GM Legends,

Max FUD slinging as the CFTC goes after CZ and Binance whilst the long-anticipated launch of Polygons zkEVM fades into the background. Only in crypto would Saylor buy another dip as the Wassies open “Hotel by Wassie” in Singapore.

Despite all that, markets are still green… we’ll take that as a win.

🧑‍💻 Join the Discord | 🐥 Follow Twitter | 📊 Sub to YouTube & Spotify

Here's what's inside today.

The big topic. 

🔥 CZ Charged, Binance Busted

DeFi insights & project updates.

🖼 “Hotel of Wassies” opens in Singapore
📅 Sector Finance & Unstoppable DeFi token launch 29/3
🦧 Chart of the day: $ETH, what’s it going to be, $2000 or $1500?

Hot off the press.

🐮 Michael Saylor buys the dip (again) 
🐻 $1.5bn CEX bank run
👨🏻‍💼 What the FED?! Mark these dates off!

Plus Twitter reads from @Louround_ & @Expctchaos, @Curious__J and @Rektdiomedes!

🔥 The big topic.

💥 CZ Charged, Binance Busted

TLDR: It was only a matter of time.

The CFTC is annoyed because the people of America are trading on an unregistered crypto derivatives platform… which is both illegal and run by CZ, Binance Founder.

CZ is a “man who answers to no one by himself” the filing claimed.

What happened:

Last week CNBC reported that Binance employees and volunteers had been helping US customers to bypass restrictions in order to open, use and profit from Binance’s trading accounts.

As it stands so far…

The Allegations:

• Offering unregistered derivatives products to US customers

• Instructing US customers to evade compliance controls

• Failing to register with the CFTC

• Not implementing KYC & Anti-Money laundering processes

• Having a poor anti-evasion program

It’s alleged that employees used a variety of tactics to help US & Chinese citizens access the platform including forgoing bank documents, falsifying addresses and most notably the “spoofing of locations” through the use of a VPN.

In true CZ fashion, he made this Tweet.

Which relates to his guide to keeping 2023 simple.

The CFTC claim to have had internal conversations with Binances Chief Compliance Officer Samuel Lim (Lim) who allegedly said

“On the surface, we cannot be seen to have U.S. users but in reality, we should get them through other creative means.”

Yeah, not a great look, especially as the filing, also alleges that they had tasked a Binance employee with being a “Money Laundering Reporting Officer” whose job it was to create fake reports to show just how stringent its compliance audit was.

Why it matters: Because number go down.

And when number goes down it shines a dark light on the crypto industry. As it stands, the best-case scenario is that CZ gets another fine and as part of the deal could look at seeing all US operations completely shut down.

Worst case, CZ and his higher-ups go to prison which might be tough seeing as their locations are completely unknown.

Ohhhh, CZ.

On a side note, the 74-page lawsuit document also labelled Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin as commodities and NOT securities, gathering evidence direct from CZ’s phone (how so?) and accusations of terrorist activity…an interesting turn of events, don't you think?!

👀 DeFi insights & project updates.

The World of DeFi

• Sector Finance & Unstoppable DeFi token launches on 29/3. $SECT will be on Camelot DEX whilst $UND will launch through their official website, dutch auction style. (Sector Finance) (Unstoppable Defi)

• Pepe Games’ first code audit was a success with incentivised Alpha and Beta tests coming this week plus a $1,000 Twitter threadooor competition (Discord)

• Granary Finance LGE ends on April 1st with a bonus 7% going to Velodrome, DRIVRS and Sappy Seal NFT holders. (Offical Website)

• Wombat Exchange is launching on Arbitrum 3/4 including a questing campaign. They previously set the record for the highest TVL in 24 hours on BSC. (Twitter)

• IVX an on-chain options protocol has just dropped a project update highlighting V2 upgrades, whitepaper launch and how they will leverage synthetic options through GMX’s synthetic upgrade. (Twitter)

• dYdX V4 milestone 3 is complete. The private testnet goes live today for 2-3 weeks. Milestones 4 & 5 are set to be completed by July and September ‘23. (dYdX Website)

The Land of NFTs

• Wen Llamas and NFT project on CRV will be releasing minting dates during an exclusive AMA next week. Keep an eye on their discord for more information (Discord)

• Nftperp is on the lookout to add more collections for users to leverage trade on. Have your say on Twitter. (Twitter)

• Wassies come to sunny Singapore. “Hotel by Wassies” is a 100% Wassie-themed pop-up boutique hotel open until September ‘23. (Twitter)

• Doodles Genesis boxes are set to (finally) open on March 31st. Each box comes with a wearable that can be paired with Doodles 2 characters. (Luckytrader NFT)

• Pudgy Penguins get a Pudgy Rod which will act as an ecosystem multiplier for on-chain drops, licensing deals or future claims. (Twitter)

Governance Updates

• Beranouns name services are now berafied! Soon to be called “Beranames” and have emojis, generic characters and no dividers. (Twitter)

• 1Inch to enter the NFT marketplace after a proposal was passed over the weekend. It will feature Eth, Polygon and BNB Chain NFTs. (Daotimes)

• MakerDAO’s “Constitution” was approved yesterday initiating the “Endgame Era” which is a sweeping set of rules that lay a “new foundation for the protocol’s governance, development and investments of its reserves.” (Coindesk)

Chart of the day: $ETH, what’s it going to be?

Teetering on the edge fighting against macro headwinds and the looming Shanghai upgrade.

Bull case. Capture liquidity and break through the $1850 mark making a run to $2000.

Bear case. More macro headwinds see us dump into the liquidity sitting below at the $1550 region.

🗞 Hot off the press.

🐮 Bullish News

• Euler hacker returns 7,000+ ETH. In an unlikely turn of events, the hacker apologises via Etherescan and returns even more funds. (Cointelegraph)

• Polygon zkEVM beta goes LIVE! Thumbs up as Vitalik sends the first transaction on ETHGlobal’s live stream. (Coindesk)

• Michael Saylor buys the DIP and repays its Silvergate loan. Notorious for buying the top and the top of the dip, let’s hope fortune favours us this time. (Coindesk)

🐻 Bearish News

• CFTC’s 7 deadly claims against Binance you might have missed include Terrorism, access to CZ’s personal phone and more. (Cointelegraph)

• Twitter Suspends Arbitrum after having been flagged as “spam” by Twitter’s automatic internal system despite the thousands of $ARB airdrop spam accounts! (Coindesk)

• $1.5BN CEX Bank run in the lead-up to the CFTC’s announcement yesterday with $850m being withdrawn from Binance. (Twitter)

👨🏻‍💼 What the FED?!

Coming up this week: US Consumer Confidence which shows how optimistic consumers are, the FED wants this number to go down whilst Unemployment Claims go up.

To finish the week with Core PCE which gives us an indication of the direction of inflation as it measures the spending on goods and services.

🐥 Twitter reads.

@Louround_ and @expctchaos break down everything you need to know about Polygon.

@Curious__J takes a dive into the Cosmos to look at the potential behind EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) and IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication).

@Rektdiomedes reveals how he played the Arbitrum airdrop last week plus a look at his current holdings all of which are NFA and DYOR!

And on that note, thanks for reading, catcha apes in the next edition!

blocmates team 🫡

👇 PS. share with a fren for some loot 👇

🤝 A final word.

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