WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter - June 14

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

SEC chair declares self-custody a core American right

In a fiery policy speech, SEC Chair Paul Atkins slammed his predecessor’s crackdown on DeFi and staking as legally flimsy and hostile to new ideas. Atkins pledged to protect the right of Americans to self-custody crypto and floated a potential “innovation exemption” to shield on-chain projects from premature enforcement.

Learn more here.

Bitcoin Family hides seed phrase on four continents amid crypto kidnappings

After high-profile kidnappings of crypto investors, the “Bitcoin Family” has scattered segments of their wallet seed phrase across four continents. They've ditched hardware wallets entirely in favor of a partly analog and old-fashioned system. My opinion? Announcing this publicly is likely part of a campaign to reduce attempted or future attacks on the family, however now the world knows they have enough BTC that it’s worth implementing such a complicated system.

Learn more here.

U.S. seizes $7.7M in crypto tied to North Korean IT worker scheme

Federal authorities filed to confiscate almost $8 million in digital assets linked to fake IT workers funneling money back to North Korea. The scheme saw operatives pose as freelancers to get tech jobs abroad, using stolen identities and crypto wallets to evade sanctions. Speaking of scams, keep an eye out for those PDF-opening-initiated viruses!

Learn more here.

Bitcoin reaches into DeFi with major protocol change

A controversial Bitcoin update will increase OP_RETURN’s data limit from 80 bytes to 4MB, dramatically expanding what can be stored on-chain. This will allow frameworks from basic NFTs to full applications. Many OG Bitcoiners fear it will lead to the bloat of the chain. I personally like using other, more optimized chains for NFTs and DeFi, and enjoy BTC as it is, but who am I?

Learn more here.

Amazon and Walmart eye U.S. stablecoins, pending new law

Amazon and Walmart are reportedly exploring starting their own USD-pegged stablecoins! The effort hinges on Congress passing the GENIUS Act, which would create a legal framework for corporate-issued digital dollars. I’m not sure how you feel about this, but I am sure both behemoths would love the data they could extract from public transactions.

Learn more here.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something!

- Theodore