☕Senator Warren: strict regulations on crypto
During the Senate Banking Committee meeting, Senator Elizabeth Warren continued to talk about the potential dangers of blockchain technology. “All the warning signs are flashing,” said Warren. “The hype, the volatility, the wild claims that turn out to be false. As the crypto market grows, so do the risks to our financial stability and our economy.” Warren is one of the most prominent crypto skeptics among the other senators. She also wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and asked for stricter regulations around cryptocurrencies, citing risks from stablecoins, DeFi protocols, and more.
☕Binance decreases the withdrawal limit for its Basic level customers
Recently the regulators are keeping a close eye on the largest crypto exchange. As a result, Binance decided to decrease the withdrawal limit for users who haven't supplied IDs or photos. Binance has three levels of user verification. The Basic level asks for name, nationality, date of birth, and address. The second level asks for identification and photos and the third level requires proof of address in the form of a utility bill or bank statement.
The update is that the users who are verified only on a Basic level will be limited to daily withdrawals of 0.06 Bitcoin or the equivalent of roughly $2,000. The previous limit was 2 BTC per day or around $70,000 at today’s prices.
☕CZ is looking for a new Binance CEO
During an interview, CZ said that he is looking for his replacement. In the same meeting, he said that Binance US will follow the largest US crypto exchange Coinbase and will go public. “Right now I’m actually looking for a senior person with a strong compliance background, with a strong regulatory background to lead the entire organization, maybe become the new Binance CEO,” CZ said. “I’m a tech entrepreneur, I’ve led the company for four years and it’s good, and we’ve got to go through this pivot. I don’t think I’m the best person to lead that effort. I think having somebody with a very strong regulatory background is actually better.”
☕DeFi
The decentralized exchanges are already a crucial piece of crypto infrastructure for many who wanted to escape from the middlemen. A recent study found that from 3,090,721 crypto addresses that interacted with DeFi, the top three projects are either DEXs or DEX aggregators. On January 01 this year there were only 1M addresses. Among the top projects that have significant growth are Uniswap, Compound, 1inch Exchange, and SushiSwap.
For these of us who are not familiar, Compound is a popular lending and borrowing service for cryptocurrencies, 1inch Exchange is an aggregator of various crypto protocols including SushiSwap and Uniswap, and SushiSwap is a fork of Uniswap.