The Scenius Sync (Issue #8)

Bitcoin King Steps Down, BlackRock Partners with Coinbase, & U.S. Treasury Sanctions Tornado Cash

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.

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Essential News 🗞

1. MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor steps down as CEO, assumes executive chair role

   • After 33 years as CEO, Michael Saylor, the founder of business analytics software provider MicroStrategy, and one of the biggest bitcoin bulls in the world, has stepped down as CEO assuming a new role as executive chairman starting on August 8.

2. BlackRock Announces Bitcoin Partnership With Coinbase

   • BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, announced a partnership with Coinbase Global. BlackRock’s institutional clients who also own digital assets on Coinbase will now be able to use Aladdin, the asset manager’s suite of software tools, to manage their portfolios and conduct risk analysis on investment decisions. For now, the partnership applies only to bitcoin and demand will determine how the partnership will expand to other digital assets.

3. US Treasury sanctions cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash

   • The Treasury is sanctioning DeFi mixing service, Tornado Cash. The regulator has added Tornado Cash and 44 associated Ethereum and USDC wallets to its Specially Designated Nationals list. The move is the agency’s second sanction of a mixing service and arguably the first designed to take down a DeFi protocol. It comes after the Treasury accused Tornado Cash of laundering more than $455 million for North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The Treasury’s action highlights the difficulty of balancing privacy with safety when it comes to mixers.

4. Solana’s $6M Exploit Likely Tied to Slope Wallet, Developers Say

   • After millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies were drained from Solana-based wallets, it has emerged that Slope, a Web3 crypto wallet service provider, is responsible for the exploit that resulted in over 9000 wallets being compromised from users on Slope and Slope-linked Phantom wallets. The Solana Foundation assured users that the exploit was not caused by a vulnerability in the Solana core code. Instead, the exploit was on the software used by multiple software wallets that are popular among network users.

5. Senate Plan Would Put Bitcoin, Ether Under Commodity Regulator’s Watch

   • Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) and top-ranking Republican John Boozman of Arkansas unveiled a plan that would empower the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to regulate spot markets for digital commodities, a newly created asset class. Currently the CFTC has authority to police derivatives, such as futures and swaps, rather than underlying commodities. The bill marks the latest salvo in an intensifying battle among federal agencies and congressional committees that oversee them over who will regulate crypto.

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Innovation & Adoption 💡📈

1. Morgan Stanley job posting points to wide-ranging crypto plans

   • The financial giant appears to be taking crypto more seriously and bulking up its product offerings by moving to hire a product development manager with a primary focus on building new crypto products. The position is to join the Investment Solutions Product Development team, which offers a wide-range of services that "support" more than $900 billion in assets under management across mutual funds, money market funds, 529 College Savings Plans and exchange-traded funds. 

2. Virginia pension fund invests in crypto lending in bid to boost returns

   • The Fairfax County Retirement Systems, a $6.8bn Virginia pension fund, gained approval from its board of trustees to start investing in “yield farming” in which investors lend out their digital tokens to crypto projects in return for a fixed stream of payments.

3. Starbucks to unveil its web3-based rewards program next month

   • Starbucks will unveil its web3 initiative, which includes coffee-themed NFTs, at next month’s Investor Day event. The company earlier this year announced its plans to enter the web3 space, noting its NFTs wouldn’t just serve as digital collectibles, but would provide their owners with access to exclusive content and other perks.

4. Brevan Howard Scores Largest Crypto Hedge Fund Launch Ever

   • The longtime global macro hedge fund firm has raised more than $1 billion for its flagship crypto vehicle. Employing a multi-manager and multi-strategy approach, the flagship puts limited-partner capital to work via both venture capital-style plays and liquid cryptos.

5. Meta Confirms NFT Rollout Across 100 Countries Amid Coinbase Integration

   • Following a series of testing phases, NFT integration is now live on Instagram across 100 countries. Once a digital wallet is connected, creators and collectors will have the ability to choose which NFTs from their wallet they would like to share on Instagram.