This Week on Crypto Twitter: From US Fed’s warning against Crypto to Pro-Crypto Comments at the G20 summit

In this brand-new series, we at CoinDCX want to keep you abreast of everything that has been happening on Twitter, crypto, and everything in between. While January 2023 was a month that was filled with action on the bullish side, the month of February was rather more subdued. This is because we are currently at pretty much the same level as we were at the start of this month. We also saw inflation numbers coming in this week from the US that mildly affected cryptos prices, but not for too long. Nonetheless, the month has been filled with a lot of to and fro in the world of crypto Twitter. Let’s take a look!

MONDAY – 20 FEBRUARY

The week began on a worrisome note with the Galois Capital, a crypto-focused hedge fund shutting down after having lost half of its $200 million in AUM or assets under management at the time, in the now-collapsed FTX crypto exchange – which happened back in early November 2022. Co-founder of Galois Capital Kevin Zhou took to Twitter from the fund’s official account to speak his mind. Weird. 

In spite of that, I am proud to say that although we lost almost half our assets to the FTX disaster and then sold the claim for cents on the dollar, we are among the few who are closing shop with an inception-to-date performance which is still positive.

— Galois Capital (@Galois_Capital) February 20, 2023

TUESDAY – 21 FEBRUARY

Pointing out how blockchain systems could solve settlement processes in the real-world stock market situation, Gaurav Juneja, a global multi-stage tech investor at Sea Capital and a former Goldman Sachs M&A took to Twitter to tag the founder and CEO of one of the largest stock market brokerages in India, Nithin Kamath and called for implementation of the 24×7 concept in the stock market too. 

Markets should be open 24 x 7 allowing information to be reflected in prices real time

So far the bottleneck has been the settlement process. Blockchain will enable instant settlement

Crypto markets are 24×7 and that’s the future of traditional assets as well

— Gaurav Juneja (@gjuneja1) February 20, 2023

WEDNESDAY – 22 FEBRUARY

FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried don’t seem to feature on the news practically every week. And now with the latest development, the defense fighting for SBF in the court – who stands charged with eight crimes, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering – proposed the appointment of a technical expert to advise the court on the matter.

🚨NEW: Just filed today, the defense expects to propose one or more potential candidates to act as an independent technical expert to advise the court on @SBF_FTX's bail conditions by the end of the week. pic.twitter.com/WfkF5frBAn

— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) February 21, 2023

Of late, there have been growing concerns regarding the upstart NFT marketplace that recently surpassed OpenSea in trading volumes. This NFT marketplace called Blur has been growing with a lot of momentum which resulted in increasing scrutiny coming in too. Some popular Twitter accounts have begun pointing out Blur’s business as being too focused on large, high volume traders and not really catering to true creators on the platform

53% of Blur's volume comes from just 500 wallets

(research by Archmage @jphackworth42 🧙✨)

The marketplaces are killing their profits, long-term relationships with creators and future growth prospects to compete for ~500 pro traders

— Kofi (@0xKofi) February 21, 2023

And this person isn’t the only one.

Hey! Here are some fun facts about NFT volume:

20% of Blur's volume comes from only 15 wallets.

50% of Blur's volume comes from less than 300 wallets.

Watch the top 500 farmers drive artificial volume live over any timeframe with source below ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/chDM6B7uMv

— poof (@poof_eth) February 22, 2023

On the same day crypto-friendly Republican senator, Tom Emmer introduced a bill that proposed to bar the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) directly to private individuals, which it claims could erode the average American’s right to financial privacy. The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act would also require the American central bank to report back to Congress about its experiments with digital currencies too.

Today, I introduced the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act to halt efforts of unelected bureaucrats in Washington, DC from stripping Americans of their right to financial privacy. 👇 pic.twitter.com/lONbHFZMk7

— Tom Emmer (@GOPMajorityWhip) February 22, 2023

Further, in light of the SEC crackdown on the Kraken crypto exchange and its staking feature provided to its customers – Commissioner of the SEC, Hester Peirce took to Twitter to speak her mind once again. She had been against the move by the SEC and took shots against her boss, Gary Gensler – who has been executing the regulation-by-enforcement strategy in the crypto industry. That strategy has so far involved suing high-profile crypto companies in the industry while offering little guidance on how to be compliant. 

Getting lots of questions re stablecoins & SEC: Facts & circumstances of course, but SEC should defer to Congress, which is actively considering the issue. In the meantime, we & other regulators could hold public roundtables. Enforcement actions aren't the way to write the rules.

— Hester Peirce (@HesterPeirce) February 22, 2023

THURSDAY – 23 FEBRUARY

This was another sad day in the crypto industry as the raging bear market and the weakness in its attempts to get back up has resulted in several crypto companies laying off employees to cut costs and maintain profitability. It began with Polygon laying off 20% of its staff earlier this month, totaling about a 100 employees in total.

On this day, one of the premier crypto analytical platforms, Messari also announced slashing 15% of its workforce in a similar cost-cutting measure amid the market blues. 

1/ Yesterday we made the difficult decision to restructure several of Messari’s internal teams, leading to a 15% staff reduction.

We're grateful for the contributions of the teammates we have parted ways with, and will provide resources and connections to help them transition.

— Ryan Selkis 🥷 (@twobitidiot) February 23, 2023

FRIDAY – 24 FEBRUARY

Continuing strongly on its path of increasing scrutiny in the crypto industry, the US Federal Reserve released a new statement on Thursday that reminded banks in the country of the inherent risks in dealing in cryptos and other related assets.

@federalreserve @FDICgov @USOCC issue joint statement on liquidity risks resulting from crypto-asset market vulnerabilities: https://t.co/XDTOB0SvPJ

— Federal Reserve (@federalreserve) February 23, 2023

SATURDAY – 25 FEBRUARY

The start to the weekend however, did see some positive news coming into the market with the Indian Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman at the G20 summit that is being presided over by India spoke about crypto assets and how global cooperation was required to draft a proper regulatory framework.

Read more on: Crypto Regulations discussions in G20 Summit

👉🏽 The finance minister emphasized the need to build and understand the macro-financial implications of #Crypto Assets to inform a coordinated global policy on #cryptocurrency.

— Keyur Rohit (@CryptoKingKeyur) February 25, 2023

And this was picked up by the crypto community at large too. 

🚨BREAKING- 🇮🇳Indian FM Nirmala Sitharaman & 🇺🇸U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen discussed issues concerning #Crypto assets and strengthen multilateral development banks ‼️👀#CryptoNews #Cryptocurency #BTC #ETH #cryptomarket pic.twitter.com/LNxYGBBA7d

— Ajay (everything hindi) (@EverythingAjay) February 25, 2023

But there have been some fearful comments against crypto tax and TDS regime that has been implemented in the country and the potential downsides of that. 

SUNDAY – 26 FEBRUARY

Sunday passed by with relatively lower newsflow and the crypto market went by in a relatively uneventful manner. Some peace before the storm, is it?

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