Scenius Sync (Issue # 148)
Atkins Confirmed By Senate, Trump Kills DeFi Broker Rule, CryptoPunk Whale Pleads Guilty To Hiding Profits From IRS, Mantra Crashes 90%, & Ripple Acquires Hidden Road In Huge Crypto M&A Deal
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Essential News 🗞
US Senate votes to confirm Paul Atkins to lead the SEC as it enters crypto friendly era
The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump's pick for SEC Chair, who is expected to embark on creating a regulatory framework for digital assets. The Senate confirmed Atkins by 52 to 44 votes on Wednesday. Trump tapped Atkins in December to lead the SEC and is expected to take a much more friendly approach to crypto. Atkins founded the consulting firm Patomak Global Partners in 2009 and the firm has clients including banks, crypto exchanges and DeFi platforms, according to its website. He was also appointed by former President George W. Bush as an SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008.
More coverage from CoinTelegraph, here.
Trump signs resolution killing IRS DeFi broker rule
US President Donald Trump has signed a joint congressional resolution overturning a Biden administration-era rule that would have required decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to report transactions to the Internal Revenue Service. Set to take effect in 2027, the so-called IRS DeFi broker rule would have expanded the tax authority’s existing reporting requirements to include DeFi platforms, requiring them to disclose gross proceeds from crypto sales, including information regarding taxpayers involved in the transactions. Trump formally killed the measure by signing off the resolution on April 10, marking the first time a crypto bill has ever been signed into law, Representative Mike Carey, who backed the bill, said in a statement.
Mantra’s OM Crashes 90% in Bizarre Selloff as Team Alleges 'Forced Liquidations'
Crypto traders were reminded of Terra’s LUNA early Monday as trendy real-world asset upstart Mantra’s OM token dropped 90% within hours on no sudden catalyst — with conspiracy theories and allegations running abound among crypto circles. OM plunged from over $6 to just over 40 cents late Sunday to early Monday in typically low liquidity hours for the crypto market — where outsized volumes can trigger massive price movements in either direction. “We want to assure you that MANTRA is fundamentally strong,” the team said in an X post following the price drop. “Today’s activity was triggered by reckless liquidations, not anything to do with the project. One thing we want to be clear on: this was not our team. We are looking into it and will share more details about what happened as soon as we can.”
See X post from the founder, here.
And more coverage here: The Daily: MANTRA debacle sparks liquidations and accusations as Laser Digital denies role in OM token crash and more
CryptoPunk whale pleads guilty to hiding $13M profits from IRS, faces up to 6-year sentence
Waylon Wilcox, a 45-year-old man from Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, has pleaded guilty to underreporting his income to the IRS, avoiding millions of dollars in tax payments related to his sale of nearly 100 CryptoPunk NFTs. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Wilcox received over $13 million from his sales of 97 CryptoPunks in 2021 and 2022, but failed to disclose the sales on his taxes, avoiding nearly $3.3 million in tax payments. The legal case appears to be the first major case regarding tax evasion from NFT sales in the U.S.
SEC drops unregistered securities claims against Nova Labs, Helium says
Nova Labs, the creator of the Helium Network, said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped its claims that the firm sold unregistered securities. That means that selling "hardware and distributing tokens for network growth" does not automatically make them securities, Helium said on Thursday in a blog post. "After the prior leadership at the SEC sued Nova Labs on the literal eve of the incoming administration, this landmark outcome is a pivotal turning point for the Helium community and the entire crypto industry, removing legal uncertainty for DePIN projects that use crypto incentives to build real-world infrastructure," the firm said.
Innovation & Adoption 💡📈
Ripple acquires crypto-friendly prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion
In one of the largest deals in the crypto space to date, crypto payments company Ripple is acquiring prime brokerage Hidden Road for $1.25 billion in an effort to expand its services for institutional investors. The acquisition represents an effort by Ripple, the company behind XRP, to integrate a broader range of services that will attract large institutions, CEO Brad Garlinghouse told Fortune. “Ripple needs to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to appeal and expand to a larger segment of the biggest bulge bracket institutions,” he said. The deal consisted of mostly cash as well as XRP and stock, Garlinghouse said. The acquisition will close in the coming months pending regulatory approval, and Hidden Road founder Marc Asch will stay on to head the prime broker at Ripple.
Visa Is Joining the Paxos, Robinhood Stablecoin Consortium: Sources
Visa is joining the Global Dollar Network (USDG), a stablecoin consortium convened by U.S. regulated digital asset firm Paxos, alongside cryptocurrency and fintech heavyweights like Robinhood, Kraken and Galaxy Digital, according to two people familiar with the plans. Visa is the first traditional finance incumbent known to be joining USDG, whose initial cohort of members also includes Anchorage Digital, Bullish (the owner of CoinDesk) and Nuvei.
San Francisco-based crypto exchange Kraken has added U.S. equities trading to its mobile and web platforms in a step forward for its offerings. The move will allow U.S. customers to manage crypto, stocks and Wall Street funds from a single account, similar to brokerages like Robinhood. This expansion, executed in collaboration with licensed broker-dealer Alpaca, enables customers to trade over 11,000 U.S.-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds commission-free. More than half of the new offerings will include fractional investment, meaning buyers can purchase less than one whole share.
Standard Chartered and OKX pilot crypto, tokenized fund collaterals
Standard Chartered and cryptocurrency exchange OKX are piloting a new program allowing institutions to use crypto assets and tokenized money market funds (MMFs) as collateral. Announced on April 10, the collateral mirroring program enables off-exchange collateral usage while enhancing security by placing custody with a globally systemically important bank, according to a joint statement from the companies. The pilot has been launched under the regulatory oversight of the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority, with Standard Chartered acting as a regulated custodian in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). The program launched in collaboration with crypto-friendly asset manager Franklin Templeton and features Brevan Howard Digital among the first institutions to trial the new capability.
Restaurant star Ben Leventhal raises another $50 million for crypto dining app Blackbird
Blackbird Labs announced its newest tranche of funding: $50 million in a Series B round led by Silicon Valley investor Spark Capital. Other participants were Coinbase, a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures, and Amex Ventures. The raise was for company equity along with token warrants, or allocations of a yet-to-be-released cryptocurrency. Leventhal, who said he raised the funds in the fourth quarter of 2024, declined to disclose the round’s implied valuation. Blackbird Labs has raised $85 million since 2022. Blackbird is a loyalty and payments app for restaurants. Every time users visit a restaurant registered with the app, they receive rewards in the form of an in-house cryptocurrency called $FLY. Users can use the cryptocurrency to pay for meals anywhere in Blackbird’s network, which encompasses over 600 restaurants across New York City, San Francisco, and Charleston, South Carolina. “We want to be in the great cities of the U.S.,” Leventhal said, though he declined to say which cities his app was targeting next.