WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter - Mar 8

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

US crypto stockpile Executive Order

On Thursday, it was made clear that the US government was not planning to buy new crypto (yet) but rather would just hold on to what they’ve already got and put it in a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.” This will include the crypto assets they’ve seized through criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings that they have not yet sold. This stockpile is at least 95% bitcoin as far as estimates go, but no official report has been given. Opinions about whether this stockpile is actually good for crypto or not vary widely. The clarity was released in an Executive Order signed by Donald Trump and discussed in Friday’s Crypto Summit held in the White House.

Learn more here.

Ethereum Foundation restructures

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) shifted former director Aya Miyaguchi to the role of president, and brought in two co-executive directors, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak. Both Wang and Stańczak have been active members of the Ethereum ecosystem for years and bring with them a renewed sense of progress and community leadership.

Also this week, the EF announced it was supporting ZKNox, an advanced cryptography startup that will build better cryptographic models to protect blockchains from the threats posed by quantum computing. This follows concerns triggered by the recent release of more accessible and effective quantum computers that may be able to crack the encryption used to secure blockchains.

Learn more here.

US SEC declares memecoins are not securities

The memecoiners can all breath a collective sigh of relief knowing that their huge wins (and losses) are “akin to collectibles” and thus won’t be treated as financial instruments, i.e. securities. There are still too few clarifications regarding these and other assets as far as regulation, taxation, etc. but this is a good start for at least having some clarity.

In related news, a16z crypto released a “playbook” defining seven different varieties of digital assets that is intended to help “consumers and policy makers” make better decisions in relation to the types of assets under question.

Learn more here.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something!

- Theodore