Ripple vs SEC

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. People always want to buy more bored apes. So, OpenSea’s Seaport protocol will allow people to buy NFTs with other NFTs. Essentially, you can buy bored apes by giving the platform bored apes. To simplify, your NFTs are now trading cards.

Rippling Through SEC

There was no other choice but to file a lawsuit. Or so claims Ripple. The crypto exchange’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that he visited the US SEC “four to five times” before going to court. That’s not all. Ripple’s CEO also called out the SEC for being out-of-date on crypto regulations.

What happened?Since December 2020, the SEC and Ripple have been in a courtroom battle over XRP. Here:

• SEC argues that Ripple sold illegal securities under the name of XRP tokens.

• SEC wants XRP to be called a security rather than currency.

• Ripple wants XRP to be treated as virtual currency.

And then?If XRP is declared a security by court, all its buyers’ names will have to be made public. Ripple certainly doesn’t want that.

It's a case of identity crisis that has rightfully ripple-d (sorry) through the crypto world. If SEC wins, Ripple will also be fined for selling securities without mandatory registrations.

What next?The legal battle is far from over and the final decision is due in 2023. But at the moment, Ripple seems to have the upper hand.

Ultimately, it will come down to the historic Howey test. The four-part barometer says that to qualify as a security, there should be:

A. InvestmentB. In a common entity C. Expecting Profits D. Earned from the efforts of others

The verdict aside, Ripple wants crypto investors to use the current ‘winter’ market to build.

Staying with the SEC, Greyscale, which has $43 billion in crypto assets under management, is asking its customers to lobby the governing body to ask for a Bitcoin ETF.

FAANG’s lost $1 trillion

Technology stocks are bleeding. Shares of IT companies in the US and India are on a slippery slope. All thanks to investors selling off stocks in bulk.

The Nifty IT Index is down ~23% and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell ~28% since the year began. FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) has lost over $1 trillion in value since the start of 2022. And there’s more coming.

What’s really up?Two major factors are at play here:

• Lack of earnings: In the US, technology stocks are affected because consumers are moving away from the pandemic-induced digital world. Indian IT companies, too, are facing similar headwinds.

• Inflation and Rate Hike: There’s price rise everywhere. India is facing it and so is the US. When inflation rises, the central banks hike interest rates. This affects spending and technology stocks get impacted.

The US Fed has already hiked rates, as has the RBI. Typically, a Nasdaq stock slide impacts Indian IT too and that’s what added to the ripple effect.

Real Cash In Alt Coins

Money is pouring into web3 companies in India. The sector clocked ~$890 million in 28 deals just between January and April this year. April saw web3 founders raise $274 million in primary capital. This is a BFD. In India, web3 firms raised ~$500 million in all of 2021. In 2020, the number was closer to $25 million.

What’s changed?It’s a global trend that has travelled to India. In 2021, venture capital firms across the world invested close to $30 billion in startups. Add to this some reports suggesting that web3 may contribute about $1 trillion to India’s GDP by 2031.

It’s time for AfricaIn other news, Africa’s Crypto Valley Venture Capital will invest in 100 blockchain startups in the African region.

Meanwhile…PayPal has decided to integrate all possible crypto-related services on its platform.

A rising starWhile we’re talking about web3, a play-to-earn game is getting hot. Five-month-old StepN, which is built on Solana, lets people walk, run and earn tokens. It has around ~3 million MAUs, and the market cap of its native token is already at $860 million.

Beeple’s Been Phished

The man who once sold his art for $69 million at the height of the pandemic, Beeple, was hacked over the weekend. His Twitter account told people that Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, was raffling Louis Vuitton NFTs. The link stayed up for over five hours. The hackers stole around $438,000.

Why do people fall for this?Beeple had earlier collaborated with LV for creating 30 NFTs for its mobile game, which lent some credence to this attempt. The fake link promised users a free mint for unique NFTs. But in Beeple’s own words:

This is not the first time, though. In November 2021, Beeple’s discord channel was hacked with an NFT drop lure. At the time, users lost around 38 ETH or around $78,000 as per current prices.

And that’s it for today. If this email was forwarded to you, please consider subscribing. It’s free. We’ll never show you an ad or charge you for this. We swear.

Who are we? There is a lot happening in our world. Everything has layers, and each layer has to be carefully peeled so you, the reader, know how the world of money is changing every day. That’s our promise. Help you unpeel the onions, which are the public markets in the US, India, and crypto, so that you know just a little more.