The Breakdown First Five - Friday July 7, 2023

Welcome back to The Breakdown First Five — the 5 most interesting and/or important stories in bitcoin, crypto, and markets to start your day.

5. The BlackRock Effect

A week after Larry Fink went on Fox to tell Bitcoin critics to jump, Forbes is asking how high? The mainstream financial news outlet appears to be orange pilled, running a series of articles hitting positive Bitcoin talking points from the environment to refugee assistance. Turns out that Bitcoin stopped being a climate disaster as soon as Wall Street got on board.

4. Multichain Freezes

Tether and USDC have frozen $62.5M of stablecoins related to the Multichain bridge, assuming there has been an exploit. The bridge into Fantom has been almost entirely drained for $130M but teams are still investigating and assets don’t appear to be moving in a hurry. FTX administrators appear to have been caught asleep at the wheel again in their on-chain bumbling, with $2.3M in bridged Multichain assets now in question.

3. Binance.US discount

Binance.US is selling cheap coins, but are they cheap for a reason? Binance.US lost its fiat onramps in early June without much fanfare, but over the weekend assets began to diverge massively. Bitcoin at an 8.5% discount; Ethereum, Tether and USDC are more than 10% off. As the discount is only against fiat pairs and the onramps are closed, arbitrageurs are unable to take advantage. Fiat withdrawals will close July 20. Last one out, please turn off the lights.

2. RFK Jr bought a bag

After a rousing reception at Bitcoin 2023, RFK Jr appears to have bought himself some Bitcoin. During his speech at Bitcoin 2023 in May, the presidential candidate said he owned no Bitcoin, but June financial disclosures indicate he rushed out to buy over 3 BTC. Despite screeching headlines, Kennedy’s team asserts there is no conflict of interest as the investment was made after his conference speech. Will next November see a Bitcoin bag-holder in the oval office?

1. SEC says Coinbase knew

The SEC has responded to the Coinbase lawsuit, saying the exchange was aware its activities risked breaking securities laws. The regulator rejected Coinbase’s arguments in their entirety, pointing out that it warned stock investors of the risk of SEC enforcement. Despite their arguments, the SEC will not object to Coinbase filing a motion for judgment. Legal analysts expect this case will be headed to the Supreme Court.

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Thanks for reading -NLW