Not a disaster, but not great news across crypto overnight, with the majors taking manageable dips over the past 24 hours. BTC is down 1.3%, ETH is down 1.6% and even Doge is falling, shedding 5.3% after a solid run this week off the back of Twitter rumours that bear a distinct hint of Musk.

EthereumPoW (ETHW) was the hardest charger over the past 24 hours, up a tidy 19.7% at the time of writing.

None of that is surprising, considering that a look out the window will show you it’s still raining burning chunks of FTX – which is exactly why there are some serious-looking US regulation hawks, standing on the street corners trying to sell us all umbrellas.

They don’t accept Bitcoin, though. Cash only.

 

A Clear and Present Danger

Just in case you weren’t 100% sure that the people making the Difficult Decisions in the US of A are trying to stick their greedy little fingers into the steaming Crypto pie that’s cooling on the windowsill, Commodities Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Behnam has called on America to do just that.

Benham, who is 100% top of our list of “Guy Who Definitely Looks Like a Supervillain”, appeared before the Senate Agriculture Committee to talk about how crypto is “potentially a threat to national security”.

I know, I know… there’s a bit to unpack from that particular paragraph. But the take home is basically “Farm-obsessed Senators are told by Hyper-Regulation Enthusiast that DeFi is RaDiCaL CoMMuNisM and will end in Nuclear War”.

If you have 2.5 hours to spare (and it’s Friday, so who doesn’t, really?) you can watch Mr Benham get grilled by a bunch of people who are clearly struggling to understand what’s happening right here.

… but, that’s probably worth saving until later tonight, if you’re struggling to get off to sleep.

 

‘Cough up or sod off’: Apple

Look, we knew this was coming, and now that it’s here, it still sucks, but Apple’s decision to apply its 30% fee (or ‘tax’ or ‘incredibly rude cash grab’ or whatever you want to call it) on gas fees paid on NFT transactions conducted on its platform has forced Coinbase to cripple that part of its Wallet iOS app.

 

 

“For anyone who understands how NFTs and blockchains work, this is clearly not possible. Apple’s proprietary In-App Purchase system does not support crypto so we couldn’t comply even if we tried,” Coinbase went on to say.

It’s not the first time Apple has been in spotlight over its “If you want to use it, here’s what it’s going to cost you” 30% money-sucker protocol – and it certainly won’t be the last – but Coinbase says it’s willing to help Apple figure something out that is at least feasible.

But in the meantime, NFT trading is set to join Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ripple’s XRP Ledger (XRP) and Stellar (XLM) on the Coinbase Wallet scrapheap.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$891 billion, down 1.0% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Image via CoinGecko.com

 

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$6.3 billion to about US$18 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time.
 

DAILY PUMPERS

  • EtheriumPoW (ETHW), (market cap: US$428 million) +19.7%
  • Trust Wallet (TWT), (mc: US$110 million) +9.6%
  • Tokenize Exchange (TKX), (mc: US$11 million) +6.3%
  • Dash (DASH), (mc: US$79 million) +5.1%
  • Radix (XRD), (mc: US$403,000) +4.2%

 

DAILY SLUMPERS

  • BinaryX (BNX), (market cap: US$21 million) -7.9%
  • BTSE Token (BTSE), (market cap: US$374,000) -5.4%
  • Dogecoin (DOGE), (mc: US$1.35 billion) -5.3%
  • Curve DAQ (CRV), (mc: US$46.8 million) -4.9%
  • Theta Network (THETA), (mc: US$26.1 million) -4.3%

(Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

 

Around the blocks

A selection of rumour, randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…

The fallout from SBF still talking to the media (which must be giving his legal team the most monstrously massive ulcers in the history of medical science), comes this neat summation of how the rest of the universe feels about his recent media appearances:

 

 

And if you ever wanted to lay the world’s easiest bet, here’s your chance on an absolute roughie for the FIFA World Cup, courtesy of someone who quite clearly has a bit too much money…

 

Honestly, with Japan sitting at around 51:1 odds to win the World Cup, you could save yourself about $6 for a whack at $300 right there…

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