Musk limits daily reading of tweets as Bittrex follows Coinbase in SEC challenge

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Apparently you can have too much of a good thing. Twitter owner Elon Musk limited the daily reading of tweets by verified accounts to 6,000 posts a day amid access problems cited by some users. He later amended this to say the numbers would be increased eventually, but maintained that the limits were necessary. In other news, crypto exchange Bittrex followed Coinbase in challenging the US SEC lawsuit against it and according to a report, first-half 2023 losses to crypto scams were down from the second half of 2022.

These are some stories we’re looking at right now.

Musk limits daily tweet reading

Thousands of Twitter users complained of login problems after the company’s owner, Elon Musk, announced in a tweet that it would limit verified accounts to reading 6,000 posts a day, while unverified accounts and new unverified accounts would have daily limits of 600 and 300 respectively.

Musk said the restrictions were necessary “to address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation,” and would eventually be increased to 8,000 posts for verified users, 800 for unverified accounts, and 400 for new unverified users.

Bittrex seeks SEC lawsuit dismissal

Cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex submitted a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adopting a strategy similar to that used last week by Coinbase.

Both companies argue that crypto assets traded on secondary markets should not be regulated by the SEC as securities, but categorised as commodities or other classes.

Treason alleged in crypto donations

A Russian citizen named Alexander Vecherko was arrested by the FSB for allegedly donating cryptocurrencies through a third party to support the Ukrainian army, according to a Russian-language report cited by Bitcoinist.

The FSB charged that Vecherko’s donations enabled the enemy to purchase gear including night vision goggles, ammunition, and medicine, and thus constituted treason. The report said that he will tried in a court of law.

First-half crypto scams total $656M

The total value of crypto lost in the first half of this year to scams, hacks, and rug pulls was $656 million, a report by web3 security firm Beosin said.

This included $471 million lost to hacks, $108 million in phishing scams, and $76 million in rug pulls. Still, this was less than the second half of last year, when $1.7 billion was lost to hacks alone, according to the report.

Hong Kong boosts web3 development

Hong Kong has created a task force to encourage web3 development, a news release from the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region said.

The group is led by Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan, who said the blockchain technology of web3 “has the potential to solve many difficulties and pain points encountered in finance, trade, business operations and even day-to-day life.” The task force includes other government officials, regulators, and industry experts.

What we’re reading from around the web

‘Big News’ — Crypto Now Braced For A Huge $27 Trillion Earthquake After Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, XRP, Cardano, Dogecoin, Solana And Litecoin Price Pump — Forbes

Crypto bettors’ uproar over Titan submarine puts spotlight on ‘decentralised truth’ — DL News

PolyNetwork Attacker Issues ‘Worthless’ Billions in SHIB, BNB, BUSD in Latest Crypto Hack — CoinDesk