SBF risks 115 years in jail, Binance’s FUD, and auditors quit crypto: Hodler’s Digest Dec. 11-17

Top Stories This Week

FTX laminitis Sam Bankman-Fried arrested, acceptable to beryllium extradited to US

Sam Bankman-Fried was taken into custody by the Royal Bahamas Police Force and is apt to enactment determination until February, aft his exertion for bail was denied successful Bahamian court. A second exertion for bail has been reportedly filed by SBF successful the Supreme Court of the Bahamas. His apprehension came aft the United States authorities officially filed criminal charges against him — including 8 counts of fraud. If convicted, Bankman-Fried could look 115 years successful jail, but ineligible commentators have told Cointelegraph determination is simply a “lot to play out” successful the case. The domino effect resulting from FTX’s meltdown has besides impacted the professional lives of Bankman-Fried’s parents, resulting successful their courses astatine Stanford Law School being canceled. In different caller developments regarding FTX, a class-action suit against Silvergate Bank was filed successful California, aiming to clasp the slope accountable for its alleged roles successful placing FTX idiosyncratic deposits into the slope accounts of Alameda Research.

Binance ‘put FTX retired of business’ — Kevin O’Leary

Venture superior capitalist Kevin O’Leary claimed astatine a U.S. Senate committee proceeding that Binance and FTX “were astatine warfare with each other, and 1 enactment the different retired of concern intentionally.” The proceeding was portion of a larger probe by lawmakers into FTX’s collapse, successful which Binance had a important role, O’Leary claimed. Recent days person seen Binance beset by fear, uncertainty, and uncertainty (FUD), resulting successful a driblet successful the exchange’s liquidity. Crypto analytics steadfast Nansen reports that Binance had nett withdrawals of much than $3.6 cardinal from Dec. 7 to Dec. 13.

Rep. Tom Emmer mulls bringing backmost measure aimed astatine reducing crypto reddish tape

United States lawmakers are nether pressure to enact crypto regulations successful airy of the illness of FTX, and Congressman Tom Emmer believes that this is “probably a bully time” to re-introduce a bipartisan measure that would assistance requirements for definite crypto businesses and projects to registry arsenic Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs). The bill, titled the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, aims to region immoderate hurdles and requirements for “blockchain developers and work providers,” specified arsenic miners, multi-signature work providers and decentralized concern platforms.

No much proof-of-reserve checks? Auditors softly driblet crypto projects from portfolios

Two of the astir salient auditors person abruptly stopped offering crypto auditing services. At a captious infinitesimal for the crypto industry, Mazars Group removed Binance’s proof-of-reserve audits from its website conscionable days aft confirming the crypto speech controlled 575,742 Bitcoin. The determination affected different crypto exchanges utilizing Mazars’ services, specified arsenic Crypto.com and KuCoin. Later, Mazars explained the intermission was owed to “concerns regarding the mode these reports are understood by the public.” Accounting steadfast Armanino has besides ended its crypto auditing services. Armanino has worked with respective crypto trading platforms similar OKX, Gate.io and the embattled FTX exchange.

MetaMask to let users to acquisition and transportation Ethereum via PayPal

In different determination into the crypto space, PayPal teamed up with MetaMask genitor institution ConsenSys to let the acquisition and transportation of Ether (ETH) done its platform. By logging into the MetaMask app, users volition beryllium capable to entree their PayPal relationship and implicit transactions. Initially, lone selected PayPal users successful the United States volition beryllium capable to trial the service. Other accepted payments companies are seeking to integrate crypto into their services. In October, Western Union besides filed 3 trademarks for managing integer wallets and exchanging integer assets.

Winners and Losers

At the extremity of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is astatine $16,826, Ether (ETH) astatine $1,194 and XRP astatine $0.35. The full marketplace headdress is astatine $817.82 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the apical 3 altcoin gainers of the week are Toncoin (TON) at 30.36%, Bitcoin SV (BSV) at 10.11%, and OKB (OKB) at 9.77%.

The apical 3 altcoin losers of the week are Neutrino USD (USDN) at -33.77%, Trust Wallet Token (TWT) at -27.43%, and Chain (XCN) at -23.42%.
For much info connected crypto prices, marque definite to work Cointelegraph’s marketplace analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“Binance is simply a monolithic unregulated planetary monopoly now, and they enactment FTX retired of business.”

Kevin O’Leary, venture superior investor

“I expected it made sense. The kid was young, the principles were revolutionary, the ideas were golden. […] Who was I to situation that?”

Danielle Cloud, erstwhile FTX employee

“Our acquisition to day of [crypto] platforms, whether FTX oregon others, is that they are deliberately evasive, they are a method by which wealth laundering happens successful size.”

Ashley Alder, appointed seat of the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority

“Just arsenic we are protective of our carnal assets, we request to marque definite that radical support their integer assets and idiosyncratic accusation wrong the metaverse.”

Andrew Newman, chief exertion serviceman and co-founder of ReasonLabs

“Looking forward, beauteous overmuch everyone who could spell bankrupt has gone bankrupt.”

Arthur Hayes, former CEO of BitMEX

Prediction of the Week 

Bitcoin dips nether $17K arsenic ‘craziest rumors’ implicit Binance descend BTC price

Bitcoin fell beneath $17,000 arsenic traders remained wary implicit Binance’s FUD triggering overly bearish BTC terms action. On Bitstamp, BTC/USD reached multi-day lows of $16,928 connected Dec. 16, according to Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView data. The brace retraced its full tally to one-month highs courtesy of the latest macroeconomic information and argumentation update from the United States.

“Interesting to spot everyone abruptly truthful bearish connected BTC arsenic if it’s solely acting truthful weak. SPX is doing precisely the same, possibly adjacent weaker,” noted Michaël van de Poppe, laminitis and CEO of trading steadfast Eight, questioning whether the Binance FUD truly had a relation to play successful the markets.

FUD of the Week 

Microsoft bans cryptocurrency mining connected unreality services

Microsoft has softly banned crypto mining from its online services to summation the stableness of its unreality services and amended support customers from risks similar cyber fraud, attacks and unauthorized entree to resources, according to a report. The caller restrictions were introduced connected Microsoft’s cosmopolitan licence terms, citing that “mining cryptocurrency is prohibited without anterior Microsoft approval.” With this move, Microsoft joins different unreality computing providers, including Google, who besides prohibit customers from mining cryptocurrency without anterior written consent.

‘Third-party incident’ impacted Gemini with 5.7 cardinal emails leaked

Gemini appears to person suffered a information breach from a third-party vendor. Hackers gained entree to 5,701,649 lines of accusation related to Gemini customers’ email addresses and partial telephone numbers, per documents obtained by Cointelegraph. According to Gemini, the breach was caused by a third-party vendor, but it besides warned of ongoing phishing campaigns. The leaked database did not incorporate immoderate delicate idiosyncratic accusation specified arsenic names, addresses and different Know Your Customer information.

SEC sues Atlas Trading for $100M banal manipulation scheme

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a assertion against 8 individuals associated with the Discord-based forum Atlas Trading for alleged banal manipulation. The SEC reported that bloggers made astatine slightest $100 cardinal by acquiring important positions successful securities, recommending them to their followers, and past selling their shares to capitalize connected the request they generated by their “deceptive promotions.” Cryptocurrencies and different integer assets were not mentioned successful the complaint.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Should crypto projects ever negociate with hackers? Probably

Some information experts deliberation negotiating is simply a astute mode to get backmost astir of the stolen funds, portion others reason you should ne'er springiness successful to extortion.

Can Bitcoin past a Carrington Event knocking retired the grid?

A monolithic Carrington Event-level star storm could sound retired the bulk of electronics connected earth. Would crypto past everything going offline astatine once?

Listen up! Cointelegraph launches crypto podcasts, starting with 4 shows

Want much crypto content? Cointelegraph’s caller podcast conception features 4 abstracted shows exploring a assortment of impactful topics.