Telegram CEO cannot leave France, OpenSea receives Wells notice, and more: Hodler’s Digest, Aug. 25 – 31

Top 5 Stories of The Week

Binance under scrutiny for seizing Palestinian crypto funds

Major global cryptocurrency exchange Binance seized cryptocurrency from Palestinians as per request from Israel, according to sources from a prominent industry executive.

Ray Youssef, co-founder of the peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto platform Paxful and P2P crypto platform NoOnes, took to X on Aug. 26 to report that Binance confiscated funds from Palestinians at the request of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

“Binance has seized all funds from all Palestinians as per the request of the IDF. They refuse to return the funds. All appeals denied,” Youssef wrote, citing several sources, including a letter from Israel authorities passed on by Binance.

He argued that the measure affected all Palestinians, predicting that other countries like Lebanon and Syria are likely to come next.

“All Palestinians are affected and judging by the way things are going all Lebanese and Syrians will get the same treatment. Not your keys, not your coins,” Youssef stated.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov charged and released, barred from leaving France

Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, has been released from custody after being charged by French authorities and placed under judicial supervision following a court appearance.

According to an Aug. 28 Bloomberg report, French prosecutors said they had charged Durov with criminal offenses related to his role at Telegram. He was barred from leaving France and required to post bail of 5 million euros ($5.5 million) before being released from custody.

A widely-shared video from Russian state-owned news outlet RIA Novosti shows Durov walking free from a Paris courthouse on Aug. 28.

Police delivered Durov to court after detaining him at an airport north of Paris on Aug. 24. Authorities initially extended the Telegram CEO’s custody to Aug. 28, when he was expected to either be released or face charges in court.

OpenSea marketplace receives Wells notice from the SEC

Devin Finzer, CEO of non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, reported the company had received a Wells notice from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), suggesting a potential enforcement action.

In an Aug. 28 X post, Finzer said the SEC had issued the Wells notice, alleging that the NFTs traded on the marketplace may qualify as unregistered securities. The OpenSea CEO said the platform was ready to “stand up and fight” any potential enforcement action.

“This is a move into uncharted territory,” said Finzer. “By targeting NFTs, the SEC would stifle innovation on an even broader scale: hundreds of thousands of online artists and creatives are at risk, and many do not have the resources to defend themselves.”

The OpenSea CEO added:

“In addition to standing our own ground, we’re pledging $5M to help cover legal fees for NFT creators and devs that receive a Wells notice. Every creator, big or small, should be able to innovate without fear.”

Judge orders ex-FTX exec to appear after request to vacate guilty plea

A federal judge has ordered former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame to appear for a hearing despite withdrawing a request to vacate a guilty plea.

In an Aug. 29 filing in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Lewis Kaplan said Salame was required to appear in court on Sept. 12 as part of the conditions of his release on bail. He was initially scheduled to report to prison to serve a 90-month sentence starting on Aug. 29 but received a delay to Oct. 13 after reporting medical complications because of a dog bite.

On Aug. 21, the former FTX executive’s legal team filed a petition to have the court vacate his guilty plea, alleging authorities agreed not to pursue an investigation into his partner, Michelle Bond. However, after prosecutors unsealed an indictment for campaign finance law violations against Bond on Aug. 22, Salame withdrew his petition and said a ruling on the matter could be made in her case.

Brazilian judge suspends X after Elon Musk refuses to name representative

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice has ordered social media platform X to be suspended in Brazil after Elon Musk refused to name a legal representative for the company.

According to an Aug. 30 Associated Press report, Justice Alexandre de Moraes followed through with his intention to shut down X’s Brazilian operations if Musk failed to appoint a legal representative by Aug. 29. X’s Global Government Affairs team said the platform “would not comply with [Moraes’] illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”

It’s unclear what X’s next move may be for Brazilian users. Musk has made many posts claiming Justice Moraes was “evil” and a “dictator” for his alleged “illegal political censorship.” Moraes had been investigating X for allowing and promoting misinformation related to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

At the time of publication, Brazilian X users reported they could still access the social media platform. According to Statista, more than 20 million of the country’s roughly 217 million residents use X.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $59,224, Ether (ETH) at $2,525 and XRP at $0.56. The total market cap is at $2.08 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Helium (HNT) at 6.51%, TRON (TRX) at 0.88% and Akash Network (AKT) at -1.23%.The top three altcoin losers of the week are Notcoin (NOT) at 27.76%, Celestia (TIA) at 24.42% and SATS (1000SATS) at 23.96%. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“If you’re neutral, you’re basically anti-DeFi at this point.”

Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix

“In addition to standing our own ground, we’re pledging $5M to help cover legal fees for NFT creators and devs that receive a Wells notice. Every creator, big or small, should be able to innovate without fear.”

Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea

“My biggest hope is that we can really make [Web3] free for everyone.”

Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot

“The fiat liquidity conditions could not be more favourable going into the final stretches of the third quarter. We have the following tailwinds at our backs as crypto hodlers.”

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX

“Bitcoin will retrace deep enough to convince you that the Bull Market is over.”

Rekt Capital, pseudonymous crypto trader

Prediction of the Week

$1.3T in tokenized RWAs by 2030 more likely than $30T — Analyst

A crypto analyst is skeptical of a bullish prediction that tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) could be worth $30 trillion by 2030, suggesting that 5% of that amount is a more realistic target.

“If the current 2-year CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 121% continues, we could see around $1.3 trillion in tokenized traditional assets by 2030,” Real Vision chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts said in an Aug. 27 post on X.

The tokenization of assets is the process of issuing security tokens (a type of blockchain token) representing real digital tradable assets. These tokens represent anything from real estate and bonds to art and stocks.

In June, Standard Chartered and Synpulse forecasted that tokenized RWAs could reach $30.1 trillion by 2034.

While Coutts thinks Wall Street’s prediction is “overly optimistic,” even his more conservative estimate could significantly impact the Web3 ecosystem if it pans out the way he thinks.

He believes that if $1.3 trillion were in RWAs onchain, it would “create a massive flywheel effect” on other parts of the crypto ecosystem, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), social platforms and gaming.

FUD of The Week

Chinese ‘CoinGecko’ investigated by local police — Report

Feixiaohao, a major cryptocurrency market data and industry news provider in China, is reportedly under investigation by local police.

Several key executives at Feixiaohao are alleged to have been arrested within an ongoing investigation in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of North China, the Chinese cryptocurrency journalist Colin Wu reported on his Telegram channel Wu Blockchain News on Aug. 28.

Wu cited a report from a local crypto channel on WeChat, which mentioned that “many key members of the Feixiaohao team” have been taken away by the Inner Mongolia police for investigation.

Mt. Gox and US gov’t could introduce $15B Bitcoin selling pressure

Bitcoin’s sluggish momentum could carry over into September as Mt. Gox and the United States government could introduce nearly $15 billion worth of additional selling pressure.

Over $14.8 billion worth of Bitcoin could soon flood the market and put more downward pressure on price.

The US government holds over 203,000 Bitcoin worth $12.1 billion, while defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox is set to distribute another 46,000 Bitcoin worth over $2.7 billion.

Altcoin season hasn’t arrived because everyone jumped ‘straight to the punchline’

As crypto traders eagerly await a potential altcoin season, one analyst argued it won’t unfold as expected because new crypto traders rush to buy the most speculative assets too soon.

“The joke has been told, everybody knows the punchline, and they’ve just gone straight to the punchline, and it is just not funny anymore,” Glassnode lead analyst James Check said in an Aug. 29 episode of the Rough Consensus podcast.

Analyzing trader behavior during the 2021 bull run and comparing it to 2024, Check said traders have tried to outsmart the market by jumping straight to buying the most hyped memecoins as quickly as possible. 

In past bull runs, memecoins would typically surge toward the end of a broader market rally, but this time around, the assets have been rallying faster than ever before. 

“In 2021, we had the everything bubble, where it was this beautiful capital waterfall, Bitcoin, Ethereum, L1s, DeFi, all the way down to monkey JPEGs,” Check explained.

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This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News