Molly WhiteNewsletter: Crypto firms hope putting a blockchain veneer on traditional equities will allow them to sidestep lessons learned in the 1929 Wall Street crash, crypto firms look to become banks, and Congress celebrates crypto surveillance while claiming to outlaw it
By encasing stocks in a blockchainy wrapper, companies like Robinhood are hoping to tap into lucrative equities markets while sidestepping the expensive compliance and oversight requirements of traditional American brokerages and exchanges.
Experts are issuing dire warnings on bills that would allow for activity like this. Professor Richard Painter implored: “We do not want another economic collapse caused by deregulation of financial services sector. ... Please, we don't want to go through those experiences again.”
Two Republicans took time at the hearing to attack legislators and witnesses for so much as mentioning the influence of the crypto lobby, or Trump’s personal crypto ventures. They don’t want people even mentioning crypto's hundreds of millions of dollars in spending on Congress.
During “Crypto Week”, Congress will also be considering an Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act. While Republicans decry purely hypothetical CBDC surveillance, they celebrated crypto’s actual surveillance capabilities at the recent Senate hearing.
Shady crypto billionaire Justin Sun is looking to pour another $100 million into Trump’s crypto projects. At least $56 million of Sun’s money has gone directly to Trump or family members; that number could nearly triple depending on details of the planned token purchase.
I wrote in November that “If Trump succeeds with his plans to defang the SEC, I expect [WLFI token sale] limitations to swiftly change — likely significantly financially benefiting Trump and his family”.
Guess what?
Crypto firms Circle, Ripple, and BitGo are looking to become banks, and their applications will go to the newly confirmed Comptroller of the Currency, former blockchain executive Jonathan Gould.
All this, plus MoonPay executives seemingly getting scammed out of a Trump inaugural fund donation, Elon Musk’s “America Party’s” stance on bitcoin, and the end of another crypto island project in this week’s issue of Citation Needed.
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