Million-plus Body Count 💸

Hey, it’s Tuesday already! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.

In today’s edition:

• 🌍 ‘More than 1M’ victims in Do Kwon case

• ⚖️ Winklevoss twins settle CFTC suit

• 🪙 Coinbase premium returns as BTC gains ground

• 💰 Buterin offloads memecoins in $2.5M charity boost

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What’s Poppin’?

By Tikta

Do Kwon’s Victim Count May Top 1 Million, U.S. Prosecutors Say

The U.S. government estimates that the number of victims of Terra co-founder Do Kwon’s alleged fraud “potentially totals more than one million,” according to a recent filing to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The sheer number of victims makes it “impracticable” for the court to ensure it accords all of the victims their rights under law, U.S. Attorney Daniel Gitner said.

The government intends to set up a website to inform potential victims of all public court proceedings. Victims that wish to be heard in court proceedings will be required to give prosecutors notice.

Do Kwon first appeared in court on Jan. 2 after he was extradited from Montenegro to the U.S. He pleaded not guilty to nine felony charges related to fraud.

Gemini to Pay $5M to Settle CFTC False Claims Suit

Gemini, the exchange run by identical twins and crypto investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, has agreed to pay a $5 million fine to settle a lawsuit with the U.S. Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to a report by Bloomberg.

The suit, which the CFTC brought in June 2022, alleged that Gemini had made “false and misleading statements” relating to the exchange’s bid to launch a Bitcoin futures contract.

Under a proposed consent order, Gemini agreed to settle the case without admitting or denying the allegations.

The consent order, still yet to be signed by a judge, will get the brothers out of a jury trial that was due to begin on Jan. 21.

Coinbase Premium Returns as Bitcoin Trades Above $101,000

Bitcoin’s rally past $101,800 has seen the Coinbase premium gap flip positive for the first time in three weeks, according to data shared by CryptoQuant analyst J.A. Maartunn.

The Coinbase premium measures the difference between the price of bitcoin on Coinbase and its price on non-U.S. exchanges such as Binance. It serves as an important indicator of market sentiment and buying pressure, particularly among American investors and institutions.

The other main gauge of U.S. sentiment is the amount of capital flowing into spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which also had a positive start to the week. The funds ended Monday with combined net inflows of more than $987 million, according to data from investment research platform SoSoValue.

Vitalik Buterin Sells $2.5M of Memecoins to Fund His Charity

Vitalik Buterin is at it again. The Ethereum co-founder sold more memecoins on Monday, netting around $2.5 million in USDC and ETH, according to data from onchain analytics platform Arkham.

Buterin swapped tokens including DINU, ESTEE, and JSHIBA on trading platforms such as CoW Swap, Uniswap and Kyber Network. Since he began liquidating his holdings, DINU has lost nearly 51% of its value.

The tokens typically end up in Buterin’s wallet after being transferred to him by memecoin creators, who likely send them with the intent of gaining publicity.

As he has done in the past, Buterin donated the proceeds of his latest memecoin sale to fund his Kanro charity organization, according to onchain data.

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Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍

• 💰 MicroStrategy has purchased 1,070 more bitcoin for $100 million, advancing an ambitious plan to raise $2 billion this quarter as part of its three-year strategy to acquire $42 billion of BTC.

• ⚡ Solana developers have proposed a lattice-based hashing system to address the “state growth problem,” aiming to scale the network to billions of accounts while maintaining high security and efficiency.

• 🏛️ Stablecoin advocate and U.S. Federal Reserve board member Michael Barr yesterday announced his resignation as the Fed’s reserve vice chair for supervision, citing concerns over potential clashes with the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

• ⚡📈 Solana staking network Solayer has unveiled InfiniSVM, a hardware-accelerated blockchain solution claiming one millisecond transaction confirmation times.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

• 🇪🇺 Four companies, including crypto trading platform MoonPay and digital asset management firm BitStaete, have obtained EU MiCA licenses in the Netherlands, giving them regulatory approval to operate across all 27 European Union countries.

• 🇮🇪 HashKey Group has secured virtual asset service provider approval in Ireland, enabling it to offer crypto trading and custody services as part of its global expansion strategy in key markets including Hong Kong and Singapore.

• ✅ Crypto trading firm GSR has obtained Financial Conduct Authority approval to operate as a registered crypto asset business in the UK.

The $$$ Corner…

• 🎮 Gaming layer 2 ZKcandy, powered by ZKsync, has raised $4 million in private funding to develop a Telegram-based ethereum virtual machine gaming ecosystem and artificial intelligence gaming agents, targeting a mainnet launch later this year.

• 💼 Crypto exchange Backpack Exchange acquired FTX EU for $32.7 million, positioning itself as the only regulated perpetual futures provider in Europe, with plans to expand its crypto derivatives offerings under the MiCA framework early this year.

What Do You Meme?

📈 Your Market Update 📉

• BTC is up 1%, trading at $100,699

• ETH is down 0.7%, trading at $3,630

• BTC dominance: 53.73%

• Crypto market cap: $3.72T

*All data as of today, 07:25 am ET. Source: CoinGecko

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