SEC Under Immense Pressure from ETF Applicants

Plus growing scrutiny around a Twitter influencer

Author

Nathaniel Whittemore
June 29, 2023

The Breakdown Not So First Five - Thursday June 29, 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. Sorry for the delay - traveling back to the US today!

Prompt: political cartoon of political pressure

5. Mastercard piloting tokenized bank deposits

Mastercard will launch a testbed network in the UK this summer to pilot tokenized bank deposits. The network will partner with a number of commercial banks and will form the basis for the adoption of regulated stablecoins and a CBDC in due course. Mastercard has indicated the network will allow for payments programmability and could provide cross border payments with participating financial institutions.

4. Digital Euro moving forward

The controversial Euro CBDC legislation has been proposed. Privacy protections are at the top of the agenda with the legislation providing for cashlike offline payments, although technical feasibility is another question. ECB head Christine Legarde is backing the legislation, stating that, “You’ve got to be ready. You want to keep the sovereignty of your currency”.

3. Superstate Bond Fund

Compound founder Robert Leshner has filed with the SEC to launch a tokenized bond fund called Superstate. The fund will invest in short duration US government backed bonds using a dual accounting system. Ownership will be recorded using traditional methods as well as on the Ethereum blockchain. The structure could be used for transfer of ownership over Ethereum in the future, but for now the public ledger could have operational efficiencies for owners.

2. Mario Downfal

Crypto influencer and Twitter spaces regular Mario Nawfal is reportedly being investigated by the SEC and the FBI after a pair of whistleblower interviews. The allegations range from failure to pay employees, embezzlement and tax evasion. Nawfal is also accused of using bots to boost his numbers on Twitter. Nawfal denies all allegations.

1. ETF amendments

The filing for the proposed ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF has been amended to include a similar surveillance sharing agreement to the Blackrock application. A US-based Bitcoin spot exchange is said to be participating in the agreement. WisdomTree, VanEck and Galaxy have all made similar amendments to their filings. Industry belief is that this change may force the SEC’s hand in granting approvals.

Thanks for reading -NLW