Tag: cryptocurrency

Elon Musk to Upgrade X With Payment Features Soon; No Word on User-Requested Crypto Integration

Elon Musk recently disclosed his plans to add payments feature to the X app (formerly Twitter) by mid-2024. The multi-billionaire tech mogul has been working towards his goal of transforming X into an ‘everything app’ — prior to Musk’s takeover of the platform, Twitter was characterised as a microblogging platform. Interestingly, Musk chose to leave out the mention of cryptocurrencies while speaking about his digital payments feature plan for X. Crypto payments remain a much-requested feature on X, especially among the platform’s avid cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

Musk told ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood in an interview on Thursday that several licence approvals are awaited before X could also function as a money transmitter. This means that users might have to wait until mid-2024 before the payments feature is finally rolled out on the platform, according to Musk. While Musk admitted that X was a bit late in sending all these required applications, he did not reveal any plans to integrate crypto with X’s upcoming payment feature. On the contrary, Musk recently revealed that he spends “hardly any” time mulling over digital assets while responding to a question generated by his own GenAI initiative called Grok.

This apparent cold shoulder that the tech mogul is giving the crypto sector has sparked discussions among users on the social media platform.

As of August this year, X had acquired a currency transmitter licence in Rhode Island, Michigan, Missouri, and New Hampshire.

It is notable that while Musk remains tight-lipped around cryptocurrencies, his EV company Tesla still holds BTC worth $148 million (roughly Rs. 1,232 crore). The company also permits the purchase of select Tesla merchandise via Dogecoin. In 2022, it was reported that Musk’s tunnel construction company called The Boring Company was letting customers pay in DOGE for rides on the Las Vegas transit system.

It was reported in April that Musk had pitched his favourite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, as a payment option for users seeking to avail Twitter Blue services. That, however, did not happen as the months unfolded. For now, it remains unclear whether X plans to support crypto transactions as part of the upcoming payments feature.

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BlockFi to Shut Operations, Return Crypto Assets to Customers

BlockFi emerged from bankruptcy on Tuesday, saying it will wind down operations and begin returning crypto assets to customers 11 months after it was swept away by the turbulence in thecryptocurrency industry following FTX‘s collapse. 

Jersey City, New Jersey-Based BlockFi will continue to pursue additional payments through the bankruptcies of other crypto companies including FTX and Three Arrows Capital under a bankruptcy plan approved in court last month. 

Success in that litigation could increase client recoveries, BlockFi said on Tuesday. 

BlockFi estimated in court filings that customers who had interest-bearing Earn accounts will receive between 39.4 percent and 100 percent of the value in their accounts. 

In its bankruptcy filing in November 2022, BlockFi had cited its loans to FTX’s sister firm Alameda as one of the reasons for its collapse.

Separately, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is currently on trial for fraud in Manhattan. 

BlockFi said withdrawals are currently available to nearly all of its Wallet customers. Those with BlockFi Interest Accounts and Retail Loans will be repaid over the coming months, but the amounts they receive could vary based on the outcome of the FTX bankruptcy, BlockFi said.

Crypto lenders, the de facto banks of the crypto world, boomed during the pandemic, attracting retail customers with double-digit rates in return for their crypto deposits.

Such companies are not required to hold capital or liquidity buffers like traditional lenders and some found themselves exposed when a shortage of collateral forced them — and their customers — to shoulder large losses.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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FTX Sues Parents of Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Alleging Them of Misusing Company Assets

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX on Monday sued the parents of founder Sam Bankman-Fried, saying that Stanford professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried used the company to enrich themselves at the expense of FTX’s customers. 

FTX, now being led by turnaround specialist John Ray, said that company founder Sam Bankman-Fried ran FTX as a “family business” and misappropriated billions in customer funds for the benefit of a small circle of insiders, including his parents. 

Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to charges that he defrauded FTX customers by using their funds to prop up his own risky investments. He is currently jailed ahead of a trial scheduled to begin October 3. Other former FTX executives have pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Bankman and Fried’s attorneys, Sean Hecker and Michael Tremonte, said in a joint statement that FTX’s claims were “completely false” and that the new lawsuit was a waste of funds that could be returned to FTX customers.

“This is a dangerous attempt to intimidate Joe and Barbara and undermine the jury process just days before their child’s trial begins,” Hecker and Tremonte said.

FTX’s lawsuit alleges that Bankman and Fried accepted a $10-million (nearly Rs. 83 crore) cash gift and a $16.4-million (nearly Rs. 136 crore) luxury property in the Bahamas from FTX, even as the company teetered on the brink of collapse. Bankman and Fried also pushed FTX to make tens of millions of dollars in charitable contributions, including to Stanford University, FTX said. 

Bankman-Fried’s father, a tax specialist at Stanford Law School, often positioned himself as the “adult in the room” in a company run by his son, now 31, and other executives with little management experience. But Bankman “stayed silent” when he saw warning signs of fraud and did little to prevent FTX’s leadership from misappropriating customer funds, according to the lawsuit.

Fried was the strongest influence on FTX’s political contributions, causing Bankman-Fried and other executives to contribute millions of dollars directly to a political action committee that she co-founded, according to FTX.

FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 in the wake of claims that it misused and lost billions of dollars worth of customers’ crypto deposits. 

FTX has recovered more than $7 billion (nearly. Rs. 58,300 crore) in assets to repay customers, and it is pursuing additional recoveries through lawsuits against FTX insiders and other defendants that received money from FTX before it went bankrupt.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest and 21Shares File for First Spot-Ether ETF in the US: Details

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest and crypto investment firm 21Shares are seeking regulatory approval to set up an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would directly hold ether, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday.

It is the first attempt to list a fund in the US that would directly invest in ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

In a boost to the crypto sector, the US District of Columbia Court of Appeals last month passed a landmark ruling that the SEC was wrong to reject an application from crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments to list an ETF that tracks the price of bitcoin.

The case has been closely watched by the cryptocurrency and asset management industries, which have been trying for years to convince the SEC to approve a spot bitcoin ETF.

Cboe Global Markets earlier this year filed a proposal with the US SEC to list and trade shares of a spot bitcoin ETF by Ark Invest and 21Shares on the Cboe BZX exchange. The SEC, however, delayed a decision on whether to approve it.

The regulator has in recent years rejected dozens of applications for spot bitcoin ETFs, citing inadequate levels of trading surveillance that could leave the underlying spot market subject to fraud and manipulation.

© Thomson Reuters 2023 

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PayPal to Stop Sale of Cryptocurrencies in the UK Until 2024: Details

Payments giant PayPal will stop allowing UK customers to buy cryptocurrencies through its platform from October as it works to comply with new rules on crypto promotions.

Britain’s financial regulator is due to bring in tougher rules to limit how crypto is advertised to British consumers, including requiring crypto firms to carry warnings about the risk and scrapping “refer a friend” bonuses.

PayPal will “temporarily pause” the ability for customers to buy crypto on its platform from October 1 as it works to satisfy the new regulations, which come into effect on October 8, it said in an email to customers on Tuesday. It said it expects to re-start in “early 2024”.

“PayPal consistently works closely with regulators around the world to adhere to applicable rules and regulations in the markets in which we operate,” it told customers in the email, a copy of which it shared with Reuters. 

It said customers could hold and sell their crypto “at any time.”

The news was earlier reported by crypto media outlets including CoinJournal.

PayPal first launched crypto buying and selling in the UK in 2021.

Regulators around the world are increasingly seeking to regulate crypto assets, after the collapse of several crypto firms including FTX last year left amateur investors with large losses.

After token prices slumped dramatically last year, the price of top cryptocurrency bitcoin has gradually recovered, up around 76 percent so far this year. Still, its price is at less than half of the all-time high reached in November 2021.

Earlier this month, PayPal’s shares got a boost when it announced that it has launched a US dollar stablecoin – a kind of cryptocurrency designed to keep a constant price by being pegged to a stable asset.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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PayPal Launches US Dollar Stablecoin for Financial Payments, Transfers

Payments giant PayPal said on Monday it has launched a US dollar stablecoin, becoming the first major financial technology firm to embrace digital currencies for payments and transfers. 

While stablecoins — crypto tokens whose monetary value is pegged to a stable asset to protect from wild volatility — have been around for years now, they are yet to successfully make headway into the mainstream consumer payments ecosystem. 

PayPal’s announcement, which lifted its shares 2.5 percent in afternoon trading, reflects a show of confidence in the troubled industry that has over the last 12 months grappled with regulatory headwinds that were exacerbated by a string of high-profile collapses. 

Prior attempts by major mainstream companies to launch stablecoins have met fierce opposition from financial regulators and policymakers. Meta‘s, then Facebook, 2019 plans to launch a stablecoin, Libra, were foiled after regulators raised fears it could upset global financial stability.

A string of major economies, from Britain to the European Union, have since laid out rules to govern stablecoins. The EU’s policies will come into force in June 2024.

Last month, the US House Financial Services committee also advanced a bill to establish a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, which will focus on rules for the registration and approval process for stablecoin issuers.

PayPal’s stablecoin, dubbed PayPal USD, is backed by US dollar deposits and short-term US Treasuries, and will be issued by Paxos Trust. It will gradually be available to PayPal customers in the United States. 

Argus Research Corp analyst Stephen Biggar said PayPal’s brand name makes the stablecoin launch significant but the company has been associated with crypto previously so it’s not a surprise. 

Visa also said in 2021 it will allow the use of cryptocurrency to settle transactions on its payment network.

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Binance Reportedly Saw Monthly Illegal Crypto Transactions Worth $90 Billion in Banned China Market

Binance users traded $90 billion (roughly Rs. 7,42,800 crore) of cryptocurrency-related assets in a single month in China, where cryptocurrency trading has been illegal since 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday citing internal figures and current and former employees of the exchange.

The transactions made China Binance’s biggest market by far, accounting for 20 percent of volume worldwide, excluding trades made by a subset of very large traders, the WSJ said. The newspaper did not specify the month during which the transactions were made.

Binance’s origins lie in China, though the world’s largest crypto exchange withdrew from mainland China in 2017 during a regulatory crackdown. It did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a comment on the Journal report.

“The Binance.com website is blocked in China and is not accessible to China-based users,” a company spokesman told the WSJ.

The exchange has also been under the scrutiny of US regulators like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The CFTC sued Binance for operating what it said was an “illegal” exchange and a “sham” compliance program, while the SEC sued Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao saying that Binance artificially inflated its trading volumes, diverted customer funds, failed to restrict US customers from its platform and misled investors about its market surveillance controls.

The exchange is also under investigation by the US Justice Department over possible money-laundering and sanctions violations, Reuters has reported.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 alongside the Galaxy Tab S9 series and Galaxy Watch 6 series at its first Galaxy Unpacked event in South Korea. We discuss the company’s new devices and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Accused of Witness Tampering

US prosecutors have accused FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried of witness tampering and asked a federal judge to issue an order that would bar the former billionaire and other parties from making public statements likely to interfere with a fair trial.

The prosecutors wrote to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday referencing a New York Times article titled “Inside the Private Writings of Caroline Ellison, Star Witness in the FTX Case”.

The article reported excerpts from Ellison’s personal Google documents from before the collapse of FTX in which she spoke about being “pretty unhappy and overwhelmed” with her job and feeling “hurt/rejected” from her breakup with Bankman-Fried.

Ellison led Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research hedge fund and has pleaded guilty to defrauding investors and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. In December, Bankman-Fried said he and Ellison had been in a relationship but gave no further details.

Prosecutors said it was apparent Bankman-Fried shared documents with the New York Times and that his lawyers have since confirmed to the government that he met with one of the article’s authors in person and shared documents “that were not part of the government’s discovery material.”

Bankman-Fried’s spokesperson and lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The New York Times declined to comment, and Ellison’s lawyers did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The prosecutors argued that by sharing these documents, Bankman-Fried was trying to malign Ellison’s credibility, and that such conduct could chill witnesses from testifying and taint the jury pool.

“By selectively sharing certain private documents with the New York Times, the defendant is attempting to discredit a witness, cast Ellison in a poor light, and advance his defense through the press and outside the constraints of the courtroom and rules of evidence: that Ellison was a jilted lover who perpetrated these crimes alone”, prosecutors wrote in the letter.

Earlier on Thursday, FTX Trading sued founder Bankman-Fried and other former executives of the cryptocurrency exchange, seeking to recoup more than $1 billion (nearly Rs. 88,200 crore) they allegedly misappropriated before FTX went bankrupt.

© Thomson Reuters 2023  
 

Will the Nothing Phone 2 serve as the successor to the Phone 1, or will the two co-exist? We discuss the company’s recently launched handset and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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FTX Sues Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Seeks to Recoup Over $1 Billion

FTX Trading on Thursday sued founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other former executives of the cryptocurrency exchange, seeking to recoup more than $1 billion (nearly Rs. 8,200 crore) they allegedly misappropriated before FTX went bankrupt.

The complaint filed in Delaware bankruptcy court also names as defendants Caroline Ellison, who led Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research hedge fund; former FTX technology chief Zixiao “Gary” Wang; and former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh.

FTX said the defendants continually misappropriated funds to finance luxury condominiums, political contributions, speculative investments, and other “pet projects,” while committing “one of the largest financial frauds in history.”

The alleged fraudulent transfers occurred between February 2020 and November 2022 when FTX filed for Chapter 11 protection, and can be undone–or “avoided”–under the US bankruptcy code or Delaware law, FTX said.

A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment. Lawyers for the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

FTX is now led by John Ray, who helped manage Enron after the energy trader’s 2001 bankruptcy.

US prosecutors have called Bankman-Fried the mastermind of a fraud that led to FTX’s collapse, and included the misappropriation of billions of dollars of customer funds.

Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to several criminal charges. Ellison, Wang, and Singh have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

According to Thursday’s complaint, the fraudulent transfers included more than $725 million (roughly Rs. 5,990 crore) of equity that FTX and West Realm Shires, an entity that Bankman-Fried controlled, awarded “without receiving any value in exchange.”

FTX said Bankman-Fried and Wang also misappropriated $546 million (about Rs. 4,500 crore) to buy shares of Robinhood Markets, while Ellison used $28.8 million (about Rs. 236 crore) to pay herself bonuses.

It also said some of Bankman-Fried’s criminal defense is being funded from a $10 million (nearly Rs. 81, 950 crore) “gift” he gave his father.

“The transfers were made when (FTX-related entities) were insolvent, and defendants knew it,” FTX said.

Federal law lets bankruptcy trustees avoid transfers of property made in the two years before Chapter 11 filings if the transfers are made for less than their value and with an intent to defraud a bankruptcy estate.

The case is FTX Trading Ltd et al v Bankman-Fried et al, US Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 23-ap-50448. The main bankruptcy case is In re FTX Trading Ltd et al in the same court, No. 22-bk-11068. 

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Will the Nothing Phone 2 serve as the successor to the Phone 1, or will the two co-exist? We discuss the company’s recently launched handset and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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FTX Alleges Former Lawyer of Aiding Sam Bankman-Fried’s Fraud, Silencing Whistleblowers

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX sued one of its former top lawyers, accusing him of aiding fraud by company founder Sam Bankman-Fried and silencing whistleblowers who reported wrongdoing at the company.

The complaint, filed on Tuesday in US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, describes Daniel Friedberg, a former chief compliance officer at FTX and general counsel of its related crypto hedge fund Alameda Research, as a “fixer” for Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives who enabled the “wholesale raiding” of customer funds.

Friedberg “whitewashed” complaints from employees raising concerns about the activities of FTX and Alameda by settling claims for “inflated” amounts and in some cases hiring law firms that represented whistleblowers to perform legal work for FTX, the company said.

The settlement amounts are redacted in the complaint.

A lawyer for Friedberg and a spokesperson for FTX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit accuses Friedberg of legal malpractice and breaching his fiduciary duty. It seeks to claw back “tens of millions” worth of cryptocurrency Friedberg received while working for FTX, along with his compensation and $3 million (roughly Rs. 24 crore) in bonuses.

FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 after a run on customer deposits. The company’s new leadership has accused Bankman-Fried and his associates of widespread failures to implement corporate controls.

Bankman-Fried has been criminally charged in federal court in Manhattan with stealing billions in FTX customer funds to plug holes at the Alameda hedge fund and fund speculative investments. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty and denied stealing funds.

At least three other FTX executives have pleaded guilty to US charges.

Friedberg has cooperated with US investigations into the FTX collapse, Reuters has reported.

Friedberg served as an adviser to Bankman-Fried and his companies while working at law firm Fenwick & West. He became an in-house attorney at both FTX and Alameda in 2020.

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