GM citronauts. Oops, we went quiet yesterday – we were busy blowing out candles for BitDegree's 7th birthday. 🎂 Now, let's peel back the rind on today's crypto world – it's seedier, and sweeter than ever.
🚓 Telegram's Pavel Durov arrested in France amid criminal investigation, sparking debate over privacy, freedom of speech, and platform responsibility.
🍊News drops: MakerDAO's coin rebrand sparks controversy over freeze function, Trump launches fourth NFT collection + more
🍍 Market flavor today
|
| Crypto Market Cap $2.2 Trillion -4.7% (24H) | |||
| Name | Price | 24H % | 7D % |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin BTC |
$59,650.97 | -3.44% | -0.81% |
 Ethereum ETH |
$2,515.44 | -3.26% | -4.05% |
 BNB BNB |
$539.28 | -1.55% | -2.71% |
 Solana SOL |
$146.32 | -4.63% | 3.09% |
| Prices as of 10:15 AM EST. Click here to see live data. |
Crypto market sentiment has plunged into fear territory, with the Fear and Greed Index nosediving to 30. What's driving this downturn? It's unclear, but a wave of forced selling from traders using borrowed funds likely played a role. We also saw the first outflow from BTC ETFs in 9 days.
Is this a brief cooldown or a longer slump? The answer may come from outside crypto - all eyes are on today's Nvidia's earnings report, which could impact both traditional and crypto markets.
🚓 Monsieur Pavel Durov, montez dans la voiture, s'il vous plaîtMonths ago, the French authorities started an undercover investigation into Telegram. Back in 2017, French and UAE spies allegedly hacked the platform founder Pavel Durov's phone. Coincidence..? 👀
Anyways, the investigation revealed quite the crème de la crème of the criminal world among Telegram users: from fraudsters and drug traffickers to scums of the Earth who shared child 🌽. The authorities then asked Telegram to reveal the identities of these people, which the company ignored.
This lack of cooperation led to Pavel and his brother, co-founder Nikolai Durov, being issued arrest warrants in March this year.
Now, a little story from Pavel's POV: Saturday night, you're in your private jet on the way to Paris. You can pretty much already feel the breeze at the Eiffel Tower… then BOOM, the breeze turns into the air conditioner of a police car.
He was taken into custody and interrogated for a maximum of 96 hours, which ended today, and he has now been taken to court (this happened like two hours ago, so no updates for now—we'll likely squeeze what went on there tomorrow).
After all that, the internet went heated—big industry names like Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin started rallying behind Durov (some of them might've even used a croissant to make a sandwich as a form of peaceful protest against the French), arguing that such actions are a serious assault on the freedom of expression and privacy. Additionally, TON Society came out with an open letter urging entities like the United Nations (UN), the Council of Europe (CoE), and the European Union (EU) to pressure France to respect "the fundamental right to liberty online".
As for the arguments from the other side of this debate—although Pavel is obviously not directly responsible for any of the crimes on the platform, he did have the power to prevent them by censoring at least the worst kinds of content, yet chose to do nothing.
And here arises the ongoing argument between those who advocate for absolute freedom of speech, and those who would agree to suppress certain freedoms if they suppress certain freedoms.
Overall, Pavel's issue might actually lie in the fact that Telegram was never fully private to begin with, as its messages are not end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) by default = the platform has access to most messages since users rarely enable the secret chat feature = the authorities (or hackers) might wanna peek at 'em from time to time.
On the other hand, platforms like WhatsApp and iMessage probably won't get a knock on the door from the po-po, 'cause E2EE makes it impossible for them to access any of their users' messages.
En conclusion, while opinions on the arrest remain divided, the very existence of this debate highlights a critical engagement with issues of privacy, freedom of expression, and the responsibilities of tech platforms—an engagement that could drive meaningful change in the future.
📰 News drops
🧊 Sky (former MakerDAO) has rebranded its stablecoin DAI to USDS and faced backlash over its freeze function. The CEO later clarified that this function won't exist at launch—there will only be the upgrade capability, which allows governance to introduce the function later if needed.
🍊 Donald Trump launches his fourth collection of NFT trading cards. This launch comes with packages that include Trump-branded sneakers, physical cards containing pieces of the suit he wore during a debate with Biden, and invitations to dine or have cocktails with Trump.
💰 Vitalik Buterin shared what the Ethereum Foundation spends money on and revealed he earns about $140K a year. Honestly, a lot less than I would've expected from someone with an influence like his.
🐶 TON blockchain crashed due to high demand for DOGS token. Some exchanges like Bybit paused TON deposits and withdrawals. The team explained that validators couldn't clean old transaction data, leading to a loss of consensus. The outage lasted about 6 hours - looks like these pups caused quite a blockchain traffic jam.
📊 Bitwise Bitcoin ETF snaps up Osprey Bitcoin Trust's $120M assets. OBTC holders will get BITB shares when the deal closes later this year. Osprey had been eyeing a sale after their trust started trading below Bitcoin's value - looks like they found their buyer.
🖼️ OpenSea gets SEC threat over NFTs as 'securities'. The NFT marketplace is shocked but ready to fight, arguing this move could hurt countless artists and creators. They're pledging $5M to help cover legal fees for NFT makers facing SEC notices.
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🍌 Juicy memes
