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Andrew Throuvalas



Articles by Andrew Throuvalas

First U.S. Bitcoin ETF Reaches Record AUM, Tops $1.47 Billion

7 hours ago

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) – the first bitcoin (BTC) ETF to launch in the United States – has topped a new record for assets under management (AUM) this week, now boasting nearly $1.5 billion in Bitcoin futures contracts.
The record signals eagerness among institutions to gain exposure to BTC before approval of a widely expected bitcoin spot ETF by January.
Bitcoin Funds Soak In Capital
BITO logged its previous record of $1.44 billion on November 10, 2021 – roughly three weeks after its initial launch, and the same day that BTC tapped an all-time high of $69,000.
The new record, set on Tuesday, brought that figure up to $1.47 billion, and coincided with BTC tapping a new yearly high of $38,300.
The fund has performed exceedingly well across the month, rising

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Kyber Hacker Demands Total Executive Control Of Company In Return For Stolen Assets

11 hours ago

Amid efforts to reclaim over $46 million in stolen assets, DeFi platform Kyber Network has received a stunning ultimatum: forfeit total control of both the company and protocol, and all stakeholders will be made whole.
Via-on chain messaging on Thursday, the platform’s anonymous hacker demanded “complete executive control over Kyber,” alongside temporary ownership and control of its governance mechanism, KyberDAO, to enact governance changes at will.
The New ‘Kyber Director’
To that end, he also requires all documents and information related to Kyber, including details about the company and protocol’s origins, its structure, its investors, and its balance sheet.
“This is my best offer. This is my only offer,“ wrote the hacker, referring to himself as the ‘Kyber Director’.

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Canadians Are “Largely Opposed” To A CBDC, Says Bank Of Canada

1 day ago

Canadians are overwhelmingly opposed to their central bank researching and issuing a digital loonie, according to newly released survey results from the Bank of Canada.
The report found that citizens and stakeholders are worried that the technology could violate their financial privacy, and wouldn’t be their payment method of choice compared to existing options.
Why Canadians Don’t Like CBDCs
Released on Wednesday, the report dissected results from a public consultation on CBDCs open to all Canadians between May 8 and June 19, 2023. It gathered 89,424 responses from Canadians of all provinces and income levels.
“A vast majority of respondents (85%) say that they would not use a digital Canadian dollar,” the report stated. An even greater majority of 92% said they’d prefer

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Charles Hoskinson Pins Bitcoin Against Cardano in Light of Securities Discussion

2 days ago

Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson blasted U.S. regulators on Monday for labeling ADA and other cryptocurrencies as unregistered securities while giving bitcoin (BTC) a “complete pass” from the same level of scrutiny.
According to the developer, Bitcoin could easily meet the legal criteria of an investment contract due to the “overly broad” nature of securities laws.
How the SEC Defines a Security
During a Monday livestream, one of Hoskinson’s viewers asked him to “talk about the SEC” – one of two chief U.S. market regulators behind a downpour of enforcement actions against the crypto industry this year. “Everything is a security right now, according to the SEC,” replied Hoskinson.
Gary Gensler – chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – has repeatedly

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Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger Passes Away At 99 Years Old

2 days ago

Charlie Munger – vice chairman of American insurance giant Berkshire Hathaway – passed away in Los Angeles on Tuesday at the age of 99, according to a company announcement.
The firm said that it was advised of Munger’s death by members of his family, who say he passed away peacefully on the morning of November 28 in a California hospital.

“Berkshire Hathaway could not have been built to its present status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom, and participation,” said Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, regarding his death.

Like Buffet, Munger was notoriously bearish on crypto, and well-known as one of the leading voices advocating that Bitcoin (BTC) be banned in the United States.
Among his chief criticisms were that the asset is good for “kidnappers” and that it

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Kronos Research Offers 10% Bounty Following $26 Million Hack

2 days ago

After being robbed of $26 million in crypto earlier this month, trading firm Kronos Research is reaching out to their hacker to negotiate.
The company has offered to drop all legal charges if the hacker returns 90% of the stolen funds, leaving him ~$2.5 million to keep.
The Kronos Research Hack
Kronos made its offer through an Ethereum transaction message to the hacker’s blockchain address on Monday – a common method for directly negotiating with anonymous crypto thieves.
“We acknowledge the complexity of the situation and are prepared to negotiate a resolution,” wrote Kronos. “We propose a 10% bounty of any funds stolen, with the remaining 90% to be returned, in which case we will not pursue this further.”
The firm added that its offer will only remain valid until

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CZ Steps Down As Chairman From Binance.US Board

2 days ago

Following his resignation as CEO of Binance, crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao has now stepped down as the chairman of the board of directors at Binance.US – the exchange giant’s American arm.
Binance.US confirmed CZ’s exit in a post to X on Tuesday, addressing various concerns related to the Justice Department’s historic settlement with its parent company last week.
“[CZ] has decided to step down from his role as Chairman of our Board of Directors and transferred his voting rights through a proxy arrangement,” wrote the company. From now on, the founder’s interest in Binance.US will be “purely economic” leaving him uninvolved in the firm’s governance.
Binance.US is formally an independent entity from Binance, though various lawsuits from government agencies this year have

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GBTC Discount Shrinks To Two-Year Low of 7.5%

6 days ago

Shares for the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) – the world’s largest Bitcoin fund – are nearly back to parity with Bitcoin (BTC)’s price after trading deeply underwater for the past two years.
Their rising value reflects market confidence that Grayscale’s efforts to convert its fund into a Bitcoin spot ETF will prove successful.
The SEC’s Promising Meetings
Starting on Wednesday night, GBTC’s discount to NAV ratio shrank as low as 8.6%, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.
The discount reflects the difference between the market cap of GBTC’s shares versus the total value of all BTC held by the trust.
According to the most recent figures from Grayscale’s website, the fund holds $33.75 in BTC per share, compared to a market price of $31.21 right now – a mere

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ECB’s Christine Lagarde Says Her Son Lost Big Time In Crypto

6 days ago

Christine Lagarde – president of the European Central Bank (ECB) said her son lost “almost all” of his investment in crypto despite her repeated warnings not to touch the asset class.
Due to the losses, she claims her son has now “reluctantly accepted” that she was right.
The Lagarde Family’s Crypto Investments
Lagarde discussed her son’s poor crypto journey at a town hall with students in Frankfurt on Friday.
“He ignored me royally, which is his privilege,” she said, according to Reuters. “And he lost almost all the money that he had invested.”
The president has long railed against cryptocurrencies, insisting that Bitcoin is not money, but rather a “highly speculative asset” that is popular among criminals for money laundering.
While open to letting investors buy what

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Bitcoiner Overpays $3.1 Million In Largest Ever Transaction Fee

7 days ago

An unknown Bitcoin (BTC) user paid an 83.6 BTC ($3,136,058) transaction fee while moving his coins on Thursday, marking the largest transaction fee the network has ever recorded in dollar terms.
The total size of the transaction was 139 BTC ($5,198,720.84), meaning less than half of the transfer (55.7 BTC) actually reached the recipient.
Another Costly Transaction Mistake
The costly transaction was sent from wallet address bc1qn3d…wekrnl to address bc1qyf…km36t4 on November 23, at Bitcoin block 818087.
According to mempool.space, the fee was overpaid by a factor of 119,980x, based on the block’s 141/sat/vb cost at the time.
On Bitcoin, users can voluntarily attach a fee to their transactions so that the network will process them faster.

Specifically, the Bitcoin miner

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Money Will Flood Into Bitcoin When An ETF Is Approved, Says Ex-NYSE President

8 days ago

The former president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is bullish on a Bitcoin ETF, claiming that money will “flood into the industry” when such a product is approved in the United States.
Now serving as CEO of crypto trading platform Bullish, Tom Farley argued on Tuesday that Bitcoin is a legitimate “store of value,” despite its volatility.
Getting A Bitcoin ETF Approved
In an interview with CNBC, Farley highlighted how Bitcoin is the only crypto asset universally recognized as a non-security among U.S. regulators – a fact that could make regulators more willing to approve an ETF for the asset.
“Money will flood into the industry with a Bitcoin ETF, it’s just easy to buy it,” said Farley. “People believe in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a great invention.”
Roughly a dozen asset

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DOJ Announces $4.3 Billion Settlement With Binance As CZ Resigns From Company

9 days ago

The U.S. Department of Justice has settled charges against crypto exchange giant Binance for $4.3 billion, bringing investigations spanning back to 2018 to a close.
The DOJ confirmed the settlement in a live video announcement on Tuesday, marking one of the largest enforcement actions ever closed in a crypto-related case.
The company pled guilty to willfully floundering the Bank Secrecy Act, among other things.
It now must report suspicious financial activity to federal authorities.
Meanwhile, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has pled guilty to failing to implement a strong anti-money laundering (AML) program on the platform. He entered his plea in person, in a U.S. District court earlier today.
He will personally pay a $50 million fine, and has stepped down as the

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CZ to Step Down, Binance to Pay $4.3b in a Settlement with DOJ: Reports

9 days ago

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) will plead guilty to floundering anti-money laundering (AML) provisions as part of a settlement deal with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), according to a Tuesday report from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
He has also agreed to step down as CEO of his exchange and pay a $50 million personal fine, while Binance has agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine for its legal violations.
Binance’s Massive Penalty
As detailed by the WSJ, Binance’s alleged crimes included conducting an unlicensed money-transmitting business and failing to maintain an effective AML program.
Meanwhile, CZ is charged with failing to implement an effective AML program under the Bank Secrecy Act.
The company will pay $1.81 billion within 15 months, and another $2.51

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Why Bitcoin Won’t Go Below 30K Again: Willy Woo

9 days ago

Could Bitcoin (BTC) still be due for a major price correction? Not likely, according to popular Bitcoin price guru Willy Woo.
The on-chain analyst has used blockchain data mapping bitcoin investors’ average buy-in price to determine that the asset likely won’t descend under $30,000 ever again.
Bitcoin’s New Floor is $30k
In a post to X on Tuesday, Woo shared a “Bitcoin Cost Basis Density Map” – a contour chart tracking bitcoin’s supply based on the price that long-term investors paid for their coins.
The line chart shows a dense grey band reflecting the price around which much of the bitcoin supply moved at the time, reflecting “strong agreed value” according to Woo.
Bitcoin Cost Basis Density Map. Source: @woonomicSince Bitcoin’s inception, the analyst claims that the

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The SEC Just Sued Kraken: Here’s Why

10 days ago

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a 90-page lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange Kraken on Monday, re-centering the firm among a handful of crypto giants in the agency’s legal crosshairs.
The lawsuit accuses Kraken of a slew of securities law violations, and of commingling customer funds with corporate assets in ways that could risk major losses for both parties.
The SEC Strikes Again
Per an accompanying press release from the SEC, Kraken has simultaneously operated as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency in the United States, intertwining all such traditional services since 2018.
Specifically, the company made nine-figure profits by “unlawfully facilitating the buying and selling of crypto asset securities.”

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Binance Asked To Pay $4 Billion By DOJ To Settle Investigations: Report

10 days ago

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has requested that crypto exchange giant Binance pay $4 billion as a resolution to its lengthy investigation of the company.
Such negotiations include the possibility that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is charged with crimes possibly including money laundering, bank fraud, and sanctions violations.
According to Bloomberg, an announcement on a settlement deal could arrive as early as the end of November. If accepted by Binance, it would be one of the largest penalties of all time for a crypto-related case.
The agreement would “strike a balance” between punishing Binance sufficiently while allowing it to continue to operate and not cause crypto markets to plummet, said three people familiar with the matter. BNB rose 4% to $257 following

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Bitcoin Will Reach $150,000 By Mid-2025, Predicts Bernstein

10 days ago

Bitcoin (BTC)’s price will reach $150,000 by 2025 thanks to the upcoming “halving” and spot ETF approvals, wrote Bernstein in a Monday report.
Analysts for the $691 billion asset manager’s crypto unit have modeled the asset’s future price based on its marginal production cost for miners, which they argue “acts as the price floor for every new cycle.”
Defining Marginal Cost
In its report, Bernstein subscribed to the Bitcoin 4-year cycle theory – the idea that Bitcoin’s price moves in 4-year patterns related to its issuance schedule.
The schedule cuts the inflation rate of BTC in half roughly once every 48 months. Another of these halvings is estimated to occur in April, reducing issuance from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.
“In the year of halving, as sell pressure reduces

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Miss El Salvador Reps Nation’s Bitcoin Miners With Volcanic Goddess Costume

12 days ago

The 2023 Miss Universe pageant’s preliminary costume contest kicked off on Thursday – and Miss El Salvador’s outfit proved to be a hometown hit.
The contestant donned a “volcanic empowerment costume” reminiscent of the nation’s signature volcanoes, which are being leveraged by the government to mine Bitcoin (BTC).
El Salvador and Volcanic Empowerment
As she took the stage, this year’s Miss El Salvador – Isabella García-Manzo – was welcomed by the San Salvador crowd with thunderous applause.
Her costume featured a massive crown depicting the sun, and a bright orange dress that turned crimson, then charcoal back toward the train. The crown and back of the dress “ignited” bright orange in the dark, and erupted into a series of bright flames in its final phase.
Miss El

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Old Crypto Wallet Bug Puts $2.1 Billion At Risk: Unciphered

13 days ago

Crypto cybersecurity firm Unciphered has unearthed a decade-old crypto wallet bug affecting browser-based wallets generated between 2011 and 2015.
The bug may allow nefarious actors to steal up to $2.1 billion from wallets on various networks, including Bitcoin (BTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC), and Zcash (ZEC).
Discovering An Ancient Bug
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the Unciphered team explained that they’d accidentally discovered the bug during a failed attempt to recover an early investor’s $600,000 in lost Bitcoin (BTC).
The entrepreneur, Nick Sullivan, created his Bitcoin wallet back in 2014 using the website Blockchain.info (since renamed to Blockchain.com). Later, he accidentally lost access to his coins after wiping his computer’s memory

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An ETF is More Important to Bitcoin Than to Ethereum, Says Bitwise

14 days ago

With U.S. spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs now a realistic prospect, some experts are questioning whether their approval will impact the market as much as a Bitcoin (BTC) equivalent.
Bitwise – the world’s largest crypto index fund manager – says they won’t be. In conversation with CryptoPotato, the firm’s analyst Juan Leon explained why.
Ignorance Of Ethereum
According to Leon, while many institutional investors have grown more informed and receptive to BTC as an investment asset, most still don’t understand what makes its flashier younger sibling any different.
“Even investors who can differentiate between both have a hard time thinking about their place in a portfolio,” wrote Leon in an email to CryptoPotato. “Advisors find it helpful when we explain that BTC can be contemplated

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German Banking Giant Commerzbank Approved for Crypto Custody Services

15 days ago

Commerzbank AG – the fourth largest bank in Germany – has received its Crypto Custody License after unveiling plans to break into digital asset safekeeping almost two years ago.
This makes Commerzbank the first full-service bank in Germany to receive the license.
Commerzbank Enters Crypto Custody
Per a press release on Wednesday, the bank’s new license opens it to launching a “broad range” of new digital asset services, especially pertaining to crypto assets.
Its first goal will be to establish a reliable, regulatory-compliant platform for its institutional clients to manage their crypto.
According to the bank’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr Jörg Oliveri del Castillo-Schulz, securing the license marks an “important milestone” for its entry into the industry.

“This

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Bitcoin Crashes Back to $35k Triggering $367 Million in Liquidations

16 days ago

Bitcoin (BTC) plummeted back to $35,100 on Tuesday after briefly rallying as high as $38,000 late last week.
The collapse has triggered over $367 million in liquidations across the crypto market in the past 24 hours.
According to Coinglass, over $200 million in liquidations have occurred in the past hour alone.
Across the day, over 103,000 traders have been liquidated, with the largest being a BTC-USDT swap on OKX valued at $9.45 million.
Bitcoin started the day trading for roughly $36,700, pumping in response to better-than-expected U.S. CPI data. However, it trades for roughly $35,400 at writing time.
Bitcoin traded at an 18-month high of $37,800 last Thursday as excitement over a potential spot Bitcoin ETF approval in the United States continued to rage.
However, JP

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Uniswap Wallet Launches On Android Following Completed Beta

16 days ago

Uniswap has rolled out the completed version of its wallet app to all Android users following a brief beta testing period that began last month.
The app brings a simple mobile user interface to its decentralized exchange (DEX), which is currently the largest in the entire crypto ecosystem.
Per Uniswap’s announcement on Tuesday, app users will be able to swap tokens across 8 different blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum, all while managing their tokens and NFTs in one place.
Users can also track other traders and view balances “in 6 new languages & 18 new currencies.”Furthermore, swaps on the app will be protected from MEV, meaning they’ll be placed into a private transaction pool and are thus shielded from frontrunning and “sandwich attacks.”

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XRP Price Pumps and Dumps on Fake BlackRock Filing: Details

17 days ago

The price of XRP soared from $0.65 to $0.73 on Monday following news that asset management giant BlackRock had registered the iShares XRP Trust in Delaware.
However, later reports confirmed that the supposed registration was fake news, taking XRP’s price back down to $0.65.
According to the state of Delaware’s website, there is an entity registered under file number 2619091 going by the name of “iShares XRP Trust.”
While the filing appears to be under the name of a BlackRock executive using BlackRock’s address, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas confirmed that BlackRock hadn’t actually filed any such registration.

“This is false! Confirmed by BlackRock by me,” Balchunas posted to X on Monday. Some whacko must have added using the BlackRock executive name, etc.”

The

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Core Scientific Plans To Exit Bankruptcy By Early January, New Filing Shows

17 days ago

Bitcoin mining firm Core Scientific filed a disclosure statement for its third-amended bankruptcy recovery plan on Monday, which incorporates key terms from its Restructuring Term Sheet filed in late October.
The new filing features a concrete timeline for how the firm will gain support for the plan from key stakeholders and emerge from bankruptcy before January 15.
Final Stages of Bankruptcy
Per the Monday filing, the debtors plan to “move forward expeditiously” with gathering votes and confirming its plan to keep administrative costs to a minimum.
A hearing on the conditional approval of Core Scientific’s plan will occur on Tuesday. Holders of claims or interest will then have until December 13 to vote on the plan, with another hearing to confirm final approval of the

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How This Bitcoin Veteran Lost Nearly $1 Million in BTC After A Decade Of HODLing

17 days ago

A longtime Bitcoin investor and his father discovered last week that they were robbed of ~25 BTC ($919,000) in September that the family had held in a personal wallet since 2012.
The online Bitcoin community is now coming to their aid, with the victim proposing a 23 BTC bounty to anyone who can recover the funds.
Insecure Private Keys
In a video from X user @RMessit (aka Rick) on Saturday, the victim said that his Bitcoin wallet’s private key was kept in a self-hosted password manager called KeePass.
The KeePass vault could only be unlocked via another password, which was only known by the two men. However, this password only contained 30 bits – far lower and less secure than that of a standard Bitcoin private key itself, which is 256 bits.
Though still unsure of how his

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Binance Is Losing Ground As The World’s Largest Exchange: 0X Report

18 days ago

Binance’s dominance over the centralized crypto exchange market has weakened over the past year, according to a new report from 0xScope.
Estimates from the blockchain analytics firm suggest that Binance’s trading volume and other indicators are “around 10% lower overall,” while competition from OKX and other “second-tier exchanges” grows stiffer.
Binance’s Second Tier Competitors
Per the report, Binance is still the clear leader in terms of global crypto volume, accounting for 51.2% of CEX volume share between October 17, 2022, and October 17, 2023.
That volume has declined on a week-by-week basis, however. Standing at 54.6% in October 2022, Binance’s dominance has fallen to roughly 45% since July.
Meanwhile, OKX’s volume share has skyrocketed from 10.5% last year to 16.1%

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SEC Says It’s Having Trouble Hiring Crypto Experts: Here’s Why

18 days ago

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is struggling to recruit and retain crypto experts due to internal hiring restrictions, according to a new report from the agency’s Inspector General.
The statement comes at a time when the SEC is highly focused on reigning in the blockchain industry, which its chairman Gary Gensler has described as “largely non-compliant.”
Experts Won’t Sell Their Crypto
Per the Inspector General’s Statement on the SEC’s Management and Performance Challenges on Thursday, the SEC “faces challenges in recruiting specialists in crypto assets” for investigation and enforcement purposes.
The SEC has launched over 50 enforcement actions against crypto industry firms this year, including global crypto exchange giants like Coinbase and Binance.

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Fmr. SEC Official With a Stark Warning to Binance as SEC Rebukes Motion to Dismiss

19 days ago

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has fired back at Binance’s recent motion to dismiss the regulator’s lawsuit against the exchange, calling the latter’s arguments a “tortured interpretation of the law.”
In an 88-page filing with the DC Circuit on Tuesday, the agency argued that Binance had ignored most of its core allegations in a “bid to evade accountability” for its alleged violations of securities law.
Countering Binance’s Theatrics
In its preliminary statement, the SEC cited a quote mentioned in its original lawsuit, in which Binance’s Chief Compliance Officer said the company was “operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.”
“Defendants now seek to avoid the repercussions of their actions by asking this Court to dismantle

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Crypto Is Back in a Bull Market – But Not in The Way You Think

19 days ago

Crypto returned to the limelight of financial markets in 2023 – but for a reason less flattering than skyrocketing crypto prices.
A new report from the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) shows that crypto-related charges accounted for over half of the agency’s total enforcement actions this year.
Cracking Down on Crypto
In its 2023 enforcement results report, the CFTC said it “brought 47 actions involving conduct related to digital asset commodities,” accounting for over 49% of all actions during the period.
In total, the agency’s actions generated “$4.3 billion in penalties, restitution, and disgorgement” over the fiscal year.
“[The CFTC] filed high-profile complaints addressing frauds by major exchanges, individual Ponzi-schemers, and others,” wrote the

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