SBF Claims His Arrest Was Timed to Stop Crypto Testimony

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🧩 SBF says his arrest was “politically timed”

• 🏦 Binance claps back at listing fee rumors

• 💰 Celsius cashes in with $300M from Tether

• 🔧 Ethereum rolls out Fusaka testnet upgrade

A shoutout to Aptos for sponsoring today’s issue.

Supporting them helps us keep bringing you the top crypto stories. Check them out!

Aptos Experience returns Oct 15-16 in Brooklyn

Real problems, real solutions, real users. Two days of immersive conversations with the builders, enterprises and investors shaping the future of money, media and more.

SBF Says DOJ Arrested Him to Prevent His Testimony on Crypto Bill

 Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX who is currently incarcerated, has posted on X again, with the post supposedly made on his behalf by a friend with his login details.

The X post links out to Gettr, a social media platform popular among users who claim censorship on mainstream sites like X and Facebook.

“In 2020, I was center-left. By 2022—having seen Gensler/Biden's DOJ on crypto—I was a centrist, and (privately) donated tens of millions to Republicans,” read Bankman-Fried’s post on Gettr. 

“Weeks later, Biden's anti-crypto SEC/DOJ went after me. They had me arrested weeks before the crypto bill I was working on was set for a vote—and the night before I was set to testify before Congress.”

Bankman-Fried’s post went on to claim that former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler had “conveniently lost” messages that Republicans demanded Gensler turn over around the timing of his arrest. 

Binance Claims It Does Not Profit From Token Listings

Crypto exchange Binance said it does not profit from its token listing process, calling allegations to the contrary “false and defamatory.”

The exchange’s statement came after an X post from Limitless CEO CJ Hetherington, alleging that Binance had requested 8% of the project’s token supply and a $2 million BNB security deposit to secure a token listing.

“Binance does not charge listing fees, and the security deposit is required for the protection of users,” said Binance.

“Allegations that Binance and its founders have been dumping tokens are also entirely untrue and unsubstantiated.”

Some members of the crypto community disputed Binance’s statement. Pseudonymous crypto fraud analyst @MastrXYZ noted that a 2018 Binance announcement confirmed that listing fees existed, which was renamed donations to charity.

“That is still an economic transfer tied to listings,” said MastrXYZ, inviting Binance to publish its listing term sheets and its refund record to prove otherwise. 

A number of other users claiming to be project founders also alleged that Binance’s claims were entirely false.

“Not only was it unaffordable for small projects but it would give control over to Binance,” said X user @Solid_Primal. 

Celsius Secures $300 Million Payout From Tether in Bankruptcy Court

Celsius Network has reached a $299.5 million settlement with Tether as part of its ongoing bankruptcy process, ending a year-long legal fight that originally sought $4.3 billion in damages.

The Celsius bankruptcy estate, managed by the Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC), confirmed the payment in a Tuesday announcement. 

The lawsuit, originally filed in August 2024 in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court, alleged that Tether had improperly liquidated 9,542 BTC that Celsius had pledged as collateral for loans denominated in USDT.

Celsius claimed Tether violated a 10-hour notice period before liquidating the assets during a sharp bitcoin price decline in 2022 — actions Celsius argued accelerated its insolvency.

Tether denied wrongdoing, arguing that the liquidations were contractually justified as Celsius failed to meet margin calls.

Ethereum’s Fusaka Upgrade Deployed on Sepolia Testnet

Ethereum's Fusaka upgrade was successfully activated on the Sepolia testnet on Tuesday in preparation for its mainnet launch scheduled for early December.

The Fusaka upgrade is a significant milestone in Ethereum's scaling and performance roadmap, representing the second stage in a three-step process following trials on the Holesky testnet earlier in October.

Its features include raising the block gas limit to 60 million, which will allow more transactions and complex smart contracts to be processed per block.

The centerpiece of Fusaka is PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling, EIP-7594), a technology that allows validators to verify transaction data by sampling small portions from multiple peers instead of downloading and storing it in full.

• 🐖🪙 The U.S. Department of Justice seized $15 billion in bitcoin linked to Chen Zhi, a Chinese-Cambodian tycoon accused of running one of Asia’s largest forced-labor crypto scam networks known as “pig butchering,” where victims were coerced into running global fraud operations.

• 🏛️ Bridge, the stablecoin firm owned by Stripe, applied for a federal trust charter to issue and manage stablecoins under U.S. banking law, aligning itself with new legislation that aims to regulate digital dollars like traditional financial institutions.

• 💸🛠️ Binance launched a $400 million recovery program to reimburse users who were hit by forced liquidations during last Friday’s market crash, offering $300 million in vouchers and $100 million in loans to restore confidence and stabilize crypto trading activity.

• 🇯🇵 Japan plans to amend its financial laws to give its securities watchdog the power to investigate and fine those profiting from crypto insider trading, aiming to align digital asset rules with stock market standards amid a fast‑growing user base.

• 🚫 Privy, a popular crypto wallet firm, suffered a brief outage due to a surge in traffic as over 230,000 users rushed to verify eligibility for Monad’s MON token airdrop, which opened its claim phase ahead of a planned network launch in November.

• 💰 A Republican lawmaker introduced a bill to turn Trump’s August executive order into permanent law, aiming to let Americans include crypto and other alternative assets in 401(k) retirement plans.

• 📲 Stripe announced a new feature letting businesses accept stablecoin payments for subscriptions, using smart contracts to automate recurring crypto transactions without manual wallet approvals and initially supporting USDC on Base and Polygon networks.

• 💼 BlackRock CEO Larry Fink confirmed the asset giant is developing in-house tokenization tools to digitally wrap financial assets like ETFs and real estate, claiming it could cut costs, expand access, and help younger investors better prepare for retirement.

• 🏦 S&P Global Ratings teamed up with Chainlink to bring its stablecoin stability scores directly onchain, giving financial institutions real-time risk assessments on how well different stablecoins hold their value.

• 💰 Coinbase deepened its push into India by investing in CoinDCX at a $2.45 billion valuation, backing one of the country’s biggest crypto exchanges with over 20 million users and $141 million in annual revenue despite India’s tough tax rules.

1. Benson Sun on X: The Binance Liquidity Collapse: What Really Happened Between 21:18 and 21:20 UTC

2. YQ on X: The Liquidity Vacuum of  Crypto's $19 Billion Collapse: When Market Makers Become Market Breakers