Crypto News, March 18: Are Investors Too Greedy?

Vitalik Buterin is on the front cover of TIME magazine this week. In the interview, the Ethereum co-founder revealed he's worried for crypto's future — and said the industry is at risk of being overtaken by greed. Warning crypto has "a dystopian potential," he appeared to criticize Bored Ape NFTs — as well as how decentralized autonomous organizations use coins to cast votes. Buterin said he sometimes feels like he's "yelling into the wind" when sharing his concerns, but is determined to get more vocal in 2022. Declaring that he would prefer Ethereum to offend some people than stand for nothing, he added: "The goal of crypto is not to play games with million-dollar pictures of monkeys, it's to do things that accomplish meaningful effects in the real world."

An NFT collector has revealed that he lost his entire net worth "in a single click." DinoDealer claims that he had intended to list his Ether Rock for 444 ETH — worth a jaw-dropping $1.2 million at current rates. But instead, he confused this for the smaller denomination of Ether, meaning it was advertised for sale on OpenSea at just 444 WEI. Before DinoDealer could realize his fatal error, a bot snapped up the rock for just $0.0012 — and instantly began offering the NFT to the marketplace for 234 ETH. If sold, this would result in a tidy profit of about $650,000. On Twitter, the unfortunate investor wrote: "In one click my entire net worth of $1 million, gone. Is there any hope? Am I GMI? Can snipers show mercy?"

A U.S. senator who is a fierce critic of cryptocurrencies has proposed a new bill to stop Russians from using digital assets to evade economic sanctions. Elizabeth Warren wants Joe Biden's administration to have the power to stop American crypto exchanges from processing transactions involving wallets based in Russia. American taxpayers would also be affected by the Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act, as they would be forced to file a form if they are involved in offshore crypto transactions worth more than $10,000. Warren sits on the Senate Banking Committee — and her proposed bill comes despite the co-founder of a blockchain intelligence firm telling that committee that there is no evidence to suggest that Putin's regime is "systematically" using crypto to evade sanctions.

Twitter is increasingly being used to talk about crypto, according to a new report by the social network. Discussion of topics including stablecoins, NFT marketplaces, decentralized apps and decentralized exchanges has ballooned by 242%. Meanwhile, mentions of fan tokens have risen by a whopping 994% year on year. The company believes these entry-level discussions could encourage everyday consumers to embrace crypto. It added: "Money matters used to be closely held secrets of the few. But these days, a new crowd's getting in on the action — and having fun."