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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
NEW YORK (AP) — Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud involving hundreds of thousands of customers that ended in the collapse of FTX, once one of the world’s most popular digital currency trading platforms.
Although he described Bankman-Fried as “extremely intelligent,” U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan provided a scathing analysis of Bankman-Fried and his crimes before announcing a sentence that was half of what prosecutors sought and less than a quarter of the 105-year sentence. recommended by court probation officers.
“There is absolutely no question that Mr. Bankman-Fried’s name is pretty much in the mud right now around the world,” Kaplan said of the 32-year-old Californian who seemed at the top of the cryptocurrency universe before his activities collapsed in November 2022, leaving customers, investors and lenders sold more than $11 billion, which the judge ordered him to forfeit.
Was sentenced in November of fraud and conspiracy — a dramatic fall from a crest of success that included a Super Bowl ad, testimony before Congress and celebrity endorsements from stars like quarterback Tom Brady, basketball point guard Stephen Curry and comedian Larry David.
Kaplan imposed the sentence in the same Manhattan courtroom where, four months earlier, Bankman-Fried had testified that with his innovative and altruistic ideas he intended to revolutionize the emerging cryptocurrency market, not steal.
The judge said Bankman-Fried repeatedly committed perjury on the witness stand in testimony that was “often evasive, quibbling and question-dodging.”
Kaplan said the ruling reflects the risk that Bankman-Fried “will be in a position to do something very bad in the future. And it’s not a trivial risk at all.” He added that the sentence was made “with the aim of incapacitating him to the extent that this can be done appropriately for a significant period of time”.
Kaplan said he will recommend that the Federal Bureau of Prisons send Bankman-Fried to a medium-security prison near San Francisco because his notoriety, his association with vast wealth, his autism and his social awkwardness will likely make him particularly vulnerable at a high level. -security system.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos had recommended it a prison sentence of 40-50 years, stating that it was the only way to ensure that “the defendant does not do it again”.
Prosecutors said tens of thousands of people and companies around the world have lost billions of dollars since 2017 after Bankman-Fried raided the accounts of FTX clients he promised were safe to make millions of dollars from political donations illegal, bribe Chinese officials, make risky investments, buy luxury properties. property in the Caribbean and live lavishly.
Kaplan agreed with prosecutors on Thursday that Bankman-Fried should not be credited because some investors and clients could recover money. He noted that customers lost about $8 billion, investors lost $1.7 billion and lenders were short $1.3 billion.
When he spoke, Bankman-Fried stood up and apologized with a rambling statement: “A lot of people feel really let down. And they were very disappointed. And I’m sorry about that. I am sorry for what happened at every stage.”
He added: “My useful life is probably over. It’s been over for a while now, since before my arrest.”
Wearing his khaki prison uniform and shackled at the ankles, Bankman-Fried appeared to become briefly emotional as he spoke for about 20 minutes, expressing regret for “many mistakes” but placing blame on others. His signature messy, thick hair had returned from the more polished look he displayed at the trial.
He praised some of his former managers and co-workers, saying: “They threw themselves and I threw everything away. It haunts me every day.
Kaplan later criticized Bankman-Fried’s remarks, saying he had “never expressed a word of remorse for committing terrible crimes.”
As his bleary-eyed client looked on, defense attorney Marc Mukasey said the portrayal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate as an “arrogant, greedy con artist who thought he could get away with stealing hard-earned money from working people hard” was wrong. .
“Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out to hurt people every morning,” Mukasey said in court after urging in court documents that any prison sentence be in the single digits. “Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart. He makes decisions with mathematics in mind.
The judge later criticized Bankman-Fried’s calculations, saying he was really “a math nerd, looking at decisions in terms of math, expected value.”
He cited trial testimony in which Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend and fellow executive, Caroline Ellison, said that Bankman-Fried had once told her that his willingness to accept risk was such that he would be happy to flip a coin if it came up tails and the world was. destroyed: as long as he came out heads, the world would be twice as beautiful.
The judge said Bankman-Fried used this risk-taking nature in his companies, “betting on expected value” and weighing the risk of getting caught with the likelihood of large gains.
“That was the game,” Kaplan said. “It’s his nature.”
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers, friends and family had urged clemency, saying he was unlikely to commit the crime again. They also said that FTX investors have largely recovered their funds, a claim disputed by bankruptcy lawyers, FTX and its creditors.
“Mr. Bankman-Fried continues to live a life of illusion,” wrote John Ray, the FTX CEO who cleaned up the bankrupt company. “The ‘business’ he left on November 11, 2022 was not neither solvent nor safe.”
An FTX client, Sunil Kavuri, spoke during the sentencing, saying he had traveled from London on behalf of more than 200 victims who had submitted impact statements to the judge.
He said he had spoken to other “victims like me, whose dreams have been shattered” and that he had lived “the nightmare of FTX every day for almost two years, every day, every night, many sleepless, crying nights.”
Bankman-Fried’s parents, both Stanford Law School professors, did not speak as they left the courthouse Thursday, but later issued a statement: “We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son.”
Bankman-Fried, of Palo Alto, California, was once worth billions of dollars on paper as co-founder and CEO of FTX, which was once the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange.
FTX allows investors to purchase dozens of virtual currencies, from Bitcoin to more obscure ones like Shiba Inu Coin. With billions of dollars in investor cash, Bankman-Fried ran a Super Bowl ad to promote his business and bought the naming rights to an arena in Miami.
But the collapse of cryptocurrency prices in 2022 took a toll on FTX, ultimately leading to its downfall. FTX’s hedge fund affiliate, Alameda Research, had purchased billions of dollars of various cryptocurrency investments that lost significant amounts of value in 2022. Bankman-Fried tried to plug holes in Alameda’s balance sheet with client funds by FTX.
Three people from Bankman-Fried’s inner circle pleaded guilty to related crimes and testified at the trial.
In addition to Ellison, two former friends of Bankman-Fried – Gary Wang and Nishad Singh – testified that they believed they were directed by Bankman-Fried to commit fraud.
News
Ether Drops Further After ETF Launch
Key points
- Spot ether ETFs began trading in the U.S. today, with the funds initially having more than $10 billion in collective assets under management.
- Analysts expect the launch of spot ether ETFs to have a net negative impact on the underlying price of ether in the near term, due to expected outflows from the pre-existing Grayscale Ethereum Trust.
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs continue to see strong inflows, with BlackRock’s IBIT alone seeing more than $500 million in inflows on Monday.
- Franklin Templeton, a spot ETF issuer on bitcoin and ether, has invested in a project that intends to bring Ethereum technology to Bitcoin.
Nine-point ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs)) started trading on the stock market on Tuesday, but all the optimism ahead of their approval did not translate into gains for the cryptocurrency markets.
Ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, dropped less than 1% around the $3,400 level as of 1:30 PM ET, while Bitcoin (BTC) fell more than 2% to around $66,000.
Ether ETFs’ Debut Isn’t as Flashy as Bitcoin ETFs’
Spot ether ETFs began trading at just over $10 billion assets under management (AUM)), according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart, most of that money is in the current Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) which has now been converted into an ETF.
“In the long term, Grayscale will simultaneously have the highest and lowest fees in the market. The asset manager’s decision to keep its ETHE fee at 2.5% could lead to outflows from the fund,” Kaiko Research said in a note on Monday.
Outflows from ETHE, if they occur, would be similar to those faced by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) after spot bitcoin ETFs began trading in January of this year, most likely due to high fees for the two original funds. Grayscale’s existing fund charges 2.5% fees, while a new “mini” ether ETF will charge 0.15% and commissions for other ETFs are set at 0.25% or less.
Such outflows could impact the price of ether and market sentiment.
“There could be a pullback shortly after the launch of Ethereum spot ETFs, i.e. outflows from Grayscale Ether Trust could dampen market sentiment in the short term,” Jupiter Zheng, a partner at Hashkey Capital’s liquid fund, told The Block.
But Grayscale remains optimistic.
“Compared to the splashy debut of spot bitcoin ETPs in January, the launch of ethereum ETPs has been relatively muted,” said Zach Pandl, Grayscale’s head of research, adding that investors may be “undervaluing” ether ETFs that are “coming to the U.S. market in tandem with a shift in U.S. cryptocurrency policy and the adoption of tokenization by major financial institutions.”
Bitcoin ETF Inflows Continue to Rise
As for bitcoin, there is clearly no lack of demand for spot ETFs, such as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBITS) recorded its sixth-largest day of inflows in its short history on Monday, at $526.7 million, according to data from Farside Investors. Daily inflows for the overall spot bitcoin ETF market also hit their highest level since June 5.
In particular, asset manager Franklin Templeton, which has issued both bitcoin and ether ETFs, appears to have decided to cover its back when it comes to Ethereum by investing in Bitlayer, a way to implement Ethereum technology on a second-layer Bitcoin network, according to CoinDesk.
News
Spot Ether ETFs Start Trading Today: Here’s What You Need to Know
Key points
- Spot ether ETFs will begin trading on U.S. exchanges on Tuesday. Nine ETFs will trade on Cboe BZX, Nasdaq and NYSE Arca.
- Ether ETFs offer investors exposure to the price of their underlying assets.
- Commissions on these new ETFs generally range from 0.15% to 0.25%.
- These ETFs do not provide exposure to Ethereum staking.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially approved nine ether spots (ETH)exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for trading on U.S. exchanges. Trading for these new cryptocurrency investment vehicles begins today. Here’s everything you need to know.
What new ether ETFs are starting to trade today?
Spot ether ETFs starting trading today can be found at Quotation, NYSE Arkand Cboe BZX. Here’s a breakdown of each ETF you can find on these three exchanges, along with the fund tickers:
Cboe BZX will list the Invesco Galaxy Ethereum ETF (QETH), the 21Shares Core Ethereum ETF (CETH), the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), the Franklin Ethereum ETF (EZET) and the VanEck Ethereum ETF (ETHV).
Nasdaq will have the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) created by BlackRock, which also operates the largest spot bitcoin ETF under the ticker IBIT.
NYSE Arca will list the Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE). The Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust (ETH), which will begin trading on the same exchange.
How does an ether ETF work?
Spot ether ETFs are intended to offer exposure to the price of ether held by the funds. Ether is the underlying cryptocurrency of the Ethereal network, the second largest crypto network by market capitalization.
ETF buyers are buying shares of funds that hold ether on behalf of their shareholders. Different spot ether ETFs use different data sources when it comes to setting the price of ether. Grayscale Ethereum Trust, for example, uses the CoinDesk Ether Price Index.
None of the ETFs launching today include pointed etherwhich represents a potential opportunity cost associated with choosing an ETF over other options such as self-custody or a traditional cryptocurrency exchange.
Ether staking currently has an annual return of 3.32%, according to the Compass Staking Yield Reference Index Ethereum. However, it is possible that the SEC will eventually approve Ether staking held by ETFs.
How can I trade Ether ETFs?
ETFs can simplify the trading process for investors. In the case of cryptocurrencies, instead of taking full custody of the ether and taking care of your own private keysSpot ether ETFs allow investors to purchase the cryptocurrency underlying the Ethereum network through traditional brokerage accounts.
Today, not all brokers may offer their clients spot ETFs on cryptocurrencies.
What are the fees for ether ETFs?
The fees associated with each individual spot ether ETF were previously revealed In the S-1 OR S-3 (depending on the specific ETF) deposit associated with the offerings. These fees are 0.25% or less for all but one.
The Grayscale Ethereum Trust, which converts to an ETF, has a fee of 2.5%. The Grayscale Mini Ethereum Trust has the lowest fee at 0.15%. These fees are charged on an annual basis for the provider’s management of the fund and are in line with what was previously seen with spot bitcoin ETFs.
Brokers may also charge their own fees for cryptocurrency trading.
News
Kamala Harris Odds Surge Amid $81M Fundraise. What Does It Mean for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies?
Market odds and memecoins related to US Vice President Kamala Harris have soared as the latest round of donations tied to the Democratic campaign raised $81 million in 24 hours, bolstering sentiment among some traders.
The odds of Harris being declared the Democratic nominee have risen further to 90% on cryptocurrency betting app Polymarket, up from 80% on Monday and setting a new high.
Previously, in early July, bettors were only betting on 8%, but that changed on Saturday when incumbent President Joe Biden announced he would no longer run in the November election. Biden then approved Harris as a candidate.
Polymarket traders placed $28.6 million in bets in favor of Harris, the data showsThe second favorite is Michelle Obama.
Somewhere else, Memecoin KAMA based on Solanaa political meme token modeled after Harris, has jumped 62% to set a new all-time high of 2 cents at a market cap of $27 million. The token is up a whopping 4,000% from its June 18 low of $0.00061, buoyed primarily by the possibility of Harris becoming president.
As such, Harris has yet to publicly comment on cryptocurrencies or her strategy for the growing market. On the other hand, Republican candidate Donald Trump has expressed support for the cryptocurrency market and is expected to appear at the Bitcoin 2024 conference on Saturday.
However, some expect Harris or the Democratic Party to mention the sector in the coming weeks, which could impact price action.
“While he has not yet received the official nomination, there is consensus that last night’s development is in line with current Democratic strategy,” cryptocurrency trading firm Wintermute said in a Monday note emailed to CoinDesk. “Keep an eye on Democrats’ comments on this issue in the coming days.
“The prevailing assumption is that Harris will win the nomination and any deviation from this expectation could cause market volatility,” the firm added.
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Top 30x Cryptocurrency and Coin Presales Today: Artemis Coin at #1, Others Are: BlockDAG, 99Bitcoin, eTukTuk, and WienerAI
The cryptocurrency market has seen a lot of growth and imagination lately, with new ventures popping up regularly. A critical pattern in this space is the rise of crypto pre-sales, which give backers the opportunity to get involved with promising projects early on. Artemis is a standout option for crypto investors looking to expand their portfolios amid the many pre-sales currently underway.
Cryptocurrency presales, commonly referred to as initial coin offerings (ICOs), allow blockchain ventures to raise capital by offering their local tokens to early backers before they become available on open exchanges. Investors can take advantage of these presales by purchasing tokens at a lower price. If the project is successful and the token’s value increases, investors stand to receive significant returns.
>>> Explore the best cryptocurrency pre-sales to buy now <<
The Ultimate List of the Top 5 Cryptocurrency Pre-Sales to Invest In
- Artemis: The aim of Artemis (ARTMS) will become the cryptocurrency equivalent of eBay or Amazon. The upcoming Phase 4 will see the launch of the Artemis Framework, which will serve as a stage for digital money exchanges where buyers, sellers, specialized organizations and those seeking administration can participate in coherent exchanges.
- DAG Block: uses Directed Acyclic Graph technology to increase blockchain scalability.
- 99bitcoin: operates as a crypto learning platform
- WienerAI uses AI-powered trading bots for precise market analysis.
- eTukTuk focuses on environmentally sustainable transportation options, such as electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
We have determined that Artemis is the best new cryptocurrency presale for investment after conducting extensive research. It presents itself as the unrivaled cryptocurrency presale choice currently open.
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Top 5 Crypto Pre-Sales and Best Cryptocurrencies for Investment Today
Artemis (ARTMS) is attempting to establish itself as the cryptocurrency version of eBay or Amazon. The Artemis Crypto System, which will act as a platform for cryptocurrency transactions, will be launched in Phase 4. Buyers, sellers, service providers, and requesters will all benefit from seamless trading with this system. Customers will be able to purchase things, such as mobile phones using digital money, as well as sell products such as involved bicycles and get paid in cryptocurrency. Additionally, crypto money can be used to pay for administrations such as clinical consultations, legitimate care, and freelance work. Artemis Coin will act as the main currency of the ecosystem, with Bitcoin and other well-known cryptocurrencies from various blockchain networks backing it.
Artemis Coin has increased in price from 0.00055 to 0.00101 from 0.00094. Artemis may be attractive to individuals looking to recoup losses in Bitcoin, as predicted by cryptocurrency analysts. At this point, it seems to present an interesting presale opportunity.
>>> Visit the best cryptocurrency pre-sale to invest in now <<
The world of digital currency pre-sales is an exciting and exciting opportunity that could open the door to game-changing blockchain projects. Projects in this article, like Artemis Coin, offer the opportunity to shape the future of various industries and the potential for significant returns as the industry develops.
However, it is imperative to approach these investments with caution, thorough research, portfolio diversification, and awareness of the risks. You can explore the digital currency pre-sale scene with greater certainty and increase your chances of identifying and profiting from the most promising venture opportunities by following the advice and methods in this article.
>>> Join the best cryptocurrency pre-sale to invest in now <<
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