Hodler’s Digest, November 12-18 – Cointelegraph Magazine

Top news this week

Sam Altman is ousted from OpenAI and CTO Mira Murati appointed interim CEO.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI fired founder Sam Altman from his CEO position on November 17. Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer, currently serves as interim CEO. According to the blog post, the board engaged in a “deliberative review process,” which concluded that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, which impeded his ability to carry out his responsibilities.” Shortly after, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman announced his departure from the organization.

BlackRock Files Form S-1 for Spot Ether ETF with SEC

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, officially applied for a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 15. The ETF, called the iShares Ethereum Trust, typically tracks the performance of the price of Ethereum, according to its S-1 filed with the SEC. The iShares brand is associated with BlackRock’s ETF products. BlackRock’s move comes nearly a week after it registered the iShares Ethereum Trust with the Delaware Division of Corporations and nearly six months after it filed an application for a spot Bitcoin ETF. Following BlackRock’s filing, asset manager Fidelity also sought the green light for its own Ether ETF.

Australia imposes capital gains tax on packaged cryptocurrency tokens

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has issued guidance on the capital gains tax (CGT) treatment in relation to the packaging of decentralized finance and crypto tokens for individuals, confirming that Australians are liable for capital gains tax when packaging or unpacking tokens. I did. The ATO said in a statement that transfers of cryptocurrency assets to an address over which the sender has no control or already holds balances will be considered a taxable CGT event. CGT events arise depending on whether an individual has recorded a capital gain or loss. Similar approaches have been considered for taxing liquidity pool users, providers, and DeFi interest and rewards. Additionally, token wrapping and unwrapping can also trigger CGT events.

FTX Foundation employees fight for $275,000 bonus promised by SBF.

A charity worker at FTX recruited by Sam Bankman-Fried is trying to collect the remainder of his claimed 2022 annual salary bonus of $275,000. Lawyers for Ross Rheingans-Yoo claimed in court filings that only $375,000 of his $650,000 bonus was paid out by FTX. They claim the remaining funds were owed when the cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. The fate of Rheingans-Yoo’s bonus will be decided by the Delaware bankruptcy judge overseeing FTX’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

WisdomTree Amends S-1 Form Spot Bitcoin ETF Filing As Cryptocurrency Awaits SEC Decision.

WisdomTree filed an amended Form S-1 spot Bitcoin ETF prospectus with the U.S. SEC on November 16. This update comes months after WisdomTree resubmitted its June 2023 spot Bitcoin ETF application and proposed changes to the rules for listing and trading shares of that bitcoin. WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust. The revised prospectus notes that the WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust ETF will trade under the ticker symbol BTCW and that Coinbase Custody Trust will act as custodian holding all of the trust’s bitcoins on its behalf.

winners and losers

Bitcoin this weekend (BTC) It’s in $36,419ether (ETH) In ~ $1,946 and XRP In ~ $0.61. The total market capitalization is $1.38 $1 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers this week are Celestia. (TIA) 103.39%, yearn.finance (reference) 88.04% and THORChain (Rune) 54.38%.

The top three altcoin losers this week are gas. (gas) -64.85%, FTX token (FTT) -35.17% and Neo (Neo) -20.27%.

For more information on cryptocurrency prices, read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

most memorable quotes

“Education and utility-based projects that have real utility for use are ways to engage regulators.”

Naveen GuptaManaging Director of South Asia, Middle East and North Africa at Ripple

“We believe that derivatives will drive additional liquidity and hedging opportunities for cryptocurrencies and represent an important next step in the continued growth of this market.”

john palmerCboe Digital CEO

“I am very optimistic about various things happening in the cryptocurrency industry. (…) It will be a multi-chain world.”

Brad GarlinghouseRipple CEO

“Phones and the internet should not be the cause of terrorist financing, and cryptocurrencies should not be blamed either.”

french heelrepresentative of the united states

“I believe code is a form of expression and protected by the First Amendment.”

Vivek RamaswamiEntrepreneur and U.S. Presidential Candidate

“A digital euro also means that we can all be fully monitored. (…) Those who are against surveillance and want freedom do not need a digital euro!”

Joana CotardMember of the German Federal Parliament

This week’s predictions

Bitcoin traders’ BTC price downside targets now include the $30.9K bottom.

Bitcoin hit $36,000 on November 16 as analysis predicted a deeper price decline. Bitcoin’s failure to break above its 18-month high during the week has left market participants uninspired, with some hoping to see a fresh correction to retest lower levels.

“It will be great to see this rally complete the round trip back to $35,000. I would be more than happy to see a retest of $33,000.” Monitoring resource Material Indicators wrote in part of the day’s commentary on X (formerly Twitter).

Looking at the BTC/USDT orderbook liquidity snapshot, we see support building at $35,000. Keith Alan, co-founder of Material Indicators, added that Bitcoin’s rise in the 21-day simple moving average has been acting as support in recent days.

“BTC continues to fight for the range above $36.5,000,” he said.

Popular anonymous trader Daan Crypto Trades likewise marked $35,700 and $38,000 as key downside and upside levels to watch out for, respectively. Fellow pseudonym trader Gaah, a contributor to on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, warned that a steeper correction could push the market closer to $30,000.

FUD of the week

Cybersecurity teams claim that up to $2.1 billion in cryptocurrencies stored in old wallets are at risk.

Cybersecurity firm Unciphered disclosed a vulnerability called “Randstorm” that affected millions of cryptocurrency wallets created using web browsers from 2011 to 2015. According to the company, while searching for a Bitcoin wallet, it discovered a potential issue with the wallet. Created by BitcoinJS and derivative projects. According to the cybersecurity firm, the issue could affect millions of wallets and approximately $2.1 billion worth of cryptocurrency assets.

Swan Bitcoin Terminates Accounts of Customers Using Cryptocurrency Mixing Service

Bitcoin services platform Swan Bitcoin has warned customers that accounts interacting with cryptocurrency mix will be forced to terminate due to regulatory obligations from partner banks. Customers learned about the new policy through letters suggesting the changes were due to rules proposed by the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that would establish new responsibilities for companies that handle mixed-service transactions.

ENS developers urge Unstoppable Domains to revoke the patent or file a lawsuit.

According to an open letter shared on According to Johnson, Unstoppable’s recently acquired patents “are based entirely on innovations developed by ENS and do not include any new innovations of our own.” Matthew Gould, founder of Unstoppable Domains, responded in the thread, claiming there are “multiple naming systems.”

Best magazine articles of the week

I worked on VR for a week. Most of it was terrible…

Cointelegraph Magazine reporter Felix Ng spent a week in virtual reality. It was mostly terrible… but had some potential.

Invasion of the Riverlands: Use inner tubes, bait, and diplomats to evade guards

“Bitcoin is actually one of the most fundamental parts of Riverland. 99% of our reserves are in BTC.”

There is no civil protection for cryptocurrencies in China, so you need $300,000 to list a coin in Hong Kong? Asia Express

Amid continued investor interest, the Hong Kong exchange is expanding, the Philippines is issuing $180 million worth of tokenized bonds, and China is taking various measures, including eliminating citizen protections for cryptocurrencies.

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editorial staff

Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.