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 Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly not planning on fighting his extradition order to the U.S. The disgraced co-founder of FTX has been held at Fox Hill, a prison in Nassau, Bahamas. More: - SBF was denied bail and expected to remain until February.
- Upon arrival, SBF appeared "a little arrogant" and "awfully scared" but seemed like a "nice guy" when he settled in, according to sources at the prison.
- His lawyers were planning to fight his extradition to the U.S.
- However, unnamed sources close to the matter have disclosed that Bankman-Fried will no longer fight the extradition.
- It is not clear what caused him to shift his stance.
Zoom out: - Caroline Ellison, SBF's ex-girlfriend, was the CEO at crypto hedge fund Alameda Research.
- The SEC's complaint on Tuesday claimed that Bankman-Fried "remained the ultimate decision-maker" at Alameda, even after Ellison took over the reins.
- No charges or government complaints are currently filed against Ellison, 28.
- Ellison is working with authorities to "spin her narrative" and has hired Stephanie Avakian, former director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement.
- She may be working with the feds against her ex-lover SBF because she has "a choice to make," says Former U.S. Attorney Marc Litt.
- Co-CEO Ryan Salame had resigned days before FTX filed for bankruptcy; court filings show that Salame tipped off Bahamian authorities that FTX was transferring customer funds to Alameda Research, and the transfer was "not allowed or consented to by their clients."
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 South Korean authorities believe that TerraLabs founder Do Kwon is hiding in Serbia. Authorities in the U.S. are also probing into disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's role in the collapse of the Terra Labs ecosystem; Do Kwon infers that Alameda Research was involved in moving tokens. More: - Kwon, 31, a disgraced tycoon behind the collapse of the TerraUSD and Luna in May, is charged with fraud and breaches of capital markets law after the tokens collapsed.
- In September, Interpol issued an international warrant for his arrest
- Kwon, a South Korean national, had made his way from Singapore to Dubai and finally to Serbia.
- "I am not 'on the run,'" says Kwon to his followers on Twitter.
- South Korea and Serbia do not have an extradition treaty, but in the past, both have agreed to requests under the European Convention on Extradition.
- Korean authorities say they will work with the Serbian government to arrest and extradite him.
Zoom out: - U.S. prosecutors are re-examining SBF's role in the implosion of Terra's algorithmic stablecoin.
- Terra ecosystem had a symbiotic relationship between two tokens governed by code; if the price of UST went over $1, traders would swap Luna for UST at a profit, and vice versa.
- Investors lost confidence in one, and the other token collapsed to nearly zero.
- UST's issuer, Terraform Labs, withdrew $150M in UST liquidity from Curve on May 7; A minute later, an unknown wallet and 12 others started moving tokens worth $84M to $321M UST from the pool for USDC.
- The main user behind the $84M withdrawal also withdrew $193M in UST from Anchor.
- Kwon issued a statement on Twitter claiming that FTX's sister firm Alameda was behind dropping the value of TerraUSD (UST).
- Coinage tweeted, labeling SBF a "criminal" and describing Kwon as failing "at an ambitious project."
- 3AC, a failed crypto hedge fund, also took the opportunity to claim that FTX caused the debtor's collapse; however, unlike TerraLabs, 3AC founders were being called out on Twitter for sidestepping responsibility for 3AC creditors.
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 Donald Trump's NFT collection sold out in less than an hour and generated $4.5M in sales. The NFTs were priced at $99 each, and all 44,000 sold out on Thursday and doubled in value to $230 at the time of writing. More: - Trump made a "major announcement" on his Truth Social media platform last week that he was releasing his NFT collection.
- The NFTs feature cartoon images of Trump where he is dressed as a cowboy, a superhero, etc.
- Trump described the collection as "very much like a baseball card but hopefully much more exciting" and said they would make for great Christmas gifts.
- Trump's NFT announcement drew criticism and mockery, even from his right-wing Republican allies.
- Steve Bannon said Trump staff behind the idea "ought to be fired."
- In February, Bloomberg reported that the art of Melania Trump, which sold for $180,000, had been purchased by a wallet tied to the image's creator.
- OpenSea data shows that the collection's trading volume was 900 ETH, or about $1.08M. Its floor price is about 0.19 ETH, or about $230, which doubled the original price of $99.
- Trump's NFT featuring him in front of the Statue of Liberty holding a torch is currently listed at 20 ETH, or about $24,000.
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 Binance's BNB token declined 15% in the past week as the world's largest crypto exchange faces more scrutiny. Investors are monitoring the crypto exchange after it experienced withdrawals valued at billions in 24 hours. More: - Binance's native token, BNB, has fallen 15% in the past week, including a drop of over 6% in the past 24 hours.
- Investors are keeping a close eye on the digital exchange, and to boost confidence, the crypto exchange released a "proof of reserves" report.
- The report showed that Binance customers' funds are held in their accounts and not loaned out (like FTX); the report included Mazar's accounting firm.
- Binance's Bitcoin liabilities are $245M, much bigger than its assets.
- $75B worth of reserves are in its stablecoin, BUSD, and its native token, BNB.
- Mazar temporarily suspended services to crypto firms on Friday due to the general public's lack of understanding of these reports.
- Binance has seen more withdrawals on its platform due to a potential DOJ money laundering investigation.
- Net outflows worth $3B were seen on the platform on Tuesday.
- Prosecutors are still determining whether to file criminal charges against Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao and other executives.
- Reuters claims that Binance processed over $10B in illegal payments in 2022.
- CZ dismisses any concerns as "FUD" — the spread of baseless fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
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 Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) says perhaps regulators need to ban crypto following the sudden fallout of FTX last month. "Maybe banning it, although banning it is very difficult because it will go offshore and who knows how that will work," Brown said. More: - The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing on the collapse of FTX.
- Brown explains that the cryptocurrency market is a "complicated, unregulated pot of money," and the challenges in this market far exceed the FTX collapse, "So we've got to do this right," says the senator.
- Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tina Smith, D-Minn., members of the Senate Banking, House and Urban Affairs Committee, issued letters to the Federal Reserve last week on possible ties between the industry and digital currency exchanges.
- It appears crypto firms may have closer ties to the banking system than previously understood," the senators wrote to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
- For instance, FTX's sister company Alameda Research invested $11.5M in Washington state-based Moonstone Bank.
- Silvergate Capital Corp., Provident Bancorp Inc., Metropolitan Commercial Bank, Signature Bank, and Customers Bancorp Inc. are all facing volatility due to the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX.
- 90% of Silvergate's overall deposits were in crypto.
Zoom out: - Lawrence Wong, Singapore's deputy prime minister and minister of finance, told parliament the FTX collapse may have caused reputational damage, and many believe that authorities could have done more and more regulation is needed.
- "Just because there is a lot of scam in crypto, doesn't mean crypto is a scam," and "these companies are good; we've seen their books," says Nicole Yap, a crypto investor.
- Singapore introduced new rules for crypto even before the FTX saga, and despite the turmoil in the industry, the country remains optimistic about it.
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 Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says Elon Musk is putting Twitter on the path of "authoritarianism." Buterin is not pleased with Twitter CEO Elon Musk's content moderation decisions on the platform More: - David Sacks, the general partner of Craft Ventures, tweeted listing Elon's decisions on the platform, asking, "What's the problem?"
- Buterin replied, "The problem is the way in which the policies were introduced, seeming to retrofit around Elon's views on very specific situations."
- Musk's decisions have received mixed reviews from users; Musk suspended the accounts of journalists for covering data on Musk's private jet.
- @ElonJet, which tracks Elon's jet, and @CelebJets accounts, which tracks celebrity-owned private jets, gained access to publicly available flight data and then reposted it on Twitter; this is legal in the U.S.
- Buterin also criticized Musk for suspending links to Mastodon, a rival social networking platform: "This is really bad IMO."
- Mastodon's official Twitter account was also suspended for connection to adding links from the "ElonJet" account.
- Musk released a poll on Twitter asking users if he should step down as CEO; the Twitter poll raked in 14,881,111 votes, with 57.2% of the voters wanting him to step down as CEO.
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 |  | Gia Mattu is based in Calgary, Alberta. She is an entrepreneur with experience in climate technology, drones, AI, machine learning, and blockchain technology. When she's not working, she loves to hike the Canadian Rockies, try new cuisine, and travel. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 and 1972 Fords. | |
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