World Investment: Crypto.com Halts Withdrawals

The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day

Jan. 17, 2022

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–Daniel Kuhn

Today's must-reads

Top Shelf

CRYPTO DOT COM: Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has suspended withdrawals on its platform on Monday following reports from users of "unauthorized activity." Users are now being asked to add or reset their two-factor authentication (2FA), with no indication of when withdrawals will be reactivated. Meanwhile, the company's related investment wing is expanding its $200 million Web 3 fund.

PROMOTION LIMITS: Spain and Singapore are both imposing new sanctions of crypto advertising and promotions. Spain is placing restrictions on so-called influencers' promotion of cryptocurrencies in an apparent first for the European Union while the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued guidelines on Monday that limit crypto advertising campaigns. Finally, Pakistan is moving to block websites dealing in cryptocurrencies.

MATURING INDUSTRY? Postings with titles containing terms such as "bitcoin," "ethereum," "blockchain" and "cryptocurrency" grew 395% in the U.S. from 2020 to 2021, according to a LinkedIn study. That's significantly higher than the 95% increase in job listings for tech. Separately, Disney-owned Hulu posted a job offering for "the streamers of tomorrow," as the firm positions itself to move into the metaverse and crypto. Last, and a little unrelatedly, prominent crypto promoter Cooper Turley has been suspended from Friends With Benefits, a DAO, over bigoted tweets.

BITCOIN PROJECTIONS: Fidelity Digital Assets wrote that 2022 might see more countries follow El Salvador's lead in adopting bitcoin. In a new report the asset manager argued countries that buy some 'coin today might be better off in the future, as sovereigns might be forced to acquire bitcoin as a form of "insurance." Separately, a majority of JPMorgan clients expect bitcoin to trade at $60,000 or more by the end of this year, according to a new survey by the bank.

STRIKE OUT: Three days after announcing it was launching services in Argentina, the Lightning Network-powered app Strike said it will only support Tether's USDT stablecoin in the country. The company did not respond to a request for comment, as users of the app report limited functionality. Strike's push into Argentina is part of an expansion across Latin America.

Elsewhere … Crocs is chomping into NFTs. Bitmain adds liquid cooling tech to its new mining rigs. Mechanism Capital targets "play-to-earn" with $100 million fund.

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What others are writing...

Off-Chain Signals

Bitcoin crashes the midterms (Politico)
$500,000 Bitcoin Donation Prompts Renewed Investigation Into Capitol Hill Riot: Report (Decrypt & Yahoo News)
Two Prime Teams Up With Bain Capital-backed Venture Fund (Blockworks)
Sources: Fidelity Vet Launching Crypto Fund of Funds (Blockworks)
Superplastic Announces NFT Drop With Gucci, Iann Dior, Paris Hilton & More (NFT Now)
Cryptocurrency Enthusiasts Meet Their Match: Angry Gamers (NYTimes)

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Putting the news in perspective

The Takeaway

Spicy Takes on SpiceDAO

This weekend NFT critics drew an analogy and their ire to a recent successful auction of a rare print of the classic sci-fi novel Dune. In December, SpiceDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, paid $3 million to buy Alejandro Jodorowsky's unpublished manuscript for an unmade film adaptation of Frank Herbert's 400-page odyssey at a Christie's auction.

This weekend, a month after the hammer fell, the DAO tweeted its plans for the storyboard. They wanted to "Make the book public (to the extent permitted by law)," "Produce an original animated limited series inspired by the book and sell it to a streaming service," and "Support derivative projects from the community."

Seeing this tweet – of a plan that was known essentially when SpiceDAO initially crowdfunded $11.8 million – Wikipedia contributor and Web 3 critic Molly White published a story on her blog "Web 3 Is Going Great" titled, "SpiceDAO wins a $3 million auction to buy an extremely rare storyboard book of Dune, only to learn that owning a book doesn't confer them copyright." Other media orgs jumped at the occasion.

"[SpiceDAO] were quickly informed that buying the physical book did not somehow confer to them copyright or licensing rights (much like how buying an NFT does not automatically confer you the rights to the underlying artwork!). You'd think they might have checked that first," White wrote.

Many joined a Twitter pile on. Some noted how buying a rare book isn't the same as owning its contents. Others erroneously suggested the DAO purchased an NFT of the manuscript, which of course also wouldn't confer ownership of Dune's intellectual property. There is no NFT or plans for one, as far as I can tell.

Also called "Jodorowsky's Bible," the work is a collection of writings and prints that have historical significance. Making it as public as possible seems the right thing to do. Many noted the book's contents are already hosted online (on Google Photos, for instance), but the DAO wanted to make public ownership a little more durable as Google can remove the file whenever.

The DAO members also wanted to treat the work with the appropriate amount of respect. A crowdfund was just one way to show how meaningful it is to the public. Creating derivative works by highly-motivated fans is another.

SpiceDAO is seemingly aware of what it bought and the legal considerations of their plans. After winning the auction, the DAO's co-founder Soban Saqib told Buzzfeed it was in the process of transferring ownership for permanent storage, and figuring out how to manage the multiple copyrights for the bible's contents that artists and their estates can lay claim to.

Frank Herbert's "Dune" will not become public domain until 2060 in the U.S. and 2054 in the E.U., but there are still things the DAO can do. The laws around fanfiction are a little looser, and the "fair use" exemption gives some leeway.

Although the DAO has a governance token ("SPICE") that trades on the open market, it's not clear the group aims to profit from its endeavors. It might bump up against securities rules. And after being forced to rename itself from DuneDAO, due to copyright complaints, you can be sure they're aware of certain limitations.

SpiceDAO did not respond to a request for comment.

Read the full article here. (It's twice as long and gets into copyright standards and NFTs!!!)

–Daniel Kuhn