Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called on the Senate to pass the Clarity Act, following up on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s call in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed yesterday. Armstrong’s move, in a Thursday evening tweet, is particularly relevant as he was the prime mover in holding up progress on the Act, withdrawing support for an earlier version a day before it was scheduled for markup by the Senate Banking Committee. That move by the biggest U.S. exchange caused the committee’s leadership to delay markup, a necessary step before sending the bill to the full Senate. Armstrong’s opposition was based in large part on the earlier version’s ban on third…
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G’Day, Coinbase!
Goliath exchange gets Aussie permission; closer to “everything exchange” by expanding offerings and geography
Coinbase must be cranking AC/DC, the Little River Band and Rick Springfield in the halls of its SF headquarters. Securing an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) is a significant step toward expanding its global footprint, positioning itself ahead of new regulatory requirements that will soon apply to digital asset platforms in the land down under. The move effectively transitions Coinbase from a long-standing market participant into a fully regulated financial services provider within Australia. “The AFSL – granted ahead of incoming legislation that will require digital asset exchanges to hold one – provides us with the regulatory foundation to bring the Everything Exchange to Australia,” the company said in a…
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Liquid Staking Issues & Perils
There are efforts to mitigate centralization, but extreme market volatility risks contagion
In our recent article Staking and Liquid Staking: a Primer we covered the fact that staking is rapidly becoming a substantial ecosystem of its own, including via increasing uptake from institutional investors. We explained the differences between simply staking tokens and liquid staking, which enables investors to pledge their tokens but also achieve liquidity by receiving a new token known as a liquid staking token (LST) or liquid staking derivative (LSD), which is typically deployed in decentralized finance (DeFi) to earn yield or other benefits. Sounds great, so what’s the catch? Well, in addition to the potential catches inherent in any young and relatively untested technology – crypto generally but…
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Staking and Liquid Staking: a Primer
Part 1 of Staking: benefits and challenges for the crypto ecosystem
Staking – the practice of providing one’s tokens to help operate and secure a network, usually in exchange for rewards – is rapidly becoming a substantial ecosystem of its own as the number and market capitalization of cryptocurrencies using a “proof of stake” (PoS) consensus mechanism to verify transactions continues to grow (in contrast to electricity-intensive “proof of work” chains like Bitcoin). Staked / Kraken’s State of Staking Q2 report cataloged a number of impressive growth stats. While proof of stake’s share of the total crypto market cap increased only 2% quarter over quarter to 23%: The value of staked assets rose 61% to $68 billion Market cap of the…
