Revenge of the Nerds

Letter in Support of Responsible Fintech Policy

The catastrophes and externalities related to blockchain technologies and crypto-asset investments are neither isolated nor are they growing pains of a nascent technology. They are the inevitable outcomes of a technology that is not built for purpose and will remain forever unsuitable as a foundation for large-scale economic activity.

Given these vast externalities, together with the-at best still-ambiguous and at worst non-existent-uses of blockchain, we recommend that the Committee look beyond the hype and bluster of the crypto industry and understand not only its inherent flaws and extraordinary defects but also the litany of technological fallacies it is built upon.

The ESG Bubble Is About to Burst. Good Riddance.

In these uncertain times we need more shared experiences, even if they include offensive TV, tedious workdays and coping with a volatile stock market. So if you want to save the world, it’s better to buy whatever you want, invest in whatever company looks profitable, and work for the employer that pays you the most. Then take all those extra savings and give them to charity.

Terra and Luna creators relaunch cryptocurrrencies, and critics are furious

When two cryptocurrencies crashed roughly three weeks ago, the effects were devastating. Their collapse sparked over $500 billion in losses in the broader crypto market. Numerous investors saw their life savings evaporate. Others contemplated suicide. People called for criminal investigations into the company behind it all and government regulation for the larger market.

But now the team behind the failed coins are back at it. On Saturday, Terraform Labs, the start-up behind TerraUSD and its sister cryptocurrency Luna, which both dropped to nearly zero in value, started trading a new digital coin that is part of their revival strategy, referred to as Luna 2.0.

SEC Charges Company and Former CEO with Misleading Investors about Sale of Covid-19 Test Kits

The SEC’s complaint alleges that, with SCWorx struggling financially, Schessel and SCWorx issued a press release on April 13, 2020, falsely stating that SCWorx had a “committed purchase order” from a purported buyer to purchase two million COVID-19 rapid test kits. The press release further stated that the purchase order included a “provision for additional weekly orders of 2 million units for 23 weeks, valued at $35M [million] per week.” Following the issuance of the press release, SCWorx’s stock price surged 425% from the prior trading day on volume of 96.2 million shares, which was more than 900 times the prior three-month average daily volume.

The SEC alleges that Schessel and SCWorx issued this press release despite having neither a legitimate supplier of COVID-19 test kits nor an executed purchase agreement with a buyer….

Sam Bankman-Fried, Crypto Industry Push to Avoid SEC Rule

It is of course a bit odd for one of the most successful entrepreneurs in crypto, an industry known for pushing legal boundaries, to ask for government regulation, but two things seem to be going on: The first is that Bankman-Fried—and others in the industry—are worried less about the prospect of being regulated than about how they’re regulated, and would very much like to avoid being in the crosshairs of Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. The second is that, in choosing the CFTC over the SEC, Bankman-Fried and others like him are picking the more pliable of the two agencies.

Australia Crypto ETFs See Trading Evaporate

Australia got its first exchanged-traded products linked to Bitcoin and Ether last month, and investors reacted with a shrug. Three ETFs (tickers: CBTC, EETH and EBTC) that launched on May 12 have seen trading volumes collapse since they started trading. The Cosmos Purpose Ethereum Access ETF (CPET), which started trading on Tuesday, saw just 2,073 shares change hands on its debut day.