This Week on Unchained: Genesis Creditors' Claims, SBF Found Guilty, and More!
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Two Genesis creditors, BJ and Branden, who prefer to use pseudonyms for security reasons, spoke with Unchained about the alleged fraud by the crypto lender and its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG). The discussion is one of the first times Genesis creditors have spoken with a media organization about the situation.
BJ and Branden explain how they gave more loans to Genesis after it took a $1.1 billion hit from the liquidation of Three Arrows Capital and how they then came to be members of the ad hoc group, a collective of Genesis customers who came together to try and save the company from bankruptcy.
They talk about how they now want DCG to pay back the $1.1 billion it owes over a shorter timeframe and to pay back any Bitcoin in actual Bitcoin. The discussion with Unchained followed shortly after New York Attorney General Leticia James filed a lawsuit against Genesis, along with its parent company Digital Currency Group, and Gemini Trust.
👨⚖️ Sam Bankman Fried’s Trial Coverage
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SBF Trial, Day 18: Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty on All 7 Counts in Swift Verdict
A Manhattan jury took only a few hours to decide that former FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was guilty of defrauding the crypto exchange’s users of billions of dollars.
SBF Trial, Day 17: Closing Arguments Ask: ‘Villain or Good-Faith Actor?’
Closing arguments offered a tale of 2 SBFs with a prosecutor calling him criminally responsible for a huge balance sheet hole but the defense saying he had been villainized for mistakes.
SBF Trial, Day 16: In Final Cross Examination, SBF Gets Caught Again by His Own Words
Prosecutors again pounded away at SBF’s credibility with the former FTX CEO at one point claiming he didn’t look into why Alameda had spent $8 billion of FTX customer funds.
SBF Trial, Day 15: Prosecutors Hammer Bankman-Fried’s Contradictions With Reams of Evidence
A packed courtroom watched prosecutors pummel former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, highlighting contradictions between his words and actions and a lack of credibility.
Sam Enzer, a partner at the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, told Laura that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried did about as well as he could in his testimony Friday but that he was unlikely “to withstand the scrutiny” of what prosecutors have already said will be a robust cross-examination when he takes the stand Monday. Enzer noted that Bankman-Fried’s attempts to explain why he thought his trading shop, Alameda Research, could borrow billions in dollars of FTX customer assets “defies common sense,” and that the company’s own terms of agreement or any other communications offered no justification for this belief. A Thursday hearing without the jury present, in which the defense gave a preview of some arguments it wanted to make, ended up giving the government answers from SBF that it can now use against him. Enzer also said that Bankman-Fried’s contention that his biggest mistake – a failure to implement proper risk management – did not constitute criminal fraud, did not address the core of the government’s case; namely, that he lied about how FTX was handling customer deposits.
Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest news. This week, the gang sits down with guest Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures, whose tweet thread pushed the Wall Street Journal to correct its story that Hamas had raised tens of millions in crypto. Carter discusses the challenges in tracking how much crypto Hamas has actually received, the declining prospects for Sam Bankman-Fried’s acquittal, and ongoing dramas surrounding staking protocol Lido and decentralized exchange dYdX.
In Case You Missed It 👀
Here are some of the most important news of this week:
Coinbase Records $674 Million Revenue in Q3 Despite Fall in Trading Volumes
Tether’s Q3 Reserves Stay Stable With Highest-Ever Cash and Equivalents
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