TLDR Crypto 2024-05-23

The United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority has given approval for WisdomTree to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded products (ETPs) on the London Stock Exchange. Though it will only be available to professional investors, it is the first in the UK after regulators banned crypto offerings in 2020.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), marking a significant bipartisan effort to provide regulatory clarity for the cryptocurrency sector, enhance consumer protection, and foster American innovation. As the bill progresses to the Senate, advocates are encouraged to actively support responsible crypto regulation through social media engagement and outreach to senators.

NEAR Co-founder Illia Polosukhin announced that NEAR will now focus on making NEAR the home for “User-Owned AI.” The project invests in NEAR-based AI infrastructure projects, including compute, data curation, data marketplaces, agents, and more. The NEAR AI R&D Lab plans to build an AI developer to make end-to-end Web3 applications without code.

EigenDA is opening up rollup deployments through a whitelisting process, which includes a free tier. Over 230 operators and 3.4M ETH secure the actively validated service via restaking. It also introduced a dual quorum model, where EIGEN holders can stake and add more security, eventually evolving into intersubjective security.

The US House is voting on the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) today. A pivotal bill that aims to establish clear regulations for the cryptocurrency market in the US, this legislation delineates jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC, introduces consumer protections, and sets out guidelines for when crypto networks are considered sufficiently decentralized, marking significant progress in defining and potentially stabilizing the crypto regulatory landscape.

To use Dexscreener effectively, set up token searches with specific filters, analyze coins by checking liquidity, volume, and social media presence, and use features like multiple chart monitoring, portfolio tracking, and token alerts for price fluctuations.

A hacker exploited an admin account to mint 5 billion GALA tokens, quickly selling off a portion for $21.8 million in Ethereum, despite Gala Games' efforts to contain the breach using its blocklist feature. This incident adds to Gala Games' troubled history, which includes previous massive token thefts and legal issues, casting further doubt on the company's security measures and internal integrity.

A Solana developer suffered third-degree burns during a livestream stunt where he doused himself in isopropyl alcohol and was hit by fireworks to promote his meme coin, TruthOrDare (DARE). The incident, which highlights the extreme lengths to which some go for cryptocurrency clout, resulted in significant injuries and hospitalization, raising concerns about the dangerous trends in live streaming for financial gain.

The Degen Chain, an L3 that settles Base and is operated by Conduit, recently experienced a large reorg and 54 hours of downtime.

Notcoin, a blockchain game on TON, has quickly gained popularity on Telegram, onboarding over 30 million users and setting up TON-based crypto wallets.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin believes the biggest user experience problem is that L2s don't have a “unified Ethereum” feeling.

Hong Kong has ordered Worldcoin to pause all operations in the region because of violations of local privacy regulations.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler has criticized the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), arguing that it would create regulatory gaps and reduce the oversight of crypto assets as securities, thus jeopardizing investor protection.