This Week on Crypto Twitter: Musk Welcomes New Twitter CEO to Access Xthe Everything App

[ad_1]

Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt

The most prominent tweet on Crypto Twitter this week was an announcement Friday by Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk appointing his replacement, Linda Yaccarino, as the platform’s new chief executive.

Musk will continue to serve Twitter as CTO and executive chairman.

Yaccarino left his position as head of advertising at NBCUniversal on Friday morning to take on the task of helping Musk transition from Twitter to X, his “everything planned” app that will integrate social media and payments (eventually including the cryptography) like Chinas WeChat.

Musk is also pro-crypto. His electric car company Tesla is currently one of Bitcoin’s largest institutional HODLers, even after selling off three-quarters of its original holdings. He is a fan of Dogecoin, and his frequent tweets about it often drive the price up. He even replaced Twitter’s bluebird logo with the Doge meme for a few days, so possible crypto integration is on the cards, especially as a payment option.

Elsewhere on Crypto Twitter this week, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong kicked things off by praising the UAE for its clear crypto regulatory walkthrough.

Coinbase is a publicly traded US company, but the hostile domestic regulatory environment is pushing it overseas. The company recently obtained a license to operate in Bermuda and used it to open an international exchange offering Bitcoin and Ethereum perpetual futures contracts. It is also in talks with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FRSA), a regulator of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), a crypto-friendly free economic zone in the United Arab Emirates, to open a regulated exchange there.

Circles EU Director of Strategy and Policy Patrick Hansen shared a graph on Tuesday showing just how much MiCA is stealing the wind from US sails. Last month, European Union lawmakers approved MiCA, or the Crypto Asset Markets Bill, which now means the bloc has a unified regulatory approach across its 27 member states and licenses granted to crypto companies in one country can be transferred to another member state. The rules on stablecoins come into force in July 2024, while the other requirements will not be applied until January 2025.

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden came out against MAGA House Republicans aligned with wealthy crypto investors who are looking for loopholes to avoid paying taxes. The POTUS tweet was later flagged by fact checkers who added the context that all crypto profits are subject to capital gains tax.

Also that day, a video shared by MicroStrategy Chairman and Bitcoin institutional whale Michael Sadler made the rounds. A passionate and predictable Bitcoin sidekick, Saylor says Bitcoin price will rise with volatility forever.

Bitcoin mining revenue levels are now where they were a year ago, according to a chart shared by Will Clemente, the co-founder of independent digital asset research firm Reflexivity Research.

Stablecoin issuer Tethers’ revenue is well over 1 billion, according to its Q1 2023 attestation. That means it comfortably overtakes Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager. At its peak, Blackrock became the first asset manager to manage $10 trillion in assets in Q4 2022, but that figure dropped to $8.59 trillion in Q4 2023.

Another day, another crypto scammer unearthed by blockchain sleuth ZachXBT.

Independent Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano only called Ethereum for staking on Wednesday.

Retired ExxonMobil executive Tom Glass, who is currently seeking the Republican nomination for State House District 17, announced that Texas lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of an update to the State Bill of Rights to include the right of the people to own, hold and use digital currencies.

Finally, on Thursday, Web3 legal expert MetaLawMan wrote a thread explaining how important the news is. The United States Chamber of Commerce has filed an amicus brief in support of Coinbases’ pending court petition for the securities regulator to clarify its rules.

[ad_2]