Tel Aviv’s Magistrate Court has reportedly issued a ruling allowing Israel’s government to seize all the crypto in more than 150 digital wallets it blacklisted over alleged links to funding terrorist groups. According to Dec. 18 local Israeli media reports, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has revealed the court’s Dec. 15 ruling has already allowed authorities to seize a further…
United States Banking Committee chairman Sherrod Brown has suggested that the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) should perhaps consider a ban on cryptocurrencies. Brown’s comments were made in a Dec. 18 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” although the Senator quickly added that a ban would be difficult to enforce. “We want them to…
More than 350 fraudulent cryptocurrency tokens were created per day this year, defrauding millions of investors, according to blockchain risk monitoring firm Solidus Labs. From the start of the year to Dec. 1, 117,629 “scam tokens” were deployed according to Solidus’ 2022 “Rug Pull Report.” That’s a 41% increase from the nearly 83,400 scam tokens Solidus detected in 2021. It…
Days after being widely reported as being “in good spirits” at Fox Hill prison, disgraced FTX founder Sam-Bankman Fried is expected to reverse course on plans to fight extradition from The Bahamas. The former executive’s legal team is expected in Bahamanian court on Monday to waive its earlier notice, which came as bail was denied and an extradition hearing was…
Several members of the U.S. Democratic Party and campaign committees are reportedly being probed by federal prosecutors over donations from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and another executive of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange. “To any person, entity, or political campaign that has received stolen customer money, we ask that you work with us to return that money to the…
The Federal Reserve’s strategy to hike interest rates may continue, making it difficult for the crypto industry to bounce back. For crypto assets to become the hedge against inflation, the industry needs to explore ways to decouple crypto from traditional markets. Decentralized finance (DeFi) can perhaps offer a way out by breaking away from legacy financial models. How Federal Reserve…
According to multiple reports, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents face scrutiny over their reported involvement with their son’s business operations. The two Stanford professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried have not been charged with any wrongdoing, but the current FTX CEO, John J. Ray III, recently told members of the U.S. Congress that Joseph Bankman and “the family certainly received…
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce says the so-called Howey test, used by the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine whether a digital asset should be classified as a security, has some limitations. The test stems from a landmark Supreme Court case decided in 1946, establishing criteria under which a financial agreement qualifies as an “investment contract” and is therefore subject to…
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty target is expected to increase on Dec. 19, 2022, after printing the largest reduction recorded in 2022 on Dec. 5, at block height 766,080. During the last 2,016 blocks, Bitcoin’s hashrate has been around 254.3 exahash per second (EH/s), and block intervals have been faster at 9:41 minutes per block. Bitcoin’s Difficulty Expected to Jump 3% Higher…
Users of the crypto exchange Gate.io are facing slow deposits and withdrawals on transactions due to a node maintenance from a third-party cloud provider, according to an announcement on Dec. 18. Gate.io said the transactions are still being processed, and claimed the funds of users are safe. The company stated: “At this moment, we are monitoring the network connection status…
