In the first edition of our Co-CEO updates, CEOs of SOMA.finance, William B. Heyn and John Patrick Mullin, look back on the both internal and external events that have defined March 2023, including the Economic Report of the President (ERP), regulatory action against Binance, the new SOMA website and the refreshed SOMA brand.
March 2023: Industry Overview
March was an interesting month in the world of blockchain. While some of the developments seemed to be negative, or might be negative for a particular company, the overall trend favors SOMA, which clearly chose to follow the regulated path from the beginning.
The ERP 2023 report overshadowed a good bit of the month. It was a highly detailed and comprehensive review of the industry and worth a read. When it came down to the ultimate conclusion of the segment on blockchain, one sentiment prevailed. The report decried that essentially every blockchain project to date as having added little or no value to our financial lives. While one might argue that this is an overreaching statement, as domino after domino falls in the blockchain world, it is hard to refute this conclusion. Whether you agree or disagree with this report, one thing was abundantly clear, the Quixotic hope that pervades our industry that the U.S. government might just let crypto slide into the Wild West of no regulations is even more outlandish than ever before.
The biggest regulatory action of the month was the CFTC action against Binance. We will leave the ultimate conclusions to the judge and jury on the case but if any of the alleged actions did in fact occur, than it could be a rough go for Binance. If Binance was actually trading against its own customers, that is a big problem. If Binance was abetting U.S. persons in willfully evading U.S. rules that is a bigger problem. If Binance was helping finance terrorism, even if it was only $600, that is the biggest problem of them all.
While the charges against Binance dominated the news, the SEC action against Beaxy was even more interesting and impactful for SOMA. According to the complaint, the sale of $BXY was a unregistered securities offering, beaxy.com was an unregistered exchange and an unregistered broker and the “market makers” were acting as unregistered dealers. All of this sums up exactly why SOMA is pursuing the regulated route; everything will be registered and everything will be in accordance with the regulations.
William B. Heyn, Co-CEO, SOMA.finance
March 2023: SOMA Updates
This month has seen some great developments at SOMA.finance with the release of our refreshed brand, updated website and imminent launch of our onboarding process. These changes come as we aim to provide further clarity on the SOMA.finance offering moving forward, which is to update our look and feel to portray our mission of building a better, brighter finance for the future. Our new branding draws upon our Hindu namesake ‘Soma’, the goddess of the moon. Like the moon, we are a light in the sometimes murky world of DeFi, using our regulatory framework to offer our users a safer environment to protect assets and grow long-term, sustainable wealth.
In addition to new branding, there will be an updated website and social media offering. The website has been designed and constructed by our internal design and tech teams to optimize performance, improve navigation and better display our unique value proposition. The new “Features” page offers a more detailed look of our offering and how our platform can change the way that users interact with the DeFi space for the better. We’ve also updated our “Learning Hub” to better deliver educational information that can empower users to make more informed decisions in the space. The next phase of this will be building out our “Market Insights” to offer more regular, insightful thought leadership and industry news from the SOMA team.
The SOMA team has also been preparing for the release of our onboarding platform to register individuals on the SOMA ecosystem. This will be conducted in a phased approach. Those at the top of the waitlist will be eligible to onboard first to gain first access to the SOMA token launch. We’ll be announcing further updates on this shortly through our key social media channels, so keep an eye out for upcoming announcements.
Finally, for those of you that missed the Q&A this month, we will be conducting them on a quarterly basis moving forwards. Please feel free to prepare any questions that you may have for the team and we will answer them on our social platforms and website.
Thank you for your continued support. The future of finance is very bright, and SOMA is lighting the way.
John Patrick Mullin, Co-CEO, SOMA.finance
