SEC's Ripple Reversal: What Happened? 🔄

In today's edition: 🎤 Former FTX lawyer drops bombshell, 🛡️ NY AG's dillion-dollar crusade, 👩‍💻 Base is open source, 🚀 BlackRock ETF could skyrocket bitcoin to $56K, and more!

October 20, 2023

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👨‍⚖️ Sam Bankman Fried’s Trial Coverage

Sam Enzer, a partner at the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, told Laura that compelling evidence from Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle had increased the difficulty for the fallen FTX CEO to convince a jury of his innocence. Former FTX head engineer Nishad Singh said that he became suicidal after understanding the full magnitude of FTX’s misuse of customer funds, while ex-chief legal counsel Can Sun helped show how SBF allegedly lied to lawyers.

Former FTX General Counsel Can Sun took the stand, revealing that Sam Bankman-Fried had asked him to find legal justifications for FTX’s $7 billion deficit.

Can Sun, former FTX general counsel, described his shock at finding out about the exchange’s $7 billion deficit and said of the night before FTX’s insolvency was revealed that Nishad Singh looked like “his soul got plucked away from him.”

📚 Special Announcement: The Cryptopians - Out in Paperback Tuesday! 

Find out the inside story of the rise of Ethereum in Laura’s book, “The Cryptopians.”

What’s Poppin’?

by Sam Sriram, Brandy Betz, and Juan Aranovich

The securities regulator notified the court that it is voluntarily dismissing the charges against Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen.

The lawsuit alleges fraudulent schemes that led to massive investor losses, intensifying scrutiny on the crypto industry.

The Layer 2 network has now open-sourced its code, making all of its smart contracts and scripts available on GitHub.

The crypto services provider based the estimate around a potential SEC approval for BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF.

Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️

  • ⚖️ Ethereum cofounder Joseph Lubin faces a lawsuit from ex-employees claiming he made their shares in Consensys AG worthless by transferring key assets to a new U.S. company.

  • 🔨 The SEC won a default judgment against Thor Technologies and its founder David Chin for conducting a $2.6 million unregistered crypto asset offering.

  • 📈 BlackRock amended its Bitcoin ETF application, acknowledging increased competition and detailing new pricing mechanisms. 📑 Grayscale filed a new registration statement with the SEC, aiming to convert its Bitcoin Trust into a spot Bitcoin ETF.

  • 💶 Binance introduced new fiat partners for Euro transactions following its separation from Paysafe.  

  • 👥 Two Reddit moderators allegedly sold tokens before the platform announced the termination of its blockchain program.

  • 🏛️ The U.S. Treasury is reportedly planning to label international crypto mixers as money laundering hubs.

The $$$ Corner…

  • 💰 SynFutures, a decentralized derivatives exchange, garnered $22 million in Series B funding led by Pantera Capital.

  • 📊 Crypto analytics firm Coin Metrics raised $6.7 million from an undisclosed investor, according to an SEC filing.

  • 🔐 Ryder secured $1.2 million in funding for a hardware crypto wallet that eliminates the need for seed phrases.  

  • 🤝 Clearinghouse DTCC acquired blockchain startup Securrency for an undisclosed sum to bolster its financial infrastructure. 

What Do You Meme?

Recommended Reads

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 5.1%, trading at $28,458

  • ETH is up 3.9%, trading at $1,614

  • BTC dominance: 49.38%

  • Crypto market cap: $1.17T

*All data as of today, 7:58 am ET

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