This Week on Crypto Twitter: White House Mining Tax Scrapped, Bukele Hires Bitcoin Expert

Markets finally began to grow a little this week after four weeks of stagnation. There wasn’t a whole lot of news to drive prices either way. In the U.S., regulators continued to hold the line on their assertion that existing rules are sufficient for the industry. Meanwhile, another domestic crypto exchange—Gemini—continued expanding offshore.

The most politically important tweet from Crypto Twitter this week came from Congressman Warren Davidson, who confirmed on Monday that the new U.S. debt ceiling agreement blocked an unpopular White House proposal for a 30% excise tax to be applied to crypto mining firms based on how much electricity they consume.

Yes, one of the victories is blocking proposed taxes.

— Warren Davidson 🇺🇸 (@WarrenDavidson) May 29, 2023

Also that day, Bitcoin NFT project Ordinals hit a new milestone.

BREAKING: @Bitcoin ORDINALS BREAKS 10 MILLION INSCRIPTIONS pic.twitter.com/KEsYTFPYCb

— DEGEN NEWS 🗞️ (@DegenerateNews) May 29, 2023

On Tuesday, El Salvador’s National Bitcoin Office—an official institution set up to promulgate Bitcoin as legal tender in the country—announced that the country’s authoritarian president Nayib Bukele had hired a new Bitcoin consultant.

When the author of the Bitcoin Standard met the leader of Bitcoin Country, great things were bound to happen.

We are excited to announce that @saifedean is joining us as Economic Advisor to the National Bitcoin Office of El Salvador.

Welcome to the winning team, Dr Ammous! pic.twitter.com/LyIljvKvtz

— The Bitcoin Office (@bitcoinofficesv) May 30, 2023

Alex Svanevik, the CEO of blockchain data and research company Nansen, announced that the company was letting go of 30% of its staff in order to streamline the company. He also mentioned the bear market as a factor.

Full statement: pic.twitter.com/cxSTtZBiZU

— Alex Svanevik 🐧 (@ASvanevik) May 30, 2023

Blockchain gumshoe ZachXBT exposed a particularly callous scam on Thursday.

Today @andr3w supported a charity project rug by @hopeexist1 someone supposedly battling cancer causing the project to mint out.

“I’ll put my rep on the line to say this is for real amidst all the scams in our space”

It turns out she stole the art and deactivated her account. pic.twitter.com/q4HivGBLMY

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) May 31, 2023

Imagine earning a million in twenty-four hours for doing nothing except opening your wallet. Well, it has already happened. Welcome to the blockchain.

GM — yesterday @Pauly0x tweeted an ETH address telling people they’d receive absolutely nothing in exchange for sending him ETH.

In under 24 hours, people have sent over $1.1 million USD. pic.twitter.com/FXpxsD2iKP

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) May 31, 2023

It’s easy to get worried about AI these days with so many tech industry leaders labeling it a potential extinction threat. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman offered a more mundane prediction about the advent of artificial general intelligence: maybe things will keep on keeping on.

a reasonably plausible version of the AGI future is that it unfolds similarly to how it would have without AGI, but it’s such a powerful tool that everything happens much faster.

— Sam Altman (@sama) June 1, 2023

NFT theft is declining but the Blur marketplace is becoming popular for stolen digital goods, according to PeckShieldAlert.

#PeckShieldAlert In May 2023, ~$2.95M worth of #NFTs were stolen, marking an 8.7% decrease compared to the previous month.
Within a span of 130 minutes, half of the stolen NFTs were promptly sold on various marketplaces.
The percentage of stolen NFTs initially sold on @blur_io… pic.twitter.com/vzQrR6zrif

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) June 1, 2023

Messari analyst Ally Zach on Thursday did a deep dive on Solana’s newest users and how the blockchain caters to consumer applications.

1/ @solana has experienced a remarkable 2x surge in unique users within the past month, with a significant portion comprising new users.

What attracts these users and how do they engage within the ecosystem?🧵 pic.twitter.com/BnKDNdUSD9

— Ally Zach (@0xallyzach) June 1, 2023

Finally, crypto wallet provider Atomic on Saturday warned that several wallets have been compromised. Crypto sleuth ZachXBT revealed the eye-watering amounts of crypto at stake.

Update: A new largest victim was found on Tron with 7.95M USDT stolen,

The five biggest losses account for $17M.

My graph has now surpassed $35M in total stolen. pic.twitter.com/eqfXkm9vlL

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) June 4, 2023

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