UK’s Crypto-friendly PM, Liz Truss has resigned, what should we expect? + other stories this week

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss, announced her resignation last week. With the development, Liz Truss became the shortest PM in UK history. Although Liz Truss’s short stint (44 days in office) was mired with controversies, she was believed to be pro-crypto since her days in the Boris Johnson administration.

The question is: Is this another loss for the crypto community? 

But there is a bit of good news from the African region. On Wednesday, South Africa’s financial regulator issued a notice to declare cryptocurrencies as a financial product. It was also announced that crypto firms in the country will need to apply for a license to operate legally. 

You know that a crypto week isn’t complete without a story of a hack, right? So, here: the hacker behind the $9 million Moola Market hack has chosen to return a majority of the cryptocurrency stolen during the exploit.

That is a thief with home training, in my opinion… So, here is a bit of all the major stories from the crypto space this week.

Here we go:

Jack Dorsey’s tweet may be sold for $97 

Crypto entrepreneur, Sina Estiva purchased an NFT of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet for a whopping $2.9 million ( 1630.6ETH) in March 2021, Today, the piece could sell for just under $97.

At the close of the first auction in early April, the NFT managed to fetch only seven offerings with the highest bid at $0.09ETH which was roughly $277 at the time. With the further rout in the cryptocurrency market taking a toll on NFTs, Estavi’s piece continued to be bumped up by nominal bids.

As of September 16, it had only managed to attract a top bid of 0.075ETH ($96.49)

With Ethereum price plunging by roughly 70% since November 2021, NFTs volumes have also dived. Given that most NFTs drew their high price tags due to hype, it will be difficult to predict whether they will reclaim their lost glory or sell at such high prices ever again.

Read also: Sell these 3 cryptocurrencies off your portfolio before they crash

Crypto-friendly PM, Liz Truss resigns 

Liz Truss resigned from her position as UK prime minister yesterday after a 44-day stint that rocked the country’s sterling and gilt markets. The outgoing crypto-friendly prime minister stepped down after calls from at least twelve members of the Conservative Party.

Recall that Crypto industry pundits welcomed Liz Truss into office on September 6, 2022, hoping she would offer a light regulatory touch. Liz Truss hinted at a more complementary approach to crypto in a 2018 tweet that gave the crypto industry reason to hope. 

As Secretary of State for International Trade under former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Liz Truss founded a trade network that she thought could benefit significantly from blockchain technology.

“We want to achieve a world-leading data and digital agreement, underwriting data flows but also dealing with issues like blockchain and artificial intelligence, thereby making sure that we and the U.S. are leading the world and able to share these economic opportunities,” Liz Truss said at the time.

Following Truss’s resignation, the future of crypto in the UK is now uncertain.

Crypto is now a financial product in SA 

South Africa’s financial regulator on Wednesday issued a notice to declare cryptocurrencies as a financial product. It was also announced that crypto firms in the country will need to apply for a license to operate legally.

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority’s (FSCA) newly issued notice updates the Financial Advisory and Financial Intermediary Services Act to declare cryptocurrencies as a financial product to protect consumers and regulate the market.

The Act also defines a crypto asset as a “digital representation of value,” and mandates that assets must be regulated in South Africa. 

Cryptocurrencies will also be required to apply for a license between June 1 and November 20, 2023, in order to operate legally in the country.

The declaration does however not mean that crypto assets are legal tender according to Eugene Du Toit, the head of the Financial Sector Conduct Authority’s Regulatory Frameworks Department. Du Toit added “We are not legitimising crypto assets. We are not giving credence to crypto assets.”

The Moola Market hack 

The Moola Market team tweeted on Tuesday that it was investigating an attack on the protocol. It added that it paused all protocol activity after contacting authorities. However, the protocol also offered the attacker a bug bounty if they returned the funds to the lending protocol within 24 hours. 

And now, an individual identifying as the attacker has reached out to the team, claiming to hold the private key which would allow access to the stolen funds.

According to the developers at Moola, they were able to negotiate with the hacker and recover 93% of the stolen funds from the attacker. The attacker kept the rest of the funds, around $500,000, as a bug bounty. 

Related post: $117m stolen in Mango Market hack

Do Kwon latest interview 

In his most recent interview with Crypto Journalist Laura Shin which was released on multiple platforms on Tuesday, Do Kwon passed remarks on the aftermath of the Terra collapse that happened in May. 

When asked about the alleged Interpol Red Notice issued earlier this month, Do Kwon reiterated that he filed a request to check on the status of the Red Notice but has received no updates. Shin also confirmed that Interpol had not responded to her requests for comments either.

Delving deeper into the Red Notice issue, Kwon said:

“How Red Notices work is something that I don’t really understand very well. But we haven’t heard anything back yet [from Interpol]. There is an appeals process… So we’ll do everything that we can to make a clarification to make sure this comes to a better result.”

Kwon expressed his disappointment at how South Korean regulatory agencies were approaching the crypto legislature. The Terra founder also confirmed that he hasn’t seen a copy of the arrest warrants.

“Every piece of data that we’re consuming, regarding this, is from the media.” He claims that the majority of the information available today is contradictory information disseminated by various media outlets.

Here is all from us this week, see you same time next week!