High Tales This Week

Choose revokes Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail, remands him to custody

FTX’s former CEO, Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, had his bail revoked by a federal choose in response to the discharge of knowledge to The New York Occasions allegedly supposed to intimidate witnesses. Throughout a listening to on Aug. 11, Choose Lewis Kaplan revoked Bankman-Fried’s bail and remanded him to custody, possible on the Putnam County Correctional Facility. As soon as his October trial begins, he may very well be moved to the Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn. Bankman-Fried was reportedly led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. In Kaplan’s view, Bankman-Fried’s interviews with NYT reporters resulted in sharing data with the possible intention “to harm and frighten” former Alameda Analysis CEO Caroline Ellison, his former colleague and girlfriend.

The U.S. Securities and Trade Commission (SEC) has delayed a choice on whether or not to approve or disapprove the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposed by ARK Funding Administration and 21Shares. ARK initially filed to record the ETF in Might, giving the SEC a maximum of 240 days — till January 2024 — to succeed in a remaining determination. The SEC’s newest transfer is fueling expectations {that a} remaining verdict will come as a part of a batch that features functions from key gamers on Wall Avenue, together with BlackRock and Constancy Investments.

SEC to hunt attraction and keep in Ripple Labs court docket case

The U.S. SEC is shifting to attraction a court docket determination from its lawsuit in opposition to Ripple Labs. In a letter to Choose Analisa Torres — the presiding choose within the case — the SEC stated it believed her determination warrants a recent look by an appellate court docket. The fee requested Choose Torres to place the case on maintain in the course of the attraction, saying there are a number of different pending court docket circumstances that may very well be affected, relying on the attraction’s final result. The SEC is at present in a authorized battle with various crypto companies, together with Binance and Coinbase, over alleged securities violations. Choose Torres dominated, in July, that Ripple’s native token, XRP, shouldn’t be a safety when offered to retail buyers. Torres plans to schedule the jury trial for the second quarter of 2024.

PayPal launches PYUSD stablecoin for cost

PayPal launched a brand new U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin referred to as PayPal USD (PYUSD). Constructed on the Ethereum community, the stablecoin is backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term treasuries and related money equivalents. In line with PayPal, the stablecoin will quickly be out there as a mode of cost for numerous purchases. The fintech firm is residence to over 350 million energetic customers, placing it in a powerful place to change into a crypto cost large with the introduction of the brand new stablecoin. PYUSD shall be redeemable for U.S. {dollars} and will be exchanged for different cryptocurrencies on PayPal, in addition to being transferable between PayPal and Venmo accounts.

Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Softbank, main VCs face lawsuit for “abetting” FTX fraud

Eighteen main enterprise capital funding companies, together with Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Sino International Capital and SoftBank, have been named as defendants in a class-action lawsuit filed in america for his or her hyperlinks to the now-bankrupt crypto trade, FTX. In line with the lawsuit, the funding companies had been accountable for “aiding and abetting” the FTX fraud. The go well with additional claims that the defendants used their “energy, affect and deep pockets to launch FTX’s home of playing cards to its multibillion-dollar scale.”

Winners and Losers

On the finish of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $29,379, Ether (ETH) at $1,842 and XRP at $0.63. The overall market cap is at $1.17 trillion, based on CoinMarketCap.

Among the many greatest 100 cryptocurrencies, the highest three altcoin gainers of the week are THORChain (RUNE) at 20.74%, Shiba Inu (SHIB) at 20.16% and dYdX (DYDX) at 9.63%. 

The highest three altcoin losers of the week are GMX (GMX) -12.47%, Mantle (MNT) at -10.10% and XDC Community (XDC) at -8.09%.

For more information on crypto costs, make certain to learn Cointelegraph’s market evaluation.

Learn additionally

Options

Greatest and worst international locations for crypto taxes — plus crypto tax ideas

Options

Aligned Incentives: Accelerating Passive Crypto Adoption

Most Memorable Quotations

“Stablecoins signify the issuance of a brand new type of cash, making it integral that there are Federal guardrails.”

Maxine Waters, United States consultant

“That is the Ethereum contract deal with for PayPal’s stablecoin. I can’t imagine i get to tweet that. We’ve come thus far.”

Ryan Sean Adams, crypto investor

“By providing customers a comparatively seamless strategy to execute transactions, bots have the potential to carve out their very own area of interest within the crypto ecosystem.”

Jie Xuan Chua, analyst at Binance Analysis

“PayPal USD is essentially the most vital leap ahead for digital belongings and the financial trade.”

Charles Cascarilla, CEO of Paxos Belief Firm

“It’s clear that the world wants and can want one thing like Worldcoin within the coming years. We simply hope that occurs in a privacy-preserving decentralized, open-source, permissionless means.”

Tiago Sada, head of product at Instruments for Humanity

“By accepting digital currencies, we open our doorways to a brand new phase of donors who’re tech-savvy and want to make a distinction by means of their digital belongings.”

Benjamin William, CEO of the Singapore Pink Cross

Prediction of the Week 

Bitcoin dealer reveals ‘vital’ BTC worth zone as bulls maintain $29.3K

Bitcoin faces a brand new battleground as bulls and bears battle for management of a sideways market. Standard pseudonymous dealer Daan Crypto Trades flagged, in his newest evaluation, a key level to reclaim as BTC worth help.

In line with the dealer, each Bitcoin bulls and bears are caught in a “strongly contested” vary, ensuing from numerous journeys above and beneath the present spot worth, making the midpoint the level to observe subsequent.

“Fairly clear that the $29.5–29.7K area is an space that’s strongly contested by the bulls and bears,” Daan Crypto Trades wrote.

Bitcoin worth has basically remained the identical since mid-June — $28,500 as elementary help, $31,800 as resistance. Gaining management of the realm round $29,700 is, thus, a vital transfer if bulls are to construct the mandatory momentum to vary the panorama for good, the dealer added.

FUD of the Week 

Solely 6 out of 45 crypto pockets manufacturers have undergone penetration testing: Report

Cybersecurity platform CER discovered that solely six of 45 cryptocurrency pockets manufacturers, or 13.3%, have undergone penetration testing to seek out safety vulnerabilities. Of those, solely three manufacturers have carried out exams on the newest variations of their merchandise: MetaMask, Zengo and Belief Pockets. An general rating of the safety of every pockets lists MetaMask, Zengo, Rabby, Belief Pockets and Coinbase Pockets as being essentially the most safe wallets available on the market.

US Fed steps up oversight of banks’ involvement with crypto companies

The U.S. Federal Reserve is increasing the scope of its supervision for banks engaged with the cryptocurrency and blockchain trade. Underneath the Novel Actions Supervision Program, corporations offering banking infrastructure to digital asset companies or working with corporations that use distributed ledger applied sciences shall be regulated. The insurance policies apply to each insured and uninsured U.S. banks supervised by the Fed. Actions regulated beneath this system embrace the custody, lending, trading, issuance or distribution of crypto together with stablecoins.

SEC pronounces $24M settlement for case in opposition to Bittrex and its former CEO

The U.S. SEC introduced an settlement with crypto trading platform Bittrex and its co-founder and former CEO, William Shihara, for working an unregistered trade.Bittrex and Bittrex International agreed to pay $14.4 million in disgorgement (the reimbursement of ill-gotten positive aspects), $4 million in prejudgment curiosity, and $5.6 million in civil penalties to settle the authorized dispute with the federal regulator. The settlement continues to be topic to court docket approval. The SEC’s criticism, filed in April, claimed Bittrex and Shihara operated an unregistered nationwide securities trade, dealer and clearing company.

Greatest Cointelegraph Options

Blockchain video games aren’t actually decentralized… however that’s about to vary

Placing video video games absolutely on chain is a horrible thought and may’t work … or can it?

AI Eye: Apple creating pocket AI, deep faux music deal, hypnotizing GPT-4

Apple is creating AI to run domestically in your cellphone, researchers ‘hypnotize’ GPT-4 to show it evil, and Google negotiates a deep faux music deal.

Grails’ fortunate dip of well-known NFT artists, new hope for PFP holders: NFT Collector

Pudgy Penguins CEO reveals why PFT holders aren’t doomed, Grails affords a blind tasting to purchase well-known NFT artists, and free Amazon Prime NFTs.

Subscribe

Essentially the most partaking reads in blockchain. Delivered as soon as a
week.

Editorial Employees

Cointelegraph Journal writers and reporters contributed to this text.