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SEC could axe proposed Biden-era crypto custody rule, says acting chief

The US Securities and Exchange Commission could change or scrap a rule proposed under the Biden administration that would tighten crypto custody standards for investment advisers, according to the agency’s acting chair, Mark Uyeda.

In prepared remarks to an investment industry conference in San Diego on March 17, Uyeda said the rule proposed in February 2023 had seen commenters express “significant concern” over its “broad scope.”

“Given such concern, there may be significant challenges to proceeding with the original proposal. As such, I have asked the SEC staff to work closely with the crypto task force to consider appropriate alternatives, including its withdrawal,” Uyeda said.

The rule was floated under the Biden administration during Gary Gensler’s tenure leading the regulator. It aimed to expand custody rules for investment advisers to any and all assets held for a client, including crypto, and upped the requirements to protect them.

SEC could axe proposed Biden-era crypto custody rule, says acting chief

Source: SEC

This meant that investment advisers would have to custody their clients’ crypto with a qualified custodian. Gensler said at the time that investment advisers “cannot rely on” crypto platforms as qualified custodians due to how they operate.

The proposal caused friction with Uyeda and Commissioner Hester Peirce, along with industry advocacy bodies who claimed the rule was unlawful and dangerous.

“How could an adviser seeking to comply with this rule possibly invest client funds in crypto assets after reading this release?” Uyeda remarked at the time. He did, however, support the proposal despite disagreeing “with a number of provisions.” 

Peirce, who was the sole commissioner of the five to vote against the rule, said at the time that the proposed rule “would expand the reach of the custody requirements to crypto assets while likely shrinking the ranks of qualified crypto custodians.”

Related: Congress repealed the IRS broker rule, but can it regulate DeFi? 

Uyeda’s latest remarks come days after he said on March 10 that he had asked SEC staff “for options on abandoning” part of a proposal pushing for some crypto firms to register with the regulator as exchanges.

The Trump-era SEC has also killed a rule that asked financial firms holding crypto to record them as liabilities on their balance sheets, called SAB 121.

In December, President Donald Trump picked former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to take over from Uyeda to chair the agency. This is now a step closer, with a Senate hearing reportedly slated for March 27.

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered 

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Hyperliquid opened doors to ‘democratized’ crypto whale hunting: Analyst

Crypto whale tracking on the Hyperliquid blockchain has enabled traders to target whales with prominent leveraged positions in a “democratized” attempt to liquidate them, according to the head of 10x Research.

Hyperliquid, a blockchain network specializing in trading, allows traders to publicly observe what type of positions a whale is holding, and since these positions are leveraged, the market can assess the liquidation levels unless an additional margin is added, Markus Thielen said in a March 17 report.

Data, Trading, Whale

Source: 10x Research

“This transparency opens the door for coordinated efforts, where groups of traders could intentionally target these stop levels to trigger liquidations,” he said. 

It’s a common belief in the crypto market that whales with substantial holdings can influence the market through their trading tactics, such as stop-loss hunting, to deliberately trigger other traders’ stop-loss orders and liquidate their positions. 

Thielen says the recent actions from traders show this balance of power could be shifting.

“In effect, stop-hunting is being ‘democratized,’ with ad-hoc groups now playing a role once reserved mainly for market-making desks, or treasury teams, at exchanges before tighter regulatory scrutiny,” Thielen added. 

Thielen told Cointelegraph that it’s still “unclear if this type of activity will become widespread onchain, but as always, transparency can cut both ways.” 

Why are traders trying to liquidate whales?

This isn’t the first time smaller traders have attempted to take down larger entities through coordinated trading tactics. 

Thielen says crypto traders trying to liquidate whales have echoes of the GameStop short squeeze, which saw small traders flip the table on Wall Street short-sellers by buying GameStop’s stock, sending it to all-time highs of over $81 to liquid their positions. 

“This reminds me of the dynamics we saw during the GameStop saga in 2020/2021, where aggressive short squeezes drove rapid price spikes,” he said. 

Related: Bybit CEO on ‘brutal’ $4M Hyperliquid loss: Lower leverage as positions grow

“When stop levels get triggered, prices often accelerate in that direction, providing liquidity for others to cover. We’ve seen similar tactics from market makers and exchanges in the crypto space over the years.” 

Hunt is still on for 40x leveraged Bitcoin short-seller

On March 16, a crypto whale known for placing large, highly leveraged positions on Hyperliquid opened a 40x leveraged short position at $84,043 for over 4,442 Bitcoin (BTC), worth over $368 million on March 16, facing liquidation if Bitcoin’s price surpassed $85,592.

The move didn’t go unnoticed, and pseudonymous trader CBB sent out the call on X to gather a team of traders with enough funds to liquidate the whale’s position. 

Data, Trading, Whale

Source: CBB

Thielen said in the 10x report that on March 16, Bitcoin surged by 2.5% within minutes, partly because of a coordinated effort to liquidate a whale’s short position on Bitcoin perpetual via Hyperliquid.

The whale has since increased their position to $524 million, and at one point, the whale hunters nearly got their wish when the price of Bitcoin hit $84,583.84, according to CoinGecko. 

Data, Trading, Whale

Source: CRG

However, some speculate the exposed short position could be intentional. 

Hedge fund trader Josh Man said in a March 17 post to X that the whale might be purposefully trying to get liquidated. 

“So this there is a fairly rare and not widely used technique of self-liquidation and this FEELS a little like that,” he said. 

“In such events, the seller is actually creating a bomb designed to go off and create a rally from the liquidation of his own short. One would expect that he has a large offsetting long versus short.” 

Data, Trading, Whale

Source: Josh Man

Magazine: Crypto fans are obsessed with longevity and biohacking: Here’s why

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Paul Atkins closes in on SEC chair role amid setbacks: Report

Paul Atkins could move one step closer to becoming the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s new crypto-friendly chair, with a Senate committee hearing reportedly in the works for March 27.

President Donald Trump nominated Atkins to lead the SEC on Dec. 4, but his marriage into a billionaire family has reportedly caused headaches with financial disclosures — delaying his potential start date.

While it isn’t clear whether the White House has produced those papers to the Senate, Senate Banking, House and Urban Affairs Chair Tim Scott is reportedly eyeing a March 27 hearing to review Atkins’ standing, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller said in a March 17 X post.

“No clarity yet on whether the committee has Atkins’ paperwork in hand, but either way, this is the most momentum we’ve seen so far.”

Atkins would, however, need to be voted in by the Senate at a later date.

Mueller also said the Senate banking committee is also planning to hold a bipartisan meeting on Atkins’ nomination on March 21.

Paul Atkins closes in on SEC chair role amid setbacks: Report

Source: Eleanor Mueller

It follows an earlier March 3 Semafor report, where Mueller said financial disclosures had held Atkins back from scheduling a Senate hearing to review his standing.

His wife’s family is tied to TAMKO Building Products LLC — a manufacturer of residential roofing shingles that reportedly turned over $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023, Forbes said on Dec. 14, 2024.

“It’s a lot to go through,” one former Senate Banking Committee staffer reportedly told Mueller on March 3.

“But he got named so early on, so I think that’s why people are starting to be like, ‘What the hell’s taking so long?’” 

Atkins previously served as an SEC commissioner between 2002 and 2008 and worked as a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in New York before that. He is expected to regulate the crypto arena with a more collaborative approach than former SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

It’s been almost four months since Atkins was chosen by Trump to lead the SEC on Dec. 4, and over two months since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.

A late start for an SEC chair wouldn’t be too unusual, however.

The two most recent SEC chairs, Gary Gensler and Jay Clayton, started on April 17, 2021, and May 4, 2017 — months after presidential transitions occurred in those years.

Related: SEC’s enforcement case against Ripple may be wrapping up

Meanwhile, Mark Uyeda has been serving as the SEC’s acting chair since Gensler left on Jan. 20.

Since then, the Uyeda-led SEC has established a Crypto Task Force led by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce and canceled a controversial rule that asked financial firms holding crypto to record them as liabilities on their balance sheets.

The SEC has dropped several investigations and lawsuits that the Gensler-led commission filed against the likes of Coinbase, Consensys, Robinhood, Gemini, Uniswap and OpenSea over the last month.

The SEC is also looking to abandon a rule requiring crypto firms to register as exchanges and may even axe the Biden administration’s proposed crypto custody rules, Uyeda said on March 17.

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered

Read more

Solana futures finish first trading day on CME

Solana (SOL) futures traded for the first time on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group’s US derivatives exchange on March 17 as the cryptocurrency’s mainstream adoption gains momentum.

In February, CME tipped plans to list two types of SOL futures contracts: standard contracts representing 500 SOL and retail-friendly “micro” contracts representing 25 SOL each. 

They are the first regulated Solana futures to hit the US market after Coinbase’s launched in February. The contracts are settled in cash, not physical SOL.

On March 17, the contracts’ first trading day, SOL futures representing a notional value of nearly 40,000 SOL, or nearly $5 million at current prices, changed hands on the exchange, according to preliminary data from CME’s website.

Early pricing data indicates a potentially bearish sentiment on SOL among traders. The CME does not publish finalized data on daily trading volumes until the subsequent business day. 

The CME’s April futures contracts traded at a price of $127 per SOL — $2 per token less than contracts expiring in March, CME data shows. 

On March 16, trading firms FalconX and StoneX completed the first-ever SOL futures trade on CME, they said.

“Solana has come a long way in the last five years,” Chris Chung, founder of Solana-based swap platform Titan, told Cointelegraph on March 17.

“Solana futures are going live on the CME today, and SOL [exchange-traded funds] will surely follow shortly behind,” Chung said. 

Solana futures finish first trading day on CME

CME listed SOL futures on March 17. Source: CME

Related: Solana CME futures tip impending US ETF approvals — Exec

ETF approval odds

On March 13, Chung told Cointelegraph he expects the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve asset managers VanEck and Canary Capital’s proposed spot Solana ETFs as soon as May.

At least five ETF issuers have filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to list spot Solana ETFs. The regulator has until October 2025 to make a final decision on the filings. 

Bloomberg Intelligence gauges the likelihood that SOL ETFs are ultimately approved at approximately 70%.

Futures contracts are standardized agreements to buy or sell an underlying asset at a future date. 

They are commonly used for hedging and speculation by retail and institutional investors. Futures also play a crucial supporting role for spot cryptocurrency ETFs because regulated futures markets provide a stable benchmark for measuring a digital asset’s performance.

CME already lists futures contracts for Bitcoin BTC and Ether ETH. US regulators approved ETFs for both of those cryptocurrencies last year.

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Google’s parent company Alphabet is again in advanced talks to acquire cloud cybersecurity startup Wiz, a person familiar with the deal told TechCrunch. The two companies were close to securing a deal at a $23 billion valuation last summer, but the transaction failed to materialize.  This time, the price being discussed is higher, the person […]

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Liam Fedus, OpenAI’s VP of research for post-training, is leaving the company to found a materials science AI startup. The Information initially reported Fedus’ plans. In a statement on X, Fedus confirmed the report and added a few additional details. “My undergrad was in physics and I’m keen to apply this technology there,” Fedus said […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

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Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan seems ready to get right to work to turn around the struggling company.  The semiconductor giant’s new executive is considering sweeping changes for the company’s chip manufacturing and AI strategies, according to Reuters, including cutting middle management staff and revamping the company’s approach to manufacturing chips. Tan reportedly told company […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

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It’s gloves off in one of the more tense rivalries in the world of startups. HR company Rippling Monday morning announced a lawsuit against Deel, another big player in the same space. The dramatic 50-page complaint alleges racketeering, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition, and aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty. […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

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The world is bad sometimes, but it feels even worse if you can’t stop staring into the all-consuming abyss that is the 6-inch screen of a smartphone, following you through space and time. It taunts you with its compact, light build that’s small enough to slip into your pocket and take anywhere, and its siren […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

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This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Is Google playing catchup on search with OpenAI?

—Mat Honan

I’ve been mulling over something that Will Heaven, our senior editor for AI, pointed out not too long ago: all the big players in AI seem to be moving in the same directions and converging on the same things. Agents. Deep research. Lightweight versions of models. Etc.

Google is no different. It’s just announced it’s adding new AI features from Gemini to search, and adding search features to Gemini. 

What strikes me more than how well they work is that they are really just about catching up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.  And their belated appearance in March of the year 2025 doesn’t seem like a great sign for Google. Read the full story.

This story originally appeared in The Debrief with Mat Honan, a weekly newsletter about the biggest stories in tech from our editor in chief. Sign up here to get the next one in your inbox on Friday.

If you’re interested in reading more about AI search, check out the following stories: 

+ Generative AI search was one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025. Read more about why it made the cut for this year’s list. + AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it. Despite fewer clicks, copyright fights, and sometimes iffy answers, AI could unlock new ways to summon all the world’s knowledge.

+ AI search could break the web. Developers should act before governments fall back on blunt tools. Read the full story.

+ Why Google’s AI Overviews gets things wrong. The feature provides brief, AI-generated summaries highlighting key information and links on top of search results. Unfortunately, it’s also unreliable.

+ Why you shouldn’t trust AI search engines. Read the full story.

AI chatbots have joined the chat

Chatbots are changing how we connect to each other and ourselves. But are these changes for the better, and how should they be monitored and regulated?

To learn more, join me for a live Roundtable session this Thursday at 12pm ET. I’ll be chatting with MIT Technology Review editor Rachel Courtland and senior reporter Eileen Guo, and we’ll be unpacking the landscape around chatbots. Register to ensure you don’t miss out!

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 How Trump’s foreign aid cuts will hurt millions of peoples’ health
The world is going to struggle to cope with the loss of US support. (Vox)
+ Hundreds of thousands of people are likely to lose their lives as a result. (New Yorker $)
+ The cuts could cause tuberculosis to become untreatable again. (The Atlantic $)
+ Top scientific universities are being forced to slash jobs. (The Guardian)
+ Pregnant women may die because of cuts to reproductive care. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Left-leaning Americans are abandoning Tesla
And conservatives face an uphill climb to plug the sales gap. (NYT $)
+ The company is turning its back on the typically pro-EV buyers that made it a success. (WP $)

3 VC firms are rushing to invest in Israeli startups
They’re betting that the firms are likely to do future business with the US. (WSJ $)
+ Here’s the defense tech at the center of US aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. (MIT Technology Review)

4 NASA is scheduled to return the two stranded astronauts on Tuesday
A new crew arrived to relieve them of their duties over the weekend. (NPR)
+ Let’s see if they make it home this week or not. (Ars Technica)
+ Space travel is seriously hard on the human body. (WP $)

5 Baidu’s new reasoning AI model is designed to challenge DeepSeek
It claims Ernie X1 offers the same performance at half the price. (Insider $)
+ DeepSeek’s shock success is sparking a new wave of AI investment. (Bloomberg $)
+ Four Chinese AI startups to watch beyond DeepSeek. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Alphabet has big plans for its laser-based internet project
Taara has been spun out of its moonshot incubator and into the real world. (FT $)
+ It’s a rival to Musk’s Starlink network. (The Verge)

7 What if Bitcoin’s mysterious creator is just a loser?
As the trail grows older, all signs point towards the shadowy figure being… a bit of a jerk. (NY Mag $)

8 Drone shows are bringing 3D artists’ ideas to life
The only problem is, they come with a safety warning. (Rest of World)

9 Google’s new Gemini AI model can remove watermarks from images
Naughty, naughty. (TechCrunch)
+ It’s easy to tamper with watermarks from AI-generated text. (MIT Technology Review)

10 What is vibe coding, exactly?
Developers are giving in and letting AI dictate its own path. (The Information $)

Quote of the day

 “To a lot of people, putting Elon Musk in charge of protecting the middle class is like putting Jeffrey Dahmer in charge of protecting a morgue.”

—Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist, explains why Elon Musk’s unpopular actions are likely to become a problem for the Trump administration, the Guardian reports.

The big story

How covid conspiracies led to an alarming resurgence in AIDS denialism

August 2024

Several million people were listening in February when Joe Rogan falsely declared that “party drugs” were an “important factor in AIDS.” His guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, the former evolutionary biology professor turned contrarian podcaster Bret Weinstein, agreed with him.

Speaking to the biggest podcast audience in the world, the two men were promoting dangerous and false ideas—ideas that were in fact debunked and thoroughly disproved decades ago.

These comments and others like them add up to a small but unmistakable resurgence in AIDS denialism—a false collection of theories arguing either that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS or that there’s no such thing as HIV at all.

These claims had largely fallen out of favor until the coronavirus arrived. But, following the pandemic, a renewed suspicion of public health figures and agencies is giving new life to ideas that had long ago been pushed to the margins. Read the full story.

—Anna Merlan

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Happy St Patrick’s Day, if you’re celebrating today!
+ This newsreader losing it over the name of an inspirational pig is the most entertaining thing you’ll see today 🐖
+ These one-pot pasta dishes are exactly the kind of low-maintenance recipes you need for a weekday dinner.
+ Do you snerdle? Me neither.

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