Daily Digest - 16 March 2023

Headlines

▌Uniswap announced that BNB Chain has been launched

Uniswap announced that it is now officially live on the BNB Chain. The BNB Chain offers Uniswap several advantages. According to the announcement, BNB Chain generally offers faster and cheaper transactions than the Ethereum mainnet, making Uniswap more accessible to a wider audience, similar to other chains like Polygon and Arbitum.

Policies

▌U.S. SEC Chairman: Proof of Stake Tokens can be regarded as securities

Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, suggested to reporters on Wednesday that under U.S. law, tokens using Proof of Stake Tokens can be considered securities. 

"The investing public is investing in expected returns, expecting something from these tokens, whether they're proof-of-stake tokens, and they're expecting returns on these proof-of-stake tokens and getting 2 percent, 4 percent, 18 percent," Gensler said. 

Gensler made the remarks after being asked to react to a statement last week by Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnam, reaffirming his own and his agency’s belief that ethereum is a commodity. 

Gensler spoke to reporters after the committee voted to move forward with three proposed rules aimed at strengthening cybersecurity, consumer privacy and system standards for the securities industry, which includes some companies involved in digital assets.

▌FDIC partners with Piper Sandler to restart plan to sell Silicon Valley Bank

According to market sources, the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation cooperated with Piper Sandler to restart the plan to sell Silicon Valley Bank. Additionally, the U.S. Treasury Department said it is closely monitoring the situation at Credit Suisse and is in touch with global counterparts. 

"Dr. Doom" Roubini said that the risk of Credit Suisse's collapse is not ruled out. According to the Financial Times, the stock price of Credit Suisse (CS) fell as much as 30 per cent, and have resulted in a broader sell-off in European and U.S. bank stocks. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has publicly offered Credit Suisse a liquidity backstop. Credit Suisse has also asked Swiss financial regulator Finma to back it. 

Opimas analyst Octavio Marenzi said the SNB may have to intervene and helping Credit Suisse seems inevitable. “The SNB and the Swiss government are fully aware that the collapse of Credit Suisse, or even any losses by depositors, would destroy Switzerland's reputation as a financial centre.”

Blockchain application

▌Paint and coating giant Sherwin-Williams submits a trademark application involving NFT

According to trademark and copyright attorney @NeerMcD on social media, Sherwin-Williams, the world’s most valuable paint supplier, has submitted a trademark application related to NFTs, which involves downloadable virtual goods, digital assets and multimedia. 

Files containing artwork, text, audio and video related to paints, paint colour chips will be authenticated by NFTs or a blockchain, and membership for their club services will be provided through NFTs. 

They also plan to debut an online retail store service with an online marketplace for  virtual goods, digital collectibles, and crypto-collectibles, featuring paints, paint colour chips, digital overlays, VR gaming, trading cards, and more, all authenticated by NFTs.

Cryptocurrency

▌U.S. SEC and Department of Justice accuse Miles Guo of cryptocurrency fraud

Exiled businessman Miles Guo was arrested in New York this morning on charges of a $1 billion fraud conspiracy involving cryptocurrencies. 

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that Guo, who goes by multiple names, duped thousands of online followers and bought, among other things, a 50,000 square foot mansion in New Jersey, Lamborghini, Bugatti, and Fedrrari sports cars, and nearly US$1 million worth of Chinese and Persian rugs.

Guo is also an associate of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former President Trump. In 2020, Bannon was charged with fraud and arrested on Guo's yacht, but received a pardon from then-President Donald Trump. 

The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York alleges that Kin Ming Je, also known as William Je, and Guo "fraudulently induced" their fans to fund an online membership club called G|CLUBS. 

The department said Guo and Je also "fraudulently obtained" more than $262 million through the so-called Himalaya Exchange, a crypto "ecosystem" that it said held a stablecoin called the Himalaya Dollar and a cryptocurrency called Himalayacoin. 

Guo and Je face 11 charges together, which could result in decades in prison. Je remains at large.

▌FHLBank: Silvergate has not stopped lending

The San Francisco Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) reportedly provided US$4.3 billion to Silvergate late last year and did not force Silvergate to repay the advance payment, which is rumoured to be the reason for the cryptocurrency-friendly bank to enter voluntary liquidation. 

A spokesman for the bank said, "FHLBank San Francisco did not require or coerce Silvergate Bank to prepay its outstanding advance payment, and Silvergate decided to prepay the outstanding advance payment based on its own assessment of its own situation." 

Silvergate Capital disclosed via a securities filing on March 1 that it had to speed up securities sales to raise funds to repay a San Francisco Federal Home Loan Bank advance. Silvergate Bank fully repaid the loans by the start of this month. 

Some in the crypto industry speculate that this ultimately sparked a bank run on Silvergate. Silvergate's share price plummeted the day after the disclosure, and days later it announced it was suspending operations and going into voluntary liquidation.

The spokeswoman said FHLBank could call for early repayments if there were "material adverse changes" in the banks it borrowed from, but that did not happen with Silvergate.