Coinbase Backs the Tornado Cash Suit, the SIP Process, the BNS Craze, & Do Kwon on the Run

Coinbase Backs the Tornado Cash Suit

Coinbase, the largest and most popular U.S Cryptocurrency Exchange is backing the Tornado Cash Suit against the U.S Treasury Department. The U.S Treasury department sanctioned Tornado Cash’s mixing software (the code) because it believes that Tornado Cash has been used by North Korea to launder ”billions” from crypto hacks and exploits.

It’s surprising that Coinbase took such a major step to outwardly fund the case, considering the risk of concern from its own retail and private investors. Coinbase is funding a court challenge from six plaintiffs who used the mixing service for legal purposes.

Armstrong says, “We support the Treasury sanctioning bad actors and have worked closely with law enforcement to help bring many bad actors to justice. But the Treasury's actions in this case hurt many law-abiding citizens in addition to a few bad actors, and we believe exceeds their authority”.

Coinbase states that”,” the Treasury Department has overstepped its authority by sanctioning software. Which directly goes against the first amendment, freedom of speech. The Tornado Cash software is code, this directly impacts free speech and can set a new world order against cryptocurrencies, whether they are decentralized or centralized.

Stay tuned as this case continues to unfold!

The BNS Crase

The Blockchain Naming System (BNS) is the latest cryptocurrency craze. BNS names are only available through the Stacks Ecosystem, which is secured by Bitcoin.

Ethereum communities are running to mint .btc names in high volumes similar to the Ethereum Name System (ENS).

What is a BNS?

1. A BNS domain name gives users globally unique names, like Muneeb.btc.

2. These names are owned by them and each name is meaningful.

3. Chosen by the user.

Check out this article on how to get a .btc domain step-by-step, click here.

Not to mention, Gamma the NFT Marketplace secured by Bitcoin now offers FREE discord bot support for watching BNS registrations in discord servers. These bots are free to any discord.

Euro Falls Under a Dollar

For the first time in over 20+ years, the Euro falls under $0.98 against the U.S dollar. While payments using the Euro dropped down to 34% in August (2022). According to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), this is a percent lower than the previous month.

Europe is steadily moving closer to a recession. With inflation rates skyrocketing to 9.1% up from 8.9% in July (2022). Meanwhile, the energy crisis is heightened by Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Ultimately, other currencies such as the South Korean won, the British pound, and the Euro have dropped to a record low against the dollar. Losing attractiveness for consumer spending and saving versus the U.S dollar. Countries all around the world are on the brink of a global recession and are turning to the dollar as a store of value.

Microstrategy Buys 301 Bitcoin

Microstrategy, an analytics platform that specializes in business intelligence, mobile software, and cloud-based services, is going all in on Bitcoin. In a recent purchase, Microstrategy acquired an additional 301 Bitcoin at roughly $6 Million USD.

Microstrategy now owns 1 out of every 161.5 Bitcoin that will ever exist.

Not to mention, MicroStrategy made headlines earlier this month by announcing the sale of $500 Million USD worth of MicroStrategy common stock. MicroStrategy released a Prospectus supplement (a prospectus dated June 14, 2021).

A prospectus is an important disclosure document that a company must issue when issuing investment securities to the public. These formal documents give the public detailed information to potential investors about investment offerings to the public (mutual funds, ETFs, bonds, stocks, and other forms).

While a prospectus supplement is a document that provides information that was omitted from the “original” prospectus filed with the SEC. Which is the current document Microstrategy released to the public on selling up to $500 Million USD worth of common stock for Bitcoin.

Although it’s not stated that this sale is to outright purchase more Bitcoin, we can safely assume that it will be!

Stacks Improvement Proposals (SIPS)

Hero Gamer is the host of Stacks Improvement Proposal call. A weekly call that highlights upgrades and updates in the Stacks Ecosystem (secured by Bitcoin).

Hero Gamer started off helping fellow Stacks users solve transaction problems and assisting new users to find educational resources. Which naturally led him to become a SIP Resident for the Stacks Foundation, ALEX’s Community Manager, and the Host of SIP.

I sat down with Hero to get the alpha behind SIP and here’s the scoop!

What is the purpose of SIP?

@HeroGamer says, the purpose of SIP is “A more organized way of standardizing the format of improving Stacks. Without any system or format in place, it’d be chaotic.

SIP is a robust vetting process which allows the network to make improvements consistently to a high quality. The SIP process intertwines all the different aspects and ideas coming to light.

How is SIP improving the community?

SIP allows for cross-community collaborations. Which allows the community to be a part of the decision making process.

SIP is the actual proposal (specification/document), that has a format, with detailed specifications for that particular proposal.

While, the SIP process, is the facilitation of the document being adopted. The role is to facilitate the decision making. At any point in time in the SIP process, different parties play different roles”.

Community members can participate, at every step. Which allows every process to be as open as it can be. Improving the community is a broad process and SIP helps the users feel more valued. Ultimately, this creates better interactions between the entities, users, and cross-community interactions.

The SIP Process Explained

The SIPs process facilitates development of Stacks improvement ideas from the beginning to the end, whether it's to do with governance, cross-communication standard, NFT standard, blockchain consensus, blockchain optimization or tokenomics related.

If you think there is a better process, you can make a suggestion and it can be reviewed. Community members can share ideas for how the Stacks Blockchain is governed. Which indirectly allows more community autonomy.

This year we have a big SIP coming SIP-015 which is also referred to as Stacks 2.1 Upgrade, which brings a host of new functionalities to Stacks, such as improving the way you use stacking, setting up the building blocks to improve better connection with Bitcoin to unlock and much more..!

As time goes on, we’ll continue to see community involvement and new SIPs emerge.

SIP’s Decentralized Decision-Making vs. Centralized Decision Making

Decision making shouldn’t just be decided by the developers, it should include the community, including its end users. A more decentralized blockchain would like to aim for that. Not all blockchains are like this though, each chain has its own ethos.

Bitcoin is all about decentralization and Stacks is a close chain to Bitcoin, most protocols have some sort of “SIP”, Bitcoin has BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposals) for example, and every chain has its own way of documenting for improvements.

While, centralized decision-making, will lead to things being changed without the communities awareness and consent.

You want global consent, you need a high degree of consent for decision-making to work.

If you want to learn more and see the SIP process in full action, tune into Stacks Improvement Proposal calls, every Friday at 11 AM eastern standard time with HeroGamer.btc!

Bitcoin NFT Gaming

Bitcoin NFT Gaming

Project Indigo, an NFT project secured by the Bitcoin blockchain, has been quietly innovating during the bear market.

Early this year, Project Indigo rolled out story mode. Which are short interactive chapters, that provide token holders with the opportunity to interact with the main characters, in the world of Project Indigo. Story mode is only accessible through owning an Act 1 Wastelander NFT.

This is yet another example of membership into communities accessible through tokenization (i.e owning an NFT).

During the bear market, the team is working on the release of Raid mode. Raid Mode will be the first on-demand gameplay for Project Indigo and other NFT projects secured by Bitcoin. This is done through owning an Act 1 NFT, to battle against monsters for $TOX and XP rewards. This model is currently in active development.

The Project Indigo Team says, “Raid mode will begin as a simple RPG battling system with increasing rewards, the longer the party is able to survive. The system leaves plenty of room for expansion with strategic features, equipment, items, and more planned for the future. More on this next time”.

NASDAQ Launches Crypto Custody Solution

The Nasdaq U.S stock exchange is now gearing up to launch its own crypto custody solution for its institutional clients. This is going to be a HUGE push for Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency.

In recent headlines, XP Inc, the largest broker in Brazil has joined forces with Nasdaq (August of 2022). XP Inc, a Brazilian investment management company, officially launched Bitcoin trading services for its 3.6 Million users. Which is now linked to Nasdaq and will allow Brazilian citizens direct exposure to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Traditional firms are now running to create Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency trusts and custodial services. Ultimately, this will allow institutions and private clients to amass generational wealth while the prices are low/affordable.

Do Kwon on the Run

Do Kwon the founder of Terraform Labs (Terra Luna) is currently wanted due to the loss of over $40 Billion USD from the Terra Luna collapse. Recently, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office states that”,” Do Kwon was not cooperating with the Terra Luna investigation and had told the agency through his lawyers that he had no intention to appear for questioning.

In a recent tweet, Do Kwon states that he is not on the run at all.

However, South Korean prosecutors deny Do Kwon’s claims. While tracking his whereabouts, Kwon fled to Singapore the same day the tweet was released (Saturday, September 17th, 2022) and as it stands now, the Singapore government officials cannot locate Do Kwon within the country.

More to come on this developing case!

Weekly Update on Bitcoin

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