Qrafty 🦡 in the weekend mood with Bored Apes holders vs. Bieber, Hilton lawsuit; Binance and Checkout drama & a new way to monetize your connections!

***Qrafty’s smile glows and his paws open in an wide embrace***

Hail to you, seeker of deep crypto wisdom!

I, Qrafty the Crypto Badger, welcome you to Coinqraft - your personal guardian angel (well… angel badger) guiding you through the crypto wonderland! I venture daily into the jungles and dark corners of the crypto universe and bring back the news 📰, the juice 🥤 and the moves 📈!

🌟 Why? Because you want to know, but you’re not a crypto bro… or sis! There’s way too much going on around in your life and you want to have the scoop on the happenings without the hassle. Qrafty gets that and is here to help!

🦡 Qrafty is very happy to have you here and is ready to share everything! 📰 Enjoy 😊 👇️

1. Is XRP a Security? The SEC (officially) Says… NO!

2. A New Way To Monetize Your Relationships. Yup!

3. Ethereum Launches Their New Testnet!

Bonus: It’s 783 times cheaper to mine Bitcoin in Lebanon than Italy!

The Potato Force is strong in this one!

A good giggle… priceless. For everything else there’s… laughing hysterically.

Here are the main news of the day

1. The S.E.C. admits it: XRP is NOT a security!

What a a special and beautiful day to be an XRP supporter! Hats off and a huge drink to the resilient folks who clung to their crypto dreams like a squirrel clutching a nut in a storm, enduring the cryptocurrency rollercoaster and the occasional crypto-comedy roast, all because of your unwavering belief and commitment!

XRP not being a security in the court’s decision was a bit like being told that Santa Claus exists. You want to believe, you might see the effects by getting presents, but you haven’t really seen Santa. And if you did, it was just some old dude in a suit, not the real real Santa, you know.... So there’s still a tinge of doubt somewhere in your heart, especially now with the S.E.C. going after pretty much everyone in the space, crypto banks going under, projects waving buh-bye and so on...

Also… the fact that the price crashed back to pre decision levels is not really a bloody damn gift either. This trading structure is called The Depressed DownWard Facing Dog… take a look, Qrafty is a very talented artist! 👇️ 

But voila, voila the sky opened up today and the sun smiled gently upon the XRP’s devotee battle hardened face… Divinity spoke the most arousing words ever to be uttered for an XRP supporter from the pen of the SEC in a motion filed on the 18th of August, 2023: “[…]the SEC does not seek appellate review of any holding relating to the fact that the underlying assets here are nothing but computer code with no inherent value.“

Which from legalese to human language is translated: XRP is not a security, it’s just an inherently worthless piece of computer code, says the SEC.

Qrafty is very confident that the XRP supporters will brush aside their crocodile tears generated by the SEC’s “appreciation” of XRP and will relax knowing that in this troubled market, XRP is not a security in SEC’s eyes, anymore… 

2. Market manipulation or mere coincidence?

A very interesting sequence of news that came out during the recent bitcoin and market drop, at the end of the week during an important area for Bitcoin and the general crypto market. Pretty much everyone was expecting a directional move up or down, yet it seems that some help from the traditional media might have nudged things.

What do you mean, Qrafty?

Story time! .. In the fantastic world of Imaginaria, where the economy was ruled by the ever-fascinating Crypto Forest Exchange, a pivotal moment loomed. All eyes, or rather all beady little animal eyes, were fixed on the market. Bitcoin and the general crypto market were perched at a crossroads.

Just as anticipation reached a fever pitch, the market received a shock. The Wall Street Journal, an old owl, hooted a startling headline: "SpaceX Sells $373M in Acorns (BTC)!"

Panic spread faster than a wildfire in a dry patch of grass. Bitcoin plummeted like a clumsy squirrel from a tree, landing at a meager $25,166.

But then, in the most peculiar turn of events, a mischievous squirrel named Bloomberg rustled up some gossip. It chattered that the SEC, a wise old tortoise, would approve Ether-futures ETFs. The decline halted, and the market steadied like a groundhog predicting a long winter.

2. Friend dot tech new social network sparks buzz

The X (or Twitter) crypto jungle is buzzing lately with a new decentralized social network, called friend.tech. As they state on their site, the motto is “the marketplace for your friends“.

On the 20th of August, 2023 (tomorrow) they will start airdropping tokens to the users that tested the application. Over a period of 6 months, they will airdrop 100 million tokens to their users as a reward for helping with user testing the app. For now, it’s invite only.

The platform lets folks purchase shares of connected Twitter accounts, granting them access to private chatrooms with those users. It's like a social stock market, where anyone can wager on the social clout of fellow users by buying their shares. Think of it as digital tokens representing people's popularity. The share prices? Well, they're like rollercoasters, going up and down depending on how badly everyone wants a piece of the action. It's a quirky way to turn your social cred into a digital commodity,

It’s also worth mentioning that the app is built on Coinbase’s Base chain, which was recently launched and has had a rocky start. Qrafty wants to mention that hopefully this is one of the more serious and not prone to rug projects, since there is a lot of hype already created. Will it have staying power or not… Qrafty doesn’t know.

But the concept is interesting and it fits like a glove with the whole crypto space: tokenizable frenships. As in, your net worth is your network. Pretty cool to see that applied rl, right? Interesting to watch how it will develop…. Qrafty wishes the team to have good luck and good fortune!

3. ‘Bored Apes’ holders sue Sotheby’s, Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton as dreams fall apart

Deep in the fantastic woods of Imaginaria, a furry frenzy unfurled! Upset critter investors pointed paws at and sued Sotheby's and pals, a wild bunch behind a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT hullabaloo, at the local Woodland Court of Law. They cried, "Monkey business!"

The group of NFT investors accused Sotheby's and the crafty Yuga Labs of pulling a rabbit out of their hat, artificially puffing up those ape prices, the famous “Bored Apes“ NFT collection selling for huge prices… up until recently.

The famous woodland auction house isn’t the only one accused. There are over 30 others, including even forest VIPs like Justin Beaver and Paris Hill-ton, for not disclosing how much of the hype was of their own or nudged by some magical internet coins… if you get Qrafty’s drift…

Once pricier than gold-plated acorns, those digital ape doodles are now a steal at $52,445, a squirrel's bargain compared to their $400,000 tag. Back in the day, a squirrel-sized fortune was spent, $24 million, for over 100 NFTs by Sotheby's!

Lawsuit leaves critters giggling, claiming Sotheby's was hired for a hype-casting spell over Bored Ape.

The moral, my forest friends: NFT adventures can be nuttier than a squirrel disco!

4. Payment processor cancels deal with Binance over concerns about money laundering

In a pretty surprising twist of events, London's Checkout.com, the credit card whiz, decided to do a "relationship breakup" dance with crypto giant Binance.

The CEO of Checkout, Guillaume Pousaz, sent Binance not one but two breakup letters on August 9 and 11. He cited reasons like "regulatory actions" and "partner inquiries" for the sudden separation. The second letter, arriving just two days later, even threw in concerns about Binance's anti-money laundering and compliance skills. Checkout's spokesperson, Lewis Jones, confirmed the split, and it was set to be official on August 17.

Binance, however, didn't take this breakup lightly. They disagreed with Checkout's reasons and hinted at possible legal drama. Spokesperson Dewi Mustajab went in damage control mode by saying they'd been working hard on their "compliance program" and didn't expect this twist, and that their services weren’t impacted by this.

It's worth noting that Checkout.com's breakaway followed Binance's decision to ditch Binance Connect, a crypto service that Checkout had been helping with. According to a little birdie, the service didn't have many users or transactions and Binance axed it.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that the growth of Checkout.com is related to the volumes that Binance processed during the bull market of 2020-2021, when at one point it reached over $1.5 billion, monthly. Over a billion and a half USD a month!

By far, Binance was their biggest customer, Qrafty thinks! So Checkout started small, started working with Binance and processing their volumes. Which allowed the payments company to raise $1 billion capital, at a valuation of $40 billion USD. Massive, massive valuation, I tell ya!

So what’s the problem, Qrafty?

Well… in 2020, Binance integrated Checkout’s payments system, with a small (but hugely important) catch: they didn’t implement VISA 3D secure, an additional layer of security meant to protect card holders; and also a requirement for Checkout to comply with European laws for security of transactions and money laundering, as Forbes mentions.

Why did they do that, Qrafty?

Because the Binance executives insisted on not implementing the feature in order to streamline users getting in on the trading platform. But soon after launch, Visa had a chat with Checkout:

Visa: Hey guys, how’s it going? Wtf are you doing?

Checkout: Hey, wdym?

Visa: There’s over $10 million bucks in fraudulent transactions from Binance.

It seems that there was an European organized crime syndicate that took full advantage of this exploit.

Binance covered the losses in full. But also… Qrafty would like to mention that there has been a very interesting case in Singapore worth watching. There’s talk of about $1 billion in seized assets and Qrafty is curious if there’s a link between this, the banks that fell recently and the Binance investigations.

Aanyway, the reasoning of not implementing the 3D secure feature was that it wasn’t mandatory to implement it at that time in Europe. It seems that even now, it’s not fully required in Europe, just under some specific rules.

Finally, this also comes as a blow for Binance because they wanted to issue their own payments platform, along with PaySafe and Checkout, called Bitfinity. So not only did Checkout bail on this, but they also cut their own company valuation, twice, to “reflect market conditions better“: from $40 billion too $11 billion, then to $9 billion! That’s like chopping off your foot to survive. And then realizing you cut wrong and make another cut.

But, then again, Binance has been haunted by regulators left and right lately and it looks like there’s a noose becoming tighter and tighter around someone’s neck… but most likely it is just Qrafty’s wild imagination!

Hey hey 🙃 Qrafty hopes you are enjoying the experience here and would like to regularly get Qrafty’s letters!

If so, please click on the button below. Qrafty is really really grateful to have you here, so thank you!

The cryptocurrency world seems to have a wild crush on messing with your feelings!

It's like the ultimate emotional rollercoaster, a boot camp for your emotions. Strap in and see if you've got the emotional stamina to ride this crazy crypto train!🎢

Or just get popcorn and relax 🍿🍿🍿… if you can.

Qrafty’s thought of the day

Other stories from today worth noting

• Here’s how the big guys are playing the market

  At this moment it seems Nvidia is everyone’s loved position, as it is expected from AI to create only more demand for high-end chips and graphical processors. Aside from that, BI reports:

  • Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway buys into three home construction companies with a cumulated position of $814 million, trusting the US housing market, despite high mortgage rates and not a lot of houses available on the market.

  • Michael Burry is short on the S&P500 and Nasdaq 100, as Qrafty previously wrote about.

  • Bill Ackman is going in on AI. His fund, Pershing Square by buying Alphabet Class C shares worth about $1 billion, after already holding Class A shares worth ~ $260 million. He must like Google a lot!

• BitSo, the mexican exchange, is moving up in the world!

  Well they’re not really moving, but rather opening up Latin America to businesses around the world, as they say.

  Today, they've thrown on their business superhero capes and busted out International Payments, a fresh suite of goodies for that market.

  This will allow companies to make payments, send and receive crypto and local currencies in countries where BitSo operates. Not bad at all, good for them!

• Ethereum Testnet “Holesky” launches in September

  On September 15, 2023, to be more precise. This comes before testnet named Goerli gets withdrawn this year (yeah, I know… special name) to make room for Holesky, the new one. A testnet is just what the name suggests.

  It’s a safe playground for developers to experiment and tinker on, without destroying the financial future of Ethereum holders by pressing a button and imploding the network.

  What’s with the weird names, Qrafty?

  It’s cute, Ethereum has a history of naming testnets after train stations. This time, they chose one in Prague.

• Levitate X, a new fancy scale-up platform for Web3

  In a harmonious union towards the advancement of the cryptosphere, two companies have teamed up to unleash a web3 scaleup program: early stage web3 VC firm Gravity X Capital and CoinSwitch Ventures, the investment division of the CoinSwitch crypto exchange.

  Their mission? To guide fledgling web 3 companies in launching their creations and achieving operational greatness. In simpler terms, investing in crypto startups and supporting them through the stages of growth.

Feel that? What….? Your crypto IQ rising?… No no, not that! Nvm, let’s just focus on the crypto IQ, okay?

Qrafty, can you explain what is mining for Bitcoin?

Sure! Qrafty loves to explain things! Mining Bitcoin is a bit like being a modern-day digital prospector. Picture miners as gamers with supercharged computers, all on a quest to unearth a unique "golden coin." But instead of shovels and pickaxes, they wield powerful processors.

Here's the twist: miners aren't just racing against each other; they're racing against the clock and complex math problems. These puzzles serve as the key to unlock new Bitcoins. The first miner to crack the code gets to claim the treasure, a certain number of Bitcoins, as their reward.

It's comparable to a race through a challenging video game level, but there's a catch. As more miners join the game, the puzzles automatically become more complicated. Think of it as your favorite game getting harder as more friends jump in – it keeps the competition exciting!

Also, you need “fuel” to stay in the game, and that’s electrical power! All those computers that solve those digital puzzles to get the precious bitcoin require power! Those computers are called miners: some are essentially glorified video boards and others are built specifically just for mining crypto currencies.

The prices for electricity vary wildly across the planet. The best example is the difference between the cost of mining a Bitcoin in Italy, which is $208,500 compared the cost of mining one precious digital coin in Lebanon, where is costs $266.02. So if you can find a way to arbitrage electricity prices in Lebanon and mine Bitcoin, you will have a pretty good thing going for you.

Market Whispers

Not much to gossip about today; the price action has been slower than a tortoise on a coffee break, inching along in a range so tight, it makes a pickle jar look spacious! It's like waiting for a snail to finish a marathon - not exactly the thrilling crypto rollercoaster we were hoping for. 😄🐌

You can’t even joke anymore nowadays! 😂 

That’s all from Qrafty 🦡 for today! Qrafty thanks you and wishes you to live each moment as if you are listening to the music you love most!

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