Here are some of the major developments from the world of crypto over the past few days
Former US President Donald Trump is launching a third non-fungible token (NFT) drop, dubbed “MugShot,” centered on the theme of his ongoing criminal indictments. Priced at $99 each, the trading cards can be purchased either through credit card or Wrapped Ether (wETH).
According to Cointelegraph, users who purchase 47 or more digital trading cards will be eligible to receive “a piece of the president’s ACTUAL suit from his famous mugshot and dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the President.” Users will need to provide their know-your-customer (KYC) information to purchase the NFTs, even if they choose to pay with crypto. Further, these NFTs cannot be transferred until December 31, 2024.
The collection‘s website said in a message: “On Thursday, August 24, 2023, President Trump was formally arrested in Fulton County, Georgia. This is a moment in history – it’s the first-ever mugshot of a United States President. In the photo, Trump has a furrowed brow with a determined gaze which says he’ll never surrender.”
Investment firm BlackRock has revised its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) application in a bid to make it easier for Wall Street banks to participate in the ETF by creating new shares in the fund with cash rather than just crypto.
The new in-kind redemption “prepay” model will allow major banking institutions, such as JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs to act as authorised participants for the fund, thus allowing them to circumvent restrictions that prevent them from holding Bitcoin or crypto directly on their balance sheets.
The new model was presented by six members of BlackRock and three from Nasdaq in a meeting on November 28, 2023 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Cointelegraph.com reported.
If approved, the move could be a game-changer for Wall Street banks with trillion-dollar balance sheets looking to get involved, as many highly regulated banks cannot hold Bitcoin themselves.
Under the revised model, authorised participants would transfer cash to a broker-dealer, which will convert it into Bitcoin before storing it with the ETF’s custody provider — Coinbase Custody in BlackRock’s case.
The new structure will also work by shifting risk away from authorized participants and placing it more in the hands of market makers.
The US SEC said it has served its lawsuit to Hex (HEX) founder Richard Schueler, also known as Richard Heart, at his house in Finland’s capital Helsinki.
In a December 11, 2023 court filing in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the SEC said it served Heart through a substitute service on October 31, 2023, which is an alternative method for when a suit can’t be personally delivered to the defendant due to difficulties in locating them.
The SEC said the process server made several failed attempts over nearly seven weeks starting on September 13, 2023 to personally serve Heart through calls, texts, letters and attempts to reach him in person at his Helsinki residence. After several failed attempts, they served the suit through an alternative method.
The SEC sued Heart in July 2023, alleging he made over $1 billion selling Hex, PulseChain (PLS) and PulseX (PSLX), which, according to the SEC, were unregistered securities. The SEC further said that Heart defrauded investors in the US and overseas by misappropriating at least $12 million of their funds to buy a “555-carat diamond, expensive watches, and high-end automobiles.”