Welcome back everybody. It’s been another exciting week in crypto and we’re pleased to bring you the next edition of The Blockchain Review. The CPI data pump from last week has fizzled out and in crypto we’re back to pre-release prices. The momentum in traditional markets has also slowed but they’re better holding their ground.

It feels like one of those moments where the crypto news cycle is beginning to change and gradually the fear is starting to creep in again. Is the flip from bullish to bearish justified though and has anything really changed in the past week. 

Notably Canadian exchanges have begun to enforce a $30,000 (CAD) total annual buy limit on restricted coins for their users based in Ontario. This was following the Ontario Securities Commission announcing new regulations and a total yearly buy limit on any digital assets except BTC, ETH, BCH and LTC. There’s been a big pushback from Canadians who are affected by this as well as the greater crypto community on fears that similar regulations could be applied elsewhere.

Earlier in the month TornadoCash was thrown into the fire with US rules normally applied to lists of sanctioned countries. The same rules are being applied to any wallet which has ever interacted with the protocol. Anyone from the US who interacts with any wallets associated with Tornado Cash could now be fined and imprisoned. USDC has also blacklisted any wallet address which has been sanctioned.

In a twist and turn of events, one of the sanctioned wallets sent 0.1ETH to a range of known high profile wallets. These wallets belong to people such as Logan Paul, Randi Zuckerberg and Jimmy Fallon. In a technique known as ‘dusting’ the theory is the otherwise innocent owners of these wallets could now fall foul of US sanctions because they’ve received something from the sanctioned wallets. That wouldn’t seem fair of course.

For the past few years there’s been so much made about data protection and regulations for protecting privacy. So why then go after a decentralized protocol which was designed to protect privacy. For example Vitalik had used Tornado Cash to protect the privacy of those who he’d made donations to during the Ukraine crisis. In that instance it wouldn’t seem fair to sanction those entities.

With the collapse of Terra Luna and the bankruptcies of Voyager, Celsius and others there is a growing call for better regulations to protect people. But the question is how and where to fairly apply existing regulations, how to create new regulations in users best interests or even whether people need to be ‘protected’ when educating them to protect themselves could be a better option.

What’s happening now is regulations designed for different generations are being applied to the new and evolving crypto world. It’s not always going to work in practice and we’re probably right in the middle of years of the emerging debate. There are no easy answers and there are those on all sides of the debate. 

 Knowing how long legislation processes take and how fragmented the different government departments and personnel are in their opinions, then it could still be a long time to get consistency and consensus on what is the fairest treatment of this new technology and movement.

We’ll always provide you with our research to help with your education. We’ll keep close track of the main developments and evolution of the niches in blockchain so that you get the best of the new knowledge. When you’ve finished reading your report then please remember to fill out the feedback form, your research is valued and we’re always open to suggestions.

With Great Respect,
Ivan Liljeqvist