Headlines

▌The Total Circulating Supply of Stablecoins Exceeds $150 Billion

According to data presented by CryptoRank, the total circulating supply of stablecoins in the market exceeds $150 billion. Additionally, over the last week since August 5 trade, the turnover of stablecoin’s volume increased by 46.73%. USDT has the largest dominance of all products in the industry, holding 43.4% of the total supply, followed by USDC with 35%, then BUSD in the top three with 11.6%.

Policies

▌EU is about to Create a New Anti-Money Laundering Regulator to Oversee Cryptocurrencies

The European Union is establishing a new regulator that will directly oversee crypto businesses under a package of anti-money laundering legislation. At the heart of the new legislation is the creation of an EU-wide anti-money laundering regulator. The regulator, known as the “Anti-Money Laundering Authority,” or “AMLA,” will at least directly monitor “high-risk” cryptocurrency companies that are financial service providers, according to the committee and legal counsel’s version. Many negotiations are still underway before the Anti-Money Laundering Agency or AMLA comes into force, but all indications are that they are in progress.

Cryptocurrency

▌Coin Center: The U.S. Treasury Department Sanctioned Tornado Cash or May Violate Due Process and Constitutional Rights

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioning Tornado Cash may be legally and constitutionally flawed, Coin Center, a cryptocurrency advocacy group, said in a blog post. The addition of the Cash smart contract address to the SDN list exceeds its legal authority and may violate due process and constitutional rights." Coin Center believes that smart contracts cannot be sanctionable entities, and such standards are dangerous for coders around the world. "This action sends a signal, and in fact appears to be designed to send a signal, that Americans should not use certain tools and software, even for perfectly legitimate purposes," the article said. Coin Center promised that its first step would be to work with OFAC, but the group also said, “We will begin discussing a court challenge to this action with attorneys. Stay tuned.”

▌The World's Largest Hacker Group Anonymous Promises to Investigate BAYC Racism, Nazism, and Other Issues

Anonymous, the world’s largest hacker group, released a video on social media promising to investigate various allegations made by the crypto community against Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). The allegations include racism, apeism, Nazism, and mysticism. Anonymous claimed that while they were aware of Yuga Labs' response, they had not encountered anything flagged as unrebutted, and are hoping for a thorough investigation that would take several months. However, many NFT enthusiasts came forward to question the authenticity of the so-called Anonymous video. Crypto community user BookSweepers pointed out that the Twitter account that posted the video and its linked Instagram and YouTube pages were fake.

▌Do Kwon Says He ‘Never’ Has Been in Touch With South Korea Authorities

In Do Kwon’s first interview since Luna crashed, the Terra founder said he has not been in touch with the investigators in South Korea. "What we're going to do is we're just going to put out the facts as we know them. We're going to be totally honest and deal with whatever consequences as they may be," Kwon stated in the interview. Kwon added that it was a misunderstanding that he moved to Singapore to escape investigation and that he had been there before the crash. He said he had dealt with threats against family members in South Korea, which prompted him to take action. It's hard for him to make a decision to return, but he will return to Korea if decided regardless of the investigation.

▌Aave: On-chain Wallet Address Review Will Require DAO Consensus

Lending protocol Aave has said wallet monitoring due to government sanctions cannot be implemented on a smart contract level unless the community agrees. Aave said, “The wallet monitoring here is only at the front-end layer. As for on-chain, contract-level wallet monitoring as it applies to the Aave protocol, the Aave smart contract is decentralized - no one or entity can change, control, update or shut down the protocol. For any change to occur to the protocol, an AIP (Aave Improvement Proposals) must be proposed, voted on, and approved by the Aave DAO.” AAVE also clarified that the recent block on wallet addresses with indirect Tornado Cash interactions only occurred on its front-end application. The temporary blocklist happened due to a misconfiguration of the platform’s TRM API integration, which has now been corrected, and its front-end should be available to previously blocked users who do not have any direct interaction with Tornado Cash.

▌BitGo to Hold Galaxy Digital Legally Accountable For Calling Off $1.2B Acquisition and Demands Damages of $100 million+

The crypto sector’s first $1 billion deal, announced at the height of record surge in token prices last year, is disbanding as the market reverses much of the gains — and not everyone is pleased. Galaxy Digital said Monday it has terminated the $1.2 billion proposed acquisition of crypto custodian BitGo, a high-profile deal they announced in May last year, after the San Francisco-based startup failed to provide its audited financial statements for the year 2021. BitGo’s response: Galaxy Digital’s actions are “improper” and it plans to hold the firm “legally accountable” and seek over $100 million in damages.