🇨🇳 SBF Bribed Chinese Officials

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Markets

Binance, CEO Zhao Sued by CFTC Over 'Willful Evasion' of U.S. Laws, Unregistered Crypto Derivatives Products (6 minute read)The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao for allegedly offering unregistered crypto derivatives products in the U.S. The lawsuit claims that Binance operated a derivatives trading operation in the U.S. for cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ether, litecoin, tether, and Binance USD, which are considered commodities. The CFTC alleges that under Zhao's leadership, the company directed its employees to use virtual private networks to spoof their locations. The lawsuit also accuses Binance of violating laws related to futures transactions, illegal off-exchange commodity options, failing to register as a futures commissions merchant, designated contract market or swap execution facility, poor business supervision, inadequate know-your-customer and anti-money laundering processes, and having a poor anti-evasion program.

Sam Bankman-Fried paid over $40 million to bribe at least one official in China (2 minute read)According to a new indictment filed by federal prosecutors on Tuesday, Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder of FTX, allegedly paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to a Chinese government official. The indictment claims that Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research, had accounts frozen by Chinese police in November 2021. Bankman-Fried and others are accused of transferring at least $40 million in cryptocurrency with the intention of influencing and inducing one or more Chinese government officials to unfreeze these accounts.

Bitcoin hash rate spikes as analysts say miners coming back online (3 minute read)Bitcoin's hash rate reached an all-time high of 398 terahashes per second (TH/s) on March 23, leading analysts to suggest that miners are restarting their rigs due to the rising price of BTC. While the hash rate decreased to 344.63 TH/s as of March 27, it is still higher than the 178.77 TH/s recorded a year ago, according to data aggregator YCharts. In a March 26 post, Sam Wouters, a research analyst at Bitcoin financial service provider River Financial, attributed the increase in hash rate to unused mining inventory coming online, new mining facilities going live, and entrepreneurs finding inexpensive sources for mining.

Tech

Vitalik Buterin Sends Hidden Message in First Polygon zkEVM Transaction (2 minute read)Polygon has launched the much-awaited mainnet for its new Polygon zkEVM network. To celebrate the launch, the sidechain's core developers invited Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin to send the first transaction. During a livestreamed event, Buterin included a hidden message in the transaction by converting the message "A few million constraints for man, unconstrained scalability for mankind" into hex code.

Binance Finalizing BUSD Phase Out with New Range of TUSD Pairs (3 minute read)After regulatory action led to the suspension of Paxos' minting of Binance USD (BUSD), the stablecoin's utility has seen a steady decline. Binance, which created BUSD, has also distanced itself from the project and shifted focus to a new stablecoin option. On March 28, Binance announced the addition of six new trading pairs with True USD (TUSD), which has been touted as the exchange's new ecosystem stablecoin. Binance minted $150 million worth of TUSD on February 27 after the regulatory move against BUSD and offered zero-fee Bitcoin trading with TUSD on March 15, which further enhanced its potential within the ecosystem.

Misc

Kraken to team with F1's Williams Racing as its first-ever crypto partner (2 minute read)Crypto exchange Kraken has partnered with Formula 1 team Williams Racing, becoming their first official crypto and web3 partner. The announcement came just two days before the Melbourne Grand Prix was set to begin. Kraken acknowledged being in a regulatory "weird place" earlier this month after the U.S. SEC charged the exchange with running an unregistered securities exchange. Through this partnership, Kraken aims to connect racing fans worldwide with the crypto community and "financial freedom." As part of the partnership, fans will be able to see their NFTs displayed on the Williams Racing F1 car.

Canadian crypto prodigy accused of scamming investors out of millions was kidnapped, 'tortured' (3 minute read)According to new filings in bankruptcy proceedings, Aiden Pleterski, known as Canada's Crypto King, was allegedly kidnapped from downtown Toronto in December, driven around, and tortured for three days as he begged his landlord to pay $3 million in ransom. Reports suggest that Pleterski is accused of defrauding investors and incurring losses of tens of millions of dollars. The 750-page trustee report related to bankruptcy proceedings outlines the allegations. Rob Stelzer, the appointed bankruptcy trustee, was informed by Toronto police about the kidnapping.

Over $850 million withdrawn from Binance within 24 Hours of CFTC lawsuit (1 minute read)Binance, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, has recently faced a lawsuit filed by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which accused the exchange of violating regulations. This has caused a loss of confidence in the platform among some investors, resulting in the withdrawal of a substantial amount of cryptocurrency from Binance wallets. In fact, within the 12 hours before the CFTC indictment, data from Thanefield Capital shows that nearly $1.5 billion left major exchanges including Binance, Kraken, Coinbase, and Bitfinex.

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