DOJ vs. SBF Fight Is On 🔥 'Lies' or 'Reasonable Actions'?
In today's edition: 🤔 Alameda's unforeseen downfall, 🏦 Central Banks take on Bitcoin tracking, 🚫 Utopia Labs hits the off switch, 🚨 Friend.tech users lose big in SIM-swap, and more!
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👨⚖️ Sam Bankman Fried’s Trial Coverage
SBF Trial, Day 2: DOJ Says Sam Bankman-Fried ‘Lied’ While Defense Claims His Actions Were ‘Reasonable’
After opening statements, two people, a former FTX customer and a close friend of Bankman-Fried’s since college, testified in court today.
Alameda’s Collapse Came as a Surprise to Employees: Report
Insiders at Alameda Research were reportedly in the dark about the fact that the trading firm was about to go under.
What’s Poppin’?
by Brandy Betz and Samyuktha Sriram
Central Banks Introduce Bitcoin Transaction Tracker
Project Atlas, backed by a group of central banks, is tracking the cross-border capital flows to determine the economic importance of cryptocurrencies.
Crypto Infrastructure Provider Utopia Labs is Turning Off All Services
The startup, which raised $23 million in a funding round last year, also confirmed new layoffs but denied the company was shutting down.
Friend.tech SIM-Swap Hacker Steals $385,000 in ETH
A single scammer appears to have stolen 234 ETH from four different Friend.tech users over 24 hours.
On the Pod…
This week, Haseeb, Tom, Tarun, and Robert discuss the wildest claims in Michael Lewis’ new book on Sam Bankman-Fried, debate whether SBF’s effective altruism was ever genuine, and whether Ethereum should enshrine more features onto its protocol.
Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️
🛩️ The DOJ suggested the potential seizure of Sam Bankman-Fried's two luxury jets amid the ongoing fraud trial.
📚 Virtu Financial refuted claims in Michael Lewis' book "Going Infinite," stating the firm did not lose $10 million with FTX as the book suggests.
🏛️ Progress on U.S. crypto legislation may stall due to a leadership vacuum, as Rep. Patrick McHenry temporarily takes over as Speaker of the House.
👮♂️ Hong Kong police and the Securities and Futures Commission formed a task force to monitor crypto activities, following a crackdown on JPEX exchange.
🚓 Singapore Police confirmed the arrest of a 36-year-old at Changi airport, potentially linked to Su Zhu's case.
⚖️ Several Dutch crypto firms won a legal battle against a $2.3M fee imposed by national regulators.
👨💼 Jaynti Kanani, cofounder of Polygon, announced his departure from the company.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
🎨 OpenSea introduced a "no-code hub," allowing artists to mint NFTs without technical skills, as it seeks to regain market share amid declining trading volumes.
📊 Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing launched HKEX Synapse, a DAML-based blockchain settlement platform, aiming to improve operational efficiencies and transparency.
The $$$ Corner…
📈 Crypto VC firm CMCC Global secured $100 million for its Titan Fund, receiving backing from Winklevoss Capital.
💰 Andreessen Horowitz spearheaded a $24 million Series A funding round for Blackbird Labs, a web3 restaurant loyalty app, raising its total funding to $35 million.
💸 Solana-based trading platform Convergence RFQ secured $2.5 million in pre-seed funding, led by C² Ventures, aiming to offer spot and derivatives trading.
What Do You Meme?
Recommended Reads
Marisa Tashman on the SEC v. Coinbase motion to dismiss
Unchained: How Does Crypto Options Trading Work?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up .7%, trading at $27,734
ETH is down .3%, trading at $1,640
BTC dominance: 47.9%
Crypto market cap: $1.13T
*All data as of today, 7:50 am ET
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