Founder Sam Bankman-Fried races to find funds to fill multibillion-dollar hole in exchange
The Bahamas securities regulator has frozen the assets of the Bahamas subsidiary of FTX, as the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange struggles for survival.
The Securities Commission of the Bahamas said on Thursday it had frozen the assets of FTX Digital Markets and related parties, as well appointing a liquidator for the unit.
Continue reading...The deal was conditional to due diligence of FTX’s balance sheet which raised enough concerns for Binance to back out
Cryptocurrency prices plunged for a second-straight day on Wednesday after crypto exchange Binance announced it was pulling out of its deal to purchase its failing rival FTX Trading.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were broadly lower on rumors and news reports that the Binance-FTX deal was in trouble. The CEOs of the two exchanges – Sam Bankman-Freid of FTX and Changpeng Zhao of Binance – had publicly agreed to a merger Tuesday, pending the ability for Binance to perform due diligence of FTX’s balance sheet.
Continue reading...Search for crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon after Luna and UST collapse drags down rival currencies
The crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon has denied being in hiding, even as Interpol issued a “red notice” for his arrest after the collapse of the Terra project he founded.
After South Korean prosecutors said he was “obviously on the run”, Kwon tweeted that he was making no attempt to evade law officers. “I’m writing code in my living room … I’m making zero effort to hide,” he said. “I go on walks and malls, no way none of [crypto Twitter] hasn’t run into me the past couple weeks.”
Continue reading...Proposed reforms previously delayed by Boris Johnson reannounced amid accusations Tories are soft on ‘dirty money’
Companies House will be given new powers to challenge incorrect or fraudulent claims made by kleptocrats and their agents in an economic crime bill that was previously delayed by Boris Johnson a few weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The new bill – the second of two that had to be hurriedly reannounced amid accusations the government had gone soft on dirty money – is backed by the new security minister, Tom Tugendhat.
Continue reading...Do Kwon’s whereabouts are still unknown since a South Korean court issued an arrest warrant earlier this week
Do Kwon, the South Korean founder of the failed cryptocurrency Terra wanted by police, has denied he was on the run after Singapore investigators said he was not in the city-state as had been believed.
Kwon’s whereabouts have been thrown into question after a statement from Singapore police late on Saturday, and his tweets did not reveal where he was.
Continue reading...Rohan Wahi, the brother of a former product manager at the company, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges
The brother of a former Coinbase Global Inc product manager pleaded guilty on Monday to a wire fraud conspiracy charge, in what US prosecutors have called the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency.
Nikhil Wahi, 26, admitted during a virtual court hearing before US district judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan that he made trades based on confidential Coinbase information.
Continue reading...New rules in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cover all notionally valuable digital assets
Crypto exchanges must report suspected sanctions breaches to UK authorities under new rules brought in amid concerns that bitcoin and other cryptoassets are being used to dodge restrictions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Official guidance was updated on 30 August to explicitly include “cryptoassets” among those that must be frozen if sanctions are imposed on a person or company. As well as digital currencies, such as bitcoin, ether and tether, cryptoassets could include other notionally valuable digital assets such as non-fungible tokens.
Continue reading...US treasury says popular cryptocurrency service reportedly laundered more than $7bn worth of virtual currency
The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash, a popular cryptocurrency service that allows users to mask their transactions, accusing it of helping hackers, including from North Korea, to launder proceeds from their cybercrimes.
A senior treasury department official said Tornado Cash, one of the largest virtual currency “mixers” identified as problematic by the treasury, has reportedly laundered more than $7bn worth of virtual currency since it was created in 2019.
Continue reading...Cryptocurrency exchange manager and his brother arrested in Seattle in what is described as the first case of its kind
A former Coinbase employee and two others have been charged in what federal authorities described as the US government’s first cryptocurrency insider trading case.
Ishan Wahi, a product manager at the cryptocurrency exchange, and his brother Nikhil Wahi were arrested in Seattle on Thursday. They and a third defendant, their friend Sameer Ramani, who remains at large, also face civil charges from the US financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Continue reading...An investigation revealed that companies use enough energy to power Houston, and contribute to growing carbon emissions
The largest US cryptomining companies have the capacity to use as much electricity as nearly every home in Houston, Texas; energy use that is contributing to rising utility bills, according to an investigation by Democratic lawmakers.
Cryptomining is a highly energy intensive process involving the use of specialized computers running constantly to solve complex math problems in order to create new virtual coins.
Continue reading...MiCA law contains measures to guard against market abuse and manipulation
The EU has moved to rein in the “wild west” of crypto assets by agreeing a groundbreaking set of rules for the sector.
Representatives from the European parliament and EU states thrashed out an agreement on Thursday that contains measures to guard against market abuse and manipulation, as well as requiring that crypto firms provide details of the environmental impact of their assets.
Continue reading...If confirmed, last week’s attack would be the eighth this year – involving $1bn in stolen funds – that could be confidently attributed to North Korea
North Korean hackers are thought to be behind last week’s theft of as much as $100m in cryptocurrency from a US company, as the regime steps up attempts to secure funding for its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
The assets were stolen on 23 June from Horizon Bridge, a service operated by the Harmony blockchain that allows assets to be transferred to other blockchains, three digital investigative firms have concluded.
Continue reading...Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather among those being sued, but prosecuting fraud in the crypto arena is notoriously difficult
With investors worldwide looking at a collective $1.5tn in recent cryptocurrency losses, a blizzard of class-action lawsuits are being prepared. One big question is: who, if anyone, is to blame – and who could be held to account?
With inflation and interest rates rising, the best-known cryptocurrencies have been hit with heavy and continuing losses: Bitcoin has lost more than 50% of its value this year; Ethereum, its largest rival, is down 65%; and the total value of crypto assets has dropped to less than $1tn from its November 2021 peak of $3tn. US federal regulators say 46,000 people have reported losing $1bn in crypto to scams since January 2021.
Continue reading...The hip-hop mogul loves to rap about his roots in Brooklyn’s Marcy housing projects. But classes in cryptocurrency show the billionaire is out of touch, residents say
Marcy Houses, the 28-acre public housing development in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, is best-known as a pillar of rapper-turned-mogul Jay-Z’s New York persona. Built in 1949 as part of a push by the New York City Housing Authority to house the city’s low-income residents, Marcy had fallen into a state of dangerous disrepair by the 1970s when Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, was growing up there.
“Where I’m from, Marcy son, ain’t nothing nice,” he raps in “Where I’m From”. “Marcy me, just the way I am always gonna be,” he declares in 2017’s Marcy Me.
Continue reading...Value of assets dips below $1tn after Celsius Network halts withdrawals over ‘extreme’ conditions
The cryptocurrency market has endured another day of volatility as the Binance exchange temporarily suspended bitcoin withdrawals and the total value of the digital asset market dipped below $1tn (£820bn), after a cryptocurrency lender stopped customers from taking back their funds.
The cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network halted withdrawals because of “extreme market conditions”, prompting a sell-off.
Continue reading...Treasury inquiry told ‘crypto is high-risk and unsophisticated investors are at high risk of losing significant funds’
Consumer groups have called for strong financial regulation of cryptocurrency markets and investments in Australia, saying crypto assets are “complex, volatile and high-risk products that can cause harm to Australian consumers.”
In a submission to the federal treasury’s consultation paper on cryptocurrency, consumer group Choice has urged the federal government to “strongly consider regulating all crypto assets under the existing financial product regulatory regime for better outcomes for consumers and the community”.
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Continue reading...Spaniard alleged to have conspired with cryptocurrency expert to help Pyongyang evade US sanctions
The FBI has issued an arrest warrant for a Spanish man who claims to be a “special delegate” working for the government of North Korea, accusing him of recruiting a cryptocurrency expert in an attempt to help Pyongyang circumvent US sanctions.
Alejandro Cao de Benós, a 47-year-old Spanish national who describes himself as Pyongyang’s special delegate for the committee for cultural relations with foreign countries, is alleged to have conspired with Virgil Griffith, a US cryptocurrency expert, to “illegally provide cryptocurrency and blockchain services to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)”.
Continue reading...Raider gains voting rights over digital currency and uses them to transfer contents of treasury
The Beanstalk cryptocurrency has been stripped of reserves valued at more than $180m (£138m) in seconds, after an attacker used borrowed money to snap up enough voting rights to transfer the money away.
The lightning hostile takeover raises fresh questions about the unregulated nature of digital currencies and the lack of protections for investors.
Continue reading...Ronin, blockchain project that powers the popular online game Axie Infinity, says unidentified hackers used stolen private keys
Blockchain project Ronin said on Tuesday that hackers stole cryptocurrency now worth almost $615m from its systems, in what would be one of the largest cryptocurrency heists on record.
The project said that unidentified hackers on 23 March stole 173,600 ether tokens and 25.5 million USD coin tokens. At current exchange rates, the stolen funds are worth $615m, but they were worth $540m at the time of the attack.
Continue reading...John Barksdale faces up to 65 in prison in connection with Ormeus Coin as well as facing civil charges alongside JonAtina Barksdale
US authorities on Tuesday filed criminal charges against a cryptocurrency executive and civil charges against him and his sister, accusing them of defrauding retail investors out of millions of dollars with a digital token known as Ormeus Coin.
In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the justice department said John Barksdale lied about the value and profitability of Ormeus Coin’s mining assets, including that the coin was backed by a $250m mining operation generating more than $5m of monthly revenue.
Continue reading...