Technology

SEC Plans to Appeal XRP Ruling Amid Rising Stablecoin Adoption and Growing Blockchain Partnerships

Welcome back to Chain Reaction! This week has been filled with exciting developments in the world of crypto. From the SEC’s decision to appeal the federal court ruling on Ripple and XRP to PayPal’s launch of a stablecoin, there’s been no shortage of news.

Table of Contents

The SEC’s Decision to Appeal

On Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed an "interlocutory appeal" in the federal court ruling on Ripple and the XRP token last month. This move is seen as a significant development in the ongoing saga between the SEC and Ripple. The SEC has been pushing for greater regulation of cryptocurrencies, while Ripple has argued that its technology is not securities.

Read more about the SEC’s decision to appeal here: [link]

PayPal Launches Stablecoin

In other news, PayPal has announced the launch of a stablecoin for payments and transfers. This move is seen as a significant development in the traditional payment world, where stablecoins have become increasingly popular. The stablecoin will allow users to make payments and transfers with greater ease and speed.

But what does this mean for users? We dive into the details here: [link]

Microsoft Partners with Aptos

Artificial intelligence has captured the hearts and minds of the technology industry, and it’s little surprise that Microsoft is working to expand its footprint in AI. On Wednesday, the company announced a partnership with layer-1 blockchain Aptos Labs to work on AI and web3.

Read more about the partnership here: [link]

The Law Commission’s Digital Assets Final Report

Will the Law Commission’s digital assets final report make the UK a DeFi jurisdiction of choice? This is a question that has been on the minds of many in the crypto industry. The report aims to provide clarity on the regulatory framework for digital assets, but its impact remains to be seen.

Coinbase Reports Second-Quarter Earnings

On Thursday afternoon, Coinbase reported its second-quarter earnings after the bell, beating market estimates. What does this mean for the company? We dive into the details here: [link]

Beacon’s Demo Day and Graduation

Beacon, an early-stage web3 accelerator program, held its demo day on Wednesday during which teams homed in on infrastructure, gaming, decentralized social media, and DeFi. The program graduated its second cohort on Wednesday.

Immutable’s Web3 Gaming Market

For this week’s episode of Chain Reaction, we interviewed Robbie Ferguson, co-founder and president of Immutable. Immutable is a web3 company consisting of two entities: Immutable Platform, a developer platform for building and scaling Ethereum-based web3 games, and Immutable Games, a web3 game developer and publisher.

Some traditional gaming studios and IP holders are also building on its platform like GameStop, TikTok, Illuvium, and NFT marketplace OpenSea. We discussed the web3 gaming market and how it’s grown in the past year, as well as where it’s going in the future.

We also talked about:

Creating value in games
Mobile gaming vs web3 gaming
Global adoption
Advice for developers

Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to keep up with the latest episodes and please leave us a review if you like what you hear!

Follow the Money

Spearbit raises $7M to improve security audits in crypto through its open marketplace. Cube3.AI raised $8.2M in a seed round to improve web3 security. SphereX also raised $8.2M to improve smart contract security. Orbital raised $6.4M for to provide crypto solutions for traditional finance. Institutional decentralized exchange D8X raised $1.5M in a pre-seed round.

This list was compiled with information from Messari as well as TechCrunch’s own reporting.

What Else We’re Writing

Want to branch out from the world of web3? Here are some articles on TechCrunch that caught our attention this week:

Fearless Fund responds to racial discrimination lawsuit
So your startup’s runway is dwindling and fundraising is hard. What’s next?
Researchers watched 100 hours of video to understand how people react to AI-generated content

Stay tuned for more updates on the latest developments in the world of crypto!