Unchained - Unconfirmed: Was Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Entitled to a Meeting With the SEC? - Ep.271

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Starting point is 00:01:09 bulletin newsletter at laura shinn.b bulletin.com. And now on to the show. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unconfirmed, the show that reveals how the marquee names on crypto are reacting to the week's top headlines and gets the insight scoop on what they see on the horizon. I'm your host, Laura Shin, a journalist with over two decades of experience. I started coming crypto six years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes was the first mainstream meter reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the September 10th, 2021 episode of Unconfirmed. The crypto.com app pays you up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin. Get $25 when you download the crypto.com app with code Laura.

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Starting point is 00:02:24 crypto-asset reference data, and token and blockchain event tracking. Learn more at digitalassetresearch.com. Today's guest is Ifrat Livni. a deal book business and policy reporter at the New York Times. Welcome, Efraud. Hi, thanks for having me. This was a big week in crypto news, both on a global stage and here in the U.S. Let's start talking about the conflict between Coinbase and the SEC, which began with a tweet storm by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and a blog post by the chief legal officer Paul Gruel. What did they say? What did they say? They were unhappy because, so,

Starting point is 00:03:04 Coinbase has a product that is sort of like a somewhat resembles a bank account and it would allow people to get a high yield, like high interest on their deposits. And they asked the SEC for, they told the SEC they were planning to like release this. And that SEC said it could generate litigation. And Coinbase, which likes to say that it really, really wants to follow the rules, got mad and started trolling a regulatory agency online. And when you when you say trolling, you know, what I mean is that they, that they did go, so Coinbase went to the SEC, they asked, they introduced their product, they asked how

Starting point is 00:03:50 would the agency respond to the product. The agency said this could run a foul of securities laws. And then Coinbase's response was to go on Twitter and to post on their own blog. their estimation that it was their product is not a security and also to the chief executive in his Twitter's red had a lot to say about how the agency's behavior was sketchy and he had questions about the chairman and it seemed it was arguably it was arguably trolling a regulatory agency on social media. Yeah, one thing I would say is when Brian introduced his thread as saying that he was going to describe sketchy behavior, he did go on to talk about how when he went to D.C., he tried to talk to a number

Starting point is 00:04:43 of regulators and the SEC was the only one that refused to meet with him. And that when the SEC told them that the agency felt that their lends product was the security, that it would not give clarity into the reasoning. And so I think that was, you know, what he was describing as sketchy. But let's dive into this lent product. How is that product structured and how does that compare to traditional securities or lending products? Well, so I think there's a whole, one of the questions I think right now is that it's not, nothing is actually finally settled. And the products are new and they raise new questions. and all of the law is about characterization and categorization.

Starting point is 00:05:33 So on the one hand, Coinbase's argument was like, this is not at all like a security. How is lending like a security? It's like a bank account. Well, okay, you don't want to be an investment vehicle. You want to be a bank, but a bank would be highly, highly regulated. They would have a lot of different demands if Coinbase was running right from a regulatory perspective, there would be a lot of demands if Coinbase was running a bank in terms of like risks and guarantees and reserves and all kinds of things. And so while it is true that the SEC has not

Starting point is 00:06:08 made necessarily made it very clear, and a lot of this stuff is popping up relatively quickly. So, and government does not operate. Rulemaking does not happen quickly by necessity. And people would not be happy if it did. And so, so there is a space right now. where I feel like there are a bunch of products that straddle lines and they haven't been characterized. And businesses sometimes advance one characterization in one context because it's useful. And so Coinbase did talk about its lend product like a bank account, like an account, like an account. I'm not totally sure if it would want to be talking to banking regulators instead of the SEC. You know, because it's not clear yet. It's not clear. And it's not entirely clear where they, how the ecosystem will evolve and develop and who should be in charge of all these things.

Starting point is 00:07:07 Yeah, I actually reached out to a few different crypto lawyers and hilariously I got really different answers. There were some who felt it was definitely security. There were others who felt that it was not. And or or rather that the law was so unclear that it, that it, that, that, it was it was not something that could be determined at this moment. And I think the cases that they were citing was the Howie case, which most listeners of mine will know, because that was what was applied during the ICO period. And that has the four prongs in an investment contract in a common enterprise with an expectation of profits, dependent on a third party. And then there was a new one that I haven't heard of or hadn't heard of before called Reeves,

Starting point is 00:07:54 which had to do with notes. And I think I did see another lawyer maybe bringing up one other one. I didn't talk to that person. But the point is, like, I think, you know, as we've been saying, it's not totally clear. And obviously maybe Coinbase has one set of arguments and the SEC has another. So what do you think that this whole, I guess, conflict says about how the SEC is going to regulate crypto lending going forward?

Starting point is 00:08:21 So I think we, honestly, I just don't think we know or they know or anything else. I mean, I'm certain that they know more than I do, yeah, about what they're going to do. But my sense from some of the statements, so there was an exchange between SEC chair, Gary Gensler and Senator Elizabeth Warren over the summer, an exchange of letters. There was like a lot of discussion about all kinds of products, including lending and borrowing. there was a call for more authority, like Gensler said, we need more authority from Congress to regulate. Now, what specifically, like, what more do they need? I mean, to me, that indicates that there's a recognition,

Starting point is 00:09:03 that there are products or developments that are not currently covered under the law as it is written. And that to some degree, for example, the argument that Coinbase made that, like, these old laws don't fit or whatever, maybe they're right. Maybe the old laws don't fit. Maybe new laws have to be written. I mean, that's also one of the big debates. Like, do we fit everything into how things are or do new tools need new rules? I mean, everything is unsettled. From a legal perspective, it's, to me, it strikes me as very early to make any determination. And I think Coinbase is trying to win the popular fight.

Starting point is 00:09:43 You know, like that they're making the argument online because otherwise, why are we going to, we're not going to go around debating securities law, unless they make into a topic that we want to debate because, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And given that Gensler did ask for this extra authority to regulate this area, I do think that, you know, maybe there is merit to this idea that the law is not clear on what the Lent product is. but I did wonder then for this alleged behavior of the SEC that, you know, was like what Brian called sketchy, but, you know, whatever, you know, to whatever extent it was, you know, sketchy or whatever you want to call it, their refusal to meet Coinbase or whatever. What do you think that says? Like, do you think it says that perhaps the SEC is kind of working things out and just not ready to say something? Or do you think that they're, yeah, just waiting for more. authority or what do you think is going on there? I think there are two different views of whether, like how to interpret whether or not

Starting point is 00:10:52 a government official will meet with a business person. And there is a view that the business community would no doubt take that business and government must work together and it is, you know, and that the government should open its doors to business people who want to discuss and communicate. Well, that's one view. There's also a view that government must. have a certain dignified distance from industry in order to create rules that are, because government is not just there to promote industry, it is also there to protect consumers and facilitate

Starting point is 00:11:30 societies. You know, like they're not just there for the advancement of innovation. And so I, I don't actually think it's that problematic. I think there is a view of the SEC saying, no, we're not talking to crypto companies, that's very honorable. That doesn't mean it's not honorable to talk if they were going to engage, and they do engage on specific issues, you know, that's also fine. But I don't think that the arrival of the chief executive from California, the first cryptocurrency company, frankly, some of the language in his thread showed, some of the language in Armstrong's thread showed a sense of entitlement about what the government might owe that I don't know if it's shared by all Americans.

Starting point is 00:12:25 I don't know that all Americans feel that the cryptocurrency industry is owed or deserves anything in particular. Should they be treated fairly? Sure. But it's, I found it unseemly. Frank, I'm sorry to say. Brian's tweet storm, you mean? Yes, but I'm in, I'm in Washington, D.C. I, you know, so it's hard.

Starting point is 00:12:49 So obviously I love it. Like, you know what I mean? I'm all by government. But I do, I think that there are two views. And I don't think it's necessarily problematic for the SEC to take a step and say, like, at this time, we are not necessarily engaging in this way. Okay. And just a quick wrap, wrap up.

Starting point is 00:13:09 this before we move on to the next topic, what are Coinbase's options going forward? Or do you have any insight into what it'll do next? In terms of what? In terms of lend? Yeah. So they declined to speak to me about it. So I don't know what their plans are. And I can't imagine.

Starting point is 00:13:31 I cannot imagine. I can't. I will not speculate on what their plans are. Okay. Well, in a moment, we are going to switch gears and talk about El Salvador because that was also huge news, but first a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. With over 10 million users, crypto.com is the easiest place to buy and sell over 90 cryptocurrencies. Grow your crypto with crypto.com earn, which pays up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin and 14% interest on your stable coins. When it's time to spend your crypto, nothing beats the crypto.com visa card.

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Starting point is 00:14:49 that tracks token and blockchain events like hard forks, soft forks, and client and application updates. Crypto data from digital asset research is available through refinative or directly at Digitalassetresearch.com. Back to my conversation with Efrat Livni. So let's turn to the other big news of the week, El Salvador and Bitcoin. Tell us what happened there. So a Central American nation adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. And so that's the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a currency. So they're adding Bitcoin to the dollar, which is they adopted in 2001. And it was arguably a history. day for, I mean, certainly a historic day for cryptocurrency, right? I mean, I would say so. And I think it was a thing, you know, what, there were, there's a lot of debate about the,

Starting point is 00:15:48 the merits of the, of the adoption and the process of adoption. But there's, I think, little question that it was a big day for Bitcoin. It was like a big event for a country to adopt this project. Yeah. So talk a little bit about kind of the question. questions it raised or the controversy around it, what were some of those issues? So one, I think we could start with the way that the adoption was announced. So it was announced by the president, Naibu Kelle, in a Bitcoin conference. So a recorded announcement in a Bitcoin conference in Miami in English. So the people of El Salvador heard about it.

Starting point is 00:16:33 second, it was passed very quickly thereafter with minimal debate. While the little bit of debate was happening in Congress, Buckele was on a social media chat with American Bitcoin enthusiasts. And the reason I raised that is that there is something, the project is being advanced as a project for financial inclusion. And the vast majority of Salvadorans do not have bank accounts. And it is true that arguably, like a mobile phone-based financial system could improve the economic life of some Salvadorans. But there is a question about the way Buckele moved on this and also, like, his motivations are, it's, who is he wooing?

Starting point is 00:17:29 Like, it could be great for El Salvador. door. But there are reasons to be wary. And so when you say it could be great, what are some of the, I guess, the pros of having adopted Bitcoin as legal tender? So arguably, if you see Bitcoin not as, if you don't think about, because Bitcoin is not a practical payment mechanism, right? It's, it's volatile. It's like, it's almost everything you don't want in a currency for, for daily use. Yeah? And so, but if you see Bitcoin as a, like a stand-in for blockchain, like let's say we talk about Bitcoin because that's what we know. But what we mean is that a whole financial system exists on the blockchain where people are able to just arguably like the Lenn product and things like that where there are accounts, where you can borrow crypto, like you can borrow money based on your crypto. and you don't need the credit checks and you don't need the same interaction with institutions.

Starting point is 00:18:39 Theoretically, this is, I mean, that's the promise of crypto theoretically is that it, you know, it brings billions into the financial, into a alternate financial system. So, but how did the El Salvadoran people react to the adoption of Bitcoin as legal currency? So it is my understanding that it was. was there's, you know, I mean, there's a range. There's a range, surely, yeah. But there, but there were protests. A part of the protests, I think, so the, in conjunction with the protests about Bitcoin,

Starting point is 00:19:14 people were also protesting the passage of a bunch of laws about whether, you know, how quickly you, that you can fire prosecutors and judges over age 60. And so that law, which is more recent than the Bitcoin law, was also passed very quickly and with minimal debate. And so I think in the eyes of people who are worried about Buckele, these actions indicate that whatever he's saying about economic liberation or any other kind of liberation, he's arguably autocratic. So there are protests.

Starting point is 00:19:52 They're not aimed solely at Bitcoin. In terms of the general population, I think, based on the poll, in the national newspaper, people are not that interested. The vast majority of people said they would not want to transact in Bitcoin. Like it's something like three quarters. Yeah. Yeah, I saw the same poll. So, yeah, one other issue was I did see some pro-Bitcoin groups in the U.S.

Starting point is 00:20:20 protesting what is called Article 7 in the Salvadoran law, which says, quote, every economic agent must accept Bitcoin as payment when offered to him by whoever acquires a good or service. So was for the protests, which I know you said had also do with this other law, but was that part of the reason they were protesting? Or like what were their reasons for protesting Bitcoin? I think their reasons are more general. It's a more generalized. But there are a couple of problems with the with the Bitcoin law from the perspective. of even Bitcoin enthusiasts in the United States.

Starting point is 00:21:00 And so it is this mandate. Now, number one, you have a government, you have a payment mechanism that was designed to operate outside the total government control of money being co-opted by a government and then mandated. And that is why the Article 7 thing is like a double frustration for Bitcoin fans. It's like not only did the government take a money that was supposed to be outside of government, which, you know, you can argue whatever. There are arguments either way, but they adopt this non-governmental decentralized money as money that the government recognizes and then mandates its use when it was designed for choice. And it's very problematic philosophically for Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:21:50 Like people are cheering this movement on, but the mode in which it's a mode in which it's, happening is undermining the very reason for Bitcoin's being. It's complicated, right? I mean, it's... Yeah, I know. One of the people that I saw tweeting about that, and he wrote an article on this in CoinDesk, is Jerry Brito, who's the head of Coin Center, which the whole reason, you know, for Coin Center as being, is to advocate for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. it here in the U.S. And so it was interesting that, you know, he really took objection to that. So I spoke to him and one of the things that was really interesting was that he raised that and he says this is like sort of moral philosophical problem. But then he's, he also was concerned.

Starting point is 00:22:44 He's like on a practical level. Like we are what is this is not really work yet as a payment mechanism. So that is, you know, there, there are a lot of confidence. in Americans going abroad and advocating for things that in societies that they may or may not completely understand. Yeah, I mean, I did see, yeah, some people who happen to be there now demonstrating how they're paying for things at coffee shops and stuff using the Lightning Network. So perhaps they've found the places where it's working out well. But, yeah, so going forward, what developments or storylines are you going to be,

Starting point is 00:23:28 watching for in terms of, you know, what happens with Bitcoin and El Salvador? So, well, there are a bunch of things. I mean, price volatility is interesting, right? I mean, this now a country has taken on the risk of, you know, whatever, the same risk that investors do at a totally different scale. So that's interesting. I mean, that's something to follow. I think the extent to which this works or doesn't work, we'll be watching. You know what I mean? We'll be watching. I don't think that there will be a determination of whether it's a success or failure for quite some time. And maybe both arguments will be made simultaneously all the time, which on some level, they are being made right now. Yes, yes. That's par for the course in pretty much all corners of the

Starting point is 00:24:21 world in the internet. Okay, well, this has been a great discussion. Thank you so much for coming on Unconfirmed. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Bye, this one. Don't forget, next up is the weekly news recap. Stick around for this week in crypto after this short break. Do you love sports collectibles or fantasy sports? So Rare is blending this together to create an entirely new gaming experience powered by its community. So Rare cards are officially licensed NFTs from over 160 clubs, including Regal Madrid, Paris Saint-Germont, and Liverpool, and built on Ethereum. You truly own your collectibles. They are productive gaming assets that will generate rewards if you're a good fantasy player.

Starting point is 00:25:02 Join So Rare and connect with your favorite teams, live the game with passion, and earn weekly prizes. Thanks for tuning in to this week's news recap. First headline. The SEC has begun investigating DFI-Stolwart Uniswap. Uniswap Labs, the developer behind the biggest decentralized exchange, UNISWAP is reportedly being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Wall Street Journal initially broke in the news, citing sources familiar with the matter. According to the report, the SEC is probing into how investors use the trading platform,

Starting point is 00:25:38 which has $6.5 billion in values locked, and how the exchange has marketed itself. The regulator has not yet issued subpoenas and is only requesting that developers voluntarily supply information. Jake Trevinsky, General Counsel at Compound Labs, noted that the news, quote, shouldn't worry anyone too much yet. An investigation is not an allegation of wrongdoing. It's just how the SEC gathers information. In addition to Uniswap, the SEC's division of enforcement has also sent letters to multiple crypto startups in an effort to start understanding the crypto lending space.

Starting point is 00:26:12 That plus the SEC's wealth notice to Coinbase about its potential lend product could indicate the regulator is setting its sites on lending. Next headline. Bitcoin may have hit $39,000. but the bull market is still intact. After staying above $50,000 for the 48 hours prior, Bitcoin dropped 10% on Tuesday, its largest dipped since May. At one point, the digital currency fell below $40,000 on the crypto exchange, Wobie, marking the low point for Bitcoin across major exchanges during Tuesday morning's flash crash. Data from Coinbase shows the daily low for Bitcoin bottoming out at $42,830, while Bitcoin plummeted down to $39,818.

Starting point is 00:26:53 on Whope. Bitcoin was far from the only crypto to experience a dip. The total cryptocurrency market cap fell to a low of $1.95 trillion Tuesday, limiting $400 million or 17% between midnight and 10 a.m. According to the bloc's Larry Sermak, starting at roughly 9.20 a.m., over $2.6 billion worth of leveraged positions were liquidated in just one hour, with the primary culprit being in the cryptocurrency trading platform by bit. Data from blockware intelligence shows that a total of $3.22 billion in long liquidations cascated across the futures market on Tuesday, wiping out a total of $4.4 billion in Bitcoin futures open interest. Notably, Bitcoin's supply held by both strong hands and short-term investors increased during the dip, and exchange in flows and

Starting point is 00:27:47 Navlows remained somewhat steady. Based on the on-chain numbers, blockchain analyst Will Clemente concluded the swipeout was almost completely fueled by an over-leverage in the system. He added, broader market dynamics have only increased. The bull market is not over. Remember, we had 8 20% plus pullbacks from March 2020 to March 2021. I don't see anything to be concerned about. Speaking of a bull market, the British Banking Giant Standard Chartered released a crypto report on Tuesday, revealing a very optimistic outlook for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. The bank values Bitcoin in the price range of $50,000 to $175,000 in the long term and ether at a range of $26,000 to $35,000. At current prices, standard chartered expects Bitcoin to 3x and ether to 10x. Next headline.

Starting point is 00:28:40 Ukraine becomes the latest country to legalize cryptocurrency. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law that would legalize and regulate digital assets. Previously, in Ukraine, cryptocurrencies existed in a legislative gray area, as it was neither legal nor forbidden to own crypto assets within the country. If signed by President Vladimir Zelensky, the law will protect crypto holders and exchange platforms from fraud. In contrast to El Salvador, which made Bitcoin legal tender, virtual assets cannot be used as payment or exchange. Instead, the bill allows crypto businesses to officially work in Ukraine and pay taxes. Next headline. Lute, blute, more loot, and copycat oots proliferate.

Starting point is 00:29:25 On August 27th, Vine co-founder, Dom Hoffman, dropped a 7,778 piece NFT collection of randomized adventurer gear. The NFTs, which Hoffman refers to as bags, each contain eight lines of text describing equipment or loot for a supposed adventurer. From that string of text, the idea is for developers to develop games around the loot, interpreting and including the loot characteristics however they wish. The bags were quickly snatched up and hoarded, with only 2400 accounts getting the initial mint. At publishing time, Lute's price floor is eight ether, over $25,000. Last Friday, for everyone who missed out on Lute 1.0, Dom dropped an additional 1.3 million bags of loot in a project the community has dubbed more loot, which is free to mint minus the gas fees. The project has a dynamic supply increasing in a tenth of Ethereum's block rate, allowing the

Starting point is 00:30:22 Lute Metaverse to expand with Ethereum if it sustains its current popularity. Shortly after Lute's successful launch, Blute, or based loot, dropped a parody of the text-based NFT collection. Instead of containing items like Lights tier, heavy boots of protection, Blute added a bit of color to its bags with items like the ERC 20 poor maxi skirt of rugging. Blue quickly caught on and ranks as the seventh most popular NFT project over the past week by volume. The loot copycats did not stop there.

Starting point is 00:30:59 On Saturday, two text-based NFT projects titled the completely pointless NFT collection, and first, a collection of 5,000 algorithmically generated satirical first-ever honorific NFTs combined to raise over 390Eth, which is roughly

Starting point is 00:31:17 $1 million for charity, thanks to the new NFT fad. Next headline. Sol leapfrogged two crypto-OGs this week. After hitting $100 less than two weeks ago, Solana's native token, Sol has exploded above $200 marking an 80% gain over the past seven days. During Seoul's rapid ascent, the token leapfrogged

Starting point is 00:31:39 two crypto-oGs, Doge and XRP, and now sits as the sixth largest coin by market capitalization. At a $60 billion market cap, Seoul is approximately a $9 billion or 13% increase away from passing both USDT and B&B to move in a fourth place. Packing the top three, however, will be more difficult, as Cardano's Ata token has a $20 billion market cap advantage, while Ethereum and Bitcoin stand head and shoulders above the rest of the market at $400 billion and $850 billion respectively. Next headline. FTX adds NFTs and Steph Curry to its ever-expanding repertoire. On Monday, FTX launched a new NFT product that allows customers to mint directly onto the exchange. According to CEO Sam Finkman-Fried, each NFT,

Starting point is 00:32:29 will be cross-chain compatible with both Ethereum and Solana. For now, the NFTs can only be sold through the FTX marketplace, through a withdrawal feature, which will be live in a few weeks. FtX charges a hefty spread on its new product, taking 5% from the buyer and 5% from the seller on each sale. In related news, less than 24 hours after NBA superstar, Steph Curry, tweeted, Just Getting Started in the Crypto Game, y'all got any advice? FTX announced that Curry would be joining the exchange as a global ambassador.

Starting point is 00:33:04 Curry will be joining other sports stars including Tom Brady and Trevor Lawrence as FTX partners. In related exchange news, Binance U.S. announced that Brian Schroeder, a former Ant Group and Uber exec, will take on the role of president. Next headline. MasterCard bets big on blockchain analytics. On Thursday, MasterCard announced its acquisition of Cipher Trace, a blockchain analyst. analytics firms specializing in finding illicit transactions. Disclosure, CipherTracuse is a previous sponsor of the show. With the purchase, MasterCard will now be able to track over 900 cryptocurrencies. In a press release, Aja Bala, president of cyber and intelligence at MasterCard, said, quote, with the rapid growth of the digital asset ecosystem comes the need to ensure it is trusted and safe.

Starting point is 00:33:50 Our aim is to build upon the complementary capabilities of MasterCard and CipherTrace to do just this. The news comes a few months after MasterC said it would begin piloting the use of USCC as a bridge between crypto spenders and cash-lopping merchants. MasterCard intents to let merchants accept crypto by year's end. Next headline. Former CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintens joins A16Z as advisor. Brian Quintens, who spent his last day as a CFTC commissioner at the end of August, is joining the crypto wing of the VC firm A16Z. During Brian's stint at the CFTC, spanning from 20. 2017 to August 2021, he was known for being pro-crypto, advocating for a light regulatory touch on the burgeoning industry.

Starting point is 00:34:34 In a blog post, Andresen Horowitz's general partner, Katie Hahn, wrote, We are grateful that Brian is joining the team to help in our work of translating crypto for the policy community and translating policy for the crypto community. Next headline. The Sevens NFT drop went off with quite a few hitches. The Sevens NFT collection, a much-anticipated Ethereum NFT drop suffered a minting mishap that resulted in one user scoring 15% of the 7,000 NFTs, while the rest of the community engaged in gas fee wars. Essentially, Ethereum user 1Eath shop founded a vulnerability in the 7th smart contract, allowing him to size-step the limiter mechanism and mint 1,000 NFTs using a minor extractable value bribe.

Starting point is 00:35:19 According to a blog post from the 7s, 1Eth shop spent over 500 eath or well above $1 million to pull off the maneuver. However, as a fan of the Project One Eathshop has offered to return half of his NFTs to the official marketplace for the Sevens team to redistribute as they see fit. At publishing time, no decision has been made on how to distribute the recently returned NFTs. In other NFT news, this time in reference to a more successful sale, a collection of 101 Biotte Club NFTs sold for $24.39 million on 30,000. Thursday in an auction at Sotheby's. That outperformed even the most optimistic estimates.

Starting point is 00:36:00 Sothebyes also sold a collection of 101 board ape kennel NFTs for $1.835 million. All right, time for fun bits. You can walk a mile in Satoshi's shoes thanks to Adams. Adams, a shoe company, has partnered with the Human Rights Foundation and Morgan Creek's Anthony Popliano to release the model 00-0-0-Bitcoin-themed shoe. The stylish piece of four, wears almost entirely black, with only a splash of orange depicting the Bitcoin logo on the outside of the shoe, and 21 million printed on the sole. The bottom of the shoe is adorned with We Are All Satoshi. According to the website, Adams started accepting BTC last year. A majority of the profits will go to the Human Rights Foundation's Bitcoin Development Fund. The sneakers are available

Starting point is 00:36:46 for pre-order until September 29th. All right, thanks for tuning in. To learn more about FRAT, Coinbase is tussled with SEC and El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin. Be sure to check out the links in the show notes. Unconfirmed is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Anthony Yoon, Mark Murdoch, and Daniel Ness. Thanks for listening.

Unchained - Unconfirmed: Was Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Entitled to a Meeting With the SEC? - Ep.271

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