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Several key pieces of crypto legislation are at a standstill as Republican lawmakers struggle to elect a new House speaker in the United States Congress. Meanwhile, Reddit’s r/CryptoCurrency community sacked two moderators involved in insider trading of the Moons (MOON) token, and Bitcoin (BTC) advocate Jameson Lopp has presented new evidence that could debunk the theory that computer scientist Hal Finney was Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
House speaker vacuum leaves Congress paralyzed on crypto bills
Key pieces of crypto legislation in the United States remain in limbo as lawmakers struggle to appoint a new House speaker.
Without a House speaker, crypto bills passed by the Financial Services Committee have nowhere to go. The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act and the Keep Your Coins Act are all on hold until Republicans can agree on a new speaker.
“In the Speaker race there are several pro-crypto candidates,” said Ron Hammond, the Blockchain Association’s director of government relations. Tom Emmer “is the frontrunner, but as the past few weeks have shown it is far from a guarantee he will become Speaker.”
1) This week in Congress and crypto: Another week of House Speaker drama and intense focus on Israel/Hamas. For crypto there is a lot of tangental elements on both issues. Many of the speaker candidates have a strong record on crypto so let's quickly meet them and fights to come.
— Ron Hammond (@RonwHammond) October 23, 2023
Contrasting with the pro-crypto candidates is a growing chorus of lawmakers who want to “curtail illicit crypto activity,” according to a letter endorsed by Senator Elizabeth Warren and more than 100 other representatives.
Reddit removes moderators involved in alleged insider trading of MOON tokens
Reddit’s r/CryptoCurrency community has fired two moderators who were found to be involved in insider trading of the MOON token, Cointelegraph has confirmed.
At least three wallets linked to Reddit group moderators dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of MOON tokens on Oct. 18, just minutes before the official announcement of the closure of the blockchain-based points program that involved the use of certain cryptocurrencies native to each community. The market dump by the three wallets was highlighted by on-chain analysis accounts on X (formerly Twitter), such as Lookonchain.
Cointelegraph reached out to r/CryptoCurrency to understand the insider trading allegations and how the investigation went through. U/mellon, a core contributor and MoonDust founder, told Cointelegraph that two moderators were removed while three others are being investigated:
“Two mods got removed, as they sold their Moons before the official announcement from Reddit: u/rider_of_the_strom u/McGillby.”
The program allowed participants on the platform to earn points and spend them using community-native crypto tokens such as MOON.
New evidence suggests Hal Finney couldn’t possibly be Satoshi Nakamoto
For years, it has been commonly speculated that the late Hal Finney, a computer scientist, was the creator of Bitcoin.
However, a new analysis presented by Jameson Lopp, co-founder of Bitcoin custody firm Casa, argues it couldn’t possibly be the case, as Finney was competing in a 10-mile race at the exact time Satoshi Nakamoto was responding to emails and transacting on Bitcoin.
“It turns out that early Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn was emailing back and forth with Satoshi during this time,” explained Lopp, referring to archived emails that Hearn had released publicly in the past.
The folks responding to my Hal Finney research with "yeah, we all know Satoshi is ______" clearly missed the point.
Satoshi should remain a myth, an inspiration, an idea. Because ideas are bulletproof.
— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) October 22, 2023
“What can we determine from all of this? Satoshi sent the email to Mike at 9:16 AM Pacific time – 2 minutes before Hal crossed the finish line.”
“For the hour and 18 minutes that Hal was running, we can be quite sure that he was not interacting with a computer,” Lopp added.
Other evidence presented includes on-chain data showing a Bitcoin transaction confirmed during the race, as well as online activity from Satoshi in August 2010, which would have been very challenging given Finney’s battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
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