Scenius Sync (Issue #90)

BTC Hits All-Time High Against Euro & Pound, Coinbase Glitch Shows $0 Balance, SEC (Predictably) Delays Spot ETH ETF, Alien CryptoPunk Fetches 4,500 ETH & EigenLayer TVL Tops $10B

Scenius: The intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. The communal form of the concept of genius.

Welcome to The Scenius Sync.

Our mission with this concise publication is twofold:

1. Share the essential stories driving the crypto industry and markets.

2. Highlight innovative applications and mainstream adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.

If you find this newsletter valuable, please subscribe and share The Scenius Sync with your network 💪

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Essential News 🗞

1. Coinbase glitch shows $0 balances again amid soaring bitcoin prices and trading volume

   • Coinbase's trading platform is once again experiencing problems amid heavy trading in crypto, including showing some customers their account balance was $0. "We are aware some users may experience increased latency ... and a few users may see intermittent zero balance," Coinbase said in a post to X. "Rest assured, your funds are safe. Our team is investigating this issue and will provide an update. Trading is not impacted at this time." Less than a week ago, the U.S.-based exchange reported that a heavy load of traffic had caused the same technical glitch to occur.

2. U.S. Judge Enters Default Ruling Against Ex-Coinbase Insider, Says Secondary Market Sales Are Securities Transactions

   • In an insider trading case involving Coinbase’s former product manager Ishan Wahi, his brother Nikhil Wahi, and their friend Sameer Ramani, a U.S. court ruled on March 1, that the trading of certain crypto assets on a secondary market, which Coinbase is, are securities transactions. “The court’s analysis remains the same even to the extent Ramani traded tokens on the secondary market,” the ruling said. “... Each issuer continued to make such representation regarding the profitability of their tokens even as the tokens were traded on secondary markets. Thus, under Howey, all of the crypto assets that Ramani purchased and traded were investment contracts.”

3. SEC delays decision on BlackRock's spot ethereum ETF proposal, seeks public feedback

   • The SEC delayed making a decision and asked for public comment for two proposed spot Ethereum ETFs from Fidelity and BlackRock. The agency asked specifically about whether Ethereum’s proof of stake mechanism raised ” unique concerns about ether’s susceptibility to fraud and manipulation.” 

4. Nigeria reportedly demands $10 billion from Binance in damages: BBC

   • The Nigerian government has reportedly demanded a minimum of $10 billion from Binance amid the country's crackdown on the crypto exchange and a devaluation of the country's local currency.

5. Wall Street Journal Accused of Defamation Over 2023 Tether-Bitfinex Article

   • Christopher Harborne and AML Global Ltd. have sued The Wall Street Journal for defamation, alleging false accusations of fraud, money laundering and financing terrorism in a March 2023 article.

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Innovation & Adoption 💡📈

1. Bitcoin breaches all-time high against euro and pound

   • Bitcoin has hit an all-time high against the euro and pound. On Monday, the market-leading cryptocurrency reached all-time highs of €60,447 and £51,736 on Coinbase. The foremost digital asset has increased by almost 6% in the past 24 hours, changing hands for $65,163 at 5:34 a.m. ET. 

   • At the time of writing, BTC was hovering just over $68,000 USD.

2. Second-most expensive CryptoPunk ever sells for 4,500 ETH, worth over $16 million

   • CryptoPunk #3100, one of nine so-called "Alien Punks," sold for 4,500 worth $16.03 million.  The sale is the second-highest CryptoPunk transaction ever in both U.S. dollar and ether terms, according to the CryptoPunks platform. The sale also moved CryptoPunk #3100 from the third- to second-highest ever sale on the marketplace. 

3. Wormhole Airdrop on Ethereum and Solana Could Be Worth Almost $3 Billion

   • Cross-chain bridge protocol Wormhole is gearing up for a multi-billion dollar airdrop of its upcoming W token, pre-market trading data suggests. On Monday, W traded for 2.49 USDT in OTC trades recorded through Bybit— more than five times higher than it traded for one month ago in the perpetual futures market. At the time, Wormhole published a tokenomics and unlock schedule for W, which entailed a token generation event that would immediately release 1.1 billion tokens, with another 600 million tokens released to the community over the next several months. The math adds up to an immediate airdrop worth $2.73 billion at current prices, potentially one of the largest airdrops in crypto history.

4. EigenLayer’s total value locked surpasses $10 billion

   • The total value of assets deposited to EigenLayer has risen around tenfold from $1.1 billion year-to-date, reaching $10 billion at the time of writing—some 2.93 million ether. EigenLayer offers a protocol for users to deposit and “re-stake” ether from various liquid staking tokens, aiming to then allocate those funds to secure third-party networks. Part of the reason for this surge is the continued ether deposits on Eigen (primarily via liquid restaking protocols) coupled with the increase in ether’s price. The protocol’s stage 1 launched on the Ethereum mainnet in June 2023. Within the next eight months, the protocol’s TVL had surged to over $6 billion in February.

5. What Is the Bitcoin Halving? How Bitcoin's Supply Is Limited

   • Every four years, the amount of Bitcoin doled out to cryptocurrency

     miners halves in a process imaginatively known as the Bitcoin halving (or halvening, though the term has fallen out of favor in recent years). Here’s why—and how—it works.