SBF ordered to jail, Bitcoin ETF delayed and SEC to appeal Ripple case

Prime 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 judge in response to the discharge of knowledge to The New York Instances 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 could possibly 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 Change Fee (SEC) has delayed a decision 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 listing the ETF in Might, giving the SEC a most of 240 days — till January 2024 — to achieve 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 purposes from key gamers on Wall Road, together with BlackRock and Constancy Investments.

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

The U.S. SEC is moving to appeal a court decision from its lawsuit towards Ripple Labs. In a letter to Choose Analisa Torres — the presiding choose within the case — the SEC stated it believed her determination warrants a contemporary look by an appellate court docket. The fee requested Choose Torres to place the case on maintain in the course of the enchantment, saying there are a number of different pending court docket circumstances that could possibly be affected, relying on the enchantment’s consequence. The SEC is at present in a authorized battle with quite a lot of crypto companies, together with Binance and Coinbase, over alleged securities violations. Choose Torres dominated, in July, that Ripple’s native token, XRP, just isn’t a safety when bought to retail traders. Torres plans to schedule the jury trial for the second quarter of 2024.

PayPal launches PYUSD stablecoin for fee

PayPal launched a new U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin referred to as PayPal USD (PYUSD). Constructed on the Ethereum community, the stablecoin is backed by U.S. greenback deposits, short-term treasuries and related money equivalents. In line with PayPal, the stablecoin will quickly be out there as a mode of fee for varied purchases. The fintech firm is residence to over 350 million lively customers, placing it in a powerful place to turn out to be a crypto fee large with the introduction of the brand new stablecoin. PYUSD shall be redeemable for U.S. {dollars} and might 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 answerable 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 entire market cap is at $1.17 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the many largest 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, be certain that to learn Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

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 handle for PayPal’s stablecoin. I can’t consider i get to tweet that. We’ve come to this point.”

Ryan Sean Adams, crypto investor

“By providing customers a comparatively seamless approach 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 monetary 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 manner.”

Tiago Sada, head of product at Instruments for Humanity

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

Benjamin William, CEO of the Singapore Crimson Cross

Prediction of the Week 

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

Bitcoin faces a new battleground as bulls and bears struggle for management of a sideways market. Widespread pseudonymous dealer Daan Crypto Trades flagged, in his newest evaluation, a key degree to reclaim as BTC worth assist.

In line with the dealer, each Bitcoin bulls and bears are caught in a “strongly contested” vary, ensuing from varied journeys above and under the present spot worth, making the midpoint the extent to look at 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 basic assist, $31,800 as resistance. Gaining management of the world round $29,700 is, thus, a vital transfer if bulls are to construct the mandatory momentum to alter the panorama for good, the dealer added.

FUD of the Week 

Only 6 out of 45 crypto wallet brands have undergone penetration testing: Report

Cybersecurity platform CER found that only six of 45 cryptocurrency wallet brands, or 13.3%, have undergone penetration testing to search out safety vulnerabilities. Of those, solely three manufacturers have carried out assessments on the newest variations of their merchandise: MetaMask, Zengo and Belief Pockets. An total 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 expanding the scope of its supervision for banks engaged with the cryptocurrency and blockchain trade. Beneath the Novel Actions Supervision Program, firms offering banking infrastructure to digital asset companies or working with firms 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 below this system embrace the custody, lending, buying and selling, issuance or distribution of crypto together with stablecoins.

SEC pronounces $24M settlement for case towards Bittrex and its former CEO

The U.S. SEC announced an agreement 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 compensation of ill-gotten positive factors), $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.

Finest Cointelegraph Options

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

Putting video games fully on chain is a horrible concept and may’t work … or can it?

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

Apple is developing AI to run locally 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 gives a blind tasting to purchase well-known NFT artists, and free Amazon Prime NFTs.