WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter - Jan 11

Welcome back to this week's edition of our WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter!

Coinbase wins

Coinbase has been in a legal battle since 2023 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over allegations that it operated as an unregistered securities exchange. Earlier this week, a judge ruled that the case can be paused so that Coinbase can appeal to a higher court about whether or not certain crypto assets can be considered securities. If Coinbase wins the appeal, meaning the appeals court rules that those crypto assets are NOT securities, then the SEC’s case against Coinbase would be dissolved. This would also impact current and future cases taken in the US against crypto exchanges.

Learn more here.

FTX return scams

Hopefully we won’t need to hear about FTX much more, but this is a general safety warning for anyone who is expecting a return from the court case: make sure you are receiving it through a verified FTX entity that has been approved by the courts. A crypto exchange in the EU called Backpack claimed that they acquired FTX EU and will be distributing the returns to EU customers, but FTX disputed this, clarifying that this has not actually been approved by the bankruptcy court. FTX’s official claims website is (and remains) claims.ftx.com, and all of the official documents related to the court case are available at restructuring.ra.kroll.com/FTX/. Be very suspicious of news or communications coming from any other sources.

Learn more here.

Starknet helping builders

Starknet has released the SN Stack (yes, we keep saying “snack” in our heads too), a set of tools that allow projects to develop their own custom app-chains using zero-knowledge tech. They are gearing this towards any kind of dApp, including exchanges and games. Tech stacks are becoming more popular, with competitors like Optimism’s OP Stack using different but similar technology for the same purposes. These stacks give builders better ease of access to a variety of options if they are interested in developing chains, and doesn’t require a ton of coding experience.

Learn more here.

Blockchain-based games to use AI

If you’ve ever played a video game and felt like the NPCs were too static or flat to really be engaging, you may be in luck. Illuvium, a game on Ethereum, will be integrating the Virtuals Protocol AI agents to make their NPCs more versatile and fluid. Virtuals has become really popular lately for their AI bots that are active on X, often fooling other users into thinking they are real people. So, in the near future, you may be able to exist in a game world where you aren’t sure if you’re interacting with a player or a bot, making the world far more fluid and everyone’s interactions unique. Of course, as cool as this is, there are concerns with this regarding privacy, agency, and security, but these same concerns are true in all use of AI and how that will be dealt with is a much larger question.

Learn more here.

US judge orders private key surrender

Remember how we always say that the most important thing in crypto is to keep your keys safe, secure, and private? It’s because anyone who has control of your keys has control of your crypto. In a first, a US federal judge ordered Richard Ahlgren, aka Paco, to give his private keys to the court. Paco has been sentenced for criminal tax evasion regarding misrepresenting his crypto gains, and owes over $1m. In order to retrieve that money owed, the government is demanding he give them the keys to all his wallets so they can take the money. This could have huge implications for future court cases. Governments can seize assets you have in banks and physical assets like your home or car, and now they are finding ways to seize digital assets too.

Learn more here.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something!

- Theodore