The Breakdown First Five - Wednesday September 13, 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. OneCoin Co-Founder Imprisoned for 20 Years

Karl Greenwood has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the OneCoin pyramid scheme. The Judge also ordered the forfeiture of $300M. OneCoin was a scam from the early days of crypto, arising in 2014 in Bulgaria. The scam is estimated to have defrauded $4B from at least 3.5 million victims. You might remember OneCoin from its notorious front-woman, “Crypto Queen” Ruga Ignatova, who remains at large.

4. Metamask Shapeshifts

Metamask has opened their platform to allow additional functionality. “Metamask Snaps” will allow developers to build apps on top of the popular wallet. The most exciting feature is a shapeshift plugin, which will allow users to swap for Bitcoin and other Layer 1 tokens within the wallet. With on-chain applications becoming increasingly feature rich, the next bull run could avoid the risks of centralized exchanges entirely.

3. Crypto an Afterthought in Senate Hearing

Gary Gensler attended a Senate oversight hearing and surprisingly, crypto was not at the top of the agenda. Republican senators still grilled the SEC chair about topics ranging from climate to AI regulation. SEC overreach remained a key concern. Never one to miss a soundbite, Gensler said the crypto industry is “rife with fraud, abuse and misconduct.” It seems that with the crypto crisis of last year fading from memory, the Senate has bigger fish to fry.

2. Binance.US CEO Departs

Brain Shroder, the CEO of Binance.US has left the exchange according to anonymous sources. His departure marks at least 11 executives fleeing the Binance group over the past 4 months. Binance.US will also lay off a third of its workforce, approximately 100 people. Both of Shroder’s predecessors gave extensive testimony on the operations at Binance to support litigation from the CFTC and the SEC. Speculation is still rife about whether the DOJ will bring charges.

1. Coinbase Confirms Lightning

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has confirmed the exchange will integrate lightning. Armstrong also returned to his roots, stating that Bitcoin is the “most important asset in crypto”. The rush to integrate lightning was sparked by fee spikes earlier this year, which made exchange withdrawals costly. The building has only just begun, but the decision to support lightning is a critical one.

Thanks for reading -NLW