CNN: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried tried to bribe Chinese officials, prosecutors say. “Federal prosecutors tacked on a 13th criminal charge against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the FTX co-founder of bribing ‘one or more’ Chinese government officials with $40 million worth of cryptocurrency.”
New York Times: The Younger Brother Caught in the Middle of the FTX Investigation. “The money flowed freely at a pandemic-prevention organization run by the younger brother of Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul. Just over $375,000 financed a failed campaign in Colorado to increase taxes on cannabis sales in order to support pandemic research. Another $1 million was spent on consulting and advertising expenses in a single year. And $3.3 million went toward the purchase of a luxurious townhouse a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.”
The Guardian: Trump Media executives worried over murky $8m loans, emails reveal. “Top executives at Donald Trump’s social media company started to become concerned last spring about $8m that they had accepted from opaque entities in two emergency loans when its auditors sought further details about the payments, according to documents, emails and sources familiar with the matter.”
TechCrunch: Police shut down dark web crypto laundering service linked to FTX hack. “An international coalition of law enforcement agencies announced on Wednesday that it had taken down the popular dark web crypto laundering service ChipMixer, seizing more than $46 million in crypto and terabytes of server data. The service, for example, was used last year by the attacker who stole funds from the now failed crypto exchange FTX, as well as by several ransomware groups.”
CNBC: SEC and Justice Department reportedly investigating SVB’s collapse, including insider stock sales. “The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are investigating how Silicon Valley Bank became the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The probes, which are separate and in preliminary phases, include looking into stock sales that SVB executives’ conducted ahead of the tech-focused bank’s collapse, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.”
NBC News: Etsy warns sellers of delay in processing payments due to Silicon Valley Bank collapse. “Etsy is warning sellers that the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday is causing delays in processing payments, according to an email from the company shared with NBC News.”
Vox: 9 questions about Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, answered. “If you work in tech, you had probably heard of Silicon Valley Bank before now. If you’re not familiar with this seemingly regional bank, nobody’s blaming you. It had billions of dollars in deposits, but fewer than two dozen branches, and generally catered to a very specific crowd of startups, venture capitalists, and tech firms. Anyway, you’re here now — Silicon Valley Bank isn’t.”
TechCrunch: How founders are reacting to Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. “With Silicon Valley Bank now being shut down, startup founders who have been unable to access their accounts are getting increasingly nervous about the status of their capital. Top concerns include making payroll and staying afloat as a business.”
Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Insights from Newly Digitized Banking Data, 1867-1904. “Call reports—regulatory filings in which commercial banks report their assets, liabilities, income, and other information—are one of the most-used data sources in banking and finance. Though call reports were collected as far back as 1867, the underlying data are only easily accessible for the recent past: the mid-1980s onward in the case of the FDIC’s FFIEC call reports. To help researchers look farther back in time, we’ve begun creating a complete digital record of this ‘missing’ call report data.”
Motherboard: How I Broke Into a Bank Account With an AI-Generated Voice. “Banks in the U.S. and Europe tout voice ID as a secure way to log into your account. I proved it’s possible to trick such systems with free or cheap AI-generated voices.”
WIRED: The WIRED Guide to the Blockchain. “Even before the FTX scandal, the crypto industry was hit by a crisis of confidence, with crashing values sparking layoffs at industry leaders like Coinbase. Some may argue that this is the death throes of an idea that never really found its feet, but it may just be growing pains before cryptocurrencies and the distributed ledger that powers them settle down and find some real purpose.” The backgrounder and explainer I was missing.
Reuters: Twitter makes first interest payment on Elon Musk buyout debt: Report. “Twitter Inc has made its first interest payment on a loan that banks provided to help finance billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media company last year, according to two people familiar with the matter.”
NPR: Here’s what’s at stake in Elon Musk’s Tesla tweet trial. “In 2018, before Elon Musk was making headlines for his role in running Twitter, he was making headlines for another Twitter-related controversy: allegedly using the platform to commit fraud…. Now, a civil trial stemming from those tweets is being watched as a window into Musk’s behavior, past and present, which means the trial could produce new controversies of its own.”
Financial Times: Looming Twitter interest payment leaves Elon Musk with unpalatable options. “The bill for Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is coming due, with the billionaire facing unpalatable options on the company’s enormous debt pile, ranging from bankruptcy proceedings to another costly sale of Tesla shares.”
Motherboard: Researcher Deepfakes His Voice, Uses AI to Demand Refund From Wells Fargo. “Do Not Pay is an organization that has previously automated all manner of things from fighting parking tickets to easily cancel unwanted subscriptions. In a video uploaded to Twitter on Wednesday, Do Not Pay founder Joshua Browder showed the tool calling Wells Fargo customer support, and using an AI-generated version of his own voice to overturn wire fees.”
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