Elizabeth Lopatto

DEVITO: We deteriorate.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Except in some fantasy. When people talk about, “I will see them again in heaven,” it sounds so good, but the reality is that we won’t see each other again after we’re gone. That’s the sad part. I know people feel comfortable with death, but I don’t.

DEVITO: No.

“A decent rule of thumb,” I wrote in March, “is that all cryptocurrency exchanges are doing crimes, and if you’re lucky your exchange is doing only process crimes.”

SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL,ATOM, SAND, MANA, ALGO, AXS, and COTI

From September 2019 through February 2023, Binance offered and sold BUSD to U.S. investors as part of a profit-earning scheme within the Binance ecosystem, touting returns for investors from simply buying BUSD or deploying it in Binance profit-generating programs.

Since its inception, BUSD has been offered and sold as an investment contract and, therefore, as a security.

Sigma Chain also engaged in wash trading on or around the time when BAM Trading made at least 65 new crypto assets, including crypto asset securities, available for trading on the Binance.US Platform. Between January 1, 2022 and June 23, 2022 alone, Sigma Chain accounts engaged in wash trading in 48 of 51 newly listed crypto assets.

Much of this wash trading occurred through numerous accounts affiliated with Sigma Chain, anentity owned and controlled by Zhao and operated by Binance employees at Zhao’s direction.

. On June 23, 2020, for example, in discussing a drop in trading volume from market makers on the Binance.US Platform, BAM CEO A asked the BAM Trading’s Sales Director to “pull [Sigma Chain’s] data to hold them accountable too . . . they should be consistent too – we can ask for more volume but they’ve been up to 50% for us before.”

Wash trading between Sigma Chain’s accounts occurred from the launch of the Binance.US Platform in 2019 through at least June 23, 2022. This wash trading activity corrupted the Binance.US Platform’s reported trading volume in a strategic pattern that coincided with at least three critical periods for crypto asset investors and the Equity Investors: (1) the Binance.US Platform’s launch in September 2019; (2) BAM Trading’s making available certain new crypto asset securities for trading on the Binance.US Platform; and (3) the months leading up to BAM Trading’s seed funding round starting in September 2021.

On January 6, 2021, the Sales Director messaged BAM CEO A and other BAM Trading employees “fyi these are ALL sigma chain,” and then listed 20 account numbers. Another BAM Trading employee responded, “whoa.”

From May 2020 to February 2022, Alameda Research, the trading firm associated with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was often the OTC Desk’s only counterparty vis-à-vis BAM Trading customers.