SEC's War On Staking + OPtimism Airdrop

GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and let's kick off this Friday.

⭐️Today's selection:

• 🧨Staking At Stake
• 🎁OPtimism Airdrop #2
• 🧩️Answer To Yesterday's Puzzle
• 👌Selected Meme of The Day
• 📰Bite-Sized News

STAKING IN DANGER

Today we've got both bad and good news. Let's begin with the nasty side of it.

Staking is getting banned. Or, to rephrase this... The SEC is getting out of hand.

The other day, SEC Chair Gary Gensler announced their 2023 priorities.

Regulation of crypto is among them. An entire paragraph is dedicated for the 'Emerging Technologies and Crypto-Assets.'

This was only the beginning of this new and quickly-unfolding crypto chaos. Soon after the SEC's announcement, Bloomberg, citing an insider, reported that:

'Crypto Exchange Kraken Faces SEC Probe Over Unregistered Securities.'

Within the report, it's said that the SEC suspects Kraken of violating the law and began investigations into several exchange products at once.

Various rumors began spreading. But to be more precise... It started to look like the SEC is after staking as such. Because, it looks like... The SEC regards staking as a security.

Coinbase's Brian Armstrong addressed them in a tweet.

Well... news like this result in only one thing. Panic. Coinbase felt this by seeing their stocks dropping by over 14% in a matter of hours.

Almost the entire market, including Bitcoin, turned red, as response to the news.

Especially when... Kraken responded in a way that only hindered the whole situation.

Kraken suddenly agreed to slow down their staking operations, and pay a $30 million fine to the SEC.

It was communicated, that such a decision was made due to pressure from the SEC.

It's expected that Coinbase will follow suit.

Here's how SEC's chair Gary Gensler commented on the ongoing crackdown:

'It doesn't matter if it's staking, lending or other instruments. Crypto intermediaries that offer investment contracts in exchange for investors' tokens must provide the proper disclosures and safeguards required by securities laws. Staking providers must register and provide full disclosure and investor protections'.

But not everyone became pessimistic overnight.

Justin Sun, the founder of Tron and advisor at Huobi, has stated that the development and acceptance of crypto will eventually force the U.S. to adopt its rules and regulations.

Not the other way around. Well... Let's wait and see.

TL;DR: The SEC began investigating Kraken, the crypto exchange, over alleged illegal actions. As a response, Kraken shut down their staking operations. Rumors have it that the SEC is about to shut down all staking operations within US-based crypto exchanges.

OPtimism Airdrop #2

OK, the previous piece of news wasn't too optimistic. Well, this one is. Quite literally.

OPtimism has just announced their #2 airdrop.

For those who may need a reminder: OPtimism is a low-cost and lightning-fast Ethereum L2 blockchain.

Soo... Optimism is once again spreading love to their community. In a form of a retrodrop.

This time around, the token allocation will look like this:

11,742,277 $OP are being distributed to 307,965 addresses. This is worth around $30M.

Even though the first airdrop saw over 200 million $OP being shared, no one's complaining.

This airdrop is more like a commission rebates. (for those who were just using Optimism network and had to pay more than $6.1 in commissions).

Loyal readers may remember that by the end of 2022 we shared a guide for Optimism quests.

This airdrop is different. Since it's about commission rebates, It doesn't include any completion of quests.

This new airdrop also rewards users for participating in DAO management.

If you have delegated $OP and actively used the network, you may be eligible for extra rewards.

Rewarding people for being active in DAO managent sends a signal - the team values that. It wouldn't be a surprise if other blockchains would reward people for this in the future as well.

So, if you're after those airdrops - keep that in mind!

For hardcore on-chain quest lovers, here's a full table with everything you gotta do, so you could get the most out of the OPtimism's #2 airdrop:

What's good about this whole thing is that there is no need to claim tokens.

OP tokens will be automatically transferred to your wallet.

While the tokens haven't been sent to everyone just yet, rest assured that the Optimism team is working hard to get them to you as soon as possible (it's gonna be over until the end of the day).

And for those who have participated in the quests, don't worry! The rewards for these are coming soon.

Stay tuned for future drops that may specifically reward quest participants.

In the meantime, be cautious when interacting with tokens that come your way. Scammers are on the prowl, so double-check everything!

And finally, if you're wondering whether you made it to the list of the lucky ones, you go and see it yourself right here.

TL;DR: OPtimism is organizing their #2 airdrop. 11,742,277 $OP are being distributed to 307,965 unique addresses.

Yesterday we asked you:'How do you call a specialist who is in charge of making sure a project meets with all applicable regulations?'

We're glad to say, that the majority of people got the right answer. Kudos to you!

ANSWER TO YESTERDAY'S PUZZLE

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

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