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Hinman Emails Show SEC Just Making It Up As They Go

Plus Binance lives to fight another day

Author

Nathaniel Whittemore
June 14, 2023

The Breakdown First Five - Tuesday June 13, 2023

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. Four Months

The SEC wants four months for staff to put together a recommendation on the Coinbase petition for rulemaking. After that maybe it can go to a vote. The SEC was forced by the Court to give a timeline but remained committed to dragging their feet on rulemaking. But don’t worry, they say industry crippling enforcement action is totally consistent with not publishing clear rules.

4. Mining Survey

New research has delved deeper into the Bitcoin network than ever before. Coinmetrics looked at the digital fingerprint of major ASICs to profile which rigs were mining Bitcoin over the years. This method revealed a more accurate measure of electricity usage and e-waste than ever before, coming in lower than the previous estimate from Cambridge and the wild guess from Digiconomist.

3. Selling, the rumor

CZ hit back at rumors that Binance was selling Bitcoin to buy BNB, keeping the flailing exchange token afloat. After plummeting for a week, BNB has recently held the line at $220. Analysts are seeing unusual activity on exchanges. After Skew tweeted the below, CZ just says 4, they haven’t sold anything.

2. Binance US lives to fight another day

Binance US has avoided a business crippling asset freeze in its showdown with the SEC. During the hearing, the Judge expressed frustration with the SEC’s inability to clearly put their case or even to articulate which Crypto assets are securities. Parties were sent away to negotiate terms for a compromise order that would allow Binance US to continue operating while keeping customer assets safe from misappropriation.

1. Hinman emails

The highly anticipated Hinman emails have been released in the Ripple case. The comments from inside the SEC didn’t show any nefarious plotting, just general confusion on how Crypto should be approached by the regulator. Some called for clear market guidance, even back in 2018. Others advocated for strategic ambiguity. Hinman was even warned that he was just making up the law rather than analyzing it.

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Thanks for reading -NLW