SBF ordered to jail, Bitcoin ETF delayed and SEC to appeal Ripple case

Prime Tales This Week

Decide revokes Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail, remands him to custody

FTX’s former CEO, Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, had his bail revoked by a federal choose in response to the discharge of data to The New York Occasions allegedly supposed to intimidate witnesses. Throughout a listening to on Aug. 11, Decide Lewis Kaplan revoked Bankman-Fried’s bail and remanded him to custody, seemingly on the Putnam County Correctional Facility. As soon as his October trial begins, he could possibly be moved to the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn. Bankman-Fried was reportedly led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. In Kaplan’s view, Bankman-Fried’s interviews with NYT reporters resulted in sharing info with the seemingly intention “to harm and frighten” former Alameda Analysis CEO Caroline Ellison, his former colleague and girlfriend.

The U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) has delayed a choice on whether or not to approve or disapprove the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposed by ARK Funding Administration and 21Shares. ARK initially filed to record the ETF in Could, giving the SEC a most of 240 days — till January 2024 — to achieve a closing resolution. The SEC’s newest transfer is fueling expectations {that a} closing verdict will come as a part of a batch that features purposes from key gamers on Wall Avenue, together with BlackRock and Constancy Investments.

SEC to hunt attraction and keep in Ripple Labs court docket case

The U.S. SEC is shifting to attraction a court docket resolution from its lawsuit towards Ripple Labs. In a letter to Decide Analisa Torres — the presiding choose within the case — the SEC stated it believed her resolution warrants a recent look by an appellate court docket. The fee requested Decide Torres to place the case on maintain through the attraction, saying there are a number of different pending court docket instances that could possibly be affected, relying on the attraction’s final result. The SEC is at present in a authorized battle with a lot of crypto companies, together with Binance and Coinbase, over alleged securities violations. Decide Torres dominated, in July, that Ripple’s native token, XRP, will not be a safety when offered to retail buyers. Torres plans to schedule the jury trial for the second quarter of 2024.

PayPal launches PYUSD stablecoin for fee

PayPal launched a brand new U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin referred to as PayPal USD (PYUSD). Constructed on the Ethereum community, the stablecoin is backed by U.S. greenback deposits, short-term treasuries and related money equivalents. In response to PayPal, the stablecoin will quickly be accessible as a mode of fee for varied purchases. The fintech firm is residence to over 350 million lively customers, placing it in a robust place to turn into a crypto fee large with the introduction of the brand new stablecoin. PYUSD will probably be redeemable for U.S. {dollars} and will be exchanged for different cryptocurrencies on PayPal, in addition to being transferable between PayPal and Venmo accounts.

Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Softbank, main VCs face lawsuit for “abetting” FTX fraud

Eighteen main enterprise capital funding companies, together with Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Sino International Capital and SoftBank, have been named as defendants in a class-action lawsuit filed in the US for his or her hyperlinks to the now-bankrupt crypto trade, FTX. In response to the lawsuit, the funding companies have been chargeable for “aiding and abetting” the FTX fraud. The go well with additional claims that the defendants used their “energy, affect and deep pockets to launch FTX’s home of playing cards to its multibillion-dollar scale.”

Winners and Losers

On the finish of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $29,379, Ether (ETH) at $1,842 and XRP at $0.63. The full market cap is at $1.17 trillion, in line with CoinMarketCap.

Among the many largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the highest three altcoin gainers of the week are THORChain (RUNE) at 20.74%, Shiba Inu (SHIB) at 20.16% and dYdX (DYDX) at 9.63%. 

The highest three altcoin losers of the week are GMX (GMX) -12.47%, Mantle (MNT) at -10.10% and XDC Community (XDC) at -8.09%.

For more information on crypto costs, ensure that to learn Cointelegraph’s market evaluation.

Most Memorable Quotations

“Stablecoins signify the issuance of a brand new type of cash, making it integral that there are Federal guardrails.”

Maxine Waters, United States consultant

“That is the Ethereum contract deal with for PayPal’s stablecoin. I can’t imagine i get to tweet that. We’ve come to date.”

Ryan Sean Adams, crypto investor

“By providing customers a comparatively seamless approach to execute transactions, bots have the potential to carve out their very own area of interest within the crypto ecosystem.”

Jie Xuan Chua, analyst at Binance Analysis

“PayPal USD is essentially the most vital leap ahead for digital belongings and the monetary business.”

Charles Cascarilla, CEO of Paxos Belief Firm

“It’s clear that the world wants and can want one thing like Worldcoin within the coming years. We simply hope that occurs in a privacy-preserving decentralized, open-source, permissionless method.”

Tiago Sada, head of product at Instruments for Humanity

“By accepting digital currencies, we open our doorways to a brand new phase of donors who’re tech-savvy and want to make a distinction by way of their digital belongings.”

Benjamin William, CEO of the Singapore Purple Cross

Prediction of the Week 

Bitcoin dealer reveals ‘essential’ BTC worth zone as bulls maintain $29.3K

Bitcoin faces a brand new battleground as bulls and bears struggle for management of a sideways market. Fashionable pseudonymous dealer Daan Crypto Trades flagged, in his newest evaluation, a key degree to reclaim as BTC worth assist.

In response to the dealer, each Bitcoin bulls and bears are caught in a “strongly contested” vary, ensuing from varied journeys above and under the present spot worth, making the midpoint the extent to observe subsequent.

“Fairly clear that the $29.5–29.7K area is an space that’s strongly contested by the bulls and bears,” Daan Crypto Trades wrote.

Bitcoin worth has primarily remained the identical since mid-June — $28,500 as basic assist, $31,800 as resistance. Gaining management of the realm round $29,700 is, thus, a vital transfer if bulls are to construct the required momentum to vary the panorama for good, the dealer added.

FUD of the Week 

Only 6 out of 45 crypto wallet brands have undergone penetration testing: Report

Cybersecurity platform CER found that only six of 45 cryptocurrency wallet brands, or 13.3%, have undergone penetration testing to find security vulnerabilities. Of these, only three brands have performed tests on the latest versions of their products: MetaMask, Zengo and Trust Wallet. An overall ranking of the security of each wallet lists MetaMask, Zengo, Rabby, Trust Wallet and Coinbase Wallet as being the most secure wallets on the market.

US Fed steps up oversight of banks’ involvement with crypto firms

The U.S. Federal Reserve is expanding the scope of its supervision for banks engaged with the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. Under the Novel Activities Supervision Program, companies providing banking infrastructure to digital asset firms or working with companies that use distributed ledger technologies will be regulated. The policies apply to both insured and uninsured U.S. banks supervised by the Fed. Activities regulated under the program include the custody, lending, trading, issuance or distribution of crypto including stablecoins.

SEC announces $24M settlement for case against Bittrex and its former CEO

The U.S. SEC announced an agreement with crypto trading platform Bittrex and its co-founder and former CEO, William Shihara, for operating an unregistered exchange.Bittrex and Bittrex Global agreed to pay $14.4 million in disgorgement (the repayment of ill-gotten gains), $4 million in prejudgment interest, and $5.6 million in civil penalties to settle the legal dispute with the federal regulator. The agreement is still subject to court approval. The SEC’s complaint, filed in April, claimed Bittrex and Shihara operated an unregistered national securities exchange, broker and clearing agency.

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Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.