Binance CEO CZ seeks to sell stake in Binance.US
Exchange Binance.US and its founder Changpeng Zhao are seeking ways to decrease his stake in the company amid a regulatory crackdown, The Information reported.
CZ has tried to offload his stake since the summer of 2022, as Binance.US sought to lessen ties with global associate firm — and the world’s largest international crypto exchange — Binance Global.
Executives at Binance.US have deliberated lessening Zhao’s share as a way to up the company’s reputation as it faces increased scrutiny from US regulators, according to the publication.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Binance.US in March, slamming it with wilful evasion of federal law and operating an illegal digital asset derivatives exchange charges.
Memecoin PEPE continues decline despite Coinbase executive’s apology
Despite an apology from Coinbase executive Paul Grewal, memecoin PEPE continues to drop in price, down 36% on the day to $0.000001165 as of this writing.
Coinbase came under fire on Thursday after a May 10 newsletter and web post by the exchange associated the coin’s eponymous Pepe the Frog meme with alt-right hate.
The Pepe community was quick to point out the varied history of the meme, including a 2016 campaign to cleanse the meme of negative associations in the wider internet community, which triggered Grewal’s apology.
“We screwed up and we are sorry,” the chief legal officer tweeted, adding that the newsletter failed to reflect the full history of the meme.
The apology was met by the crypto community with a mixture of virtual back-patting for owning the mistake, calls to list the memecoin if Coinbase was truly sorry, and the expected avalanche of Pepe memes.
We screwed up and we are sorry.
— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) May 11, 2023
Yesterday we shared an overview of the $pepe meme coin to provide a fact-based picture of a trending topic. This did not provide the whole picture of the history of the meme and we apologize to the community.
NOW READ: Coinbase says ‘we screwed up’ after Pepe the Frog backlash
Terra founder Do Kwon tells judge his finances are ‘average’
Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon and his associate Han Chang-joon referred to their personal multi-million finances as “average” during a Thursday court hearing.
The fallen crypto king made the statement to a Montenegrin judge despite South Korean authorities freezing $176 million of Kwon’s assets the day before and DL News breaking the news that a wallet linked to Kwon made transactions worth roughly $7 million in crypto assets in the days leading up to the hearing.
Kwon pleaded not guilty to document falsification charges, following his March arrest while on the run from Interpol and various national authorities. Kwon and Chang-joon’s lawyer requested his clients be permitted to post bail at €400,000 each.
NOW READ: Do Kwon pleads not guilty to false passport charges in court and requests €400,000 bail
Ethereum mainnet unable to finalise transactions for 25 minutes
The Ethereum mainnet ran into as-yet unidentified technical issues Thursday, when network transactions were unable to finalise for around 25 minutes, CoinDesk reported.
Ethereum core developers tweeted to announce the issues, which were resolved shortly afterwards.
Ethereum has undergone two major updates over the past year, dubbed The Merge and Shapella, which did not incur any major issues to date.
But in seriousness - the beacon chain had a brief period of non-finalization just now. Good illustration for the robustness of the chain - while there was some slowdown of blocks, transactions continued to be processed as usual. We are back to normal now. https://t.co/QyRW91OFJ9
— ansgar.eth 🦇🔊 .oO (@adietrichs) May 11, 2023
NOW READ: Bitcoin fee surge spurs calls for changes to treat NFTs and meme coins as spam
US Chamber of Commerce defends Coinbase, slams SEC
The US Chamber of Commerce lent its support to exchange Coinbase in a Tuesday filing, and blasted the US Securities Exchange Commission for its regulatory approach against other crypto firms as well.
Coinbase sued the SEC in April for failing to respond to a public request made by the firm to establish regulatory clarity.
The Chamber of Commerce — a highly influential advocacy group in the US — alleged “substantial economic harm” done to Coinbase and the business community by the SEC’s enforcement-by-regulation approach.
Uniswap holds volume lead over centralised Coinbase for fourth month
Decentralised exchange Uniswap surpassed Coinbase, a centralised exchange, in trading volume for a fourth consecutive month in April, CoinDesk reported.
Though both exchanges have seen declines in volume since February, Uniswap has held above Coinbase for the period. Uniswap handled $37 billion in trading volume, compared to Coinbase’s $34 billion.
More web3 news from around the web…
Your crypto mining chips are no good for AI—here’s why — Decrypt
Watchdog files SEC lawsuit seeking documents related to XRP, ETH — Blockworks
Memecoins continue to dominate DEX volumes As crypto market slides — The Defiant
