The Breakdown First Five - Tuesday July 11, 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. Tuberville Takes on Prometheum

Senator Tuberville is asking the hard questions about what the hell is going on with Prometheum. The poster boy of regulated Crypto has some concerning ties to Chinese megafirm Wanxiang and Tuberville wants answers. He’s requesting a DOJ and SEC investigation into misleading Congressional testimony and SEC disclosures.

4. Binance out of BCH?

Binance.US temporarily ran out of Bitcoin Cash over the weekend, possibly as a result of the recent pump. The exchange said they just needed to rebalance wallets but some think it’s a sign of deeper issues at the embattled exchange. Withdrawals of BCH are now up and running again, but questions remain about the health of Binance.US and the broader Binance empire.

3. Decentralized Pawnshop

A down on their luck Crypto trader pawned their luxury watch for $35,000. By itself unremarkable, the interesting part is that they used an NFT powered custodian to shop the loan globally via DeFi lending protocol Arcade. The blockchain usage is fascinating, but you can’t help but be amazed at how quickly the industry went from the future of finance to international pawnshop.

2. Clayton says ETF “hard to resist”

Former SEC chair Jay Clayton says approval for a spot Bitcoin ETF will be “hard to resist”. He said that applicants could lean on the idea that spot market exposure is more efficient and effective for investors than already accepted futures ETFs. Clayton noted that surveillance sharing will be key, ensuring that sufficient investor protections are in place.

1. Dox to earn

Arkham Intelligence announced the release of their doxxing marketplace that will match on-chain bounty hunters with, let’s say, interested parties. They will also launch a coin. Turns out Arkham has been harvesting their users’ personal data for months and are doxxing them via referral links. Privacy advocates had obvious concerns. VCs wondered why a US company was doing a token launch via Binance. Others stared at the bizarrely misfiring honeypot.

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Thanks for reading -NLW