Welcome to Web3 pills, the daily crypto newsletter that does not have its own meme token…yet.
Here are your 💊’s for today:
Will Ripple beat the SEC?
A meme token called $THE does $10 million in volume
Trending articles
NFT of the day
WILL RIPPLE BEAT THE SEC?
A landmark legal case in crypto just received an update that could shift the outcome.
For those who are unaware; Ripple Labs, which has the 4th highest market cap of any blockchain, has been embroiled in a case with the SEC since 2020.
The SEC filed suit after claiming that Ripple and two of its executives violated securities laws in 2013 when they raised funds for the sale of their XRP coin without first registering with the agency.
This case is of crucial importance to the crypto industry, because if XRP is deemed a security, it could set a precedent for many other projects in crypto to also be classified as securities.
On the flip side, if XRP wins the case and is deemed a currency, then it would be a major blow to the SEC’s effort to exert more control over cryptocurrencies.
Yesterday, a major breakthrough in the case occurred when the SEC was finally forced to hand over key documents that the defense has been seeking for over 18 months.
These docs are referred to as the “Hinman documents” which are a set of internal SEC drafts and emails relating to the former SEC director’s speech more than four years ago about Ethereum.
In his speech, the former SEC director, William Hinman, seemed to declare ETH to not be a security, which would help bolster the case the XRP is also not a security.
After receiving the documents, Ripple’s general counsel Stuart Alderoty took to Twitter to state that it was “well worth the fight to get them”.
He then went on to tweet that he felt the documents would help bolster Ripple’s case and that it revealed just how nefarious the SEC tactics have been in the case.
This sentiment was also echoed by Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who tweeted “When the truth eventually comes out, the shamefulness of their behavior here will shock you.”
The case is expected to resolve in early 2023, and the crypto industry will be holding it’s collective breath until then. For the sake of our industry, we should all be rooting for Ripple to win.
MEME TOKEN CALLED ‘$THE’ DOES $10 MILLION IN VOLUME
Even in the heart of a bear market, the degens can’t stay away from the meme tokens. This time it’s a meme token called $THE that was inspired by the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin.
A week ago, Vitalik jokingly tweeted that someone should make a project called “THE protocol” so that people could try to pump it any time someone notable used the word “the” in a tweet:
By this point Vitalik should know that there is no such thing as a joke on crypto twitter. Sure enough, some degens quickly went and launched a token called $THE protocol after the tweet.
A crypto outsider would likely assume that a token as preposterous as this one would surely not attract any traders, right…. right??
Well it turns out that person would be wrong, as $THE token has been pumping in trading volume. According to Dextools, $THE token has been doing millions of $ trading volume every day since launch, including touching $10 million in 24 hours yesterday.
Vitalik seems to have recognized the error of his original tweet, and simply had this to say:
If there’s anything we can learn from $THE, it’s that you can take the liquidity out of the crypto markets, but you can’t take the degen out of the crypto traders.
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[The Block] Y Combinator alumni DAO unveils web3 fellowship program: OrangeDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization only open to former Y Combinator founders, has launched its own accelerator program with web3 venture capital firm Press Start Capital.
NFT OF THE DAY
Polygon NFTs have continued to gain major traction this year. Between the recent Starbucks Odyssey partnership announcement and OpenSea integration, this Layer-2 is on a tear.
One collection on Polygon that has continued to see high trading volumes is CyberKongz VX.
Cyberkongz was originally a set of 1,000 NFTs launched on the Ethereum blockchain. The original set was 2D, however, the Polygon collection artwork is 3D.
The Cyberkongz VX collection consists of 15,000 models and the characters will be playable in upcoming metaverses including The Sandbox metaverse game.
The NFT pictured above is CyberKong VC #14959, which recently sold for 100 ETH.