Today in Crypto: US Court Orders SEC to Respond to Coinbase’s Rulemaking Petition Within 7 Days, Circle Gets Its Singapore MPI Licence, Cathie Woods Uses Drop in Coinbase Stock Price to Stock Up

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Legal news

• The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ordered the US Securities and Exchange Exchange (SEC) to clarify its position on a rulemaking petition from the crypto exchange Coinbase. It ordered the regulator to explain within 7 days if it intended to decline Coinbase’s request, the reasons for such a decision, or how much longer it would need to reach a decision, per the document tweeted by Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer.

Regulation news

• Circle Singapore, the local arm of the USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, received its Major Payment Institution (MPI) license for digital payment token services in Singapore after it obtained in-principle approval last November. Per the press release, the license allows the company to offer digital payment token services, alongside cross-border and domestic money transfer services, via its products, including the Circle Account, which allows institutional customers access to USDC.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pushed back the issuance of a framework for the issuance of digital assets in the Philippines, a local news outlet reported. The SEC chairperson Emilio Aquino was quoted as saying that “we were supposed to bring it out late last year, but we don’t want people to get burned. The issuance of digital assets as a form of capital raising, we have to study that because like in FTX they were transferring billions left and right.” Aquino said, however, that there is still a possibility for the regulator to come out with the framework and necessary guidelines that would govern digital assets this year.

Investment news

• Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management, the second-largest holder of Coinbase stock, bought $21.6m shares after the SEC sued the crypto exchange, which resulted in share prices dropping. The buy was split across ARK’s Innovation ETF, the Next Generation Internet ETF, and the Fintech Innovation ETF.

Exchange news

• The INX Digital Company made public its proactive self-regulatory measure to fully segregate customer funds. According to the press release, while INX has been segregating customer assets for years, “the company is making clear that it put in place legal segregation of customer funds for the trading of digital assets, making them bankruptcy remote.” The FINRA registered broker-dealer implemented “a robust segregation calculation model,” and it requires all custodians and banking partners to sign a segregation acknowledgment letter.  
• Bitget announced the addition of Martingale AI strategy as part of its lineup of Martingale investing strategy services. The new instrument intends to provide crypto newcomers with a convenient and advanced investment strategy enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), said the press release. “Martingale AI enables automated trading after traders set risk appetites and investment frequency based on parameters recommended by Bitget’s proprietary AI,” it added. 

DeFi 

• The developer of the lending protocol Aave’s gho (GHO) stablecoin proposed two key features on Tuesday, moving closer to launching the stablecoin on the Ethereum mainnet. Aave Companies proposed the V3 Ethereum Facilitator, to allow for gho lending against collateral deposits, and the FlashMinter Facilitator, a version of flash loans. 

NFT news

• The Mint Square non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace will shut down on June 3. The team said on Tuesday that “buying and selling will continue to be enabled until June 30. After that trading will no longer be possible.” They did not give a reason behind the decision by the time of writing.