Crypto News Recap With Fox Business' Eleanor Terrett

This week: Meme Coin Mania continues as Binance lists Pepe, Bitcoin block space is more congested than my upper respiratory tract, and Worldcoin returns from the shadows.

Here’s what’s happening in crypto today — as sourced by our community and today's guest, Fox Business reporter and producer Eleanor Terrett:

In Bitcoin…

For once, the price of Bitcoin (~$28k, at last check) isn’t what everyone’s talking about. Bitcoin is currently undergoing “historic demand for blockspace” as it sets a new record for unconfirmed transactions with 444,000 in the mempool this morning. 

The record cost of Bitcoin transactions led the exchange Binance to halt withdrawals twice over the weekend. The increased congestion has been attributed to BRC-20 coins and Ordinals NFT activity on the network. 

In Pepe…

The meme coin Pepe’s listing on Binance caused its price to hit its ATH just 40 minutes after its listing on Friday. Pepe spent most of the weekend with a market cap of over one billion dollars. 

Unfortunately, it then proceeded to slide around 50% to its current price as traders like “dimethyltriptamine.eth” took profits of up to 5,000,000%. 

In Banking and Regulation…

NY Attorney General Letitia James has long had crypto in her crosshairs — recall that she once asked Tether “Hey, can I see all the money you claim to have in your vault?” and they said “Thanks, but nah!” so she said “See ya!”

Well, anyway, James proposed a new bill that would give her office greater power to police crypto, promising “commonsense measures to protect investors." It’s unclear how likely the bill’s passing in New York’s state legislature would be. 

Also in regulation (sort of) privacy project Railgun DAO announced a ‘Proof of Innocence’ protocol originally designed for Tornado Cash with which users can prove that their private transactions did not include blacklisted wallet addresses. The project expects the feature to ship later this year. 

In Other Headlines…

Worldcoin launches World App on Polygon. The minimalist wallet is the first product offering from Sam Altman’s crypto offering. Altman is best known as the CEO of OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT. 

'Attack on Bitcoin’ Claims Circulate as Transaction Fees Climb Higher

Block Demand Leads to Fee Spike as Bitcoin-Based Memecoins Flourish

Argentina's Central Bank Cracks Down on Crypto

Crypto Lender Voyager Plans to Liquidate Assets After Failing to Find a Buyer

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