#2022

Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO of MoonPay, and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, ended up entangled in a minor scandal. It turns out that in late 2022, the MoonPay chief funnelled $500,000 into Suarez's electoral campaign via a Political Action Committee, or PAC. The twist is, Soto-Wright made the transfer from the account of another company under his belt - PassionForest. Now, that's also the name of a Chinese floral business, which led to some legal headwinds. When it was revealed that there were no ties between PassionForest and the Chinese venture, the controversy cooled down. Meanwhile, Miami's mayor, Francis Suarez, also quashed any whispers of potential Chinese backing. On a side note, Suarez is an avid crypto enthusiast who accepts his mayoral paycheck in Bitcoin.

On the morning of July 13, Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of the now-bankrupt crypto lender Celsius, was reportedly arrested. The news broke minutes after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against the crypto lender on the same day. The company’s token dropped 6% upon hearing the news. The former CEO was arrested following an investigation into the company’s collapse. Celsius Network initiated the process of filing for bankruptcy on July 14 of the previous year. Investigators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found Mashinsky guilty of breaking numerous U.S. regulations prior to the company’s implosion in 2022. The investigation into the troubled crypto lender began after the New York Attorney General sued Mashinsky on January 5. The lawsuit alleged that the former CEO misled investors and caused billions of dollars in losses.

NFT royalties on Ethereum hit an eye-popping 699,816 ETH, roughly translating to $1.8 billion. However, data analytics firm Nansen's deep-dive analysis points to an unsettling trend. Despite sustained NFT volumes in 2023, royalties for this year only constitute 9.4% of the total payout, a stark contrast to 2022, which accounted for over 64% of the total ETH paid. The culprit behind this disparity is the downward trend in effective royalty rates, which fell from 2.5% in 2022 to a scant 0.6% by July 2023. Some NFT projects such as Yuga Labs, behind popular initiatives like Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), are among the few benefiting, receiving 9.4% of all royalties.

Contrary to forecasts, the value of Salvadoran bonds rose by 62% after Fitch downgraded the country's credit rating in September 2022. Perhaps the 79% surge in BTC during the same period played a role in this unexpected turn of events. In 2021, El Salvador declared Bitcoin as legal tender and currently holds 2546 BTC. Despite skepticism from the IMF, the country also allocated $1 billion for the construction of a mining farm with a capacity of 241 MW.