Thousands of Nepalis turned to Jack Dorsey’s Bluetooth mesh network messaging app in response to the government’s social media ban, which has since been lifted. Over 48,000 Nepalese people downloaded Block CEO Jack Dorsey’s peer-to-peer messaging app, bitchat, amid a series of violent protests over corruption and a short-lived social media ban earlier this week. It followed a similar uptick in downloads in Indonesia last week after corruption-related protests erupted, according to Bitcoin open-source developer “callebtc,” who is working on bitchat. “Last week, we observed a sudden spike in bitchat downloads from Indonesia during nationwide protests. Today we’re seeing an even bigger spike from Nepal during youth protests over government corruption and a social media ban,” callebtc posted to X on Wednesday. Read more
The text chain revealed questions the Gemini co-founders sent Brian Quintenz in July that signaled they were looking for certain assurances regarding enforcement actions. Brian Quintenz, US President Donald Trump’s pick to chair the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has made public several texts between himself and Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, suggesting reasons why the brothers may have attempted to interfere with his nomination to the agency. In a Wednesday X post, Quintenz said he had released the texts over concerns that Trump “might have been misled” by the Gemini co-founders. The chain appeared to show Tyler Winklevoss sending Quintenz information on Gemini’s civil case with the CFTC, settled with a $5 million fine in January. “The CFTC totally abused the deliberative process privilege amongst many other abuses to prevent us from even be [sic] able to defend ourselves fairly in court,” Winklevoss texted to Quintenz on July 25. Read more
The SEC has extended deadlines for crypto funds tracking Solana and XRP, along with proposals targeting Ether staking. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed decisions on multiple crypto exchange traded funds (ETF) proposals Wednesday, pushing back deadlines for funds including BlackRock and Franklin Templeton. According to SEC filings, the agency has set a new deadline of Nov. 13 for Franklin’s Ethereum staking amendment, and Nov. 14 for its Solana and XRP ETFs. A proposal seeking to permit staking in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust is now slated for Oct. 30. The filings do not indicate how the SEC is leaning on the applications; only that more time is needed to evaluate them. The commission is using the maximum extension available before issuing a final decision. Read more