Crypto

Anatoly Legkodymov, aka Anatolii Legkodymov, Gandalf, and Tolik, was arrested in Miami earlier this year. The feds said his crypto exchange advertised its lack of ID requirements for users and processed more than $700 million over the years for ransomware gangs and other criminals as a counterparty for Hydra Market, a Russian dark web site they shut down last year.

Netflix has released a trailer for its new crypto documentary, Bitconned, about the rise and fall of Centra Tech, a scam that was part of the wave of initial coin offerings in 2017. The blowback from the scheme caught DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather, who had promoted it — they were fined by the SEC. Ray Trapani, one of the co-founders, appears to be a key narrator of the Netflix documentary.

Here’s a fun profile of Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, with a lot of details on his approach to enforcement (“Though you might think otherwise, I don’t spend the majority of my time on crypto,” he says). Don’t worry, there’s even an explanation of his genuinely weird social media antics.

CoinDesk and TechCrunch report U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) action against Sinbad.io, calling it a money laundering tool used by the “Lazarus” state-sponsored hackers used to move a “significant” portion of the $620 million in crypto stolen from Axie Infinity last year.

Last week, Changpeng Zhao agreed to step down as CEO of the massive cryptocurrency exchange Binance — part of a plea deal with the DOJ for breaking anti-money-laundering laws.

What if we really have already found every criminal who runs a cryptocurrency exchange?

But now the question is: to where? Kwon faces charges in both the US and South Korea in connection with the collapse of the Terra stablecoin and its sister token Luna.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Genesis alleges Gemini, a crypto exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins, made “significant withdrawals” before Genesis filed for bankruptcy, contributing to a “run on the bank.”

Another one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges joins Coinbase and Binance in facing charges of operating as an unregistered securities exchange, as well as accusations (PDF) of commingling customers’ crypto assets and cash with its own and even allegedly paying expenses directly from bank accounts that held customer cash.

Following a jury’s conviction of former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried on fraud charges, the Wall Street Journal reports that several former FTX employees, including former general counsel Can Sun, are involved in launching a new cryptocurrency exchange based on Dubai.

With this stage of Sam Bankman-Fried’s big crypto fraud trial over after the jury found the former FTX boss guilty, The Verge reporter Elizabeth Lopatto joined the Crypto Critics’ Corner podcast to discuss everything that went on in the courtroom.

“We are currently investigating the Poloniex hack incident,” confirmed infamous hype man Justin Sun in a tweet. As we reported last year, Sun purchased “Polo” because of its gray-area approach to know-your-customer rules. Somewhat ironically, he is now offering a “white hat bounty” to the hacker.

Seriously, you’ll have to guess; this press release is completely inscrutable.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club has concluded its investigation into what caused at least 15 convention attendees to suffer eye pain, vision problems, and sunburnt skin during ApeFest 2023, determining that UV-A emitting lights were likely behind the injuries.

Bullish, a crypto exchange led by former New York Stock Exchange president Tom Farley, is just one of the companies that could potentially relaunch the fallen exchange, The WSJ reports.

We’ve got the goss on early wake-ups, lawyer fashion, courtroom sketches, and other pressing matters. Go ahead and leave a question here if you’ve got one... [Arnold voice] I’ll be back.

Kevin Dugan’s overview really sums it up: stripped of the affectations, we discovered there wasn’t much to Sam Bankman-Fried at all.

CEO Devin Finzer says OpenSea is “shifting to a smaller team with a direct connection to users.” Decrypt reports about 50 percent of employees are impacted. When it laid off 20 percent of its employees last year, around 230 people remained.

The jury only started deliberating a few hours ago, but after all of the testimony and evidence, they notified court officials they reached a verdict, as former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried faces seven charges, including wire fraud. We’ll have their decision here as soon as it is available.

The 12-person jury will decide whether Bankman-Fried is guilty of seven criminal charges, including two counts of wire fraud. If convicted, Bankman-Fried faces over 100 years in prison.

That’s what experienced litigator Mitchell Epner wrote about this incident during the cross-examination of Sam Bankman-Fried. Elizabeth Lopatto’s summary of SBF’s final day of testimony captures it as part of being “vivisected” on the stand.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers are done calling witnesses in the big FTX fraud case over the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse last year. The lawyers are likely preparing to make their closing arguments, and Elizabeth Lopatto will have more reports from the courtroom later today, following last night’s story on all the things SBF conveniently doesn’t remember.

One of the books, Zeke Faux’s Number Go Up, was given to Bankman-Fried on the witness stand yesterday (He did not recall anything he was quoted as saying, naturally). The author of the other, Michael Lewis, was sitting in the gallery.

In a document published Monday, the UK government outlines how it intends to regulate the digital asset industry, stating that it wants crypto companies and activities to fall under the same regulations as traditional financial services, like banks.

Said Sam Bankman-Fried, as reported by Inner City Press and the New York Times, on the stand testifying as he faces fraud charges over the collapse of his failed crypto exchange FTX.

However, unlike yesterday’s testimony, the jury members who will rule on the multiple fraud accusations he’s facing are present too. As Elizabeth Lopatto reports, what he’s said so far shows his defense is going to rely on an argument that he was operating on the advice of his lawyers, and we have some guesses about how well that might work out.

Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs has been awarded over $1.5 million in damages, plus lawyer’s fees, for the trademark infringement lawsuit it won in April against Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, who had launched a copycat version of the NFT collection.