Yes, ma’am, we’d like to speak to your boss, the boss of crypto, because you’re simply not helping us.

No, this isn’t a service issue, we’re perfectly happy with our crypto. We just want to talk to a manager.

It’s just that New York Times article about the power vacuum in crypto has us worried about who’s in charge, and we’d like to speak with whoever’s in charge about it.

Okay, I feel like you’re not understanding me. Do you have some sort of coffee-themed crypto newsletter that could clear things up?

Espresso Shots

☕️ Coinbase Takes SEC to Court 🏛 🤵

The SEC denied Coinbase’s rulemaking decision, and the exchange intends to take the regulatory body to court, yet again.

The petition was an attempt by Coinbase to get the SEC to clarify crypto rules for the American digital assets industry.

Last year, the SEC denied a similar petition from Coinbase asking for clearer rules and regulations to govern digitally native securities.

The most recent petition, filed in April, went nine months with no response. Prompting Coinbase to ask the courts to push the SEC for an answer.

And that answer was delivered by SEC Chairman Gary Gensler in a statement on Friday, claiming that The existing securities regime appropriately governs crypto asset securities”. 

Coinbase will once again have to go through the justice system to try and hold the SEC accountable for its “abdication of duty”.

Brian Armstrong also intends to take Gary Gensler to family court to finally determine if they’re the same man from alternate timelines.

☕️ Crypto’s $78 Million Booster 💰 💉

The cryptocurrency industry has raised $78 million in an attempt to boost PACs which would support crypto-friendly lawmakers.

And that sum was raised in the last three months of 2023 by three super PACs, Fairshake, Protect Progress, and Defend American Jobs.

The donations will go to congressional candidates on both sides of the aisle, and some of the notable fundraisers include Andreessen Horowitz, the Winklevoss twins, and Coinbase.

We’re impressed but don’t understand why they needed $78 million for their booster. Your server at Chili’s will bring one out for free.

☕️ FTX Estate May End Bankruptcy 🏡 ☠

The team in charge of the FTX estate submitted a proposal in the Delaware court system to end the exchange’s bankruptcy.

The proposal includes a reorganization plan that will prioritize creditor and customer claims and calculate the value of the claims based on their worth at the time of FTX’s bankruptcy filings.

The estate feels this will pull the exchange out of the bankruptcy period and “maximize and efficiently distribute value to all creditors.”

A hearing date for the proposal will be set in 2024.

Weirdly, the bankruptcy proposal also contained a Christmas wish list and several paragraphs on how FTX has “been so good this year.”

Spilling the Beans

Crypto’s Kingless Kingdom 👑 🏰

Our brains get confused when nobody’s in charge of something. We simply don’t like it. 

Maybe it goes back to fiefdoms. Everyone had to labor under a king, and if you weren’t operating under some feudal lord who was in charge of a company of knights, you were vulnerable to attack.

No, we couldn’t leave serfs alone to do their favorite thing, which we assume was surfing, we had to put a leader in place.

And even centuries later, when we relocated Democracy out of Greece and into the important countries, we still have to elect a leader just to show how “ruled by the people” we really are.

So, even in a space like crypto, which claims to be decentralized, outsiders are always going to ask “Who’s the leader, who’s in control?” of this space.

And nowhere is that sort of naivete more evident than in this recent article by The New York Times titled, “The Power Vacuum at the Top of the Crypto Industry.”

The article posits that with Sam Bankman-Fried in jail and Changpeng Zhao most likely in jail, albeit for a much shorter, it feels like there’s nobody in charge, no figurehead, for crypto.

“With the two men out of the picture, a crowded field of crypto entrepreneurs, Wall Street executives and government regulators are vying to control the industry’s next chapter. Their scramble for influence could determine whether crypto survives in the United States, where a regulatory crackdown has made it increasingly difficult for the industry to operate.”

The article goes on to suggest Richard Teng, CZ’s replacement as Binance’s CEO, and Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s chief technology officer, may be the heirs apparent to the empty throne.

But of course, the NYT ultimately concludes that Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, one of crypto’s both vocal and most stable advocates, may ultimately be the greatest beneficiary of this power reshuffle.

Though, what this article really demonstrates is that the NYT doesn’t quite get crypto.

The whole point of crypto is that it’s decentralized, by its nature, there is no central figurehead.

If anything, crypto’s most prominent figures follow the trajectory of the demi-gods of the internet. Empires rise and fall. Bill Gates gives way to Elon Musk, etc. etc.

And even when Bill Gates was the talk of the town, he wasn’t the president of the internet.

There isn’t a power vacuum in crypto, because by design, no individual or entity can seize power.

However, if there was a president of crypto, it wouldn’t be Brian Armstrong, it would be Ben Armstrong aka BitBoy, delivering unhinged State of the Union Addresses from his car.

Crypto 101

PAC: You’ve probably heard of a “Super PAC” before, but maybe you’d never taken the time to actually find out what that means.

A PAC is a “political action committee” organized to raise money to either defeat or elect political candidates.

This is where all of those campaign contributions go.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: If Crypto was going to have a leader, and we’re not saying it does, it would have to be a Triumvirate like in ancient Rome. The high council would consist of the digital ghost of Satoshi Nakamoto, his sidekick, BitBoy, and the ghoulish Crypto Keeper.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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