EU's CRITICAL Crypto Law for Web3 Builders

Plus: free AWS credits for builders, 3AC founders GTX exchange

January 18, 2023

GM folks 👋🏻 - happy hump day 🐫, we have a lot to cover today. DCG suspends dividends, Coinbase, Coinbase halts Japan operations, and 3AC founders are back with a new project. The audacity. Let's dive in 👇

In Today's Email:

What Matters: EU's important crypto law postponed ‎‍👨‍⚖️
Case Study: 3AC and CoinFLEX founders' new exchange ⚠️
Features: Avalanche partners with AWS 🤝

WHAT MATTERS

EU's MiCA Final Vote Postponed

Sara Kurfeß

State of play: The EU parliament's final vote on Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), which is perhaps one of the most important crypto laws to be passed, has been postponed to April. The delay is supposedly a technical issue caused by the need to translate the 400-page file into 24 languages.

Why it matters: MiCA has a lot of practical impact on the crypto market. This isn't just a vague legislation piece that doesn't create any tangible rules. Founders need to be aware of the impact of MiCA and how it will affect their products. The most important piece that will affect crypto trading in European markets is the rule to restrict non-Euro-backed stablecoins. MiCA states a €200 million cap on transactions per day for non-Euro-backed stablecoins.

Additionally, MiCA requires:

Token issuers to publish white papers with technical roadmaps.
Crypto exchange/trading venues and wallet providers to register with authorities.
Stablecoin issuers to hold appropriate reserves.

For builders: Knowing how your products will be affected by MiCA is critical. For example, if you are allowing EU users on your platform, you might want to make sure that you get a head start in complying with MiCA. Post thorough technical roadmaps, register with the authorities (maybe via your "Labs" entity"), and so on.

For investors: When MiCA comes into effect, investors need to do additional diligence for European-based projects and teams. Although crypto is digital-first and global in nature, the full repercussions of MiCA rules for decentralized applications are yet to be seen. Paying close attention to MiCA for the next two years is critical.

CASE STUDY

FTX 2.0 -> GTX

State of play: Defunct crypto hedge fund 3AC and troubled crypto exchange CoinFLEX are reportedly pitching investors a new crypto exchange with a focus on claims trading. Yes, claims as in bankruptcy claims. The freaking irony 🤦

The full deck is available here.

The new exchange is going to be called GTX. Talk about the mother of bad taste in names. They're seeking to raise $25M. GTX will offer depositors the ability to transfer their FTX claims to GTX and receive credits in a token called USDG. They're planning to use the same concept to create markets for other ongoing crypto bankruptcies including Celsius, BlockFi, and many more.

It seems like after too many meditation sessions in Bali both founders are enlightened and decided to come up with a solution to the problem that they've created 🧘

GTX - arsonists returning to the scene of the crime, hawking buckets of water to their victims
— nic carter (@nic__carter)
4:17 PM • Jan 16, 2023

The move unsurprisingly angered crypto Twitter, which is a rare moment in unison where we all shouted the audacity. What's unfortunate is that the idea of creating a claims marketplace is not necessarily a bad one. Bitfinex has done something similar before with its LEO token. Here's a quick case study:

Bitfinex got hacked for 119,756 BTC in August 2016.
The value was $72M at the time
In 2019, Bitfinex launched its exchange token, called LEO, raising $1 billion.
LEO acts like most exchange token, providing discounts for traders, but with one unique feature.
- Bitfinex pledged to use recovered BTC from the 2016 hack to purchase LEO from the open market and burn it.
When the US authorities seized 94,000 BTC from the Bitfinex hack, the price of LEO soared.

Our take: Obviously, the mechanism of GTX will be much more complex than Bitfinex. Legal experts spanning jurisdictions need to be involved and GTX needs to be able to attract traders from its other markets, unlike Bitfinex which already had the brand name to continue its operation. When bad actors came around and offered a solution to the problem that they started not even a year out, people won't trust you even if your idea has some merit. Maybe they should continue their meditation session in Bali instead.

it's 2023, yup you can now post your stolen FTX assets as collateral, here at GTX
it's 2025, yup you can now post your stolen GTX assets as collateral, here at HTX
it's 2027, yup you can now post your stolen HTX assets as collateral, here at ITX
it's 2029, yup you can now post
— notsofast (@notsofast)
2:40 PM • Jan 16, 2023

If you enjoy reading this issue, please consider subscribing. It takes 1 minute of your time but it would mean the world to us 🙇

FEATURES & GOVERNANCE UPDATE

Avalanche Partners With Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS has partnered with Ava Labs, the company behind the L1 blockchain Avalanche. The partnership intends to make it easier for projects that are looking to launch and manage nodes on Avalanche. To achieve this, AWS will provide a one-click node deployment feature for Avalanche infrastructure and decentralized applications. They're also planning to add subnet deployment as a managed service to the AWS marketplace 🤝

“Looking forward, web3 and blockchain is inevitable,” Howard Wright, VP and global head of startups at AWS, said to TechCrunch. “No one can call the time or date or quarter that it’s going to happen and it’ll be mainstream, but we’ve seen the cycles of growth before. The velocity of this one seems like it’s accelerating and we’re just excited to be a part of this.”

Why it matters: Founder of Avalanche, Emin Gün Sirer, explained the nature of the partnership, citing that it's not a marketing play, but a real foundational partnership. AWS will contribute a substantial amount of credits to projects deploying subnets on Avalanche. This move might incentivize developers to build on Avalanche.

In the past, other chains have paid AWS to host some nodes, and has pitched this as "AWS partners with SomeChain." In reality, SomeChain was paying AWS -- they were a client of AWS. There was no meaningful partnership.
— Emin Gün Sirer🔺 (@el33th4xor)
6:24 PM • Jan 11, 2023

Other notable feature updates:

Dopex launches option liquidity pools.
Radiant launches v2 omnichain lending protocol.
DegenScore launches DegenScore cafe (beta).
Swell Network introduces ETH staking deposits.
Alchemy supports Apple Pay.
AAVE introduces v3 on Ethereum.
Myso launches v1.
Flare launches v1.
Lumina launches on Solana.

QUICK BITES

BNB Chain burns $500M in BNB tokens.
3AC Founders plans to raise $25M for a new crypto exchange.
HashKey Capital raises $500M for crypto fund III.
EU's MiCA final vote postponed.
DCG suspends dividends.
Nexo sues Cayman Islands regulator over rejected license.
Silvergate posts $1B loss as crypto industry suffers.
SEC racks up 50% increase in crypto enforcement actions.
Bernstein tells institutions to drop zero crypto exposure policy.
Vauld gets creditor protection until February 28.

MEME & NOTEWORTHY READS

@wassielawyer's thread on 3AC founders new exchange, GTX.
Andrew Kang's thread on 2022 Echo Bubble - Full thesis.
ConsenSys' report on the state of NFT markets.

Crypto bears this week
— Wall Street Memes (@wallstmemes)
6:44 PM • Jan 13, 2023

If you enjoy reading this issue, please consider subscribing. It takes 1 minute of your time but it would mean the world to us 🙇

Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.