Here’s what happened in crypto today
Need to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, Web3 and crypto regulation.
Logan Paul is in the news again after arguing in an interview that his CryptoZoo NFTs were not intended to scam people. Ethereum “BlobScriptions” are taking off — and so are the fees. Meanwhile, a judge struck down Coinbase’s bid for the SEC to drop its lawsuit.
YouTuber Logan Paul argues CryptoZoo “isn’t a scam” in new documentary
YouTuber Logan Paul has argued that his infamous CryptoZoo project, which resulted in many investors losing money, was not a scam.
In a new documentary, 5 Months with Logan Paul, journalist Graham Bensinger sat down with Paul to get his side of the story on the CryptoZoo nonfungible token (NFT) gaming project.
Paul argued that he also lost money in the project, seemingly implying he was also a victim. “I didn’t make any fucking money, bro. I’ve lost half a million dollars on this. Where is the scam?”
Apart from attempts to counter allegations, Paul also said in the documentary that he’s going to “take care” of the people who made CryptoZoo look like it was a scam perpetuated by him. He said:
“BlobScriptions” and blob fees rise
A new way to put data on Ethereum called “BlobScriptions” is pushing up the fees for "blobs" — introduced to the blockchain as part of its March 13 Dencun upgrade.
The Ethscriptions protocol made a tool on March 27 allowing users to inscribe data — from pictures to text — directly onto blobs, which aim to be cheap and temporary data carriers for transactions to take a load off the blockchain.
Five hours after BlobScriptions went live, blob gas fees spiked as high as 585 gwei — about $18 — way up from the $0.01 average for minting data on a blob before BlobScriptions. Fees have since fallen to under $1.
Blob fees soared following the introduction of BlobScriptions. Source: Ultrasound.money
Like Bitcoin Ordinals, BlobScriptions users are minting hundreds of random bits of text and images, but unlike their forever-inscribed counterparts, blob data is only stored on Ethereum nodes for around 18 days before they’re removed from the network. Ethscriptions’ indexer will store the data indefinitely, however.
Court rejects Coinbase motion to drop SEC case
Coinbase’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was struck down in court on March 27.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla ruled the SEC may continue its legal action against Coinbase over its claim it operated as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency.
“The Court finds the SEC has sufficiently pleaded that Coinbase operates as an exchange, as a broker, and as a clearing agency under the federal securities laws, and through its Staking Program engages in the unregistered offer and sale of securities,” the court documents state.
The SEC sued Coinbase in June 2023 over allegations that the crypto exchange violated securities laws. At the time, the regulator alleged that Coinbase enabled the listing of 13 tokens that were securities.
Following the decision, the two parties were ordered to submit a “proposed case management plan” by April 19.
