#53 Gary Gensler and the SEC Go After Kim Kardashian. Blockchain innovation in the pharmaceutical sector.
Disclaimer: Everything we write in "The Crypto Insider Report" is an x-ray of the industry as we see it, through the lens of publicly available information. We are not financial advisors.
Gary Gensler and the SEC Go After Kim Kardashian
This week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it has reached a settlement with larger-than-life influencer Kim Kardashian for endorsing a Crypto token (EthereumMax, if you really want to know). She is to pay 1.26 million USD for this, significantly more than the 250K USD she received and failed to disclose. The sponsored post happened in June 2021, so you might ask what is the SEC trying to achieve with this and why now?
Well, the consensus is that they are trying to send a message to everybody thinking about shilling projects. It could be that the sequence of implosions and failures that big names in Crypto recently saw are a great mood setter for making people think twice about what they invest in and what they promote. To give a concrete example, the token Kim Kardashian shilled dropped 99% afterwards, while Crypto was still in a bull market. Her defenders are saying she is scapegoated and remind that her post included the ubiquitous “not financial advice” and “ad” markings. I guess this goes to show that simply stating that is not going to protect people from promoting anything they want.
Others are saying this is more of a Gensler thing than an SEC thing, wanting to get attention and control of an industry disputed among different US institutions when it comes to who should be regulating it. See this tweet:
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Obviously, there were multiple other influencers shilling scammy Crypto tokens in the bull market. Will the SEC go after them too? Will there be an internal fight between Gensler and the rest of the organization? Time will tell. Meanwhile, you can read the full story on CoinDesk.
Mihnea
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Weathering the storm
Voyager’s bid for assets was won by FTX US. Surprising, right? They competed with Binance and Crosstower for Voyager’s assets and they came out winning, paying ~$1.3b. So what happens now? Well, Voyager users can access the funds via FTX US after the case concludes and I’m happy users can finally get their funds back.
This is not just another win in SBF’s book, because since then he’s taunted Celsius on how they’d approach a bid, should it come to it. It looks like SBF is yet again concerned about making people “whole”:
This exchange of replies (because Twitter threads are where business is made nowadays) led to Simon Dixon asking SBF for a deal and maybe starting some private discussions. Mashinsky’s done enough bad stuff to his own customers and it’s time for a redemption arc.
Don’t get me wrong, as I have nothing against SBF. I am definitely for making people as whole as possible but this entire situation seems very convenient for him: effective altruism, young billionaire, heavy lobbying for crypto, a healthy company even during inconsistent macroeconomic conditions and now, the savior of crypto. He’s here to clean up the mess AND benefit at the same time. Well played, SBF.
Matei
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Blockchain innovation in the pharmaceutical sector
Pharmaledger, a consortium that started in January 2020 and received backing from 29 members, including a dozen big pharma companies, started as a 36-month project to explore blockchain innovation in the pharmaceutical sector.
The original consortium had €22 million ($21m) in backing, with part of the money coming from the EU-backed Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and the balance from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) under the Horizon 2020 program.
So far, the consortium has explored several distributed ledger (DLT) use cases across clinical trials, supply chain and health data. Electronic Product Information (ePI) is the most advanced and will be the first to launch. If you buy any kind of medication, the box usually has a paper insert that carries details about the drug, such as its chemical contents, dosage, and side effects. Scanning a barcode on a package will give you the same details and also warn you if it is past its sell-by date.
That functionality is a first step with the potential to add significantly more functionality.The ePI solution uses the Quorum enterprise blockchain version of Ethereum, and other blockchain protocols are being explored.
Recently, PharmaLedger has published a press releasing announcing its strategy to sustain the Project’s outcomes after December 2022. The PharmaLedger Project’s 29 consortium members have formally endorsed the creation of the PharmaLedger Association (PLA), a not-for-profit organisation that will carry forward the vision of the Project. Based in Basel, Switzerland, PLA will help launch the digital products developed during the Project, starting with the Electronic Product Information tool, and incubate new blockchain-based healthcare solutions that bring value to patients and all healthcare stakeholders. From October 2022 to January 2023, PharmaLedger will implement its approved sustainability plan and actively recruit members to join the PharmaLedger Association. More about this can be read in the full press release.
Evelyne
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