September 22, 2023

Australian Associated Press: FTX founder Bankman-Fried to stay in jail until trial

Australian Associated Press: FTX founder Bankman-Fried to stay in jail until trial. “A US appeals court has upheld a judge’s decision to jail former cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried ahead of his trial on fraud charges stemming from the November 2022 collapse of his now-bankrupt FTX exchange. In a written decision on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said it agreed with US District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s finding that Bankman-Fried had likely attempted to tamper with two witnesses.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
September 21, 2023

Markets Insider: Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.

Markets Insider: Remember when NFTs sold for millions of dollars? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.. “A report by dappGambl found that 95% of non-fungible tokens are effectively worthless. Out of 73,257 NFT collections, 69,795 of them have a market cap of zero ether, based on data provided by NFT Scan and CoinMarketCap. By their estimates, almost 23 million people hold these worthless assets.”

Research & Opinion 0
September 19, 2023

CoinDesk: NFL Quarterback Trevor Lawrence and 2 YouTube Influencers Settle FTX Case

CoinDesk: NFL Quarterback Trevor Lawrence and 2 YouTube Influencers Settle FTX Case . “As Sam Bankman-Fried prepares for a trial defense in Manhattan next month, three celebrity promoters of his failed FTX cryptocurrency exchange have opted to settle the case, according to court filings. NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars’ quarterback Trevor Lawrence and YouTube influencers Kevin Paffrath and Tom Nash agreed to settle the case on undisclosed terms. The final court order acknowledging the settlement and removing them from the case is awaiting a sign-off from U.S. Judge K. Michael Moore.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
September 18, 2023

‘One of the Most Hated People in the World’: Sam Bankman-Fried’s 250 Pages of Justifications (New York Times)

New York Times: ‘One of the Most Hated People in the World’: Sam Bankman-Fried’s 250 Pages of Justifications. “In a draft of his unsent posts, which he formatted as a series of tweets spanning roughly 70 typed pages, he criticized some of his closest colleagues, interspersing his arguments with photos from his high school years and stock images of popcorn and a garden maze. Every few pages, a key moment in the narrative is accompanied with a link to a music video by Alicia Keys, Katy Perry or Rihanna.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
September 10, 2023

PC Gamer: Crypto baron behind $2.5B rug-pull declares ‘I am smart enough to lead any institution on Earth’ as court sentences him to 11,196 years in jail

PC Gamer: Crypto baron behind $2.5B rug-pull declares ‘I am smart enough to lead any institution on Earth’ as court sentences him to 11,196 years in jail. “Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct crypto exchange Thodex, has been sentenced to 11,196 years in prison by a court in Istanbul for crimes including aggravated fraud, money laundering, and organised crime. His sister Serap and brother Guven were also found guilty and received the same jail term.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
September 7, 2023

Former FTX Executive Ryan Salame Will Plead Guilty to Charges: Bloomberg (CoinDesk)

CoinDesk: Former FTX Executive Ryan Salame Will Plead Guilty to Charges: Bloomberg. “Ryan Salame, who was one of Sam Bankman-Fried’s top deputies at FTX, plans to plead guilty to criminal charges on Thursday, Bloomberg reported. Salame was co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets and allegedly handled crypto exchange FTX’s political donations. He made substantial donations to Republican candidates.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
September 7, 2023

Gizmodo: Want to See How Bad Twitter’s Bot Problem Is? Ask for Crypto Help.

Gizmodo: Want to See How Bad Twitter’s Bot Problem Is? Ask for Crypto Help.. “For the past year, Don Marti has been tweeting requests for help with ‘MetaMask support.’ MetaMask is one of the more popular wallet services for people to store their cryptocurrency and NFTs. Its users are the subject of widespread and relentless scamming attempts. Fortunately, there are countless robots patrolling Twitter promising to help. Marti, an executive at an ad tech company, tweets about it every couple of weeks. Without fail, dozens of scam bots always come calling. Some even pretend to be beautiful women, and lately, the robots have even started getting poetic in their responses.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
September 5, 2023

Bloomberg: NFTs, Once Hyped as the Next Big Thing, Now Face ‘Worst Moment’

Bloomberg: NFTs, Once Hyped as the Next Big Thing, Now Face ‘Worst Moment’. “Nonfungible tokens, most popularly associated with the digital artwork and other collectibles recorded on crypto blockchains, have lost most of their value after once capturing the imagination of crypto enthusiasts as the next big thing. The hype and FOMO, or “fear of missing out,” around NFTs has faded since their all-time peak in January 2022, leaving beaten-down buyers and sellers struggling to find long-term value in the speculative assets. Monthly trading volume for NFTs plummeted 81% between January 2022 and July 2023, data from DappRadar shows.”

Tweaks & Updates 0
September 2, 2023

Europol: Qakbot botnet infrastructure shattered after international operation

Europol: Qakbot botnet infrastructure shattered after international operation. “Europol has supported the coordination of a large-scale international operation that has taken down the infrastructure of the Qakbot malware and led to the seizure of nearly EUR 8 million in cryptocurrencies. The international investigation, also supported by Eurojust, involved judicial and law enforcement authorities from France, Germany, Latvia, The Netherlands, Romania, United Kingdom and the United States.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
September 1, 2023

The Street: FTX victims’ face doxxing threat after sensitive data taken by hackers

The Street: FTX victims’ face doxxing threat after sensitive data taken by hackers. “Kroll, the firm managing customer data of FTX collapse victims, was hit by a data breach this month that resulted in customer data being stolen. The company was struck by ‘a cybersecurity incident that compromised non-sensitive customer data of certain claimants in the pending bankruptcy case,’ FTX said. However, Kroll announced that hackers also stole sensitive data in the hack.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
August 29, 2023

Friend.tech gets unfriended: Daily transactions drop 95% as hyped decentralized social app loses steam (TechCrunch)

TechCrunch: Friend.tech gets unfriended: Daily transactions drop 95% as hyped decentralized social app loses steam. “Activity on the app, running as an invite-only public beta since August 10, declined 95% from a peak of almost 39,000 daily transactions on August 21 to about 1,400 at the time of writing, according to Dune Analytics data from user cryptokoryo. Just seven days ago, I wondered if friend.tech’s early growth would be sustainable, and we can see that the answer is clearly no.” I know my indexing of the Friend.tech article last week probably looked a little weird, but this is why I did it – I wanted to note a date and see how long a platform based on cryptohype could last in current conditions. Answer seems to be “not long”.

Tweaks & Updates 0

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