The CoinGeek Pulse Episode 74: Biden to release Executive Order on digital assets, Ethereum says no to ETH 2.0, MusicArt NFT Marketplace launches

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U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly preparing to release an Executive Order on digital assets in February, placing the White House at the center of government’s initiatives to manage the growing digital assets industry in the country. 

According to media reports, an initial government-wide strategy for digital assets from the White House is set to be released next month. Reports suggest that federal agencies will determine opportunities and risks to help outline the said comprehensive national strategy. 

The Executive Order is expected to clarify federal law concerning digital assets-focused enterprises and businesses. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have previously issued statements and guidance for the industry. This is a developing story, and the White House has yet to give further comments. 

In relevant news, House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Patrick McHenry is pushing for more digital asset regulations clarity for the ecosystem to flourish. 

“We should not cede these important issues to regulators such as SEC or CFTC, or to the judicial branch, to determine.” McHenry wrote to Committee Chair Maxine Waters this week. 

“U.S.-based trading platforms are not currently under the direct jurisdiction of either the SEC or CFTC,” he added. 

In the letter, McHenry urged the Committee to further examine whether increased federal regulation on digital currency trading platforms is necessary or appropriate.

In other news, widely-known public blockchains continue to face setbacks.

After years of waiting, Ethereum Foundation is letting go of ETH 2.0. The Ethereum Foundation announced ‘The Great Renaming’ of ETH2. This means that going forward, developers will stop using the term ETH 2.0 in favor of the ‘consensus layer’ rebrand—making a shift from proof of work to a more inferior proof of stake consensus mechanism. 

A blog posted by the Ethereum team states the Eth2 branding creates “a broken mental model for new users of Ethereum.” The consensus layer will also replace Ethereum’s mining system. The current system refers to network-connected high-powered computers competing to validate transactions to mint new ETH.

According to the foundation, “As work began on the Beacon Chain, it became clear that the phased Ethereum 2.0 roadmap would take several years to deliver fully.” This, however, will not change the Ethereum roadmap, whose timeline is expected to end in 2023, but many expect that to take much longer. 

Meanwhile, the Solana network went down again—this time for 48 hours. The outage is the second incident this month and one of the multiple issues the network suffered within the last few months. 

According to Solana, the issue was caused by “excessive duplicate transactions” done by bots. This incident was resolved early this week. However, users who took loans were forced to pay the price of the outage for heavy liquidations. 

Another NFT marketplace is joining the bandwagon with music Industry executives and rock legends teaming up. Former executives of MTV, Sony, Universal, and RCA Records have come together to launch MusicArt, a unique new NFT platform focused solely on celebrating music-based art and imagery. 

“MusicArt is the perfect environment for musicians to trade their visual art without fear of it being lost in a sea of NFTs in unrelated genres on other platforms,” said CEO Peter Ruppert. 

The platform champions the work of legacy and new artists alike. MusicArt boasts of exclusive pieces from art rock icons—including those who have worked with the legends The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix.

More this week, the latest episode of Patrick Thompson’s More than Money with Richard Leach of GameFi is out. Head to the CoinGeek Youtube channel to watch this exclusive video and more.