Gensler faces a grilling

Good morning! During yesterday's hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, SEC Chair Gary Gensler faced intense questioning from House Republicans over the SEC's handling of digital assets. Specifically, around the classification of ether as a security, and whether it would be subject to SEC regulations.In Asia, Last week's "Web3 Festival" in Hong Kong generated a lot of pro-crypto excitement among attendees. The event was marked by a major policy announcement from the Hong Kong government. And in other news, top security experts are perplexed by a recent hack that targeted sophisticated crypto users and resulted in a loss of over $10 million.

Markets

Gensler grilled by Republicans over SEC's approach to cryptocurrencies (3 minute read)During yesterdays hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler faced intense questioning from House Republicans over the SEC's handling of digital assets. Specifically, there was concern over the lack of clarity around the classification of ether as a security, regulations around stablecoins, and the SEC's handling of FTX. Despite Gensler's responses, McHenry grew increasingly frustrated with the SEC chair's unwillingness to provide a definitive answer on the classification of ether. The hearing highlights the ongoing debate over how digital assets should be regulated and classified, with many stakeholders calling for greater clarity and consistency in the SEC's approach.

Ethereum Fees Spike as Bots Spend Millions to Frontrun Punters of PEPE, CHAD (2 minute read)In the world of newly-issued memecoins like pepe and chad, sandwich bots are the ones making a killing. These tokens have gained sudden popularity among Crypto Twitter degens, with some skyrocketing over 10,000%. Sandwich attacks involve trapping a user's transaction between two transactions, manipulating it to gain profits. The attacker buys the same asset as the victim, then sells tokens to the victim in the same trade for a slightly higher price, effectively frontrunning their trade. One wallet, has spent over $2 million in the past week on Ethereum network fees to sandwich traders punting on mostly low-cap tokens.

Hong Kong Is Vying To Be The Next Crypto Hub (6 minute read)Last week's "Web3 Festival" in Hong Kong generated a lot of pro-crypto excitement among attendees. The event was marked by a major policy announcement from the Hong Kong government, signaling their desire to make the island a crypto-friendly destination for companies to set up shop, albeit with certain limitations. The conference was one of the largest ever held in the region. Despite the "One Country, Two Systems" mandate that governs Hong Kong's relationship with mainland China, the city has been granted occasional policy exceptions. In the case of crypto, while China still prohibits it, Hong Kong has apparently been given the green light to openly court and regulate the sector, which bodes well for the future of crypto in the region.

Tech

A Hacker Has Stolen $10 Million in Ethereum and No One Knows How (3 minute read)Top security experts are perplexed by a recent hack that targeted sophisticated crypto users and resulted in a loss of over $10 million. According to Taylor Monahan, former CEO and founder of Ethereum wallet manager MyCrypto, more than 5,000 ETH have been stolen since December. What's particularly worrying is that the hack affected the hardware wallets of users who prioritized security, as Monahan noted on Twitter. In her tweet, Monahan explained that she had spent the past 48 hours trying to unravel the massive wallet draining operation. She also pointed out that the victims of the hack were "more crypto native than most" and had taken reasonable precautions to secure their wallets.

Intel Discontinues Bitcoin Mining Chip Series (1 minute read)Intel, a major chipmaker, has announced that it is discontinuing its series of bitcoin mining chips. The decision was made as the company prioritizes its investments in IDM 2.0, according to a spokesperson's statement to CoinDesk. While the company will continue to support its Blockscale customers, it has end-of-lifed the Intel Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC. Intel had entered the bitcoin mining market around a year ago with its Blockscale chips, which were used by companies such as Argo Blockchain, Block, Griid Infrastructure, and Hive Blockchain.

Misc

NFT app Rebase co-founder accused of going ‘rogue’ in suit by partner (3 minute read)A co-founder of the NFT project Rebase is facing a lawsuit from his apparent business partner, who is accusing him of stealing $2 million from a joint crypto wallet and ousting an apparent co-founder out of the firm. The lawsuit was filed on April 17 in a United States District Court in California by Krzysztof Gagacki, who claims to be the co-founder of Rebase. The allegations include breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, defamation, and trademark infringement.

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