SOL Now $10, SBF’s Plea Deal, And…

After Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison entered into a plea deal for leniency in her own case, Sam Bankman-Fried is set to plead out himself. Let’s dig deeper into the latest news in the FTX debacle and other noteworthy events that took place this week. 

Bitcoin

The Pacific Island of Fiji has elected a new Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, who took office on December 24, and is reportedly pro-Bitcoin.

Ryan Selkis, the co-founder and CEO of Messari, recently published his 2023 Crypto Theses report, where he looks at key trends and his predictions for the coming year.

Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy sold 704 BTCs last week but also bought 2,395 BTCs over the last couple of months.

A Bitcoin Charity Event has been organized to commemorate BTC-early adopter Hal Finney to collect funds for ALS research. Finney himself passed away from complications arising from his own ALS diagnosis in 2014. 

ProtonMail founder and CEO Andy Yen has expressed his doubts about whether the firm will continue to hold Bitcoin (BTC) in the future, expressing concern at the current state of the crypto markets.

Crypto Assets Manager Valkyrie Investments has unveiled a proposal to become the sponsor and manager of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

DeFi

Crypto investment firm Midas is shutting down its DeFi platform after suffering irrevocable losses in the Terra, Celsius, and FTX crashes. 

The FBI has arrested the infamous Mango Markets hacker, Avraham Eisenberg, on charges of fraud and market manipulation. 

Eisenberg still claims that he did nothing illegal and that his exploits were a part of a profitable trading strategy. 

Altcoins

With the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research, Solana is one of the most affected altcoins, hitting a new local low of $10 after losing 95% of its value in 2022. 

Technology 

The Venezuelan banking watchdog, Sudeban, is working on a system to monitor crypto-related transactions in real time to control any negative impact on the stability of the exchange market. 

Indian crypto exchanges suffered extremely badly during the crypto bear market of 2022, with the trading volume on WazirX falling a massive 97% over the year.

The FTX/Alameda plot thickens as wallets belonging to Alameda suddenly became active on December 28. $1.7 million was put through mixers and swapped for stablecoins and BTC.

In a Twitter Spaces chat on Wednesday, Michael Saylor outlined how Microstrategy can contribute to the Bitcoin and Lightning ecosystem.

Blockchain Protocol Coti, the protocol behind Cardano’s new stablecoin, has announced that it has successfully upgraded its network, MultiDAG 2.0. 

Car manufacturing company BMW has integrated blockchain solutions through BNB Chain and Coinweb for its loyalty program.

Business

Gemini crypto exchange founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, are reportedly facing a new lawsuit from investors over the interest-earning program Gemini Earn. 

After claiming for days that platform users had just fallen for phishing scams, 3Commas CEO finally admitted that compromised API keys were behind the loss of funds. 

Crypto exchange Binance will now allow users to buy cryptocurrencies on its platform using the payment services of Apple Pay and Google Pay. 

A JPMorgan analyst has revealed that large institutional investors are actively avoiding crypto, with the asset class not even on their radar regarding investments. 

Crypto.com promoted its COO, Eric Anziani, to President, who will now carry out both roles.

Fidelity Investments has filed trademark applications in the U.S. for a number of Web 3.0 products and services including an NFT marketplace along with crypto trading services in the metaverse.

Kraken has decided to close its operations in Japan and deregister from the Financial Services Agency, blaming a weak market.

Regulation

According to reports, Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to enter a plea over his involvement in the FTX collapse. 

Binance France has been sued by fifteen investors who claim that the cryptocurrency giant violated local regulations by misleading customers.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.