CoinDesk: Binance, CEO Zhao Sued by CFTC Over ‘Willful Evasion’ of U.S. Laws, Unregistered Crypto Derivatives Products. “The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued crypto exchange Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao Monday on allegations the company knowingly offered unregistered crypto derivatives products in the U.S. against federal law.”
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.”
Vox: What YouTube hustle gurus are really selling you. “These self-anointed gurus often share interests — sports cars, wristwatches, combat sports, strict diets, rocket ship emoji, lengthy Twitter threads, Sun Belt states with relatively low tax burdens — but tend to make their millions in a few different ways.”
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.”
Cointelegraph: FTX influencers face $1B class-action lawsuit over alleged crypto fraud promotion. “A class-action suit led by Edwin Garrison has been filed against ‘FTX influencers,’ mostly on YouTube, seeking $1 billion because they ‘promoted FTX crypto fraud without disclosing compensation.’ The suit was filed on March 15 in the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division.”
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.”
Daily Beast: Thieves Have a New Target for Big Paydays: Political Groups. “It’s a mysterious crime wave that has cost its victims more than a million dollars. But unlike usual heists, this one is hitting political groups, with fraudsters in recent months targeting corporate PACs, national trade association committees, and campaigns. While there are no confirmed links yet between the incidents, federal filings indicate a surge in reported activity in 2022, as criminals have exploited vulnerabilities unique to political committees. And among a few targets, some patterns seem clear.”
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.
Washington Post: U.S. government is not investigating Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase. “Federal authorities have no plans to open an investigation into Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter with help from foreign investors, according to two people aware of the matter, despite concerns from President Biden and the demands of a top Democratic senator worried about the social network’s international financial backers.”
UK Government: UK sets out plans to regulate crypto and protect consumers. “The government will set out ambitious plans to robustly regulate cryptoasset activities – providing confidence and clarity to consumers and businesses alike.”
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