While the Russia vs Ukraine news is getting most of the coverage crypto is not lagging behind. Officials have been sending mixed messages regarding cryptocurrencies in these turbulent times. In case you are out of the loop, here are the most important crypto news from last week:

Tai Lopez Launches NFT Project

We all know that you can't have a bull run without Tai Lopez. He takes every opportunity to rob the people that follow him and this time he has come up wtih a genius idea - an NFT collection that would net him roughly $17M if every NFT gets minted.

This scam even has 3 tiers.

Black: 60 ->10 ETH
Gold: 5 ->1 ETH
Silver: .15 ->.1 ETH

And if you mint the most expensive one you may have a chance to play a game of basketball with Tai himself. That's what I call a steal.

In case you want to dig a bit deeper on this one here is a great Twitter thread covering everything.

Ukraine War Puts Pressure On Centralized Exchanges

Politicians have been pressuring centralized exchanges for quite some time. They think that all Russian users should be banned from using a crypto exchange while exchange owners are fighting back.

Kraken CEO, Jesse Powell issued warnings to all CEX users that this could happen but it seems that they are still fighting back.

Sometimes the hardest thing about having power is knowing when not to use it. Our mission is better served by focusing on individual needs above those of any government or political faction. The People's Money is an exit strategy for humans, a weapon for peace, not for war.

Besides, if we were going to voluntarily freeze financial accounts of residents of countries unjustly attacking and provoking violence around the world, step 1 would be to freeze all US accounts. As a practical matter, that's not really a viable business option for us.

Source

Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong said the following:

That being said, we don’t think there’s a high risk of Russian oligarchs using crypto to avoid sanctions. Because it is an open ledger, trying to sneak lots of money through crypto would be more traceable than using U.S. dollars cash, art, gold, or other assets.

During an interview with MSNBC Hillary Clinton stated that she is disappointed by the lack of cooperation centralized exchanges are showing.

I was disappointed to see that some of the so-called crypto exchanges, not all of them, but some of them are refusing to end transactions with Russia for some philosophy of libertarianism or whatever.

In their eyes, decentralization is some philosophy of libertarianism or whatever so it would probably be smart to keep that in mind going forward.

IRS Rushes to Hire 10,000 Workers Due To "Giant Backlog"

The Internal Revenue Service plans to hire 10,000 employees in a push to cut into its backlog of tens of millions of tax returns by recruiting for jobs across the agency that have gone unfilled for years, according to four people familiar with the plan.

The agency will accelerate recruiting in the coming weeks for 80 distinct positions, from entry-level clerical workers to advanced engineers and tax attorneys, one person familiar with the plan said. Among the recruiting targets are high-skill technology professionals to modernize its outdated infrastructure, according to those familiar with the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details have not been publicly released.

Source

This news doesn't have to be crypto-related per se but going through crypto tax reports must be a very exhausting job I would imagine.

Andre Cronje Leaves DeFi and Crypto

Andre Cronje is by now a legendary name in crypto and DeFi. He has been leading the charge in developing the Fantom Blockchain and some "blue chip" DeFi protocols like Yearn Finance. Now, he seems to have had enough and the underwhelming reception of his latest project Solidly Exchange may have something to do with it.

The announcement was made by Anton Nell on Twitter.

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