“Digital Currency”

The ‘next Warren Buffett’ looks more like Jeff Skilling

In recent weeks, the world’s richest man and his flailing attempts to figure out what to do with Twitter have dominated the news cycle. However, his unhinged management-by-tweets reality show are nothing compared to an almighty tussle between two crypto-bros.

Internet magic money (aka crypto) billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, better known as SBF, is the man behind FTX, a crypto exchange. He seems to have angered fellow magic money billionaire and fremeny, Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ and CEO of the rival exchange Binance. It might have to do with FTX cozying up to regulators to get the regulations beneficial to the FTX but not its rivals.

A Ponzi scheme if ever there was.

From his home in New Zealand, the YouTuber Danny de Hek assails what he calls a dangerous and deceptive scheme, one rant at a time.

Last year, Danny de Hek was a social media guru badly in need of a social media guru. A buoyant New Zealander with geeky glasses, he dispensed advice about how to vastly expand your online audience, to a group of just 350 subscribers.

He earned a living by drop shipping electronics as he searched for ways to make serious money. Then, in February, the husband of a friend sent the 52-year-old Mr. de Hek an email crowing about a company that somehow guaranteed outsize and clockwork returns. Investors in what was then known as HyperFund — it has since been rebranded twice — could triple their money in 600 days.

FTX: Crypto giant collapses into bankruptcy

Embattled cryptocurrency exchange FTX has filed for bankruptcy in the US, seeking court protection as it looks for a way to return money to users.

Former boss Sam Bankman-Fried has also stepped down as chief executive, the company said.

It is a massive turn of fortunes for the 30-year-old, who had headed the world’s second largest crypto exchange.

SBF, the crypto billionaire whose entire scheme just crumbled, was a huge donor to Biden and the Dem Party. I guess if you want to blissfully believe this had nothing to do with the lack of scrutiny on his business, feel free. The irony is he might still get punished. Here's why: https://t.co/EvWcTbUTVG

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 11, 2022

The US Department of Justice has revealed it seized $3.36bn (£2.9bn) of Bitcoin last year which was stolen from an infamous darknet website.

The stash of 50,676 Bitcoin was found hidden on various devices in a hacker’s home in an underfloor safe and inside a popcorn tin.

James Zhong has pleaded guilty to hacking the funds in 2012 from the illegal Silk Road marketplace.

US authorities say the seizure is the second largest in history.

Kim Kardashian settles with SEC over crypto promotion

Kim Kardashian has agreed to pay $1.26 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency on Instagram without disclosing she’d been paid $250,000 to do so.

The SEC said Monday that the reality TV star and entrepreneur has agreed to cooperate with its ongoing investigation.

You deserve your pain

Two McLarens, two BMWs and a Lamborghini make up just a few of the $2 million worth of assets seized from a 23-year-old from Whitby, Ont., as his investors try to recoup millions of dollars they handed over to the self-described “Crypto King.”

But so far, Aiden Pleterski’s assets fall far short of what his investors claim they’re owed.

Creditors are working to unravel where at least $35 million provided to Pleterski and his company AP Private Equity Limited for cryptocurrency and foreign exchange investments ended up, according to a fraud recovery lawyer and documents filed in two separate actions reviewed by CBC Toronto.

I’m curious to see if the Crypto King’s ‘I’m just a 20 something kid’ defense holds up in court.

This is almost painful to read.

Investing in cryptocurrencies was the get-rich craze of the pandemic. Then came the $2 trillion crash. Was it a giant Ponzi scheme all along?

The reality finally hit Fynn Weisgerber, 17, when he was driving home from football practice in May. He pulled over and cried.

“I was having a mental breakdown,” he recalls. “I had just watched $1 million disappear before my eyes in, like, hours. It was crazy how fast it happened.”

Authorities are moving in on the industry

This week, it was revealed that the crypto exchange Coinbase is facing an investigation from the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over allowing its users to speculate on unregistered securities. Reports claimed that regulatory officials began taking a “closer look” at Coinbase when it enabled trading of an additional 100 tokens on its platform. How this was the first red flag to provoke a serious examination remains a mystery to outside observers.

The ‘cryptopocalypse’ shines a light on a murky world that has lost punters billions

Alex Mashinsky sat po-faced in a suit and tie – a stark change from his typical T-shirts emblazoned with “banks are not your friends”. It was the millionaire’s first public appearance since his cryptocurrency company froze the accounts of 1.7m customers in June – and he was watching its bankruptcy hearing last week.

The collapse of Celsius, which was valued at $3bn (£2.5bn) with $25bn in assets, has been described as cryptocurrency’s “Lehman moment”.

Other lenders and exchanges are still grappling with what Mashinsky calls a “cryptopocalypse”, desperately trying to borrow their way out of a market rout that has wiped trillions from the value of digital coins. A string of bankruptcies has shone a light on the murky world of cryptocurrency lending that has so far cost investors billions of pounds.

Has anyone else noticed how news on the cryptocollapse has been strangely muted these last weeks?

An ex-Canadian government IT worker has admitted to being a high-level hacker with a Russian cyber-crime group.

Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins, from Quebec, Canada, has agreed to plead guilty in a Florida court.

The 34-year-old was affiliated to the NetWalker ransomware crew, which has attacked companies, municipalities, hospitals, schools and universities.

When he was arrested, police discovered he was in possession of $27m (£22.2m) in Bitcoin.

Richard Heart spooned a dollop of $600-an-ounce albino sturgeon caviar out of its gold tin and shovelled it into his mouth. “In honour of the bear market, I am eating what might be the world’s most expensive caviar,” he said in a video posted to his Twitter account last week. “It actually tastes pretty nice. It’s like eating the tears of my haters.”