We are very close to the end of the prosecution’s case, and today was pretty uneventful. I will be writing a wrap of some of the financial testimony shortly, but if you can’t wait, the talented reporters at CoinDesk have been doing all-hands-on-deck coverage.
A year ago, the DOJ announced it recovered more than 50k Bitcoin stolen from the Silk Road market in 2012 and that James Zhong had pleaded guilty to the crime.
CNBC’s 30-minute report uncovers how they found him (he moved $800 in Bitcoin to an account registered under his real name) and shows body camera footage of cops investigating his house while pretending to pursue a thief who’d broken in and stole some crypto. That person’s identity is still unknown.
The majority of FBI agent Richard Busik’s testimony seemed geared toward establishing jurisdiction — he was explaining cell phone pings that occurred in New York City — so I left it out of my recap.
But in order to tie Sam Bankman-Fried to the cell phone number, CoinDesk reports how the prosecution picked perhaps the funniest possible email: the Bahamian Prime Minister asking for a favor.
Nishad Singh looks less reliable. Is it enough?
CoinDesk notes that Binance.US just updated its terms of service, saying users can only withdraw funds in the form of stablecoins or other crypto instead of US dollars. Oh, and that US dollar funds in Binance.US wallets are not protected by FDIC insurance.
Earlier this year the SEC sued Binance, alleging it “defrauded equity, retail, and institutional investors about purported surveillance and controls over manipulative trading on the Binance.US Platform, which were in fact virtually nonexistent.”
While you wait for the next Liz Lopatto report on the Sam Bankman-Fried / FTX fraud case, you can relive her live reading of the SEC’s case against Binance from this summer.
Nishad Singh says he tried to get Bankman-Fried to do the right thing — but he wouldn’t listen.
Monday morning, the price of Bitcoin spiked 10 percent to $30,000 after a tweet from CoinTelegraph erroneously claimed the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a spot Bitcoin ETF for BlackRock. Crypto folks have been unsuccessfully trying to make this happen for years, to allow Bitcoin investment without using an exchange.
The SEC has not approved it, and the tweet was pulled about 30 minutes later, with CoinTelegraph promising to follow up with an investigation (we have not seen its results yet). Now the SEC has some advice on where to go for information about its activities.
The FTX fraud trial continues, now with testimony from Singh, who’d owned 7.8 percent of the company and pleaded guilty to fraud charges in February.
He’s admitted on the stand to committing fraud and campaign finance violations in a conspiracy with SBF, Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX CTO Gary Wang, and others.
There’s a Sunday evening filing from the defense team (PDF) in SBF’s fraud trial.
Turns out Bankman-Fried still doesn’t have access to his prescribed medication, which seems lousy. But that’s not the part that interests me. This is (emphasis mine, obviously):
However, as we approach the defense case and the critical decision of whether Mr. Bankrnan-Fried will testify, the defense has a growing concern that because of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lack of access to Adderall he has not been able to concentrate at the level he ordinarily would and that he will not be able to meaningfully participate in the presentation of the defense case.
If you were just itching to buy a Ferrari with your crypto stash, that’s apparently possible now. Reuters reported this morning that the company now accepts bitcoin, ether, and USDC BitPay payments in the US and will allow Europeans to do so next year.
Ferrari dealers aren’t taking on any extra risk, though; they’ll receive the payments as traditional money after BitPay converts it.
Questions from Sam Bankman-Fried’s own lawyers allowed jurors to hear snippets recorded from a November 2022 all-hands Days before SBF resigned and the company filed for bankruptcy, Caroline Ellison admitted to employees that Alameda took customer money from SBF’s other big business, the FTX crypto exchange.
Ellison, SBF, and several others were aware of the scheme, she told the employees. Instead of the snippets jurors heard, Insider has posted the entire thing on SoundCloud, and this link will take you directly to the relevant segment.
You can click here to follow all of our updates from Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial.
[SoundCloud]
The defense botched the cross examination of Caroline Ellison.
And his “very valuable” hair, too.
