Happy Tuesday! In today’s Daily, we’ll be covering the SEC’s decision to amend its Binance complaint over whether certain tokens are securities, BitClout founders get sued, Hamster Kombat allocates 60% of token airdrop to players, and more.
Let’s begin.
SEC Plans to Amend Binance Complaint on Whether Certain Tokens Are Securities
- “The SEC has informed Defendants that it intends to seek permission to amend its complaint to include a General Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, which states that the Complaint relates to ‘third-party crypto-asset securities,’ as defined in Dkt. No. 172, thereby eliminating the need for the Court to rule on the sufficiency of the claims with respect to the applicable tokens at this time,” the SEC wrote in a joint status report filed Monday.
- The SEC previously alleged that “third-party crypto-asset securities” such as SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, ATOM, SAND, MANA, ALGO, AXS, and COTI were offered and sold as investment contracts on the Binance platform, which met the Howey test.
- Binance added that the SEC’s proposal “suggests that it intends to address claims beyond those related to third-party tokens.”
SEC Sues BitClout Founder Nader Al-Naji
- Alnaji is accused of raising over $257 million through an “unregistered offer and sale” of its native token, BTCLT, while misleading investors about the “decentralized nature of the project.”
- The SEC accused Alnaji of misleading investors by claiming he would not use investor funds to reimburse himself or BitClout employees, and contradicting his actual expenses.
- In this regard, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York also announced wire fraud charges against Alnaji on Tuesday.
Hamster Kombat Allocates 60% of Token Airdrop to Players in New Whitepaper
- The remainder will be used for “providing market liquidity, ecosystem partnerships and grants, squad rewards, and other items,” according to the whitepaper.
- The Hamster Combat team claims that this airdrop will be “the largest airdrop in cryptocurrency history,” and that they are “actively working to make it happen” for the airdrop, which was originally scheduled to take place this month.
- The game also claims to have 300 million users and is already a “profitable business” without any venture capital backing or selling team tokens to “pay the bills.”
- Inspired by the success of another Telegram-based game, Notcoin, the founders of Hamster Combat plan to build a broader Hamster ecosystem beyond the current game.
Compound Enters into a Truce with Crypto Whales Humpy and The Golden Boys
- The conflict arose when Proposal 289, led by Humpy, sought to allocate $24 million from Compound’s treasury to a yield-generating protocol led by Golden Voice.
- The proposal faced widespread criticism and allegations of manipulation, as a small group purchased large amounts of COMP tokens to influence voting.
- In accordance with this resolution, the proposal has been withdrawn, the governance risks it posed have been mitigated, and a new staking product has been provided in its place that serves the interests of all parties involved.
- A new staking product supported by Humpy and other delegates proposes distributing 30% of the new token reserve each year to staked COMP holders, which would require a governance vote.
As Trump Pushes to ‘Make Bitcoin’ in the US, Mining Hardware Is a $20 Billion Opportunity
- Analysts say the launch of new mining chips by U.S. companies like Jack Dorsey’s Block and Auradine presents an opportunity to diversify the supply chain and reduce the dominance of Chinese companies like Bitmain.
- Bernstein sees this as a tailwind, particularly for large U.S. public Bitcoin miners, with the potential to “improve fleet efficiency, reduce capital expenditures (as chip prices drop), and free up spare power capacity for AI/HPC opportunities.”
within the next 24 hours
Eurozone CPI inflation data is released on Wednesday at 5 a.m. ET.
The Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate decision is announced at 2 p.m.
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