It’s been a tumultuous week for SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. On Thursday, Coinbase sued the agency and the FDIC over their handling of a FOIA request, and on Friday, the SEC sued MetaMask creator Consensys for $250 million in fees. Plus, YouTuber Logan Paul sued fellow YouTube creator CoffeeZilla for defamation over critical coverage of Paul’s CryptoZoo project.
Outside the courthouse, Wall Street is watching. Solana brush
+0.57%
ton +2.89%
There are a lot of lawsuits
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against ConsenSys, the company that operates the MetaMask wallet, alleging that its MetaMask swap and staking service constitutes an unregistered securities offering. Previous legal actions involving Coinbase may provide clues that the SEC is in a weak position against the company, but experts remain divided.
- Coinbase filed a lawsuit against the SEC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), alleging that the agencies failed to properly respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Coinbase is seeking to determine whether federal regulators intentionally sought to marginalize the cryptocurrency industry through concerted action.
- Logan Paul has filed a defamation lawsuit against YouTuber Coffeezilla (Stephen Findeisen) over his reporting on the CryptoZoo NFT project. Coffeezilla accused Paul of promoting a fraudulent project, which he denied and instead placed the blame on the project’s advisors and developers.
- Finally, experts say the U.S. Supreme Court could potentially deliver a victory for the cryptocurrency industry by overturning the so-called “Chevron” doctrine. They welcome the SEC’s recent mixed ruling on Binance.
VC and Wall Street
- Following spot success Bitcoin
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And with the approval of the Ether ETF, Wall Street is now looking at Solana as the next ETF target. VanEck 21Shares was the first company to file for a Solana ETF, claiming the token was a commodity, but then filed its own S-1 application. VanEck believes there’s never been a better time to target the Solana ETF, but other companies, such as JPMorgan, are doubtful the application will be approved. However, the market reacted encouragingly to this news. Solana rose in price this week, while most other cryptocurrencies fell.
- Additionally, as covered in the latest edition of The Block’s The Funding newsletter, VC holdings in Toncoin (TON) are higher than previously reported. The coin, which is tightly integrated with messaging app Telegram, is bullish on VCs due to its potential as a distribution, with Telegram’s roughly 900 million monthly active users.
- Vitalik Buterin, Co-founder Ethereum
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, We have invested in a new blockchain project, MegaETH, as part of a $20 million funding round with a “nine-figure” token valuation. The project hopes to reach 100,000 transactions per second through two key technologies: a heterogeneous blockchain architecture and a “super-optimized” EVM execution environment.
everything else
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