The Breakdown First Five - Tuesday May 16, 2023

5. Secret Service is Tracking your Crypto, and they have NFTs

The US Secret Service sat down for a Reddit AMA, praising Crypto as “an amazing opportunity to track the flow of money”. They also shilled their nine item NFT collection. Looks rare. Apparently they can’t track Monero but can track down and return stolen coins, helping 17 victims in the last nine months. Oh, and apparently the Bitcoin Whitepaper is now required reading for Secret Service agents.

4. Lido unlocks Withdrawals

Liquid staking protocol Lido has voted to implement withdrawals of staked Ethereum in their latest upgrade. The largest staking provider unlocking stETH could finally trigger the mass withdrawals which had people jittery about the last Ethereum upgrade. Or maybe people are comfy in staked ETH, just like they proved to be last time.

3. Everyone hates the Custody Rules

The SEC’s proposed Crypto custody rules have a new set of critics: banks. The American Bankers association and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association have both signed on to a statement claiming the changes to qualified custodian rules “could have a material impact on their business."

2. Definitely Maybe

Coinbase received a response in its lawsuit against the SEC, but it provided little clarity. The regulator was non-committal, saying it hasn’t decided if new rules for Crypto were needed. In the meantime, the SEC will continue to ponder Coinbase’s petition for rulemaking for as long as it darn well pleases, thankyou-very-much.

1. One Million Wholecoiners

The sat-stackers will inherit the earth, at least that’s what one million of them hope. The Bitcoin network ticked over an important milestone earlier this week, with one million individual wallets now holding an entire Bitcoin. That’s 20% more than February last year, when markets were still oblivious to the pain that was coming.

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Thanks for reading -NLW