Binance Exec Tigran Gambaryan Faces Expedited Trial in Nigeria

The Breakdown First Five - Wednesday, August 28, 2024

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. Crypto Millionaires

A new study from Henley and Partners found a massive increase in crypto wealth over the past year. There are now 172,000 crypto millionaires by their count, with Bitcoin only millionaires more than doubling. At the ultra-high net worth end of the scale, Bitcoin investment is even more prominent. Of the 6 new crypto billionaires, 5 of them made it allocated exclusively to Bitcoin. 

4. Trump NFTs: Round 4

Trump has announced the fourth series of his NFT collection with another off-tempo video. This round is called the “Freedom edition” and is themed around Trump’s “knockout” performance in the debate against President Biden. Art is much less awful thanks to advancements in AI but no less cringeworthy. One picture has Trump dressed as off-brand Captain American “holding some Bitcoins.” $7500 gets you an invite to the next Trump NFT dinner if you happen to be into that. 

3. CME Targets Retail

The CME will launch a new nano-Bitcoin futures contract in an attempt to capture sophisticated retail traders. The bite-sized contracts represent just 0.02BTC and will expire weekly. The most traded contract currently is 0.1BTC on a monthly schedule. This will open up access to more granular trading and smaller size, with just $300 in margin required per contract. While the CME is doing impressive Bitcoin volume, it faces tough competition from Coinbase’s offshore venue. 

2. MakerDAO Relaunch 

MarkerDAO has rebranded as Sky and is launching a new stablecoin. An early pioneer of permissionless DeFi, MakerDAO courted controversy by making the new smart contracts upgradable, opening the door to censorship and account freezing. Despite the controversy among DeFi OGs, original recipe DAI has stagnated for almost a year, so maybe it is time for a change. Either way, DeFi is trending towards compliance and away from truly open access.  

1. Tigran Hearing Expedited

Binance compliance executive Tigran Gambaryan will stand trial in Nigeria beginning next week after appeals to expedite the hearing. Gambaryan is accused of money laundering but is largely serving as a proxy for Binance. Outrage is growing as the State Department refuses to act. Binance CEO Richard Teng has pleaded with Nigeria to release Gambaryan on humanitarian grounds after suffering debilitating injury that could cause permanent harm. Free Tigran.