Ukraine Suspends Digital Transfers

The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day

Feb. 24, 2022

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Welcome to The Node.

In today's newsletter: Ukraine's central bank is suspending digital money transfers. Pantera Capital analysts say that tax season is putting sell pressure on crypto markets. And ex-coders at Meta are trying to bring back the ill-fated Diem.

Questions? Feedback? We'd love to hear from you – simply reply to this email.

–Daniel Kuhn

Today's must-reads

Top Shelf

RUSSIA: Ukraine's central bank is suspending digital money transfers – with a potential impact on domestic crypto use – following the invasion by Russia. The order suspends the foreign exchange market, limits withdrawals and bans domestic capital flows leaving the country. Crypto is unnamed, but would likely be covered by the spirit of the order. In the midst of turmoil, wealthy Ukrainians are looking to crypto as a safe haven. At least one exchange reports they cannot meet increased demand for tether (a U.S.-dollar denominated stablecoin), and are seeing higher exchange rate premiums and a liquidity crunch. Global crypto markets saw over $242 million in liquidations mere hours after the Ukrainian conflict began. Crypto exchange OKC saw the highest liquidations at $73 million, followed by Binance's $48 million and Bybit's $24 million.

Meanwhile, in Russia, the Ministry of Finance is proposing a restrictive regulatory regime over crypto after months of deliberation and disagreement with the country's central bank, which prefers an outright ban. If the bill passes, residents will be limited to only licensed operators (including wallets and exchanges). Peer-to-peer trades would be illegal and crypto mining would be severely pared back.

SELLING PRESSURE: Pantera Capital analysts say that tax season is putting sell pressure on crypto markets. Pantera saw $1.4 trillion of crypto capital gains last year – a hefty bill come April 18, tax day in the U.S. this year. The money manager notes that bitcoin's price historically peaked 35 days before tax day in previous bull runs in 2013, 2017 and 2020, and then fell as investors sold assets to cover their taxes.

RISE UP, DIEM: As Meta winds down its crypto-related stablecoin project, ex-coders of the ill-fated Diem stablecoin project are trying to bring it back. The team, now at blockchain startup Aptos, is building the (mostly) open source project under a different name, with a different focus. The team is raising $200 million at a $2 billion valuation; industry giant Andreessen Horowitz is said to be attached.

BUILDING: Crypto lending platform Celsius, is committing $30 million of wrapped ether (wETH) to Maple Finance's liquidity pools. A Maple representative said this DeFi pool could be worth $1 billion next year. Celsius, which has been accused of rehypothecation of customer funds and lost $120 million in the BadgerDAO hack, recently hired a new CFO. Meanwhile, Hong Kong-based NFT platform Ucollex, has closed a $10 million series A funding round. The valuation of the company was not disclosed, and according to a board member, the new capital will be used to scale operations, including platform and blockchain tech development.

EURO POLICY: Leaders in the EU, led by Germany, want stricter oversight to combat money laundering and terrorism financing in the crypto industry. A separate EU regulatory proposal has a new provision that could limit the use of proof-of-work (a consensus mechanism) across the union's 27 member states. Some exceptions might be made if cryptocurrencies are operated at small scale, in a manner that does not undermine the bloc's ability to reach renewable energy goals.

–Fran Velasquez

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Overheard on CoinDesk TV...

Sound Bites

"The war between Russia and Ukraine is an absolutely absurd thing. These nations are very close. They share history, culture and literature."

–Anna Baydakova, Moscow-based CoinDesk investigative reporter, on CoinDesk TV's "First Mover."

What others are writing...

Off-Chain Signals

ETH market faces $500 million liquidation if price drops below $2,100 (The Block)
'Fuck War': Crypto Community Reacts to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine – including Vitalik (Decrypt)
Bitcoin Elliott Wave Theory suggests BTC price can drop to $25.5K this year (Cointelegraph)
World leaders divided on whether to eject Russia from Swift payment system (FT)
Russia Could Use Cryptocurrency to Blunt the Force of U.S. Sanctions (NYT)
Jump and Three Arrows Lead $1B LUNA Buy to Secure UST Against Black Swans (The Defiant)

Taxes: Understand them. Minimize them. Avoid them. Follow along with our continuing coverage.

What You Need to Know About Taxes Before You Claim Your Next Airdrop

Investors receiving airdrops should be aware of the tax implications of their newly earned tokens to avoid unwelcome surprises from the IRS

NFTs Are the Latest Crypto Tax Events Nobody Understands

Casual collectors may be in for a rude awakening this year.

Putting the news into perspective

The Takeaway

Why the CryptoPunk Flop Is a Turning Point for NFT Auctions

The pseudonymous collector 0x650d withdrew a lot of 104 CryptoPunks just before they were set to be auctioned off – what does it mean for the future of splashy NFT auctions?

The stage was set in New York City last night. The Champagne had been poured, the lights were up, collectors sat ready and waiting.

At the Sotheby's Upper East Side saleroom, NFT enthusiasts prepared to witness what the auction house had framed as a "truly historic" occasion – the sale of 104 CryptoPunks in a single lot.

The sale – dubbed "Punk It!" – was meant to be a kind of coronation for the pseudonymous investor "0x650d" (a nod to the leading characters of their Ethereum address), who purchased the tokens last year in a single transaction.

Except the sale didn't happen. Minutes before an auctioneer was expected to take the stage, an announcement rang out over the loudspeaker:

"Following discussions with the consignor, tonight's 'Punk It!' sale has been withdrawn. Thank you to our panelists, guests and viewers for joining us."

The message was reproduced by a Twitter account for the auction house's NFT division. At publication time, the sale's official webpage displayed a 404 error.

So, what happened?

The non-fungible tokens in the "Punk It!" lot were what's known as "floor punks" – the cheapest CryptoPunks listed for sale at a given time. 0x650d paid about $5.5 million for the whole batch.

"Why buy 100 floor punks instead of a single rare one?" the collector wrote on Twitter last August, just after the purchase. "The short answer is liquidity and diversification. If you get to own a Picasso, do you care which one?"

At the time, CryptoPunks were far and away the priciest NFT collection. They fell into second place behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club late last year, and the floor price has been steadily trending downward.

Sotheby's was intending to make a splash with this sale. Two nights ago, the auction house hosted a private dinner to generate buzz for the event. It also brought in Kenny Schachter, a columnist at Artnet News, Colborn Bell, a co-founder of the Museum of Crypto Art, and Sherone Rabinovitz, a technologist, to host a panel on the culture of NFTs just before the planned sale.

On Twitter, 0x650d proudly tried to frame the last-minute withdrawal as a "rug pull" – crypto speak for a type of scam where developers abandon their gullible investors, making off with the profits. (0x650d didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.)

"Nvm, decided to hodl," he tweeted.

The collector even made a bespoke meme in the tried-and-true Drake format, suggesting that "rugging Sotheby's" was an intentional stab at "taking punks mainstream."

While 0x650d seems to be digging in his heels, reporters are painting a different picture. My colleague Eli Tan, who was on the scene last night, reported that "the highest bid on the table, behind closed doors and before the sale," was just $14 million – far short of the $20 million to $30 million estimate previously provided by the auction house. The lot's reserve price was $14 million.

Scott Lewis, co-founder of the crypto analytics platform DeFi Pulse, quipped:

me after my s**tcoin bag is down 95%:

"nvm, decided to hodl."

Last night felt like a turning point for the once-ascendant CryptoPunks and an unprecedented fizzling out for what's been a massive cash cow for traditional auction houses over the past year.

Read the full article here.

–Will Gottsegen

Institutional Acceptance of Crypto Is on the Rise, Despite Market Volatility

The crypto market has always been volatile, but the recent months have been exceedingly so, with the price of bitcoin going from an all-time high of $69,000 in November to nearly half of that in less than three months, leading to an increase in fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). Despite these setbacks, the lowered cost of bitcoin, ether and other coins has allowed many small investors to enter the space. Since then, the market has mostly recovered, with 2022 set to become an important year for crypto.

*This is sponsored content from Amber.