Elizabeth Lopatto
Is that good?
Most of FTX’s legal and compliance staff quit yesterday, reports Semafor, who counts FTX’s CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, as an investor. Incidentally, a bunch of regulators are investigating FTX.
Elizabeth Lopatto
Senior Reporter
Senior Reporter
More From Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Damn, Binance did a few hours of due diligence and began to lean nope???
Yesterday, Binance’s CEO was like, sure, yeah, we’ll buy our troubled competitor FTX, pending due diligence. And now, after a couple hours of due diligence, it’s looking like no deal. What’s on those books? Binance is the biggest crypto exchange and FTX is the third-largest, so that combo would be real trouble for competitors — it should be a deal that makes sense. I sure hope nothing funny is going on with the customer deposits!
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Stop, stop, he’s already dead!
Not content with buying his rival’s business, CZ has also taken a victory lap, implying that FTX was using its FTT token as collateral for borrowing. CZ drove down the price of FTT earlier this week by announcing Binance would sell all its holdings.
Elizabeth Lopatto
Coinbase: “RIP to FTX, but we’re built different.”
So Coinbase has $15 million in deposits on FTX “to facilitate business operations and client trades.” However, the company says it has no exposure to Alameda Research, FTX’s sister firm, and no loans to FTX.
On Twitter, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong chalks the FTX debacle, which resulted in a Binance buyout, up to “risky business practices, including conflicts of interest between deeply intertwined entities, and mis-use of customer funds (lending user assets).”
Our approach to transparency, risk management, and consumer protection
[www.coinbase.com]
Elizabeth Lopatto
Crypto mixer Tornado Cash is now extra-sanctioned.
You may remember Tornado Cash from getting sanctioned by the US Treasury for its role in money laundering.
It’s now getting “redesignated” for “allegations that North Korea has laundered over $100 million worth of crypto through Tornado Cash to support its WMD program, including the development of ballistic missiles,” CoinDesk reports.
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Attention, would-be criminals: do not call the police if someone steals your ill-gotten gains.
James Zhong originally stole Bitcoin from the Silk Road back in September 2012. In 2019, he called the police to report a burglary, saying a lot of Bitcoin had been stolen. And, well, that got some federal attention. Zhong has now pled guilty to his original theft.
Elizabeth Lopatto