Weekly recap: Lawsuits abound, Wall Street takes notice of the Solana ETF, Vitalik grows into a giant, and other stories you may have missed.
It’s been an up and down week for SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. On Thursday, Coinbase sued the agency and the FDIC over its handling of FOIA information requests, and on Friday, the SEC sued MetaMask creator Consensys for $250 million in fees. Additionally, YouTuber Logan Paul sued fellow YouTube creator CoffeeZilla for defamation over Paul’s critical coverage of the CryptoZoo project.
Outside the courthouse, Wall Street is watching Solana 
brush
+0.11%
ton +1.86%
There are a lot of lawsuits
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against ConsenSys, the company that operates the MetaMask wallet, claiming that its MetaMask swap and staking services constitute an unregistered securities offering. Previous legal action involving Coinbase may provide a clue that the SEC is taking a weaker stance against the company, but experts are still divided.
- Coinbase has filed a lawsuit against the SEC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), claiming that the agencies failed to adequately respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Coinbase is seeking to determine whether the federal regulators intentionally marginalized the cryptocurrency industry through concerted actions.
- Logan Paul has filed a defamation lawsuit against YouTuber Coffeezilla (Stephen Findeisen) over his reporting on the CryptoZoo NFT project. Coffeezilla accused Paul of promoting a fraudulent project, which he denied and instead placed the blame on the project’s advisors and developers.
- Finally, experts say the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the so-called “Chevron” rule could be a win for the crypto industry, as they welcome the SEC’s recent mixed ruling against Binance.
VC and Wall Street
- Following spot success Bitcoin
Bitcoin +1.08%
And with the Ether ETF approval, Wall Street is now looking at Solana as its next ETF target. VanEck The first company to file for a Solana ETF, claiming the tokens were commodities, was 21Shares, which filed its own S-1. VanEck believes there is no better time to be targeting a Solana ETF, but others, such as JPMorgan, are skeptical that the application will be approved. However, the market has reacted positively to the news. Solana has been up this week, while most other cryptocurrencies have fallen.
- Additionally, VC holdings of Toncoin (TON) are larger than previously reported, as covered in the latest issue of The Block’s The Funding newsletter. The coin, which is tightly integrated with messaging app Telegram, is seen as a potential distribution play by VCs due to its close to 900 million monthly active users.
- Vitalik Buterin, Co-Founder Ethereum
Ethereum +0.29%
, Invested in a new blockchain project MegaETH, part of a $20 million fundraising round at a “nine-figure” token valuation. The project hopes to reach 100,000 transactions per second through two key technologies: a heterogeneous blockchain architecture and a “super-optimized” EVM execution environment.
everything else
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet providing news, research and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is the largest investor in The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the cryptocurrency space. Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget is an anchor LP of Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to provide objective, influential and timely information on the cryptocurrency industry. Current financial disclosures include:
© 2023 The Block. All rights reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not provided or intended as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice.
