As any top hat-wearing pickup artist will tell you, half of seduction is wanting to be seduced.

And it’s unclear who initiated it, but there is some explosive, romantic chemistry between Crypto and European Banking.

They’re pulling out chairs for each other, blowing kisses, and utterly destroying jackets by chivalrously covering puddles.

And crypto exchange Bitstamp, in fact, is courting three crypto banks at once.

What’s that? Three dates? To the same dance!?

Espresso Shots

☕️ Ellison’s Tearful Rebuke

Ex-Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison took to the witness stand for the second day in an emotional testimony against Sam Bankman-Fried.

"I knew that we would have to take the money from our FTX line of credit and I knew that that was money that could be called at any time," Ellison testified, according to a Law.com report. "Every day, I was worrying about the possibility of customer withdrawals from FTX and the possibility of this getting out and what would happen to people that would be hurt by that."

Ellison started sobbing when she described the emotional weight that was lifted when the exchanges finally started to implode: “I just felt a sense of relief that I didn’t have to lie anymore.”

Earlier in her testimony, Ellison disclosed that she had created seven phony balance sheets under direction from SBF to cover up Alameda’s $10 billion in borrowing from FTX.

But crying at the witness stand may absolve Ellison of any blame. It’s a powerful move that some legal minds refer to as “the speeding ticket strategy.”

☕️ Reddit Token Surges

BRICK, the native token of Reddit’s Fortnite community, rose 110% in the last 24 hours.

BRICK, an ERC-20 token that was distributed throughout the subreddit, lost 80% of its value over the last two months but skyrocketed this week.

Most of the trading volume occurred on Kraken, but trading volume across exchanges numbered around $750,000, up to 800% from the day before.

We’re so excited about this development, you might just say we’re BRICKed up!

Wait, sorry, we just googled “bricked up.” We heard one of our nephews say it and thought it sounded cool. We’re not bricked up, we’re just… normal excited.

☕️ Platypus Attacked Again!

Platypus, a Stableswap protocol built on the Avalanche blockchain, suffered its second attack in 9 months, losing more than $2 million in AVAX, Avalanche’s native token.

The first attack took place last February when Platypus was hacked for $8.5 million of its native USP stabletoken.

Both hacks were flash loan attacks. A flash loan is when a hacker takes out a large, uncollateralized loan from a protocol and uses it to expose and exploit vulnerabilities within the protocol’s system.

Platypus was ultimately able to counter-exploit the February hacker and recoup 61% of its losses from the original hack. The protocol is currently dipping into its treasury to compensate those affected by this latest hack.

Will the hacking end or is Platypus still endangered? The Australia Wildlife Conservancy certainly seems to think so. And they’re warning the protocol not just about hackers, but the dangers of snakes, foxes, and getting tangled in fishing lines.

Polled Brew

Spilling the Beans

Crypto’s European Seduction 🌍 💋

Is there anywhere as romantic as Paris?

Kind of! Throughout Europe, there are gorgeous cities with thousands of years of history.

But Europe’s latest love affair isn’t between a lost tourist and a ruggedly handsome Italian bike messenger… it’s between Crypto and TradFi banks.

For a long time, Crypto and TradFi seemed diametrically opposed. Crypto offered anonymity and freedom that traditional banks would not and could not.

Some crypto-advocate spoke of “The Great Decoupling” in hushed whispers, that event when crypto would entirely spit from the old world of finance and become a kingdom unto itself.

But it seems rather than the Decoupling that Bitcoin maxis were dreaming of, we’re actually seeing a great “Coupling” as Crypto and TradFi get pretty steamy.

And Luxembourg-based crypto exchange Bitstamp has a torrid little fling taking place in Europe. And, like a late-season episode of “The Bachelor,” it’s courting three different European banks.

Though, like any experienced Casanova, Bitstamp is keeping the identities of the banks on the down low.

“In the last six to nine months, we’ve had quite an increase in inbound inquiries about this offering from large European banks,” said Robert Zagotta, CCO of Bitstamp Global and CEO of the U.S. division, in an interview with CoinDesk. We are in advanced conversations with three such banks, household name banks in Europe. I think first quarter-ish we will be able to announce.”

This sort of bank and crypto exchange cooperation is made possible by the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (or MiCA), which is a 29-nation establishment of a clear licensing and regulatory framework for crypto.

MiCA was created not just as a safety measure, but also as an incentive for Europe’s traditional financial institutions to get involved with digital assets.

It’s almost exactly the opposite of what we’re experiencing in America, where crypto advances are guided by mysterious, unclear regulations and punitive lawsuits.

We’ve already expressed jealousy over how smoothly crypto is advancing in Europe, but we’re tired of feeling envious; we need to start thinking selfishly.

Maybe these blossoming crypto-bank relationships might inspire American banks to do the same.

Bank of America currently allows customers to link their bank accounts to crypto exchanges, but that’s about it.

What if we started seeing true, crypto integration from American banks? BofA, Chase, hell, even Wells Fargo!

Like career-oriented 30-somethings, we’re hoping these crypto marriages will make American banks panic and rush out to find DeFi partners of their own.

It could even function the other way, with crypto exchanges reaching out to American banks after successful partnerships in Europe.

But American banks need to start going out and working on themselves because, with full MiCA implementation fast approaching, crypto’s cuffing season is almost upon us.

And if America doesn’t do something soon, our banks are going to languish on their couches, eating Ben & Jerry’s while they lower their standards on dating apps and seriously raise the age filter.

Crypto 101

ERC-20: These are fungible tokens built on the Ethereum blockchain.

ERC-20s are smart-contract-enabled and because they are fungible, they are interchangeable with other tokens.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: The only thing more romantic than a whirlwind European romance for TradFi and Crypto would be if the two met years later, at an American cafe in Morocco, during a World War, dissected their romance, then decided to be just friends.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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