- December 1, 2024
- Category: Crypto, Weekly Crypto Digest
In the latest Weekly Crypto Digest from Yellow Capital, you’ll find news about record inflows into Bitcoin ETFs, the lifting of sanctions on Tornado Cash, the SEC filing 583 cases this year, and more.
Bitcoin ETFs Record Inflows
From November 18 to November 22, 2024, net capital inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs totaled $3.38 billion. This is a record weekly figure in history.
On November 22, 2024, daily capital inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs totaled $490.35 million, continuing the positive trend of the previous week.
Brazilian Congress Introduced Bill to Create a Bitcoin Reserve
Politician Eros Biondini introduced a bill to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the Brazilian Congress. The author of the document is confident that with its help, the authorities will be able to diversify existing assets and improve the economy’s resilience to various shocks.
The bill was introduced in Congress on November 25, 2024. It provides for the allocation of up to 5% of the country’s financial reserves for the purchase of the first cryptocurrency. At the same time, as of December 2023, Brazil’s cash reserves were around $355 billion.
The author of the document proposes to purchase Bitcoin in stages. This will allow the state to gradually form a crypto reserve, without creating any particular difficulties for the financial system, Biondini believes.
The assets will be managed by the Central Bank of Brazil, using a specially developed blockchain system with artificial intelligence technology for this purpose.
MicroStrategy Acquired 55,500 BTC for $5.4 Billion
MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor said that between November 18 and 24, 2024, the company acquired 55,500 BTC for $5.4 billion, thus increasing its reserve to 386,700 BTC.
The total value of the company’s bitcoin assets at the purchase price of $56,761 is $21.9 billion as of November 25.
Michael Saylor added that the company’s quarterly profitability reached 35.2% over the week and 59.3% over the year. MicroStrategy intends to increase the share of bitcoin in its portfolio to 4% of the total supply of the first cryptocurrency in circulation within ten years, according to The Block, citing Bernstein analysts.
Court Lifts Sanctions on Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash
The US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that the Treasury Department exceeded its authority by imposing sanctions on the crypto mixer Tornado Cash. The rate of the project’s token, TORN, responded to the news with rapid growth.
Tornado Cash was included in the sanctions list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the US Treasury Department in August 2022. The reason for this was the popularity of the service among fraudsters who laundered illegally obtained funds through it. In particular, the department stated that the mixer is actively used by the Lazarus Group hacker group from North Korea.
At the same time, one of the project’s developers, Alexey Pertsev, was detained. After a long period of detention, he was convicted under a number of articles for a term of five years and three months. Pertsev’s car and about $2 million were also seized.
The ruling of the federal appeals court states that the Treasury Department nevertheless exceeded its authority.
“OFAC’s concerns with illicit foreign actors laundering funds are undeniably legitimate,” he said. “Perhaps Congress will update IEEPA … to target modern technologies like crypto-mixing software. Until then, we hold that Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts (the lines of privacy-enabling software code) are not the “property” of a foreign national or entity, meaning (1) they cannot be blocked under IEEPA, and (2) OFAC overstepped its congressionally defined authority” – said Judge Don Willett.
SEC Files 583 Cases in 2024
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed 583 cases to enforce judgments in fiscal year 2024, receiving orders worth $8.2 billion, the highest amount in the regulator’s history. It is known that the number of claims is 26% lower than last year.
The press release said that the financial sanctions of $8.2 billion included $6.1 billion in fines for improper advantage and bias and $2.1 billion in civil penalties.
According to the Commission, $345 million was returned to affected investors, and another $255 million was received by those who helped the SEC expose cases of fraud.
Streams on Pump.fun Are Disabled
The Pump.fun team had to disable the live streaming function amid a huge number of requests from community members to the developers demanding to address the problem due to the huge number of scandalous streams. Citing a lack of moderators amid a significant increase in popularity.
As a result, the Pump.fun team had to disable the live broadcast function, citing a lack of moderators amid a significant increase in popularity.
The decision seriously hit the platform’s finances – by November 27, the daily income of the “meme token factory” fell to $3.5 million compared to a peak of $5.3 million a few days earlier.
At the same time, the leading meme coins lost their momentum for growth. Over the week, the GMMEME indicator, which characterizes the dynamics of the top 30 meme coins, fell by 0.95%. Min Jeong from Presto Research pointed out that the sector was “overheated”.