According to the official website, Craft Ventures has investments in Bitwise Asset Management, crypto custodian BitGo and social media giants Meta, Reddit and X. Sacks also invested in Solana-focused venture firm Multicoin Capital in 2018.

The San Francisco-based venture capital firm was founded by Sacks in 2017 and has launched four funds since then. Its last one was closed in November after raising $712 million.

“Both he [Sacks] and the firm sold their direct cryptocurrency holdings soon after Trump’s inauguration, according to a person with knowledge of the matter,” reported the FT.

The result has been “this incredible flow of money that has gone from the banks and the crypto industry to people in [Washington] D.C., and they’re all going to fight,” Long said.

Crypto.com, another major exchange, confirmed it would also delist USDT and nine other stablecoins starting Jan. 31, 2025.

In the wider crypto space, Jan3 CEO Samson Mow warned of a potential “price suppression” for Bitcoin, which continued its crab walk in a price range that “looks very manufactured.”

A judge will be assigned to the case, or it will be referred to a prosecutor for further investigation on Feb. 17, according to the Associated Press report.

Determining that BTC mining could help balance electricity demand and supply to prevent further blackouts, ERCOT’s demand response programs have seen voluntary participation by the miners.

The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said that it is also looking to increase crypto licensing, issuing licenses to crypto exchanges so that transactions can be monitored and taxed. In the agency’s view, this will also increase investor confidence and comfort.

In other words, “Stick a fork in the SEC’s case against Coinbase, it’s done,” he said.

A bill to provide a framework for taxing crypto transactions and introducing other taxes is currently before lawmakers, with expectations that it will be adopted this quarter. The Nigerian legislature, called the National Assembly, reconvened for its 2025 legislative session on Jan. 14, 2025.

Today in crypto, FTX is set to begin repaying $1.2 billion to creditors, marking a key step in the exchange’s bankruptcy proceedings, Argentine President Javier Milei made his first public statement since the disastrous Libra memecoin launch to deny any wrongdoing on his part, and the ratio of long to short positions on SOL in futures markets is tilting bearish as memecoin losses mount.

“Masses showed up and voted for more economic freedom in 2024 when they elected Donald Trump,”  Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote in a Jan. 17 post.

Trump’s order created a crypto working group led by White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks to come up with a legal framework for crypto and stablecoins, along with studying the possible creation of a national crypto stockpile.

However, Milei did disclose that he held a meeting with KIP Protocol representatives on Oct. 19 in Argentina, where the company informed him about the blockchain project.

In a key moment for the crypto industry’s recovery, FTX’s Bahamas wing will honor the first batch of repayments for users who are owed less than $50,000 worth of claims.

Nigeria plans to amend current digital asset regulations to tax crypto transactions, according to a Feb. 18 report by Bloomberg. The move, which would bring all eligible crypto transactions on regulated exchanges into the formal tax net, could generate “substantial revenue” for the country.

Nigeria has been a leader in crypto adoption. According to Consensys’ 2024 Perception Survey, 84% of respondents in Nigeria said they owned a crypto wallet. In its Geography of Cryptocurrency Report published in October 2024, Chainalysis ranked the country No. 2 overall in global crypto adoption, highlighting the country’s appetite for decentralized finance.

Lawyers Marcos Zelaya and Jonatan Baldiviezo, along with engineer María Eva Koutsovitis and economist Claudio Lozano, have filed a criminal complaint that alleges Milei was complicit in fraud by promoting Libra, according to a Feb. 17 Associated Press report.

Baldiviezo also accused Milei of violating the Public Ethics Law, which is Argentina’s framework for public officials, requiring them to declare asset holdings and conflicts of interest.

ameli8bell

@ameli8bell