The Fight For Justice (Against SEC

GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, today is Valentine's Day, so come closer, dearest sweethearts 💕

⭐️Today's selection:

• 🤺The Fight For Justice (Against SEC)
• 💝Valentine Day's Airdrop Update
• 📈New Inflation Data
• 🧩️Cool Facts Tuesday
• 👌Selected Meme of The Day
• 📰Bite-Sized News

THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE (AGAINST SEC)

Last Friday, we wrote about how the SEC decided to crack down on Kraken, the crypto exchange. Reason? Kraken's alleged involvement with 'Unregistered Securities'.

Kraken was fined $30 million for this. Rumors started spreading.

Soon the entire crypto sphere was awaiting till the SEC would openly announce war on crypto staking, because it was a form of 'unregistered securities' in the eyes of the SEC.

Things got even more intense when the SEC chose a new target - Binance's stablecoin BUSD, and its issuer - Paxos.

Once again, the charges sounded the same: 'Unregistered securities'. It really felt like things were going off rails. So... Crypto started a counter-offensive.

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, went to Washington D.C. in search of crypto justice.

According to him, he went there to demand regulatory clarity. 

The businessman hopes that "this year we'll get something done." And notes that it's important for consumer protection and the industry as a whole.

Two days ago, Brian Armstrong said on his Twitter feed that he would defend Coinbase's right to provide staking services in court:

But it's not only Brian and his strong arms that decided to lift that sword and go fight for justice and clarity.

As already mentioned, Paxos, the issuer of BUSD, Binance's stablecoin, was also targeted by the SEC. But Paxos does not agree with the SEC's accusations and is ready to sue them.

Paxos issued an official comment. They confirmed that the SEC had sent them a notice.

The SEC's notice says that BUSD should be recognized as a security. And that Paxos should have registered this asset under federal laws.

To Paxos this sounds ridiculous:

"Paxos strongly disagrees with SEC staff because BUSD is not a security under federal securities laws....We will engage with SEC staff on this issue and are prepared for vigorous litigation if necessary."

Who's right?

Legal experts have no consensus on this issue. Some believe that while stablecoins are stable, owners can profit from them, including through arbitrage, hedging and staking.

Therefore, there is a possibility that stablecoins will be recognized as a token created for the purpose of making money or a derivative from security.

TL;DR: Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, flew to Washington D.C. to 'demand regulatory clarity'. Paxos, the issuer of BUSD, also stand their ground and disagree with the SEC about BUSD being yet another form of 'unregistered securities'.

VALENTINE DAY'S AIRDROP UPDATE

Today we've got some fascinating updates about what's about to happen. And We're talking about the Blur Airdrop! Here's what's up:

Valentine's Day Care Packages will be available for opening at different times depending on your time zone - 12PM EST, 1AM HKG, and 6PM CET.

To claim yours, you'll have follow the official Blur Twitter account and wait till they post some URLs.

What's extremely important - don't fall victim to scammers, double check everything! Happy Valentine's Day!

It's already been announced that 4 million $BLUR tokens have already been transferred by Blur to Bybit, KuCoin, Gateio, OKX and Huobi.

The liquidity is ready for trades to begin.

Come back tomorrow for more info about everything concerning this airdrop!

NEW INFLATION DATA

It has just been announced that the US CPI inflation has fallen to 6.4%. This number is higher than most analysts expected.

In December, this metric was 6.5%. Even though the difference is low, it still marks a continuous streak of inflation cooling down.

As the news broke out, the crypto market reacted favourably. In less than 1 hour after the announcement, the market went through a little pump with most coins' prices increasing.

Right now everything's cooling down, as correction is taking place.

COOL FACTS TUESDAY

Last week we talked about a revolution taking place on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Thanks to the new Ordinals NFT protocol, NFT activities started buzzing, as new NFTs were constantly minted on the blockchain, and miners were making that money thanks to this.

Today, it's already been 2 weeks since the Ordinals NFT protocol allowed these BTC + NFT things to become reality.

And during these 2 weeks, Bitcoin miners have already earned ~$600K.

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

BITE-SIZED NEWS

• Indian Authorities Ban Women's Cricket Teams from Partnering with Crypto Firms. Apparently, this violates the principle of 'commercial associations'.
• Circle Reportedly Issued a Complaint to NY Regulator over Binance's Reserves. It was filed in autumn 2022.
• Digital Asset Platform Bakkt to Shift its Focus to B2B Technology Solutions. 'B2B' doesn't stand for 'Breaking Bad 2'.