New York state governor Kathy Hochul has signed a moratorium on using fossil fuels to power Bitcoin mining operations in the region. The new legislation aims to address environmental concerns in the state to balance its economic development and climate goals. A Two-Year Ban The approved bill targets Bitcoin and other crypto mining companies leveraging...Read More
An FTX user is suing NBA team Golden State Warriors, accusing them of fraudulently promoting the FTX exchange after losing $750,000 due to the platform’s collapse. The plaintiff Elliot Lam, filed a class action lawsuit in San Francisco against Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), former CEO of FTX, Caroline Ellison, CEO of SBF’s trading firm Alameda Research...Read More
The Estonian police arrested two individuals in the country’s capital Tallinn for their alleged involvement in a $575 million cryptocurrency scam. According to the prosecution, Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin lured hundreds of thousands of victims to interact with a dubious digital asset mining service and to invest in a virtual currency bank. The entities...Read More
Alexey Pertsev – developer of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash – will reportedly remain in jail until late February 2023. The Dutch Crime Agency (FIOD) arrested the man in August this year after the US Treasury Department previously sanctioned Tornado Cash for enabling money-laundering procedures. According to a recent CoinDesk coverage, Pertsev will stay in...Read More
The American senators – Elizabeth Warren, Tina Smith, and Richard Durbin – advised Fidelity Investments to reconsider its decision to allow investors to add bitcoin to their retirement 401(k) plans. One of the largest mutual fund companies in the US has heavily engaged in the crypto sector in the past few years. It recently considered...Read More
Now that the dust has begun to settle following the unexpected collapse of FTX, government officials have started to plan hearings on the subject. Given the size of the now-bankrupt exchange, the hearings will probably result in new regulations that will change the crypto industry from here on out. Calls for Consumer Protection Authorities in...Read More
The cryptocurrency industry was built on top of one slogan: “don’t trust, verify.” But Grayscale is different from the rest of the cryptocurrency-related businesses. In a recent Twitter thread pondering the need for transparency in the industry after the collapse of FTX, Grayscale attempted to calm its investors’ fears, assuring them that the regulations that...Read More
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) extended its final decision on whether to approve the launch of ARK 21Shares’ spot BTC ETF to January 27, 2023. The Commission stated it needs more time to consider the pros and cons of the ETF. Two More Months Ark Invest wanted to introduce a spot Bitcoin...Read More
FTX’s Bahamas unit – FTX Digital Markets Ltd – has filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy seeking protection from creditors in the United States. Chapter 15 bankruptcy essentially enables a foreign debtor to file for bankruptcy in the US court system. According to the report, the filing will allow provisional liquidators who can serve as foreign...Read More
BlockFi was one of the lenders that found itself in troubled waters following the crypto credit crisis. As forced selling and liquidity issues began to take a toll on investors, the industry, which was already buffeted by inflation and other macroeconomic agents, witnessed several companies, including Celsius and Voyager, go bankrupt. But BlockFi managed to...Read More
One of the largest supermarket chains in South Africa – Pick n Pay – reportedly enabled customers to settle their bills in cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin. The offering covers 39 of the company’s stores located across the country. The National Children’s Advocacy Center also hopped on the bandwagon, allowing people to donate digital assets. The Latest...Read More
The popular Instagram influencer Jebara Igbara, also known as “Jay Manzini,” pleaded guilty to money laundering, wire fraud, and wire fraud conspiracy. He used the social media platform to promote various schemes to investors but, in fact, defrauded them with $8 million. In addition, Igbara told his followers he wanted to buy a huge amount...Read More
Jim Messina – a key adviser to former US President Barack Obama – thinks blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are among “the most exciting developments of our lifetime.” The American is highly bullish on bitcoin, saying he is ready to bet his Porsche that it will once again reach $60,000. Messina is Sure BTC’s Price Will...Read More
The residents of Massachusetts – Erig Meiggs and Declan Harrington – will go to jail for two years for stealing approximately $330,000 worth of cryptocurrency from victims. The criminals employed multiple techniques to drain assets, including “SIM swapping” and computer hacking. Fraudulent schemes involving digital assets have been on the rise lately in the USA....Read More
Binance US – the American subsidiary of the world’s largest crypto exchange – appointed the former FBI agent BJ Kang as its first Head of Investigations. In this role, he will aim to ensure maximum customer protection by “partnering closely” with regulators and law enforcement agents. ‘The Most Feared Man on Wall Street’ Joins Binance...Read More
It appears that U.S. lawmakers have bigger fish to fry as stablecoin and crypto regulations remain on the back burner. During a financial conference on Oct. 18, representative Jim Himes said that the bill will not happen this Congress due to upcoming elections. “It’s probably not happening in early 2023,” Himes said as frustrations mount...Read More
Bloomberg reported that the CFTC and SEC are investigating Three Arrows Capital. The US regulators want to understand whether the Singapore-based cryptocurrency hedge fund violated some rules and laws that hedge funds must comply with. Sources interviewed by Bloomberg hinted that U.S. regulators seem to think 3AC could have been misleading clients about the strength...Read More
Two-thirds of the polled American investors, aged between 21 and 42, believe it is impossible to achieve above-average returns relying only on traditional finance. Instead, they see cryptocurrencies as appropriate tools for the job. Numerous previous researches have shown that younger generations are much more inclined toward the digital asset sector than older individuals. At...Read More
Lawyers representing the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (UCC) of Voyager Digital have raised objections to sweeping legal immunity being planned for the firm’s senior executives. Last month, the Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF)-led crypto exchange FTX won the bid for Voyager for $1.4 billion, beating Binance in the race. However, the Voyager management has reportedly added...Read More
Cryptocurrencies are supposed to be censorship resistant… Cryptocurrency exchanges, not so much. Bittrex found this out the hard way after a record fine imposed by the U.S. regulators. On October 11, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced that Bittrex, a Washington-based...Read More
The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) now allows customers to deposit their cryptocurrency holdings. As such, the banking institution now operates as a custodian for both digital and other types of investment assets. As previously reported, BNY Mellon received the necessary approval from New York’s financial watchdog earlier this year. The WSJ report...Read More
The US Department of Justice confiscated 719 bitcoins from the 35-year-old Canadian – Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins – for participating in the NetWalker ransomware attacks. At the time of the seizure, the amount of cryptocurrency equaled nearly $22 million. Prison Time for the Criminal According to a recent announcement, Vachon-Desjardins was involved in a sophisticated type of...Read More
The US-based bitcoin miner – Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. – reportedly has exposure of more than $80 million in one of its hosting providers – Compute North. Two weeks ago, the latter joined the list of troubled entities affected by the ongoing crypto winter, filing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Multi-Million Exposure According to a...Read More
The payroll and job reports from the world’s largest economy were slightly above expectations for September. However, BTC reacted with a sharp price decline, as it typically happens when the US publishes any sort of data lately. Although the numbers for September are below August and the average for 2022, the States added 263,000 new...Read More
The leading cryptocurrency mining company – Marathon Digital – mined 360 BTC during September, which is a significant improvement compared to the 184 BTC produced in August. The company’s total bitcoin holdings surged to 10,670 BTC, equaling over $215 million (at the time of writing these lines). Marathon’s Recent Performance The publicly-traded BTC miner produced...Read More
After the failure of Celsius Network, Voyager Digital, and Vauld, rumors about lending platforms, in general, being under stress have been rife. Nexo, which has $4 billion of assets under management (AUM), has become the latest target. On Tuesday, the company’s co-founders Antoni Trenchev and Kalin Metodiev publicly dismissed the rumors and revealed that they...Read More
In a new report, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), a regulatory panel comprising leading financial regulators, identified areas in crypto regulation with: limited oversight of the spot market for tokens that are not securities; opportunities for regulatory arbitrage, or benefit favorable rules; if crypto firms should be allowed to integrate multiple services traditionally offered...Read More
The much-anticipated auction of assets belonging to bankrupt Celsius Network is likely to begin later this month. The embattled lending platform submitted an auction plan to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday, media reports said. Here is all that you need to know about it: Celsius has...Read More
The alternative asset manager – New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) – announced the departure of its CEO Robert Gutmann and its President Yan Zhao. Tejas Shah and Nate Conrad will take their posts, respectively. Changes at the Top The cryptocurrency-focused company revealed that its bitcoin balances hit an all-time high during Q3, up almost...Read More
Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky, who resigned as the CEO of the embattled Defi platform on September 27, reportedly withdrew $10 million in May, just weeks before the company froze withdrawals on June 12. Mashinsky voluntarily disclosed the information to the official unsecured creditors’ committee in the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, the Financial Times quoted his spokesperson...Read More
