Coinbase Fixes Solana Transaction Backlog After 48-Hour Delay

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO  announced that the Solana backlog problem that caused pending transaction times of up to 21 hours on the centralized exchange has been resolved.

In a post on X on Jan 22, Armstrong encouraged users with cancelled transactions to retry posting their transactions and apologized to Coinbase users.

This congestion was a result of Donald Trump's memecoin frenzy as traders rushed in to purchase the US president’s official memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP).

The memecoin launch on January 20 led to a surge in traffic that caused congestion issues for applications on the Solana network. Despite this, the network itself remained operational and did not experience an outage.

Coinbase asks appeals court to rule crypto trades aren’t securities

Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, has requested a US appeals court to declare that crypto trades are not securities, as part of its ongoing legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In a January 21 filing to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Coinbase emphasized that determining whether secondary market crypto transactions qualify as investment contracts under securities laws is of great significance to the crypto industry.

“This case presents an ideal vehicle to address that question and provide clear rules for this multi-trillion-dollar industry,” it said. 

“Without it, market participants face different rules before different courts, and neither the Commission nor Congress can be certain who is responsible for the regulation of digital-asset trading,” Coinbase added.

In June 2023, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, claiming that the crypto exchange was operating as an unregistered securities exchange. The SEC also alleged that Coinbase had not registered as a broker, national securities exchange, or clearing agency, thus avoiding the disclosure requirements for securities markets.

In their most recent petition, Coinbase's legal team contends that transactions conducted on its platform are not “securities transactions but asset sales of digital assets rather than physical ones.”

North Dakota bill seeks to cap crypto ATM transactions to tackle fraud

North Dakota lawmakers are currently discussing a new bill aimed at regulating cryptocurrency ATMs and safeguarding residents from scams. House Bill 1447, introduced on January 15, proposes limiting daily withdrawals from crypto ATMs to $1,000, capping transaction fees at either $5 or 3% of the total amount (whichever is higher), and requiring the machines to display fraud warning notices.

Lisa Kruse, commissioner of the state's Department of Financial Institutions, told the House Industry, Business and Labor Committee on January 22 that North Dakota residents filed 103 crypto scam complaints to the FBI in 2023, with losses totalling $6.5 million.

According to a September report by the FBI, Americans lost $5.6 billion to crypto fraud in 2023, with 5,500 cases involving crypto ATMs resulting in over $189 million in losses.

House Representative Steve Swiontek, who introduced the bill, pointed out that crypto ATMs lack the same consumer protections as traditional money ATMs, making them vulnerable to exploitation by criminals. Swiontek, who has a background as the former president and CEO of Gate City Bank, emphasized that this lack of safeguards has allowed scammers to take advantage of unsuspecting users.