The proposed bill to make Bitcoin legal tender in the small Central American nation of El Salvador was passed by the Legislative Assembly, with 62 out of 84 voting in favor of the bill.

Unlicensed decentralized finance (DeFi) markets may be illegal in the United States, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Dan Berkovitz.

The Chief Security Officer of the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has refuted suggestions the trading platform was involved in the seizure of cryptoassets associated with the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.

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Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Historic Moment: El Salvador Approves Law to Make Bitcoin Legal Tender
• CFTC Commissioner Says DeFi Derivatives May Be Illegal
• Coinbase Says It Wasn’t Involved in DarkSide Bitcoin Seizure
• Daily Movers – SOL, KSM, CRV
• Sponsored: Crypto.com - The World’s Fastest Growing Crypto App

Historic Moment: El Salvador Approves Law to Make Bitcoin Legal Tender

The proposed bill to make Bitcoin legal tender in the small Central American nation of El Salvador was passed by the Legislative Assembly, with 62 out of 84 voting in favor of the bill.

It all started on June 5 when Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of Bitcoin payments startup Zap— who helped with drafting the bill — made the announcement at Miami’s Bitcoin 2021 conference. During his talk, an emotional Mallers presented a recorded video message from President Bukele and read out a small passage from the proposed bill.

President Nayib Bukele has detailed Bitcoin becoming legal tender in the country as part of an effort to boost financial inclusion, as around 70% of its citizens do not have access to traditional financial services. Users will not have to necessarily use a government wallet.

Bukele said in a Twitter Space conversation the country was designing a law that would grant permanent residency to any individual who invests 3 BTC into its economy. It would mandate all businesses to accept bitcoin payments with the government acting as a backstop for entities that are not willing to take on the risk and volatility.

The government will set up a trust at the Development Bank of El Salvador to instantly convert BTC into USD to assume merchants’ risk. IT will hold $150 million in it. The bank would sell some of the bitcoin it receives for dollars to replenish the fund.

He also revealed the government may promote bitcoin mining and meet with the International Monetary Fund to discuss the plan.

CFTC Commissioner Says DeFi Derivatives May Be Illegal

Unlicensed decentralized finance (DeFi) markets may be illegal in the United States, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Dan Berkovitz.

Speaking at the Asset Management Derivatives Forum, Berkovitz claimed DeFi derivatives may not be legal under the Commodity Exchange Act, a law that governs such products and requires them to be traded on regulated designated contract markets. He said:

“DeFi markets, platforms, or websites are not registered as DCMs [designated contract markets] or SEFs [swap execution facilities]. The CEA does not contain any exception from registration for digital currencies, blockchains, or ‘smart contracts.'”

Berkovitz also showed concerns DeFi markets trading derivatives may not share the same protections their centralized counterparts offer. Regulated institutions, he said, are legally bound to protect customers’ funds, and intermediaries exist to help ensure customers don’t lose their funds if an entity in the market fails.

Coinbase Says It Wasn’t Involved in DarkSide Bitcoin Seizure

The Chief Security Officer of the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has refuted suggestions the trading platform was involved in the seizure of cryptoassets associated with the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.

Philip Martin, Coinbase’s CSO, said on social media the firm was “not the target of the warrant and did not receive the ransom or any part of the ransom at any point,” not did it have evidence the funds went through a Coinbase account or wallet.

The government seized 63.7 BTC worth roughly $2.3 million from wallets belonging to the DarkSide ransomware group, which attack Colonial Pipeline and other companies. The government has not disclosed how the FBI was able to seize the funds.

Some users suggested on social media the private keys for the wallet were at one point on Coinbase servers, and were then seized by the FBI. The official affidavit says the private key to the address was in the possession of the FBI in the Northern District of California, where Coinbase has servers.

 Martin refuted these claims saying that what “his likely means is that the private key is located at one of the many Northern California FBI field offices,” and that the seizure warrant would have to be targeted at Coinbase for officials to access its servers.

Daily Movers – SOL, KSM, CRV

Several tokens are leading the charge in the last 24-hour period. Some of these are well-known cryptocurrencies with more liquid trading pairs, so we’ll be focusing on these over low-cap cryptos that may have higher percentage changes.

Solana (SOL) - Solana is a single-chain, delegated-Proof-of-Stake protocol, founded by former Qualcomm, Intel, and Dropbox engineers in late-2017, focus on delivering scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security.

Kusama (KSM) –  Kusama is an experimental blockchain platform designed to provide an interoperable and scalable framework for developers. It has almost the same codebase as Polkadot, and is often described as an unrefined release of DOT.

Curve DAO Token (CRV) - Curve is an exchange liquidity pool on Ethereum (like Uniswap) designed for (1) extremely efficient stablecoin trading (2) low risk, supplemental fee income for liquidity providers, without an opportunity cost.

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