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Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies traded sideways throughout the week, with the world’s largest cryptocurrency hovering around US$30,000 for now.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at US$30,205.34 (-0.12%) while Ethereum (ETH) is trading at (+0.03%). Major altcoins such as Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX) have been trading in green over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, trouble is brewing for Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reportedly launched an investigation into whether the marketing of the TerraUSD stablecoin violated federal investor protection rules.
A thread by Twitter account @Watcher.Guru has even revealed that Terraform labs employees have told the SEC that US$80 million was cashed out from company funds into dozens of crypto wallets a month prior to the $UST crash.
However, Terraform Labs said in a statement that it was not aware of any SEC investigations.
“We are not aware of any SEC probes into TerraUSD at this time – we’ve received no such communication from the SEC and are aware of no new investigation outside of that involving Mirror Protocol”, said Kwon in a separate statement.
Read more: Did Do Kwon’s Arrogance Cause Terra’s Downfall
The SEC previously served Kwon papers back in September 2021 at the Messari Mainnet Conference in New York, and is already investigating if Terraform Labs and Kwon were involved in selling unregistered securities through the Mirror Protocol.
At the time of writing, LUNA is trading at US$2.99, up 4.66% over the past 24 hours. However, it’s down by nearly 60% from last week.
Binance sets sight on global expansion
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has said that the exchange is looking to obtain a virtual assets service provider (VASP) license in the Philippines, which will allow the platform to legally facilitate the exchange of digital assets and the conversion of crypto to the Philippine peso.
“We are interested in investing in traditional financial service centres including payment service providers, banks […] we want to help bring those businesses into the blockchain world”, said Zhao.
Zhao also announced that Binance is working to acquire an e-money issuer (EMI) license from Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the country’s central bank. The license will allow the exchange to operate and disburse electronic money.
Apecoin stays on Ethereum
Apecoin holders have decided to keep the token on the Ethereum blockchain despite the network’s high transaction fees.
Voting was held after Yuga Labs, the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club, suggested moving ApeCoin to its own chain to increase scalability.
“It seems abundantly clear that ApeCoin will need to migrate to its own chain in order to properly scale. We’d like to encourage the DAO to start thinking in this direction,” Yuga Labs said on Twitter in April, after the Otherside mint crashed the Ethereum network.
Read more: SG Dropshipper Mints 306 Otherside Plots, Accidentally Reveals Ties to Scammer
However, the Apecoin DAO voted that it wants the token to stay in the Ethereum ecosystem
“Migrating to a different chain is a costly, risky, and complex endeavour with many moving parts that may, if not thoughtfully considered, result in catastrophic loss, or at worst, abandonment by Yuga Labs,” said the proposal.
According to tracker Snapshot, about 54% of the community voted in favour of the proposal, with the top 13 voting holders controlling 56% of tokens in the poll.
Trading Volume
According to data from CoinMarketCap, the global crypto market cap stands at US$1.24 trillion, a 0.22% increase over the last day. The total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours is US$62.08 billion, a 5.59% decrease.
Fear & Greed Index
Risk appetites remain sapped – the Crypto Fear and Greed Index currently stands at 13, indicating extreme fear. The index uses 5-6 measurements to assess the current sentiment of the market and then rates that level of emotion on a scale of 1-100 – 1 is extreme fear and 100 is extreme greed.
The index has stayed at this level for numerous weeks now, and it seems like it will remain at this level for some time to come.
