Bitcoin: Censorship-Resistant Digital P2P Currency

[malchior]

One article I read mentioned other wealthy interests backed the $250M bond. The house had to be staked in to put some family skin in the game.

[LawBeefaroni]

One article I read mentioned other wealthy interests backed the $250M bond. The house had to be staked in to put some family skin in the game.

Yeah, I doubt they have $25M equity in the house. But it's even less skin if they don't actually own it.

[LordMortis]

CNBC reported yesterday the house is worth $4 million. No mention if is paid off. They also reported his passport was surrendered. He is supposed to have a very short leash around the house in CA and the courts in NY.

[LawBeefaroni]

Turns out it was a recognizance bond and they only put up the $4M house (with Stanford listed as primary owner). Nothing else, just his word that he'd show up or pay $250M. Literally, his word is bond.

[malchior]

Also turns out the judge just recused herself since her husband is a partner at firm that advised FTX last year.

[Max Peck]

On the one hand, you know that someone is going to prison if they were stealing from the rich and famous. On the other hand, it looks like at least some of the rich and famous only had skin in the game because they were paid (in shares?) to shill for FTX.

FTX bankruptcy docs show Tom Brady held over 1 million shares in the crypto exchange

Tom Brady’s weighty investment in FTX is on the verge of evaporating. New bankruptcy filings show that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback holds over 1.1 million common shares in the defunct cryptocurrency exchange, while his ex-wife and fashion model Gisele Bündchen holds around 680,000, as reported earlier by Bloomberg and Insider.

The NFL star and his then-wife have served as brand ambassadors for FTX since 2021 and even appeared in a series of commercials for the exchange (which really haven’t aged well). According to an estimate from Forbes, Brady’s investment was valued at around $45 million, while Bündchen’s was worth about $25 million. In its report, Insider notes, “During typical bankruptcy proceedings, only bond holders are able to recoup some of their losses, while equity investors are usually wiped out.”

Other high-profile figures listed as FTX equity holders include Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, as well as Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary. In December, O’Leary told CNBC that he lost the entirety of the $15 million FTX paid him to become a spokesperson for the exchange.

I'd guess that their losses will just be written off against their taxes and they'll all be just fine in the end.

[Max Peck]

Today I learned that Anthony Hopkins is shilling NFTs. Sadge.

https://twitter.com/AnthonyHopkins

[noxiousdog]

I'd guess that their losses will just be written off against their taxes and they'll all be just fine in the end.

It can only be used to offset capital gains taxes; not income taxes.

[LawBeefaroni]

I'd guess that their losses will just be written off against their taxes and they'll all be just fine in the end.

It can only be used to offset capital gains taxes; not income taxes.

So sick of Kevin O'Leary. He's a joke.

How do you know he's good at investing? Because he's on Shark Tank. Why is he on Shark Tank? Because he's good at investing.

[Max Peck]

I'd guess that their losses will just be written off against their taxes and they'll all be just fine in the end.

It can only be used to offset capital gains taxes; not income taxes.

They'll still be fine. They undoubtedly have other investments, and they all can't be tanking as badly as FTX.

[Isgrimnur]

Sam Bankman-Fried is sent to jail over alleged witness tampering

Prosecutors sought to revoke bail after what they described as a series of violations by Bankman-Fried, including contacting potential witnesses against him, using a virtual private network to subvert monitoring and speaking with a reporter about former FTX executive Caroline Ellison.

Ellison, who is also Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend, is one of several former business partners who has taken a plea deal and plans to testify against him.

Judge Kaplan on Friday sided with prosecutors’ claim that Bankman-Fried was “covering his tracks” when he allegedly leaked Ellison’s personal documents to the New York Times by allowing a reporter to review them in-person. Kaplan added that leaking an ex-girlfriend’s intimate writings would only be done “to hurt, discredit and frighten the subject of the material.”

Bankman-Fried’s attorneys argued that he has a right to defend his reputation in the press. They also stressed that the complexity of his defense, which involves hundreds of thousands of documents, requires Bankman-Fried to have regular access to a computer and the internet.

His lawyers had also agreed to a gag order that would limit Bankman-Fried’s contact with individuals outside of the case. But Kaplan said Friday that a gag order wouldn’t be sufficient, given Bankman-Fried’s history of toeing of the line.

[Isgrimnur]

Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty of fraud

After more than a month in trial, the jury took four and a half hours to decide Bankman-Fried’s fate, declaring him guilty on all seven charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is set to be sentenced by Judge Lewis Kaplan on March 28th of next year and faces decades in prison.
...
Bankman-Fried spent the months ahead of his trial antagonizing prosecutors and the court. Originally placed under house arrest, he was sent to jail in August for violations of his bail conditions, including using a VPN to watch a football game and leaking the diary entries of his ex-girlfriend — former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty to federal charges and testified against him in trial — to The New York Times.
...
In court, Bankman-Fried’s defense argued that he had honestly failed at operating a high-risk business. He denied directly supervising the damning code updates that allowed Alameda to spend FTX funds and said he had not participated in trading or questioned employees about billions of missing dollars. His testimony was contradicted by Ellison, his former roommates Adam Yedidia and Gary Wang (the cofounder of FTX), and family friend Nishad Singh; all had worked under Bankman-Fried and later cooperated with prosecutors. Wang, Singh, and Ellison are awaiting sentencing.

[em2nought]

Oh to see the entire world thru this sketch artists eyes.

Sam Bankman

[Max Peck]

Crypto Bros Report Burning Eyes and Skin at Bored Ape Bacchanal

What began as a jovial conference celebrating crypto culture and flashy nonfungible tokens this weekend ended with multiple attendees in a hospital believing they were going blind.

Several people who attended this year’s “ApeFest” Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection event in Hong Kong reported waking up in the middle of the night with burning sensations in their eyes and fears of vision loss following one of the events. At least three attendees posting about their experiences on Twitter, now called X, claimed to have sought medical attention to treat their mysterious ailment.

“I woke up at 04:00 and couldn’t see anymore,” one of the attendees going by the handle @CryptoJune777 wrote. “Had so much pain and my whole skin is burned. Needed to go to the hospital.”

“Woke up at 3am with extreme pain and ended up in the ER,” another person added.

Though the exact cause of the eye issues remains unclear, attendees speculated it could have something to do with particularly bright flashing lights emanating from the conference stage. One attendee who claims to have sought medical attention cited a doctor who claimed powerful UV lighting could have been the culprit for his burning eyes. Another victim who visited a doctor claims they were diagnosed with photokeratitis—also known as “welder’s flash”—and was prescribed steroid eye drops.

[Isgrimnur]

This is the world libertarians want! /s

[Isgrimnur]

CEO of Binance expected to plead guilty to money laundering violations

Billionaire Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is expected to plead guilty to money laundering violations as part of a settlement with the US government that would ease the intense cloud of legal scrutiny hovering over the company, a person familiar with the matter tells CNN. Binance is also expected to expected to plead guilty to the charges.

As part of the agreement, Binance has agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines and other penalties, a second source tells CNN.

Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance, has amassed a fortune that Bloomberg pegs at more than $23 billion.

News of the deal, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, comes as US officials say they plan to announce a “major illicit financial enforcement action” related to cryptocurrencies later on Tuesday at an event that will include Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

[LordMortis]

CEO of Binance expected to plead guilty to money laundering violations

Billionaire Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is expected to plead guilty to money laundering violations as part of a settlement with the US government that would ease the intense cloud of legal scrutiny hovering over the company, a person familiar with the matter tells CNN. Binance is also expected to expected to plead guilty to the charges.

As part of the agreement, Binance has agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines and other penalties, a second source tells CNN.

Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance, has amassed a fortune that Bloomberg pegs at more than $23 billion.

News of the deal, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, comes as US officials say they plan to announce a “major illicit financial enforcement action” related to cryptocurrencies later on Tuesday at an event that will include Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Reports this morning are he's getting a plea deal that amounts to nothing. 18 months, 50 million, stay out of Binance for 3 years out of his 23 Billion worth achieved through financing terrorist with his money laundering. Crazy.

[Victoria Raverna]

So whose fund did he launder? Which terrorist?

[LordMortis]

So whose fund did he launder? Which terrorist?

Al Queada and Hamas were listed by name on CNBC this morning as well as "child abuse" Let me see if I can find a link....

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/21/binance ... -down.html

It also allowed transactions associated with terrorist groups such as Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, al-Qaida and ISIS, Yellen said in the release, noting Binance “never filed a single suspicious activity report.”

[Victoria Raverna]

So all the bad guys.

[Victoria Raverna]

Looking at this case, it looks like the "censorship-resistant" aspect of bitcoin or other cybercurrency turned out to be false. It is still being censored by US.

[LawBeefaroni]

$69.5K

[jztemple2]

Just saw this and thought folks here might be interested: The World’s Largest Corporate Holders of Bitcoin

Who holds the most bitcoins across publicly traded companies?

While Tesla is the most familiar name across the world’s largest corporate buyers, several companies have amassed far more bitcoin—leading their share prices to skyrocket in value last year. At the same time, the vast majority are found in North America, with the exception of Nexon, a Japanese-based video game publisher.

This graphic shows the public companies that own the most bitcoin, based on data from CoinGecko.