Crypto Market Overview February 13th | Dex-Trade

Vitalik Buterin Donated $227,000 to Victims of the Earthquake in Turkey

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has made at least two significant contributions to help those affected by the devastating earthquakes of up to 7.8 in Turkey and Syria last week. During the week, Buterin actively donated ETH tokens to help the injured Turkish citizens and relatives of those killed in the disaster. His last public donation of 50 ETH (approximately $77,000) was made on February 12th. The funds were sent to the Anka Relief crypto fund, which can be used by anyone who wants to help the victims of the disaster in Turkey. “Since day 1 of the disaster, we witnessed donations piling in the wallets of a handful of major NGOs. Great that they have attracted and will be attracting more funds.” Foundation officials said. Buterin has already donated 99 ETH to Anka Relief. It is also known that on February 11, vitalik.eth sent ethereum in the amount of about $150,000 to Ahbap, a non-governmental and non-profit organization that provides relief in Turkey. To date, representatives of the organization, according to them, have received about $4.3 million in cryptocurrency equivalent from caring people. It is noteworthy that most of the donations are collected in stablecoins. Most likely, donors want to minimize write-offs as a result of asset conversion in this way.

 

Brian Armstrong Defends Staking on Coinbase from the SEC

Co-founder and CEO of crypto exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, has once again publicly stated that “Coinbase’s staking services are not securities,” rebutting the US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) claim that staking works identically to securities: “Coinbase's staking services are not securities. We will happily defend this in court if needed.” — Armstrong wrote on Twitter. In addition, he mentioned a company blog post created by Coinbase General Counsel, Paul Grewal, in which he provided detailed explanations of why Coinbase's staking services are not securities. Recall that on February 9, SEC representatives said that the security of staking should be discussed in more detail in connection with the allegations against the American crypto trading platform Kraken. Notably, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler emphasized this claim, stating: “Whether it’s through staking-as-a-service, lending, or other means, crypto intermediaries, when offering investment contracts in exchange for investors’ tokens, need to provide the proper disclosures and safeguards required by our securities laws.” As for Grewal, in his article he put forward four main reasons not to consider staking as a security. The key one is that staking simply does not “constitute an investment of money.”

 

Karen Carniol-Tambour Warns of Deep Market Recession

In an interview with Bloomberg, co-investment director at the largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, Karen Carniol-Tambour, spoke about the possible market recessions, which will be very different from the previous ones. When asked what serious risk investors might face in the next 5-10 years, Karniol-Tambour replied: “The next big risk is recessions that are deeper and longer than what we’ve been accustomed to.” During previous economic downturns, “central banks could just hop right in and reverse it,”she noted, adding that when central banks just eased everything, recessions were “quick and shallow,” rather than “deep and long.” Karen also explained that the Covid pandemic was a turning point because, for the first time, fiscal policy makers were deeply involved in finding a solution to the problem. After that, the central banks of the countries that act as issuers work in tandem with politicians whose task is to redirect money to people. “So to me, the dam has been broken where fiscal policymakers are now part of the story … They’re much more likely to step in with big fiscal expansions.” Karniol-Tambur said. At the same time, the financial expert said that we are now going through a historical stage in which many of our most important problems cannot rely on market forces alone to solve many of our most important problems. Now it also needs political will to work.