Crypto in Congress, memes on debate stage

GM citronauts. We've tossed together a zesty crypto fruit salad with a few spicy morsels to keep you on your toes.

🇺🇸 Congress discussed DeFi; Donald Trump and Kamala Harris didn't.

🍊 News drops: hackers stole $22 million from Indodax, transferring crypto on PayPal and Venmo has become easier, OpenAI plans to launch "Strawberry" soon + more

🍍 Market flavour today

Find out more about the Fear & Greed Index here.

Crypto Market Cap $2.06 Trillion -2.9% (24H)
Name	Price	24H %	7D %
Bitcoin BTC	$56,013.98	-1.10%	-0.42%
Ethereum ETH	$2,294.44	-1.31%	-4.16%
BNB BNB	$511.57	-0.92%	2.15%
Solana SOL	$130.22	-2.63%	1.22%

Crypto market sentiment remains cautious, with the Fear and Greed Index slightly climbing to 37. The overall market is doing a little two-step – one step forward, two steps back - as market cap has dipped by 2.9% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin ETFs finally caught a break, pulling in $117 million after a dry spell, with Ethereum ETFs joining the party with a modest $11 million inflow. Meanwhile, the crypto rumor mill churns overtime, with some blaming the dip on Kamala Harris's debate performance, while others hunt for market bottom signals in various metrics.

Despite the current doom and gloom, a Gemini survey suggests most crypto holders are planning to beef up their portfolios next year. It looks like the crypto faithful are sticking to their "buy the dip" mantra, signaling that confidence in the market is only growing despite the volatility 💎

🥊 Red vs. Blue

Yesterday, in Congress, we witnessed the most anticipated hearing—the first one in history that was all about DeFi. Are you ready to know what happened there? Well, ladies and gentlemen, let's get ready to rumble!!

In the red corner, we had the Republicans. French Hill opened the fight by highlighting the transformative potential of DeFi and its permissionless, transparent nature that challenges traditional systems that require middlemen.

The blue corner—the Democrats, including Maxine Waters and Brad Sherman—hit back with the DeFi is for criminals who want to evade taxes statement. They further swung with an argument that DeFi entities hide behind the decentralization label to avoid regulation.

This hearing also involved witnesses from both sides of the crypto debate.

Amanda Tuminelli from the DeFi Education Fund pointed out how DeFi gives open access to anyone with an internet connection, while TradFi relies on gatekeepers like banks.

Peter Van Valkenburgh from Coin Center talked about how businesses can't comply with regulations that are unclear. He further argued that, yes, tax evasion exists, but that doesn't mean we should fully control the whole financial system because of that.

In contrast, Mark Hays from Americans for Financial Reform called DeFi a volatile, scam-filled, risky mess that costs investors a lot of money. Because of that, he wants to apply existing securities laws to DeFi.

Overall, whether you're cheering for the red or the blue corner, one thing's clear—the fact that DeFi is in the DC league speaks volumes about how far this tech has come and signals that governments are starting to take it seriously.

And speaking of the DC league, there's another red vs. blue fight we have to talk about—the long-awaited debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Some highlights:

• They shook hands before the debate—a first for Trump since his 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton.
• Trump claims immigrants are eating pets in Ohio. His source: trust me, bro.
• Trump said he was gonna send Harris a MAGA hat.
• Overall, Trump got fact-checked on almost everything he said (the moderators were from ABC News, so that's not very surprising).
• Not a word about crypto.😔

Who won this belt? Seems like people handed the W over to Harris. On Polymarket, a decentralized betting platform, users are 99% sure that polls will declare Harris the champ. They've also placed a 68% chance that today she’ll become the fave in Polymarket’s election contract.

But even with Harris' strong performance, the candidates remain neck and neck in the election result predictions.

Overall, both the DeFi hearing and the Trump vs. Harris debate delivered heavy punches. However, neither of these fights is over—we're gonna have to stay tuned for the next round.

📰 News drops

💸 PayPal and Venmo have made crypto transactions easier by adding support for ENS. Now, instead of typing out long wallet addresses, users can just enter the recipient's ENS name (like citronaut.eth).

🍓 OpenAI plans to launch "Strawberry" in its ChatGPT service within the next two weeks. What sets Strawberry apart from other AI models is its ability to "think" before giving a response.

🦹 Hackers stole around $22M in crypto from Indonesia's largest exchange, Indodax. The crypto exchange has shut down its web and mobile platforms for a system inspection.

⛏️ A solo Bitcoin miner successfully mined a block on their own, processing 5,935 transactions. They earned a reward of about $180K.

🚨 The Digital Chamber, a blockchain trade association, is urging Congress to pass laws that classify certain NFTs as consumer products. This comes after the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a Wells notice against OpenSea, an NFT marketplace.

🍌 Juicy memes

Source: @wallstreetbets

Source: @naiivememe