The Block
Quick Take The IRS Criminal Investigation unit listed its top ten cases of the year, and four them involved cryptocurrency. The Silk Road hacker, a OneCoin co-founder, a bitcoin launderer and a token project founder are on the list.
Quick Take Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon’s detention in Montenegro has been extended until mid-February as he appeals extradition. Last week. The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources, that the fallen crypto entrepreneur would be extradited to the U.S.
Solana-based liquid staking derivative mSOL fell by as much as 18% on Tuesday as one wallet offloaded more than $5 million worth of the token.The price then quickly rebounded.
Bitcoin’s price slipped lower on Tuesday despite optimism ahead of Wednesday’s rate announcement by the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Quick Take A “devonomics” pilot program will distribute Layer 2 network fees to developers on Starknet. The program will allocate a 10% share of all network fees to developers on Starknet. Rewards distribution will be automated and based on fees generated by each decentralized application.
Quick Take Privacy-focused web3 projects — including Nym, Protocol Labs, the Filecoin Foundation, Oasis and Aztec — have formed the “Universal Privacy Alliance,” aiming to protect digital privacy as a fundamental human right. Backed by an initial fund of $150,000, the UPA will focus on advocating for “privacy by design” technologies and influencing policy decisions.
Layer 1 blockchain Aptos unlocked 24.8 million APT tokens today — worth over $200 million and representing 8.9% of its circulating supply — according to TokenUnlocks.ApeCoin and Optimism are among the largest remaining unlocks this year — set to release $26 million worth of APE and $56 million worth of OP, respectively, by the end of December.
Quick Take Synthetix passed governance proposal SIP-2043 to end SNX token inflation. New strategies, including token buybacks and burns, will be adopted.
Quick Take Republican presidential candidates Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy and Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips spoke with CoinDesk, which was sponsoring the event, on Monday at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College.
Quick Take Memos show that firms, including leading asset managers BlackRock and Fidelity, have met with the SEC over the past few weeks to go over how the redemption process would work for a spot bitcoin ETF. At issue are three separate models to determine which entity would have to sell bitcoin if investors want to redeem shares for the underlying asset. The Block spoke with Vivian Fang, a finance professor at Indiana University, about those models and what it means for a potential spot bitcoin ETF.
