This Week on Crypto Twitter: Binance’s CZ and the SEC’s Gary Gensler Face Stiff Criticism

Once again, U.S. regulators offered very little to the international crypto community to chew on this week. VanEck’s SEC-approved Ethereum futures ETF was confirmed on Thursday, however, adding modest gains to the bags of Ethereum (ETH) holders. Beyond that, lawmakers in Washington still appear to be dragging their feet compared to their European counterparts—distracted as they were with a very close call with a government shutdown.

The denizens of Crypto Twitter were anything but sedentary, however. The week began with news of a $200 million exploit on Mixin Network, a decentralized exchange-slash-wallet project that enables cross-chain cryptocurrency transfers.

The weird part? Look how high that bounty offer is…

In similar news, the Seychelles-based exchange HTX (formerly Huobi) was also exploited. TRON CEO and HTX advisor Justin Sun also offered the hackers a high bounty—he even offered them a job.

Alexander Grieve, a government affairs lead at tech investment firm Paradigm, tweeted about the dangers of viewing computing power as a national resource. While this has not happened in the U.S. so far, Grieve’s reflections were sparked by a Semafor article that implied it could be a potential avenue for lawmakers to explore. 

On Tuesday, popular crypto sleuth ZachXBT couldn’t resist doxxing Ben Armstrong (formerly known as crypto influencer “BitBoy”) after the latter tweeted that he was in a “special location.” Turns out Armstrong was arrested in the middle of his livestream to 2,500 people. The charge? Loitering at a former business partner’s house. 

Crypto analyst Adam Cochran believes TRON CEO Justin Sun is in tougher financial straits than he lets on. While this is only speculation, Cochran’s warning recalls last year when ostensibly solvent crypto companies fell one after the other.

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffert saw the SEC engage in yet more delaying tactics in dealing with the pending Bitcoin ETF applications the regulator has to review. 

Grilled Gensler, anyone?

One popular fad on Twitter this week was sharing videos of SEC Chair Gary Gensler being interrogated by the House Financial Services Committee. 

Here’s Gensler fumbling when asked whether tokenized collectibles constitute securities.

Aaand here’s a picture of a couple of blockchain fans in Washington who photobombed the Sheriff of Cryptoville. 

The Binance—Russia connection

On Wednesday, Binance tweeted that it was liquidating its Russian arm. 

The exchange’s CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao must have been fielding many questions about the deal, because he hit Twitter to set the record straight. 

Finally, Adam Cochran returned later in the week with an impressive 25-tweet thread exploring subtle connections between Binance, Russia, and Prigozhin, the Russian rebel who led a one-day rebellion against Putin earlier this year.