Toute l'actualité des NFT
L’eldorado NFT vire au désert glacé : 13,7 milliards de volumes envolés, un krach digne des plus belles illusions numériques. Qui misera encore sur ces mirages ?
L’article 13,7 milliards partis en fumée : Les NFT coulent avec le marché crypto est apparu en premier sur Cointribune.
Animoca Brands’ most recent year-end financial report shows a shift in the company’s focus, with the web3 giant run reporting that its Digital Assets Advisory has edged out its traditional revenue source.
The firm’s advisory unit generated $165 million in 2024, a 116% year-over-year increase. According to a release, this division provides web3 projects with token advisory, tokenomics, marketing, listing advisory, node operation, and trading services.
Animoca said it generated $110 million in bookings from web3 businesses – its traditional territory of gaming and NFTs – while $39 million came from investment gains and venture management fees.
This change in its web3 business reflects an approximately 40% year-over-year drop from the $182 million it reported last year.
Overall, the company looks to have strengthened its balance sheet in 2024, holding $293 million in cash and stablecoins, $538 million in digital assets, and $2.9 billion in off-balance-sheet token reserves.
Its minority investments totaled $564 million across 540 companies, reflecting a 67% increase in cash reserves and a 165% rise in digital asset holdings.
While the number of portfolio investments increased to 540 from 450 noted, Animoca’s private investment holdings dropped 18%, falling from $690 million to $564 million, due to token unlocks, equity exits, and asset write-downs weighed on valuations.
Late last year, Animoca opened a large new office in Hong Kong – bucking a trend in the city that saw TradFi firms downsizing and reducing headcount as well as square footage.
One might think that virtually all Bitcoiners would be thrilled about the notion of the U.S. government acquiring BTC (and perhaps a basket of other cryptoassets) and effectively ratifying it as a global asset of consequence. However, I count myself among the few holdouts who don’t see the development as positive for either Bitcoin or the U.S. government itself. Here’s eight reasons why I don’t support the policy.
If Bitcoiners want a reserve to last, they should want Trump to seek Congressional authorization for a purchase (as is customary for any large outlay). If it is done solely by executive fiat, the next administration will not feel bound by the policy and could trivially reverse it (and nuke the market in the process). If Bitcoiners sincerely believe it benefits the U.S. to acquire bitcoin and hold it for a long period of time, then they would have no issue insisting that the government pass a law authorizing spending for the Reserve, rather than having Trump enact the policy unilaterally.
The fact that many Bitcoiners are hoping that Trump makes the policy without asking Congress for approval shows that they are chasing a short-term pump, rather than actually being sincere about the long-term value of the Reserve for the U.S. A future Democratic administration will have no qualms about immediately divesting the Reserve.
The U.S. is the issuer of the global reserve currency. We still don’t know how the Crypto Reserve will be positioned – as simply an investment fund, or something more inherent to the dollar such as a new commodity-based currency system like the old gold standard.
If the Crypto Reserve is contemplated as providing a new backing for the dollar, I believe this will cause significant unease in dollar and Treasury markets. Effectively, the government will be signaling that it believes it no longer has faith in the dollar system as it currently exists, and a radical change is needed. I imagine that this would cause already-high rates to rise, as the market starts to wonder whether the U.S. is contemplating a default on its debt. The government should be focused on shoring up investors’ faith in its ability to sustain its debt obligations by pursuing pro-growth and deficit-reducing policies, not toying with the entire structure of the dollar system.
Many Bitcoiners don’t buy this line of reasoning and simply want to accelerate the collapse of the dollar. I view this as a kind of financial terrorism. I don’t believe in financial accelerationism nor do I think bitcoin – or any other cryptoasset – is ready to serve as the backing of a new commodity standard for the dollar.
American funds and individuals hold more Bitcoin than the citizens of any other country on the planet – almost certainly by a large margin. The U.S. government already benefits from this state of affairs. When Bitcoin goes up, those Americans who realize their gains owe taxes to the government – either 20% or 40% of their gains based on how long they have held the position.
This is a meaningful point not to be overlooked. The U.S. already benefits when Bitcoin goes up, through tax realizations – more than any other country. In light of this, do we really need to pick a massive fight and insist that the U.S. government gain direct exposure for these assets, too? No one is pushing for the U.S. government to acquire Apple or NVIDIA stock. Why Bitcoin?
Generally, assets and commodities that the U.S. acquires at the government level are things that might be required in a pinch, and have to be accumulated ahead of time. The Petroleum Reserve is a good example, as oil is clearly an essential commodity, and in a crisis, we might not be able to acquire all the oil that we need.
We also maintain reserves of other sorts of strategic assets, such as medical supplies and equipment, rare earth minerals, helium, metals like uranium and tungsten, and agricultural commodities. These all have a clear and obvious purpose: creating a reserve that can be dipped into in a time of emergency.
We also stockpile foreign FX, in case we need to make interventions into currency markets, although these interventions are increasingly rare. There is no obvious strategic use for bitcoin (and certainly not Cardano or Ripple). Ordinary Americans do not need a “supply” of bitcoin or any other cryptoasset to support their quality of life. This might change if the entire financial system runs on a blockchain and we need the tokens for gas (the one analogous « industrial” use I could think of), but that’s not the state-of-play today. The only “strategic” use for bitcoin is simply going “long” the asset at the state level and selling it later, but you could accomplish this with any other financial asset. There’s nothing unique about bitcoin (or any other cryptoasset) in this regard.
Of course, if you’re going to ultimately back the dollar with bitcoin in some kind of neo gold standard, then it would have a strategic use (in which case you should refer back to point #2). But I don’t think that is the intent right now.
Mixing Bitcoin in with rival cryptoassets Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, and XRP and giving them all an equal government imprimatur devalues Bitcoin and makes it look undifferentiated from these assets. Bitcoin is the only one of the bunch with a credible supply schedule and genuine decentralization at the protocol level. A crypto reserve confuses the issue and devalues Bitcoin in the public eye. Principled Bitcoiners should push for an all-or-nothing approach; either just Bitcoin, or no reserve.
I wonder what early libertarian Bitcoiners from 2012-16 would think of 2025 Bitcoiners pushing for the government to backstop the value of their coins. Beyond the confusing ideological evolution that the Bitcoin community has undergone, another point remains. Bitcoin has been one of the best performing investments in history, monetizing from nothing in 2009/10 to trillions of dollars in aggregate value in 2025. It has done all of this without government support, and, indeed, in many cases, despite overt hostility from powerful nation-states. A Crypto Reserve would transform bitcoin from an apolitical asset into the plaything of the government, subject to Washington’s political cycles. Bitcoiners were never ones to hitch their wagon to the government, and they shouldn’t start now.
Only a fraction (somewhere between 5-20%) of Americans own bitcoin, and even fewer own other cryptoassets. Many Bitcoiners are extremely wealthy due to their historical investments in the coin and others. At a time when government spending is under the microscope, using taxpayer dollars – regardless of how mechanically they are apportioned – to bolster the price of Bitcoin and other cryptoassets will be politically unpopular. Biden’s proposed student loan amnesty was met with great resistance, despite potentially applying to 43 million borrowers. Bitcoiners are a smaller bunch and even less in need of financial support from the government. This policy would undoubtedly cause an unnecessary backlash in broader society against the crypto community.
It’s no secret that Trump and his cabinet and inner circle have ownership in various cryptoassets. Trump himself has launched, or is affiliated with: an NFT project built on ETH, more than one memecoin built on Solana, and, of course, World Liberty Financial which holds an array of crypto assets. What we need from Trump is reasonable crypto policy, and based on his appointments at Treasury, Commerce, SEC, CFTC, OCC and others, it looks like he is delivering that.
However, using government resources to directly increase the value of coins that Trump (and many in his inner circle) hold leaves a sour taste. Most of us in the crypto industry have simply been asking for reasonable policy and fair rules of the road so that we can do business in the U.S. Trump is proposing going much further than this and using taxpayer dollars to speculate on the coins themselves, potentially enriching himself and his associates.
To Trump’s critics, this appears corrupt. It also makes the remainder of Trump’s pro-crypto policymaking and regulatory efforts look self-interested, rather than letting it stand on its own as good policy. A future administration could choose to throw the baby out with the bathwater, reversing all the progress the U.S. has made on crypto. The existence of the Reserve gives future regressive efforts an easy moral justification.
À la fin du mois de janvier, Mark Uyeda a pris le poste de président de la SEC par intérim, remplaçant Gary Gensler. Celui-ci a depuis créé une task force ayant pour mission de créer un cadre réglementaire pour les cryptos. Depuis, les annonces ne cessent de se multiplier.
Au cours des dernières années, la SEC a été la bête noire des entreprises crypto aux USA. En effet, l’agence américaine a multiplié les enquêtes et les poursuites judiciaires.
Toutefois, le changement de présidence semble avoir eu un effet positif pour les entreprises crypto.
En effet, la SEC a abandonné de nombreuses affaires. Cela a commencé avec l’abandon de son enquête sur la plateforme de trading de NFT OpenSea fin février.
Dans la foulée, c’est l’exchange Uniswap qui a vu l’enquête qui la visait abandonnée. Puis Consensys.
Même Kraken, qui elle faisait l’objet d’une plainte et non seulement d’une enquête, a vu la SEC se rétracter.
Finalement, nous venons d’apprendre un nouvel abandon du côté de la SEC. Cette fois, c’est l’enquête qui portait sur Yuga Labs qui a été mise sous le tapis par la SEC.
Pour rappel, Yuga Labs n’est autre que le studio à l’origine de collections de NFT emblématiques tels que les Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
« Après plus de trois ans, la SEC a officiellement clos son enquête sur Yuga Labs. C’est une grande victoire pour les NFT et tous les créateurs qui font avancer notre écosystème. Les NFT ne sont pas des titres. »
En effet, Yuga Labs faisait l’objet d’une enquête depuis 2022. Comme dans le cadre de la plupart de ses enquêtes, la SEC cherchait à savoir si les ventes de NFT ne seraient pas une émission illégale de valeurs mobilières (securities). Le jeton APE lancé en mars 2022 était également dans le collimateur.
Ainsi, il semblerait que pour la SEC, les NFT ne soient pas des securities. Et ce n’est pas le seul actif crypto qu’elle ait catégorisé. En effet, après avoir failli à statuer sur la nature des cryptomonnaies depuis plus de 10 ans, la SEC est au cœur d’une nouvelle dynamique.
La semaine dernière, elle a annoncé que les memecoins n’étaient, eux aussi, pas des securities. En effet, ces derniers tombent dans la catégorie des objets de collection.
L’article Après OpenSea, Uniswap ou Kraken la SEC abandonne son enquête sur Yuga Labs (BAYC) est apparu en premier sur Journal du Coin.
Les équipes de Zora ont dévoilé que les utilisateurs de son layer 2 spécialisé dans les NFT seront éligibles à un airdrop au printemps. Que savons-nous sur ce nouveau token ?
L’article Zora annonce son airdrop — Quelles sont les dates clés à retenir ? est apparu en premier sur Cryptoast.
The new chief counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) freshly-created Crypto Task Force is a crypto lawyer.
Michael Selig, who was named chief counsel of the task force in a Monday announcement from the SEC, was previously a New York-based partner at white-shoe international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he was a member of the firm’s crypto practice. Before joining Willkie, Selig interned for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
In a Monday X post, former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, affectionately known as “CryptoDad” by many in the industry, congratulated Selig on his appointment. Giancarlo is also senior counsel at Wilkie Farr, where he leads the firm’s Digital Works practice.
“Proud and excited for my protege, former CFTC intern and Willkie partner Mike Selig to be named chief counsel to the new SEC Crypto Task Force,” Giancarlo wrote.
Last October, Selig wrote an op-ed for CoinDesk laying out his suggestions for how the SEC could move away from the so-called “regulation by enforcement” the agency practiced under former Chair Gary Gensler and instead create a regulatory environment that encourages innovation. Several of Selig’s suggestions — including rescinding the controversial Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 and withdrawing from certain lawsuits – have already been implemented by the new Crypto Task Force.
Selig was one of 14 staff members named in the Monday announcement. His colleagues include several crypto industry natives — Landon Zinda, former policy director at crypto think tank Coin Center, and Veronica Reynolds, a former attorney at Baker Hostetler LLP focused on NFTs and metaverse-related legal issues, both of whom will serve as senior advisors to the task force — as well as career SEC staff. Zinda’s appointment to the task force was announced in February.
“The Crypto Task Force exhibits deep expertise and an enthusiastic commitment to identifying — with the help of other talented staff across the Commission and interested members of the public — workable solutions to difficult crypto regulatory problems,” Commissioner Hester Peirce, the leader of the task force, said in a Monday statement.
Victoire ! La nouvelle tombe comme un coup de tonnerre dans la nuit : la Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) des États-Unis a décidé d’abandonner sa plainte contre Kraken, l’une des plus grandes plateformes d’échange de cryptomonnaies. Cette décision marque une nouvelle victoire pour l’industrie crypto, après une série de concessions similaires de la part de la SEC concernant Coinbase, Robinhood, OpenSea et Uniswap Labs.
Dans un revirement inattendu, la SEC a annoncé qu’elle renonçait à poursuivre Kraken pour sa vente non enregistrée de titres via son programme de staking. Ce programme permettait aux utilisateurs de gagner des rendements sur leurs cryptomonnaies en les verrouillant sur la plateforme. La SEC avait initialement accusé Kraken de violer les lois sur les valeurs mobilières, mais l’affaire est maintenant close « sans admission de culpabilité, sans pénalités et sans changements dans nos activités », selon un communiqué de Kraken.
Lancé en 2023, le procès de la SEC contre Kraken faisait partie d’une campagne plus large de l’agence pour réglementer le secteur crypto. Cependant, cette offensive a été largement critiquée pour son manque de clarté et sa tendance à freiner l’innovation. « Cette décision met fin à une campagne politiquement motivée et ouvre la voie à un régime réglementaire plus stable et tourné vers l’avenir », a déclaré Kraken dans son annonce.
La décision de la SEC intervient alors que l’industrie crypto continue de croître à un rythme effréné. Des entreprises comme Coinbase et Robinhood ont récemment réussi à faire lever les enquêtes de la SEC, marquant une série de victoires pour le secteur. Même OpenSea et Uniswap Labs, deux géants du marché NFT et DeFi, ont vu les poursuites de la SEC s’effondrer.
Pour Kraken, cette issue est une bouffée d’air frais. La plateforme, fondée en 2011 à San Francisco, est l’une des plus anciennes et des plus respectées dans le domaine. Elle offre une large gamme de services, y compris le trading de centaines de cryptomonnaies, des produits dérivés, et bien sûr, le staking. Avec la menace de la SEC désormais derrière elle, Kraken peut continuer à se concentrer sur son expansion mondiale et l’amélioration de ses services.
L’article Guerre anti crypto : La SEC abandonne sa plainte contre Kraken est apparu en premier sur Journal du Coin.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is undertaking a full-scale retreat from much of the major crypto litigation started under former Chair Gary Gensler, but not everyone is off the hook.
At least four lawsuits against crypto companies — Ripple, Kraken, Cumberland DRW and Pulsechain — remain ongoing, and probes into another three firms — Unicoin, Crypto.com and Immutable — have not yet been closed.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, the leader of the agency’s newly-created Crypto Task Force, has already made good on her promise earlier this month to “disentangle” the SEC from various crypto-related litigation. The agency has agreed to drop its cases against Coinbase and ConsenSys, pending commissioner approval, and has put its cases against Binance and Tron on pause as the parties consider a “potential resolution.”
The unprecedented activity level at the SEC as it backs away from crypto actions illustrates « just how beyond the pale the last four years were, » Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal in an interview with CoinDesk. « It is definitely something we’ve never seen before, but I think it’s well warranted. »
Over the past two weeks, a number of companies who previously received Wells notices — essentially a heads-up from the regulator that it intends to file enforcement charges — got word from the SEC that the investigations into them had been closed, and enforcement charges would not be filed against them. That list includes Robinhood Crypto, decentralized protocol Uniswap, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea and crypto exchange Gemini.
Though the SEC has retreated from its accusations that Coinbase operated as an unregistered securities broker and exchange, similar charges against Kraken have not yet been dropped. The SEC sued Kraken in November 2023, accusing the firm of commingling customer and corporate funds while operating as an unregistered securities broker, clearing agency and dealer. A representative for Kraken did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
Similarly, the SEC sued Cumberland DRW — the crypto trading arm of Chicago-based trading firm DRW — last year for allegedly operating as an unregistered securities dealer. Don Wilson, the founder of DRW, pledged to fight the suit at the time. A representative for DRW declined to comment, telling CoinDesk the firm currently has no updates to share.
Read more: Who’s Afraid of Gary Gensler? Not Don Wilson, the Trader Who Beat the Regulator Once Before
The SEC sued Ripple in 2020 and largely lost in 2023, when a New York judge ruled that XRP, when sold to retail investors, wasn’t a security. The SEC subsequently appealed that ruling. Though both Ripple executives and outside experts have speculated that the agency will drop the appeal, the agency has not yet made any public statement about the case. A representative for Ripple told CoinDesk the company currently has no updates to share.
Rebecca Fike, a Dallas-based partner at law firm Vinson & Elkins and a former SEC enforcement attorney, told CoinDesk she expects the SEC to drop any of its pending cases that are based on using the Howey test to charge a firm with offering unregistered securities, especially where there are no findings of fraud or other investor-protection related issues.
“As for why some have been dropped before others, it could be internal or court based timelines that are setting priorities,” Fike said. “There is also a chance that some crypto-related cases that seem to fit the Howey framework AND that the SEC determines are based squarely in fraud — ie, a promoter or CEO saying one thing but doing another with investor funds — could continue under a traditional fraud framework.”
The SEC brought fraud and registration allegations against Richard Schueler, better known as Richard Heart, Pulsechain, PulseX and Hex in July 2023. There was a hearing on the defendants’ motion to dismiss last October, and the judge overseeing the case dismissed it last Friday, though she gave the SEC 20 days to amend it.
Several of the SEC’s probes — investigations that have not yet led to filed charges — into crypto companies also remain open.
Crypto.com sued the SEC last October after it received a Wells notice. The firm voluntarily dropped its suit two months later, shortly after CEO Kris Marzalek met with then-President Elect Donald Trump. Crypto.com did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
Australian blockchain gaming and NFT company Immutable also received a Wells notice last year connected to the sale of its IMX token in 2021, and pledged to fight any ensuing enforcement charges. Neither the company nor the SEC has made any public statements about the status of the probe.
Unicoin also received a Wells notice last year informing the firm that the SEC planned to bring charges alleging violations related to fraud, deceptive practices and the offer and sale of unregistered securities. Unicoin did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
The SEC’s retreat, as well as the slashing of its crypto enforcement team, according to Fike, is an indication that the agency is moving away from the so-called “regulation by enforcement” approach to the crypto industry undertaken by former Chair Gensler.
“I think the SEC is signaling through staffing that it means what it is now saying: that crypto regulation will come through statements and potential future rulemaking, not case-by-case enforcement actions,” Fike said. “Their hope, and mine, is that a backing away from calling all crypto securities and assessing the crypto industry as a whole under Commissioner Peirce’s new taskforce, will create some clarity around crypto regulation.”
While the SEC is changing rapidly, not everyone is happy. Gemini president and co-founder Cameron Winkelvoss took to X earlier this week to demand retribution for the time and money the crypto exchange spent defending itself against the SEC’s probe. He suggested that the SEC repay Gemini triple its legal costs and publicly fire all staff involved in the probe.
According to Fike, this is probably a non-starter.
“I can’t imagine the SEC would ever do that. It seems like it would be a difficult precedent to set for it and other agencies who try to regulate in new and emerging markets,” Fike said. “It’s important to note that new financial products can often be a source of fraud, and people/investors can be harmed by them. I do think the SEC was trying to be present and active in a billion-dollar market full of investors who may be fearful of ‘missing out’ but don’t necessarily have the financial or technological savvy to parse through the real crypto opportunities from the potential frauds. »
Fike went on, adding: “Many may disagree with the path they took, and Commissioners Peirce and Uyeda clearly do, but they are also benefitting from some maturation in the crypto universe. I think it is good that the SEC is taking a step back and looking to create a better regulatory structure for crypto and digital assets, but I don’t think that means their earlier efforts were ill-intentioned or deserving of punishment.”
La Trump Organization, l’entreprise dirigée par la famille de l’actuel président américain Donald Trump, fait un pas audacieux dans l’univers numérique. Selon un récent dépôt auprès de l’Office des brevets et des marques des États-Unis (USPTO), l’organisation a soumis une demande pour enregistrer la marque « Trump » dans le cadre d’une ambitieuse expansion vers les NFT et le metaverse.
L’article NFT et metaverse : La Trump Organization prépare un coup majeur est apparu en premier sur Cointribune.