Citigroup to Start Trading Bitcoin Futures

PLUS: SushiSwap to join Avalanche Rush, NBA will sell "moments" NFTs and more |

What you need to know today in crypto and beyond  August 25, 2021 Sponsored by     Welcome to The Node.   If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.   Questions? Feedback? We'd love to hear from you! Simply reply to this email.   –Daniel Kuhn Today's must-reads Top Shelf WAITING: U.S. banking giant Citigroup is awaiting regulatory approval to begin trading bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, according to a source familiar with the matter. The bank is also actively recruiting people to join a crypto-focused team in London. Citi would join fellow bank Goldman Sachs in offering bitcoin futures trading.   FOLLOWING THE TREND: Decentralized exchange SushiSwap is the latest DeFi project to join Avalanche's $180 million incentive program. Avalanche Rush has already attracted lending protocol Aave and automated market maker (AMM) Curve. Avalanche is a proof-of-stake blockchain that claims to process 4,500 transactions per second without the security tradeoffs usually associated with blockchains that can transfer data quickly.   FIRST FORAY: NBA Top Shop will start selling "moments" celebrating the surging Women's National Basketball Association with an inaugural pack drop scheduled for Friday. Dapper Labs, creator of the popular digital collectibles project, said the NFTs will initially feature highlight-reel snippets from top players across league history. Dapper Labs' head of partnerships, Caty Tedman, recounted a collection of dunks, splashes and game-winning shots stretching back 25 years.   –Helene Braun A message from Nexo When it comes to buying, borrowing or earning on your crypto, you won't find an easier, safer way to do it than Nexo.   And right now, with its Referral Program you can earn $10 worth of bitcoin for each friend you refer. And the best part – your referral gets $10 in BTC, too.   You can invite up to 100 friends – so you can get as much as $1,000 in bitcoin by copy-pasting a few links. And you can further bump that amount by earning up to 8% interest p.a. on your bitcoin, paid out daily.   Now is the time to unlock the full power of your crypto.   Join Nexo and start earning free BTC with your friends. What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals Coinbase slammed for terrible customer service: Investigation by CNBC El Salvador's bitcoin adoption may transform remittances in Central America (Cointelegraph) Infrastructure bill's cryptocurrency measures risk pushing criminals further underground (WSJ)  –H.B. A Message from BlockBank Looking for a crypto wallet with DeFi and CeFi coupled with banking and debit cards? Look no further, V2 of BlockBank's super application launches this fall, offering access to:   Custodial and non-custodial wallets Digital bank accounts Physical & Virtual Debit cards Robo Advisor Access to dApp BlockBank has already obtained licenses for Estonian virtual currency service provider, and Australian digital currency exchange and payment service provider. Stay updated and subscribe to the Beta testing.   Putting the news in perspective The Takeaway OnlyFans' Porn U-Turn Is a Victory Against Banking Censorship OnlyFans this morning announced that it will reverse plans to ban sexually explicit material, saying in a statement that it has "secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community." That suggests it has reached a better banking arrangement: The platform, primarily known for hosting adult content creators, had openly and explicitly blamed banks for the original ban on explicit content.   The ban, announced just a week ago, was met with widespread outrage both from adult performers and, more generally, those concerned about the power of banks to effectively shut down businesses they don't like by cutting off payments service. Public discussion of that threat, often referred to as "banking censorship," was likely a key element in the reversal of the ban.   OnlyFans CEO Tim Stokely took a refreshingly clear and direct line on the porn ban, which was likely an existential threat to his very profitable firm. Speaking to outlets including the Financial Times, he explicitly placed blame on banks for blocking OnlyFans payments, saying that his company "had no choice" in the decision to ban explicit content. More than that, Stokely specifically named three banks that had refused to service OnlyFans: BNYMellon, JPMorgan Chase and Metro Bank.   Meanwhile, adult performers have been organizing protests against Mastercard scheduled for Sept. 1. Those may still continue and could be hugely embarrassing for banks and financial services firms – particularly to the degree the protests highlight payment processors' ability to block pretty much any payment they please.   All of this marks a major defeat for efforts by social conservatives and other anti-porn activists to leverage the payments system to impose their views on society. It also appears to have more broadly raised awareness about the threat of banking censorship.   Mike Stabile, director of public affairs of the adult industry trade group The Free Speech Coalition, detailed the backlash to OnlyFans' decision in a Twitter thread published before today's reversal. He noted, first, that the pressure groups that have pushed banks to crack down on adult businesses "are scrambling" because "95% of coverage about OnlyFans supports [sex workers]".   Stabile says the push has been led by the Christian group Exodus Cry and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, formerly known (rather revealingly) as Morality in Media. Those groups lobbied Mastercard to impose a new anti-porn policy, according to Newsweek, that appears to have played a role in OnlyFans' initial porn ban. But, Stabile says, the groups "didn't expect so much of the [OnlyFans] coverage to paint them as bad guys, or to talk about their religious campaign."   Banks, it seems, have been caught similarly flat-footed by the response to the OnlyFans ban – particularly compared with the response when similar moves were made against PornHub last fall, leading to policy changes at that site.   "Very few people are talking about illegal content [as they did with PH (PornHub)]," Stabile wrote. "Everyone is talking about banking censorship."   When the banks came for the public's porn, they knew, for the first time, exactly where the problem was, and the right people to yell at. For cryptocurrency advocates who have spent more than a decade banging on about the threat of bank censorship, this may come to be viewed as a watershed moment.    The next time a bank or payment processor tries to pull a similar stunt, they will be sure to think long and hard about the consequences.   –David Z. Morris Introducing Crypto for Advisors, a weekly newsletter built specifically for financial advisors (FAs) and registered investment advisors (RIAs).   Crypto for Advisors, delivered every Thursday, is designed to inform and educate financial professionals who seek to incorporate this rapidly moving asset class into their work. Subscribe today. The Chaser... 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