 We reported recently about ordinary Venezuelans investing in crypto as a way to survive the ravages of hyperinflation. Well, it appears economic turmoil is hungry work, not just for ordinary Venezuelans, but also for Maduro, senior taking a break from presidenting, eating the humble dish that is part rack of lamb, part mean, hashtag Salt Bay. Also this week, Elon Musk seeks help, three exchanges in New York might be operating illegally, and one more multi-million dollar half in Japan. Ladies and gentlemen, it's your weekly Hotellers Digest. Great news for those who didn't sell Ripple last week. On Friday, Ripple briefly overtook Ethereum and became the number two crypto by total market capitalization, reaching $26 billion in leaving Ethereum in third on-coin market cap on Friday with only $23 billion. Ripple has seen unprecedented 140% growth on the week, trading at around $0.65 on Friday. Among possible reasons for the spike are the upcoming launch of Ripple's new payment platform XRapid and the announcement of PNC Bank, a top 10 US bank by assets, to use RippleNet to process international payments. The Treasury Select Committee in the UK wants to regulate the wild west crypto asset industry. They repeated the concerns of other governments and regulatory bodies heard many times over. The risk to consumers, investors losing everything, the potential for money laundering and terrorism financing. However, this report only talks about the potential for criminal activity, admitting. The latest risk assessment from the national crime industry is that crypto assets used for money laundering and terrorist financing is currently low. They are seeing cases of it, but it is not widespread. The committee also expressed skepticism towards blockchain. Although small scale uses for blockchain may exist, we have not been presented with any evidence to suggest that universal applications of the technology are currently reliably operational. One of the more positive conclusions of the report was that if correctly regulated, crypto could have a positive effect on consumers and the UK economy as a whole. Crypto UK, a group formed to help the industry self-regulate, were cautiously supportive of the report. In a statement, Iqbal Gantam, the chair of Crypto UK said, As an industry, we have been calling for the introduction of proportionate regulation to improve standards and encourage growth. Self-regulation by the industry was always intended to be a starting point. This must now be matched by government action. The New York Attorney General came out against several crypto exchanges for failing to provide basic consumer protections. The criticisms feature as part of a report that was months in the making. In short, the findings revealed that consumers are at risk. In addition to this, three exchanges might be operating illegally in New York, Kraken, Binance, and Gate.io. According to Attorney General Barbara Underwood, many virtual currency platforms lack the necessary policies and procedures to ensure the fairness, integrity, and security of their exchanges. Back in April, when the report, titled the Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative, reached out to 13 crypto exchanges for participation, Kraken, along with several others, refused to play ball. Their co-founder defiantly tweeted, Generally speaking, regulators run a very strong PR campaign that is targeted at companies. And so given that New York State actually singled out several exchanges, it doesn't really fit into, I think, what regulators are generally supposed to do, which is provide a fair and balanced point of information for consumers. I'm very familiar with the bit license. Actually, I submitted an application to New York State in 2015. And that was a very long process. The DFS made it impossible for us to raise venture capital in those days because we would go into, you know, different VC meetings. The question of the bit license would inevitably come up and it prevented companies. It essentially created the crypto bear market we had for two years. Well, the bit license was really strict that we only saw around six applications get approved over time. Many influential companies in this space either not apply for the bit license because it is very difficult to comply with. Companies like Bitfinex and Kraken pull out of New York and stay out of New York. So I think that companies are really doing their best to comply with New York by not operating there. If Elon Musk has taught us anything recently, it is that super geniuses are flawed and really bad at Twitter. It emerged this week that the SpaceX CEO was being sued for making unfounded and pretty awful accusations against a British cave diver. The diver in question only deciding to sue after Musk doubled down on the accusations. There are also reports of a criminal probe into Tesla after Elon made claims that he had the funding to go private. Musk clearly needs help and he's not afraid to ask. Now for something that involves little something less personal. Elon Musk needs some help with crypto scammer impersonators, so he asks none other than Dogecoin creator Jackson Palmer. Palmer was clearly happy to help, perhaps hoping for a free ride into space. Musk might not have matured when it comes to name calling, but he might have been showing some signs of maturity on scambots. Jackson Palmer's efforts proved to be entirely altruistic. Following Musk's tweets, Dogecoin's price merely fell in line with the bearish trend, dropping 4% in 24 hours. Japanese crypto exchange, Zafe, was hacked as a result of a security breach last week. Hackers got away with over $40 million from users' hot wallets, as well as about $19 million in company assets. Among cryptos, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Monacoin were stolen. The total losses were $59.7 million. This is nowhere near as much as Mt. Gox's $500 million hack back in 2014. The operator tech bureau, Inc., in Osaka, detected a server error on Tuesday. Xyphen suspended deposits and withdrawals on Wednesday. This was the fifth major hack this year, and of course, it won't be encouraging for retail or institutional investors. However, Bitcoin's price remained unaffected by the hack, standing above $6.7K. The firm Fisco Digital Asset Group will help Zafe cover lost customer assets by putting up $44.5 million. In February, Zafe reported a system glitch that allowed 16 customers to trade crypto for yen at a rate of 0 yen per coin for a very short time. It was perhaps the greatest deal on the internet. To date, the SEC has received over 1,400 letters regarding its decision on the VanX SolidX Bitcoin ETF. But now, it wants more. Filed back in June, this application claims to be physically backed by actual Bitcoins and is anticipated to be listed on the Chicago Board of Exchange BZX Equities Exchange. The SEC made clear in a statement this week that it hasn't reached any conclusions with respect to any of the issues involved. The SEC is particularly interested in comment on 18 key issues. For example, BZX's assertion Bitcoin is less susceptible to manipulation than other commodities that underlie exchange-traded products. Hottlers in the US and around the world, does this make you optimistic or pessimistic that we will see a Bitcoin ETF in the near future? Let us know in the comments. And as always, like, subscribe, and hodl. Cointelegraph, like, subscribe, and hodl.