
What a Democrat sweep means for future regulations.	͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏	View in browser

Your weekly roundup of the 🔥hottest news in crypto:

A Week in Review: Vitalik ‘pivots’ ETH to store of value, crypto suffers after US midterms

November 1 - 7

#1

Ethereum creator says ETH should be valued as an SoV

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin says the network should promote ETH as a store of value, rather than as an asset that derives value from burning fees.

He argued in a thread that idea of “ETH as fee-burning token never was as strong as it seemed” and that optimizing for that would negatively impact Ethereum’s “decentralization and capture resistance.”

Instead, he argues that Ethereum’s value should come from stability provided by its focus on “decentralization and CROPS” — referring to censorship and capture resistance, open source, privacy and security — which he believes will be more highly valued in an “era of AI disruption.”

The 2021 EIP-1559 fee burning upgrade flipped Ethereum into deflationary mode for a time when fee revenue was sky high, leading to supporters, including the Bankless podcasters, touting Ethereum as “ultrasound money.”

But due to design choices, fees have kept falling along with revenue, making that narrative unsustainable. From January to October this year median transaction fees fell from 35 cents to 3.5 cents, even as the number of daily transactions increased by more than half.

Some Bitcoiners, who hold BTC’s store of value status sacred, were scathing about Buterin’s thread. Held Media founder Dan Held derided Buterin’s comments as, “ETH trying to pivot to Bitcoin’s SoV narrative after all of its previous narratives collapsed. Again.” He argued it was “wild that you think a protocol with a constantly changing monetary policy (just like fiat) can be a ‘sound money.’” However, proponents note that Ethereum has not changed its monetary policy since The Merge in 2022, and each change has reduced, rather than increased, issuance.

Ethereum maxis welcomed the protocol’s creator setting a clear narrative direction. MetaLeX attorney Gabriel Shapiro called it a “nature is healing moment” from Buterin, and said, “I think on fundamentals ETH can be a much better SoV than both ZEC and BTC.”

Even Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said Buterin was “absolutely right that you can’t focus on fees as the product” although he then took a subtle dig at Ethereum’s “product.”

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#2

Democrat sweep spells uncertain future for crypto regulations

Despite spending $176 million across 100 seats — including $64 million trying and failing to keep Sherrod Brown out of the Senate — the influence of crypto super PACS on the election appeared to be minimal. Or was it?

Even though the Democrats now control both the Senate and the House of Representatives a Fairshake spokeman told Crypto In America the super PAC had spent $154.5 million across 93 races and backed the winning candidate in all but seven races. That’s a 92% success rate.

Stand With Crypto notes that a majority of legislators in both houses is now pro-crypto, with 50 of 100 senators designated “pro-crypto” and only 33 “anti-crypto,” while 241 congress people support the industry, and only 106 actively hate it.

However the anti-crypto army will slither into positions of power, with Brown likely to join the Senate Agriculture Committee and Elizabeth Warren tipped to chair the Senate Banking Committee.

“The next Congress will bring a fundamentally different environment for crypto in Washington, and the industry should expect significantly more scrutiny,” said Kyle Bligen, executive director at the Decentralization Research Center.

Democrats are already reportedly considering expanding proposals from Representative Maxine Waters into a broader market structure bill. There is still an outside chance the CLARITY Act could be resurrected, but only if it has much stronger ethics provisions aimed at President Donald Trump’s alleged corruption.

“A sitting president’s family launching memecoins and a stablecoin is a real governance problem,” Fidelity Digital founder Hadley Stern told Magazine. “If I’d done that at Fidelity, I’d have been walked out the same afternoon.”

The TRUMP memecoin lost a third of its value this week, and was the biggest loser in the top 100 cryptocurrencies.

The election result saw AI related stocks crash and Bitcoin fell below $76,000 where it remains.

#3

Fake job interview led to Binance’s $6.34 billion hack

Binance reports that North Korean hackers first breached its systems back in June, when an employee downloaded a tampered Homebrew installation while attempting to install an AI coding tool. While the exchange quickly detected the incident, the hackers had already obtained information about employees working on Binance’s wallet infrastructure.

In September, attackers posing as recruiters targeted another software engineer and tricked the employee into downloading a malicious file disguised as a coding assignment.

On Oct. 20, the attackers used the compromised computer and an internal AI tool to gain access to two additional engineers’ systems to deploy malware. They then gained access to the exchange’s internal wallet-signing service, enabling them to steal billions.

“This wasn’t one mistake or one breach — it was a months-long campaign,” Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said in a Tuesday post on X.

Prediction of the week

Binance hack may be ‘temporary setback’ for crypto, Grayscale’s Pandl says

Binance’s $6.3 billion hack could temporarily hurt confidence in crypto markets but would ultimately lead to stronger security practices across exchanges, according to Grayscale.

“It also underscores the importance of institutional custody, such as offered by US-based crypto [exchange-traded products],” said Grayscale’s head of research, Zach Pandl, in a Tuesday report.

“These vehicles hold their assets at state-chartered banks and qualified custodians, typically offering offline storage, multi-signature wallets, SOC attestations and insurance policies,” he added.

FUD of the week

Binance France emails announce closure of its users’ accounts on Dec. 31

Binance France is closing up shop in the country. All accounts will be closed on Dec. 31, and any assets left on the exchange will be charged monthly fees starting on Nov. 29, according to emails sent to users by Binance.

On that date, accounts still maintaining a balance will pay a monthly maintenance fee of 0.025% of the balance, or a minimum of 10 USDC, a stablecoin tracking the US dollar.

Cointelegraph reported in late June that Binance had notified European Union users access to key services would be restricted after the exchange failed to secure Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory authorization from a member state before a July 1 deadline.

FUD of the week

Suspicious prediction market activity seen before election poll release: NYT

Suspicious prediction market bets were placed shortly before two recent New York Times/Siena political polls were released to the public, according to a report.

Vanderbilt University researchers said a Polymarket user bet almost $200,000 on Oct. 31 that Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts would be re-elected. An hour later, a Times/Siena poll was released showing Ricketts in the lead.

A Friday New York Times report said while it was not clear if the user had access to inside information, they won more than $77,000. The user also placed similar large bets on other markets, including Kalshi, the report said.