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Un senador uruguayo presentó un proyecto de ley para permitir el uso de criptomonedas como medio de pago en contratos legales y regular su en ese país latinoamericano.

El proyecto de ley, que fue presentado el martes por el senador Juan Sartori, busca brindar “seguridad jurídica, financiera y fiscal en los negocios derivados de la producción y comercialización” de las criptomonedas. 

“Los activos virtuales o criptoactivos serán reconocidos y aceptados por la ley y aplicables en cualquier negocio jurídico. Se considerarán un medio de pago válido, sumado a los incluidos en la ley de inclusión financiera siempre que cumplan con las normas que la ley y la norma reglamentaria prevea”, dice el proyecto. 

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rallies Above $42K as Bull Market Continues

Read this article in English.

La propuesta de Sartori establece que las criptomonedas “son productos de libre venta por aquellas entidades e individuos que lo deseen comercializar”, y establece que cualquier persona física o jurídica comprendida en la ley “podrá recibir y/o enviar fondos en moneda de curso legal desde y hacia sus propias cuentas bancarias propias o de empresas con licencias otorgadas bajo la presente ley”. 

Sin embargo, el proyecto de ley no contempla la inclusión de criptomonedas como de curso legal dentro del país, dijo Sartori a CoinDesk. 

Si el proyecto se convirtiera en ley, el gobierno emitiría una primera licencia que permitiría a las empresas comerciar con criptoactivos en exchanges, una segunda licencia permitiría “almacenar, guardar o custodiar criptoactivos”, mientras que una tercera se utilizaría para emitir criptoactivos o tokens de utilidad con “características financieras”.

Related: Bitcoin Returns Above $40K; Faces Resistance at $45K-$50K

Según el proyecto de ley, el Poder Ejecutivo uruguayo otorgaría las licencias a las entidades que cumplan con la Secretaría Nacional para la Lucha contra el Lavado de Activos y el Financiamiento del Terrorismo (Senaclaft) y el Banco Central del Uruguay. Para el resto de las operaciones, la “utilización de todos estos instrumentos será libre y no requerirá consentimiento, permisos o licencias previas”. 

El proyecto de ley de Sartori también estipula la regulación de la minería de criptomonedas. Los mineros no necesitarían una licencia especial, pero sí permisos del Ministerio de Industria, Energía y Minería de Uruguay para poder operar.

La medida también incluye la “capacitación técnica de los ingenieros eléctricos, civiles e informáticos en la generación de activos virtuales”.

Según el proyecto de ley, la Senaclaft llevará un registro de prestadores de servicios de activos virtuales y de aquellas personas físicas o jurídicas que deseen realizar actividades de generación y comercialización de activos virtuales.

Sartori pertenece al gobernante Partido Nacional y por ese partido se presentó como precandidato a presidente de Uruguay en 2019. 

En el Senado, el Partido Nacional y sus aliados, que forman una coalición llamada Coalición Multicolor, tienen la mayoría, con 17 de los 30 escaños.

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Crypto investors have thrown caution to the wind, as evidenced by the recent rise in the ether–bitcoin (ETH/BTC) price ratio, and the trend looks set to continue. 

“ETH/BTC shows a bullish breakout, and that’s a sign of market-wide risk-on where alternative cryptocurrencies tend to outperform BTC,” Katie Stockton, founder and managing partner at Fairlead Strategies, said. 

Some crypto investors see bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by market value, and stablecoins as safe-haven assets within cryptocurrency markets – a go-to place during times of stress similar to Japanese yen, Swiss franc, or U.S. Treasurys in traditional markets. After all, bitcoin is the biggest cryptocurrency by market value and most liquid market in the digital-asset space along with stablecoins like tether. 

Related: Binance Smart Chain Beats Ethereum by Some Metrics Thanks to Latest ‘GameFi’ Craze

Meanwhile, ether and alternative cryptocurrencies are seen as relatively risky bets similar to growth-sensitive assets like copper, gold, stock markets, Australian dollar. 

So a rising ETH/BTC could reflect improved risk appetite in crypto markets. That has been the case in the past and in recent weeks. 

For example, bitcoin rallied 12% last week but underperformed almost all crypto sub-sectors, including non-fungible tokens and Web 3.0 tokens. During the same timeframe, ETH/BTC rose over 3%. A similar action was seen from the mid-April to mid-May period.

On Thursday, ether-bitcoin jumped to a two-month high of 0.073, confirming a descending triangle breakout on the daily chart. 

Related: Bitcoin Returns Above $40K; Faces Resistance at $45K-$50K

The breakout indicates that the consolidation has ended, and the bigger bull run from March lows near 0.03 has resumed. 

“ETH/BTC has broken out of a two-month consolidation given recent strength in ether,” chartered market technician and CoinDesk reporter Damanick Dantes said. “It’s a bullish continuation pattern. Next resistance is seen around 0.8.”

In other words, ether and other altcoins could continue to outshine bitcoin in the near term. The technical picture gels well with the narrative that the crypto market is evolving, with investors beginning to bypass bitcoin and going directly into other industry sub-sectors. 

The path of least resistance for ether-bitcoin appears to be on the higher side in the wake of the London hard fork implemented on Thursday.

“The notion of ether becoming a deflationary cryptocurrency in the future is now tangible, and the effects on Ethereum’s valuation could be profound,” Martin Gaspar, research analyst at CrossTower told CoinDesk. 

With the hard fork implemented, Ethereum now burns a portion of the fees paid to miners, thereby causing a net reduction in the issuance. For example, the blockchain has already burnt or destroyed more than 5,000 ETH since the upgrade took effect Thursday, offsetting about 40% of the 12,000-plus coins mined during the period. 

“Ethereum will likely become the favored crypto trade on Wall Street and could see limited resistance towards the $3,000 level,” Edward Moya, senior market analyst for the Americas at brokerage firm Oanda, wrote Friday in an email.

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Sphere 3D, a Nasdaq-listed data-management company that’s being bought by Gryphon Digital Mining, has acquired exclusive rights to the bitcoin mining assets of Hertford Advisors.

• Hertford is a privately held company that provides a wide range of financial management services.
• The deal gives Sphere 3D a six-month exclusive right to some of Hertford’s bitcoin mining agreements.
• Toronto-based Sphere 3D Corp. said it has completed its first agreement and bought 60,000 new bitcoin mining machines. Delivery will start in November and take 10 months.
• Other milestones in the contract include the purchase of an additional 160,000 mining machines and securing a long-term contract for a 200,000-square-foot crypto mining facility.
• While the company didn’t give a value for the transaction, it said it will issue 4.5 million shares to Hertford once those two targets are achieved. Based on Sphere 3D’s closing price on Thursday, that would be $15.5 million. It will also issue shares in a new series of preferred stock, and further “consideration” will be issued as the relationship progresses.
• In June, Sphere 3D agreed to be acquired by Gryphon Digital Mining in a reverse takeover. That deal is due to be completed in the fourth quarter, the company said.
• Sphere 3D shares rose as much as 78% to $6.13 Friday, and at press time were trading up 30% at $4.50.

Read more: Gryphon Digital Mining to Become Publicly Traded on Nasdaq Via Merger With Sphere 3D

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The man who's been nicknamed Mr. Wonderful once called cryptocurrency "garbage." Now the Chairman of O'Shares ETFs, Shark Tank judge, author, and politician spends 80% of his day on Bitcoin and crypto.

It wasn’t long ago when every public blockchain attempted to challenge Ethereum’s dominance in the sizzling decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. After Ethereum-based video game “Axie Infinity” became an instant success, blockchains have blossomed in the $100 billion gaming industry. 

In the latest episode of the blockchain competition – just like what happened with  DeFi – Binance Smart Chain, the public blockchain supported by Binance, the world’s biggest centralized crypto exchange by trading volume, surpassed the Ethereum blockchain in daily transactions, again.

BSC previously flipped Ethereum on the number of transactions because of the success of PancakeSwap, a decentralized exchange on BSC in the midst of a DeFi craze. This time, however, Binance’s success came thanks to a relatively little known game on BSC called “CryptoBlades.”

Related: Rising Ether-Bitcoin Price Ratio Shows Crypto Risk Appetite

Data from DeFi data tracking firm DappRadar shows that more than 621,000 users were on “CryptoBlades” in the past 30 days, while that number for “Axie Infinity” is a little above 271,000.

On July 31, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao tweeted: “#BinanceSmartChain handled 10M+ transactions yesterday. #Ethereum handled 1.2M.”

“#DeFi and #GameFi are growing,” he wrote in a second tweet. And in response to a question whether BSC is ready to handle 20 million transactions per day, Zhao wrote: “Not an expert. But I think we will find out soon enough.”

The series of tweets reflected Zhao’s excitement about crypto gaming’s growth on BSC, as someone who has rarely acknowledged BSC’s ambition to challenge Ethereum.

Related: Philipp Plein Becomes First Major Fashion Brand to Accept Crypto Payments

But what is “GameFi” and why are blockchains rushing to the sector?

“GameFi,” which combines gaming and DeFi into one word, is the gamification of financial mechanisms where users can earn profits by playing games. Another popular term for this sector is the “play-to-earn” model.

On the surface, the keyword is “gaming,” but at the core, “finance” is what matters the most for blockchains.

Both BNB, the utility token for Binance and BSC, and BUSD, a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin powered by Binance play an important role in crypto games on BSC.

For example, to buy “CryptoBlades’” native SKILL token, gamers must buy BNB first and swap their BNB for SKILL on ApeSwap, a decentralized exchange on BSC. That is a huge boost for BNB demand as well as for liquidity on ApeSwap.

Any transactions made on “CryptoBlades,” such as trading game characters and weapons, will require gamers to pay a certain amount of gas fee with BNB.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Samsul Karim, ecosystem coordinator at Binance Smart Chain, said that BNB is used in many crypto games on BSC, but he also emphasized that game developers need to understand that users should be able to choose between different assets – whether it is BNB or BUSD.

Rather than adding financial value to BSC, Karim said that crypto gaming is bringing BSC “culture value.”

“Similar to how you would value an artwork, for example, like that piece of artwork, what is the economic output that it’s contributing towards society or any particular economy?” Karim said. “It can’t be compared in the same way as a DeFi lending protocol or a bank or something like that. it is producing cultural value.”

An executive from Polygon, a layer 2 product protocol for Ethereum, also appeared to minimize the economic value that gaming brings to Polygon. The India-based product recently launched a unit called Polygon Studios to focus on blockchain gaming and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Shreyansh Singh, head of gaming and NFTs at Polygon Studios, said that the usage of MATIC token, the governance token of Polygon, on NFT and gaming powered by Polygon is not intentional; instead, it comes naturally as gamers in Ethereum-based games seek faster, less costly alternatives.

Binance and Polygon are not the only two eyeing the huge potential of a blockchain-based gaming industry.. Other crypto companies and blockchains are also taking big steps in this direction. 

Crypto exchange FTX recently announced several NFT gaming-related investments, including a sponsorship deal with decentralized gaming startup Yield Guild Games (YGG).

A perfect match

But to most people in crypto, the combination of gaming and crypto seems like a perfect marriage.

“Crypto has been looking for a mass market use case,” Andrew Tu, an executive at quantitative trading firm Efficient Frontier, told CoinDesk. “Gaming is a sector that people have been hyping up for a long time. It’s the first area of crypto where the average Joe without a huge understanding of crypto or blockchain can participate.”

Indeed, “Axie Infinity,” the popular crypto gaming platform on Ethereum, has generated more than $220 million revenue in the past 30 days, making it the top revenue generator among all DeFi protocols and blockchains, Ethereum included, according to data from Token Terminal.

“’Axie Infinity’ also demonstrates a working use case for blockchain-based games, which paves the way for new entrants into the space,” Justin Barlow, a research analyst at digital asset data analysis firm The Tie, said. “With ‘Axie’s’ success it is likely we see major gaming conglomerates like Activision Blizzard or EA (Electronic Arts) entering the space in the coming years, bringing blockchain gaming to the masses.”

There are also risks for the hot GameFi industry, given how rapidly it has grown.

“With Yield Guild Games (YGG) token sale netting $12.5 million in 30 seconds, [it] shows that market participants will not hesitate to switch from one hot toy to another, no different to yield farming craze earlier in the year,” Denis Vinokourov, head of research at Synergia Capital, told CoinDesk, adding that the market is still too “nascent” to make any conclusions.

Read More: Gone in 30 Seconds: Yield Guild Games’ $12.5M Token Sale Sells Out Fast

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged what it described as a decentralized finance (DeFi) lender, Blockchain Credit Partners (d/b/a DeFi Money Market), and two of its top executives for raising $30 million through allegedly fraudulent offerings.

The case is the agency’s first involving securities using DeFi technology, according to the SEC.

Florida residents Gregory Keough and Derek Acree, along with Cayman Islands-based Blockchain Credit Partners have been accused of selling unregistered securities through their company DeFi Money Market (DMM) – mTokens that yielded 6.25% interest and governance tokens that offered voting rights and other perks in DMM’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) – from February 2020 to February 2021. 

Related: Gensler’s Preference for Bitcoin Futures Products Is Likely Bad News for a Spot BTC ETF

Though DMM was purportedly decentralized, Keough and Acree’s 50/50 leadership split calls the claim into question. Additionally, the SEC’s order indicates that governance token holders had “no role in running DMM’s core business.”

According to a tweet from DMM’s DAO on Feb. 9th, the company received a subpoena from the SEC in December 2020. Blockchain Credit Partners shut down operations in February and set up a token redemption program that allowed all mToken holders to redeem their tokens for principal and interest owed.

The SEC alleges that Keough, Acree and Blockchain Credit Partners misled investors to believe that investor assets would be used to purchase income-generating assets such as car loans to generate returns for token purchases, and, when they realized that token volatility made this impossible, used personal funds and funds from a separate company to make principal and interest payments for the mTokens.

The respondents agreed to a cease-and-desist order including disgorgement of $12.8 million and penalties of $125,000 for both Keough and Acree. In addition, Keough and Acree will be unable to participate in any offering of a digital asset security for five years. 

Related: CFTC Commissioner Says SEC Lacks Authority Over Commodities, Including ‘Crypto Assets’

UPDATE (August 6, 16:03 UTC): Updated with new information throughout.

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been lobbying against cryptocurrency legislation being proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other senators as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, according to a Washington Post report published on Friday.

• Yellen spoke with Wyden on Thursday to push back against the attempt to limit a proposal in the bill that would increase federal regulation of cryptocurrencies, according to the publication, citing two people familiar with the matter. 
• Senators Wyden, Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) proposed their amendment on Wednesday to ensure that miners, node operators, developers and other non-custodial crypto industry participants are exempt from the crypto tax reporting provision.
• The White House is officially supporting a competing amendment sponsored by Senators Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) that excludes proof-of-work miners from the reporting provision.
• “We believe that the alternative amendment put forward by Senator Warner, Portman and Cinema strikes the right balance and makes an important step forward in promoting tax compliance,” the White House said in a tweet Thursday evening.
• Senators had hoped to pass the bipartisan bill on Thursday night, but debate continued and issues remained unresolved around the cryptocurrency regulations.
• A Treasury spokesperson declined to comment on the matter when contacted by CoinDesk. 

UPDATE (August 6, 14:31 UTC): Updated with additional details in the third and fourth bullet points.

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Binance, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said on Friday it would restrict Hong Kong users from trading derivative products, the latest in a series of changes the exchange has made to improve compliance standards.

U.S. jobs rose by 943,000 in July, above the consensus estimate for a gain of 845,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday. 

The unemployment rate fell to 5.4%, a post-pandemic low, from 5.9% in June.

The government also revised the June jobs growth figure to 983,000, up from the initially reported 850,000 jobs. 

Related: Fed’s Brainard Says US Can’t Not Have a CBDC in a World in Which Others Have Them

On average, since January 2021 the U.S. has added 540,000 jobs per month and the employment trend has been strengthening but is still somewhat unpredictable, making it difficult for economists to use any single month’s data to extrapolate what the future might look like. 

The positive July report could encourage the Federal Reserve to taper its $120-billion-a-month of ongoing asset purchases – a form of monetary stimulus – more quickly, with a debate over the pace currently ongoing within the central bank.

Assuming the tapering starts sooner, bitcoiners would no longer be able to count on the Fed bringing more liquidity to the markets through quantitative easing and giving investors the liquidity to invest more in riskier assets.

The labor force participation rate – the percentage of the American population that is either working or actively looking for work – ticked up slightly to 61.7% from 61.6% in June.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hits Two-Month High After Late-Day Surge

The employment-to-population ratio, which measures the number of people employed against the total working-age population, changed little month to month at 58.4% from 58% in June.

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Binance Coin (BNB) is currently the fourth biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization according to data from CoinMarketCap. Its swift rise in popularity is down to the growth of the Binance exchange and the development of the Binance Smart Chain.

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) must not cannibalize countries’ commercial financial systems, according to a JPMorgan analyst.

• This risk lies in banking customers moving funds from checking accounts to a CBDC account, which could lead to the exodus of as much as 30% of commercial banks’ funding base, JPMorgan strategist Josh Younger wrote in a note cited by Bloomberg on Friday.
• “Relatively heavy-handed caps on holdings would be needed to reduce the utility of a retail CBDC as a store of value,” Younger said in the note.
• Younger proposed a limit of $2,500. That would meet the needs of lower-income households without having a major effect on commercial banks’ funding mix, given that most such households have less than $1,000 in their checking accounts.
• “If every last one of those depositors were to hold only [a] retail CBDC, it would not have a material impact on bank funding,” he wrote.
• A hypothetical conflict between central banks and commercial banks for consumer deposits is often raised as a risk in the development of CBDCs. Were consumers to place all their funds in an account with the central bank then it would hinder commercial banks’ ability to offer loans and mortgages, with a knock-on effect on the wider economy.

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The level of activity in the ether options market is picking up as traders speculate on the impact of Ethereum’s London hard fork. The bulk of the activity is concentrated in the higher strike, longer duration calls, or bullish bets.

Data provided by Switzerland-based Laevitas shows ether volumes on Deribit, the largest crypto options exchange, have increased by more than 50,000 ETH to 153,000 ETH ($424 million) in the past 24 hours. That takes it to the highest level since the end of May. On Deribit, one ether options contract represents 1 ETH.

Activity at the over-the-counter (OTC) platform Paradigm has also doubled to 42% of the global market share in the past 24 hours, co-founder Anand Gomes told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat. “London hard fork is driving this activity, it’s mostly institutional,” Gomes said.

Related: Market Wrap: Ethereum Hard Fork Rally Outperforms Bitcoin

Deribit and Paradigm introduced an institution-focused block-trading service two years ago. Trades facilitated by Paradigm are automatically executed, margined and cleared at Deribit.

Overall, call options have registered higher activity than puts, and the most popular options have been calls expiring March 2022 with strike prices of $50,000 and $40,000.

A call option gives the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. That means call options offer insurance against bullish moves while puts offer insurance against a price drop.

The data show 12,790 contracts of the $50,000 call expiring in March have changed hands in the past 24 hours. The $40,000 call has seen a volume of 12,520.

Bullish flows

Related: Furniture Retailer Ethan Allen, Tired of Its Search Traffic Going Into the Ether, Changes Stock Ticker

Most of the volume came through Paradigm, where someone, mostly an institution, traded 12,500 contracts of $40,000 and $50,000 calls.

“There was a flurry of call buying and put selling after the London fork,” said Darius Sit, CEO of Singapore-based QCP Capital. “Of particular note was large buying interest in tail strike calls such as a $40,000/$50,000 ETH bull call spreads that were traded with us. A total of 12,500x contracts were traded. We had to take a second look at the screen to make sure those were ETH strikes and not BTC!”

A bull call spread involves buying call options at, below or above the spot market price and selling an equal number of calls with the same expiry at a higher strike price.

In this case, the market participant took the bull call spread by purchasing 12,500 contracts of the March expiry $40,000 call and simultaneously selling 12,500 contracts of the $50,000 call. QCP Capital was the market maker.

The bull call spread is a limited-risk, limited-reward strategy designed to benefit from an increase in the price of an asset. The maximum profit is earned if the asset expires at or above the short call’s strike price, that is $50,000 in this case, on the settlement day. Ether is currently trading near $2,750, and would need to surge 1,718% to hit $50,000. The maximum loss is limited to the net premium paid while setting the strategy.

The bullish mood is also evident from the negative one-week, one-, three- and six-month put-call skews, which measure the cost of puts relative to calls.

The data show investors are buying the narrative that the London hard fork implemented on Thursday will curb supply growth over time, yielding a price rally.

According to ethburned.info, around 10,000 ETH have been mined and 4,400 ETH have been burned or destroyed since the hard fork implementation, leading to a net supply reduction of 40%.

Also read: With EIP 1559, Has ETH Become Ultra-Sound Money?

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Bitcoin (BTC) is testing resistance near $40,000 after several breakout attempts over the past three months. The short-squeeze rally lost some momentum this week, although downside appears limited around the $34,000 to $36,000 support zone.

The next level of resistance is seen at the 200-day moving average near $45,000. A successful breakout would yield an initial upside target towards $50,000-$55,000.

Bitcoin was trading around $40,600 at press time and is up 6% over the past 24 hours.

• The relative strength index (RSI) is declining from overbought levels, which could encourage some profit taking around resistance levels.
• Bitcoin’s intermediate term trend is improving after holding support above $30,000 over the past three months.
• A decisive move above the 200-day moving average would clear the downtrend since April, although strong overhead resistance could limit price rallies into next week.

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U.K. crypto payments infrastructure startup Ramp has become the eighth crypto firm to secure registration with the country’s financial-services watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

• Ramp is the first on-ramp service to be certified, the company said Thursday.
• Branding itself the “PayPal for crypto,” Ramp offers a software development kit to companies wishing to offer crypto-enabled services, removing the need to integrate with third-party exchanges.
• Ramp recently became the exclusive on-ramping partner of blockchain-based fantasy soccer platform Sorare and the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace-focused blockchain Flow.
• The firm raised $10 million in June in a seed funding round led by NFX and Galaxy Digital.
• The FCA became the U.K.’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing supervisor of crypto asset firms in January. Businesses under its supervision need to demonstrate they comply with those regulations to be allowed operate.
• It was reported in June that 64 crypto firms had abandoned their plans for FCA registration amid mounting regulatory scrutiny. The deadline for registration is March 31 of next year.

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Nasdaq-listed mining firm Bitfarms’ said its bitcoin generation rate climbed 47.5% in July, producing a total of 391 BTC, its best month to date.

• Bitfarms’ monthly Bitcoin production has almost doubled since the start of the year, averaging around 13 BTC per day, according to a statement Thursday.
• Fortune estimates that Bitfarms scored $14 million in profit in July, 80% more than in February, its lowest-output month of 2021.
• The Canadian company has deposited 96% of the mined bitcoins, worth $69 million at July 31 prices, into custody, it said. The company expects to keep adding bitcoin to its balance sheet as output increases, said Emiliano Grodzki, Bitfarms founder and CEO.
• Bitfarms now accounts for 1.5% of the global bitcoin hashrate and is North America’s largest publicly traded miner, it said.
• The firm uses more than 99% hydroelectricity, it said.
• Bitfarms shares rose 15% to close at $5.13.

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Binance, the crypto exchange that has come under scrutiny from regulators globally, said it will take a more proactive stance to compliance and stopped Hong Kong clients from opening new derivates accounts with immediate effect.

• Existing Hong Kong account holders have 90 days to close their open positions, the exchange announced Friday.
• Earlier in the day, CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said in a tweet that the exchange would take a more proactive approach to compliance.

• Regulators including the U.K.’s FCA have said in recent weeks that Binance is not authorized to conduct regulated activities in their countries. At the end of July, Malaysia ordered it to stop operations in the country.
• Many banks, including HSBC and Banco Santander have blocked payments to the exchange.
• CZ responded to these pressures last month in an open letter in which he described regulatory compliance as a “journey,” likening its development to those of the automobile industry where “laws and guidelines were developed along the way.”
• The Binance chief subsequently announced that a new CEO was being sought with a strong regulatory background as his replacement.

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Senators Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) submitted a competing amendment on Thursday to an earlier amendment to the Senate infrastructure bill’s cryptocurrency provision.

• The amendment, a copy of which was obtained by CoinDesk, is limited in scope, excluding only proof-of-work mining, or the selling of hardware or software that permits individuals to control private keys that provide access to digital assets.
• In a tweet Thursday evening, Jerry Brito, the executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Coin Center called the amendment “disastrous.” He added: “And it does nothing for software devs. Ridiculous!”
• The crypto-specific provision would raise $28 billion toward $1 trillion in infrastructure improvements but has been contentious, briefly holding up the entire infrastructure bill.
• Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) proposed their amendment earlier Thursday to ensure miners, node operators, developers and other non-custodial crypto industry participants are exempt from the crypto tax reporting provision.
• The Biden administration formerly supported what it called the “compromise” in a statement shared on Twitter late Thursday and attributed to White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates.
• Wyden tweeted that the competing amendment “provides a government-sanctioned safe harbor for the most climate-damaging form of crypto tech, called proof-of-work. It would be a mistake for the climate and for innovation to advance this amendment.”
• Similarly, Lummis tweeted that, “Our amendment protects miners as well as hardware and software developers. The other does not. The choice is clear.”

UPDATE (Aug. 6, 2021, 02:48 UTC): Adds White House support for Warner-Portman-Sinema amendment; Wyden response.

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Philipp Plein will become the first major fashion brand to accept cryptocurrency as payment.

The popular, global label, named for its German designer but based in Switzerland, will accept 15 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether, the company said Tuesday.

Crypto payments will be accepted both in Philipp Plein bricks-and-mortar retail stores and online. The brand has partnered with Coinify, a crypto payments platform owned by Voyager Digital. 

Related: Market Wrap: Ethereum Hard Fork Rally Outperforms Bitcoin

Philipp Plein’s crypto payments is part of a larger trend in the fashion industry toward crypto adoption, with historic brands like Burberry releasing collectible NFTs and luxury brand conglomerate LVMH piloting blockchain-based authentication services. 

A few luxury and beauty brands, including watchmakers Hublot and Franck Muller, are accepting cryptocurrency for payment. 

The often-controversial brand, which is known for its over-the-top aesthetic, has long been an early adopter of technology in the fashion world and was one of the first brands to develop an in-house, e-commerce platform. 

“I believe that cryptocurrencies are the future and my team and I have made a major commitment in time and resources, performing all necessary system modifications to adopt this new type of currency,” Plein said in a press release. 

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Audius – a music streaming platform that runs on the Ethereum blockchain – hit a major milestone on Thursday, as five million people a month now use the platform to stream music, making it one of the largest consumer applications on any blockchain. 

Blockchain technology has been touted by many in the community as a way to make the monetization of art and music fairer in the digital age by giving creators more ownership of their work, as well as by clarifying the licensing and metadata issues that cause music to be taken down from online platforms. Audius’ rapid expansion is a sign that artists and fans alike are increasingly finding value in blockchain-based streaming. 

According to Audius co-founders Roneil Rumburg and Forrest Browning, most of Audius’ approximately 100,000 artists have small and midsized audiences. But major players in the music industry such as Skrillex, deadmau5 and Weezer are also using Audius to get music – including works-in-progress and unreleased music – out to their fans. 

Related: Rising Ether-Bitcoin Price Ratio Shows Crypto Risk Appetite

Audius, which launched in 2019, operates closer to a decentralized version of music streaming service SoundCloud than to Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming company. Creators are not paid directly by Audius based on streams, but instead are given the infrastructure needed to monetize their work in the way they see fit, including through sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

Creators and community members can also be rewarded for contributing to the platform with Audius’ native token, AUDIO. 

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Decentralized, Ethereum-based music streaming platform Audius hit a major milestone on Thursday, as five million people a month now use the platform to stream music, making it one of the largest consumer applications on any blockchain. 

Blockchain technology has been touted by many in the community as a way to make the monetization of art and music fairer in the digital age by giving creators more ownership of their work, as well as by clarifying the licensing and metadata issues that cause music to be taken down from online platforms. Audius’ rapid expansion is a signal that artists and fans alike are increasingly finding value in blockchain-based streaming. 

According to Audius co-founders Roneil Rumburg and Forrest Browning, most of Audius’ approximately 100,000 artists have small and mid-sized audiences. But major players in the music industry such as Skrillex, deadmau5 and Weezer are also using Audius to get music — including works-in-progress and unreleased music — out to their fans. 

Related: Solana Woos Creators With $5M Fund for Artists and Musicians

Audius, which launched in 2019, operates closer to a decentralized version of SoundCloud than Spotify. Creators are not paid directly by Audius based on streams, but instead are given the infrastructure needed to monetize their work in the way they see fit, including via sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

Creators and community members can also be rewarded for contributing to the platform with Audius’ native token, AUDIO. 

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