🤠 ADA boy

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It seems like everything’s on the up & up for crypto. Companies are getting rebanked, regulation is finally on the horizon, and the institutions are taking the industry seriously. 

But Gemini’s Tyler Winklevoss said that, behind the scenes, it’s not so cut and dry. He posted on X last week that JPMorgan had paused its re-onboarding of the crypto firm because of a separate post he made calling out the bank for charging FinTechs to access customer data. 

“We will continue to call out this anti-competitive, rent-seeking behavior and immoral attempt to bankrupt fintech and crypto companies,” Winklevoss vowed. 

It appears that some things don’t change.

🚀 Can’t stop, won’t stop

“ I've watched us go from ‘no one cared’ to ‘the US government tried to kill us’ to ‘the US government's buying our tokens,’” Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson told Empire’s Jason Yanowitz in this morning’s Empire episode. 

One thing that caught my attention was his response to Yanowitz’s questions about the relationship between ADA and Uber drivers. At this point, I’m becoming more and more convinced that the experience of hopping in an Uber and having the driver talk about ADA or sometimes Ripple is a universal one, and not just something that happens if you mention you work in crypto. 

So why specifically Cardano? Why is it that it seems rarer to talk to a driver about bitcoin, ETH or solana?

Hoskinson essentially stated that some Americans feel they lack a voice; he specifically cited the example of some individuals believing their votes in the 2020 election were tampered with, a claim that has been investigated. 

But Hoskinson points out that blockchain technology has the ability to improve the system and perhaps make it more trustworthy. However, some folks continue to feel disenfranchised. 

“These are things that come up politically, economically, socially, on a daily basis. Abuses of power, theft, waste, fraud and abuse. And fundamentally, a lack of trust. And so we come in, and we say, ‘Blockchain is going to solve that.’ And my entire career, whether it's been Bitcoin or Ethereum or Cardano…I've been saying, ‘These are the tools of freedom,’” Hoskinson said.

“So people hear that. The Uber driver hears that, and a lot of these people, especially at the lower rungs of the economic ladder. They’re angry because they feel like they don’t have a voice. They’re adrift on a boat where they can't decide where it’s going to go, and they're basically victims of circumstance.”

Looking at the bigger picture — and the landscape — Hoskinson told Yanowitz he also doesn’t necessarily believe we’re still in a four-year cycle, which is becoming an increasingly popular viewpoint as institutions enter the industry and the overall appetite changes. 

“It's a different cycle. It’s something different going on. And I don’t even think we’re close to the peak of the bull market. People have gotten so pessimistic and cynical that they’re like, oh, the market's dead. And we’ve ballooned,” he said.

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• Joseph Chalom, who formerly led BlackRock’s digital asset strategy, is taking over as SharpLink’s co-CEO. 

• Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko called memecoins “digital slop.”

• The Department of Justice is mulling charges against some folks at Dragonfly Capital for financially backing Tornado Cash.

Institutional interest in Ethereum is running hot. ETF flows are gaining momentum, new token acquisition vehicles are forming every week, and ecosystem morale is nearing ATHs. 

The only question left: Where will $ETH be when DAS London kicks off this October?

Get your ticket today with promo code: EMPIRENL

📅 October 13-15 | London