado Cash User Continues to Send ETH to Prominent Figures, Buterin Admits He Used the Mixer
Canada's 2nd Largest Pension Fund Embroiled in Celsius Collapse
Tweets
U.S. Inflation Slowed to 8.5% in July, CPI Report Shows; Bitcoin Jumps
U.S. inflation slowed last month, possibly strengthening a widely-held narrative that the worst of consumer-price increases is behind the economy.
Bitcoin (BTC) jumped 2% and Ethereum (ETH) 7% in the minutes after the report, signaling relief on the part of crypto traders that the Federal Reserve might be able to relax its aggressive approach to tightening monetary conditions.
The consumer price index (CPI) surged 8.5% in July on a year-over-year basis, though it was unchanged from the previous month, partly thanks to lower energy prices, a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed. The annual figure compared with an average estimate of 8.7% in a survey of economists by FactSet.
Stripping out food and energy prices because of their strong volatility, core CPI remained unchanged at 5.9% over the past 12 months, slightly missing expectations of 6.1%.
“I think the market will continue to find confidence in the Fed staying on track with its proposed increases to the interest rates at the September meeting and we will continue to see our relief rally pick up steam in the crypto market,” said Howard Greenberg, cryptocurrency educator at Prosper Trading Academy.
With the current economic situation regarding inflation & rate hikes, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bitcoin & Crypto move upward in price after the news just announced for CPI. Of course, I dont think we are out of the woods yet and that it is very likely that we see a drop-down to current prices or lower after this subsides (unless we continue to come in under for CPI, which I dont expect).
Tornado Cash User Continues to Send ETH to Prominent Figures, Buterin Admits He Used the Mixer
An anonymous user is continuing to send small amounts of ethereum (ETH) from a Tornado Cash wallet to the public addresses of prominent figures, ranging from celebrities to crypto CEOs, presumably as a way to protest against the US Treasury's decision to sanction the mixing service. Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has publicly admitted that he used Tornado Cash in the past, and for good causes.
Etherscan transactions further show that almost all major crypto exchanges, including , FTX, , , , , and , have received small amounts of ETH from Tornado Cash. Furthermore, even the Ethereum Foundation's treasury and the official Ukrainian crypto donation accounts have been included.
As part of the sanctions, all Americans, as well as US-based companies, are barred from interacting with Tornado Cash. A failure to comply could lead to penalties of USD 50,000 to USD 10,000,000 in fines and 10 to 30 years imprisonment.
Notably, since the receipt of tokens from Tornado Cash is not willful and comes without any prior knowledge or engagement, it seems unlikely that it could be considered a violation of the sanctions. However, its consequences still remain unclear.
Meanwhile, Buterin has joined the cult of users criticizing the sanctions against Tornado Cash, saying that the privacy tool could also be used for good causes. In particular, the Ethereum mastermind said he used the mixer to donate to Ukrainian causes while protecting the recipients. “I’ll out myself as someone who has used TC to donate to this exact cause,” he wrote.
Tornado and other similar services have strong use cases, but until they take stronger precautions against hackers using them, I would expect them to continue to be banned as they do more harm than good.
Nvidia ups its metaverse bet with new developer tools
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.