Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has asked a federal court for permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the ongoing lawsuit between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and fintech firm Ripple.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka ‘CZ’) has explained that the leading cryptocurrency exchange invested $500 million into Elon Musk’s Twitter buyout in a bid to “help bring Twitter into Web3 when they’re ready.”

Over the month of October, the cryptocurrency ecosystem saw 44 exploits affect at least 53 protocols, which led to around $657 million in total losses. So far this year, crypto exploit losses amount to around $3 billion, doubling the figure of last year.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Coinbase Files to Support Ripple Against SEC
• Binance Invested $500M Into Elon Musk’s Takeover ‘to Bring Twitter Onto Web3’
• Crypto Exploit Losses Top $3 Billion Year-to-Date
• Historical Monthly Exchange Volumes

Coinbase Files to Support Ripple Against SEC

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has asked a federal court for permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the ongoing lawsuit between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and fintech firm Ripple.

The move sees Coinbase join the Blockchain Association, an industry lobbying group, and SpendTheBits, a crypto payments app that uses XRP. The exchange highlighted whether the SEC provided “fair notice” prior to bringing its enforcement action.

Coinbase’s filing said:

"Given the absence of SEC rulemaking for the cryptocurrency industry, the question of whether the SEC has given fair notice before bringing an enforcement action against sales of one of the thousands of unique digital assets will often be highly fact-intensive, which makes it particularly ill-suited for adjudication on summary judgment.”

The exchange has also argued the regulator has been inconsistent in its approach, which creates “uncertainty” for companies in the cryptocurrency space. Per the firm Ripple and others have been “the subject of extensive enforcement scrutiny,” while other players in the space with “nearly identical products or services” have been “subject to none.”

The SEC sued Ripple and two of its executives at the end of 2020, alleging they sold unregistered securities when they issued $1.3 billion worth of XRP tokens. Ripple denies XRP is a security.

Binance Invested $500M Into Elon Musk’s Takeover ‘to Bring Twitter Into Web3’

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka ‘CZ’) has explained that the leading cryptocurrency exchange invested $500 million into Elon Musk’s Twitter buyout in a bid to “help bring Twitter into Web3 when they’re ready.”

CZ noted during a conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” that the deal with Musk was “put together a few months back.” The CEO added that there are many reasons for Binance to back the deal, including that Twitter is “a free speech platform, which is global, which is extremely important.”

He went on to add that Binance wants to support strong entrepreneurs and that the firm wants to “make sure that crypto has a seat at the table when it comes to free speech.” Solving the immediate problems Twitter faces, including charging for memberships, can be “done very easily globally using cryptocurrencies as a means of payments.”

When asked to go into detail regarding Binance’s reasoning for investing in Twitter, CZ said that whilst Elon Musk was one of the main factors, he believes the platform has huge value but wasn’t “being run well.”

Crypto Exploit Losses Top $3 Billion Year-to-Date

Over the month of October, the cryptocurrency ecosystem saw 44 exploits affect at least 53 protocols, which led to around $657 million in total losses. So far this year, crypto exploit losses amount to around $3 billion, doubling the figure of last year.

While at least $100 million taken last month have been returned, losses have been significant over a number of cases. These cases involved compromised wallets, insecure smart contract code, unaccounted-for game theory behind protocol functionality, exploited cross-chain bridges, and oracle price manipulation.

Impacted protocols over the month of October included the BNB Chain’s cross-chain bridge, which led to a hard fork to restore security, and crypto lender Mango Markets, with an agreement being made with the hacker to return some of the funds.

Historical Monthly Exchange Volumes

In September, Top-Tier cryptocurrency exchanges represented 93.6% of the total spot volume in the space, their highest market share recorded since November 2017. Considering individual exchanges, Binance was the largest one, trading $541 billion after seeing its volume rise 23.5%.

Binance was followed by AAX, which saw its volume surge 29.3% to $71.1 billion, and OKX, which saw its volume rise 8.26% to $58.1 billion. FTX and Coinbase saw their volumes drop 5.49% and 17.6% to $51.8 billion and $48.1 billion, respectively.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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