Sam Bankman-Fried’s life in jail, Twister Money’s turmoil, $3B BTC..

High Tales This Week

Twister Money co-founders charged with cash laundering, sanctions violations

United States officers pressed prices towards the co-founders of crypto mixer Twister Money on Aug. 23. Roman Storm and Roman Semenov had been each charged with conspiracy to commit cash laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations and conspiracy to function an unlicensed money-transmitting enterprise. Storm was arrested and launched on bail a couple of days later, whereas Semenov was added to the U.S. checklist of Specifically Designated Nationals and Blocked Individuals. Mixed, the fees carry a most sentence of 45 years in jail. The third Twister Money co-founder, Alexey Pertsev, was arrested within the Netherlands on cash laundering prices in August 2022. The regulation enforcement actions are a continuation of a U.S. authorities crackdown on Twister Money that started final 12 months as a result of its alleged function in laundering funds of the Lazarus Group, a North Korean-linked hacking collective. Twister Money has been implicated in a number of different hacks as effectively. All instructed, the mixer has laundered over $1 billion in ill-gotten features, the U.S. Division of Justice alleges.

Sam Bankman-Fried is low on meds, dwelling on $3 peanut butter in jail

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried seems to be having a tricky time behind bars, consuming solely bread with peanut butter to accommodate his vegan weight-reduction plan whereas exhausting his provide of prescription medicine. In the identical listening to the place Bankman-Fried pleaded not responsible to seven fraud-related prices, his attorneys pleaded for the previous FTX CEO to obtain higher therapy inside Brooklyn’s infamous Metropolitan Detention Middle. Additionally this week, Bankman-Fried was granted permission to satisfy together with his authorized staff exterior of jail with 48 hours’ discover. Every single day, he can have roughly seven hours to arrange for his upcoming trial anticipated to start in October.

Thriller solved: Bitcoin pockets accruing $3B in 3 months is recognized

The mysterious Bitcoin pockets that surged up the ranks to change into the third-largest holder of Bitcoin on this planet in simply over three months, has been recognized. Blockchain intelligence platform Arkham Intelligence labeled the pockets as Robinhood: Bounce Buying and selling Custody. In line with knowledge from crypto statistics platform BitInfoCharts, the pockets tackle first acquired Bitcoin on March 8. Over the course of the following three months and two weeks, the pockets had accrued a staggering 118,000 BTC — price $3.08 billion at present costs. The present largest Bitcoin wallets on this planet, in accordance with BitInfoCharts, are reportedly owned by Binance and Bitfinex — as Bitcoin chilly wallets.

Prime Belief guardian firm misplaced $8M investing in TerraUSD

The guardian firm of crypto custodian Prime Belief — at the moment concerned in Chapter 11 chapter proceedings — has reported shedding roughly $8 million in consumer and treasury funds by means of TerraUSD investments, presumably when the algorithmic stablecoin collapsed in Could 2022. The corporate described the funding in addition to a ramping up of spending in October and November 2022 — within the midst of FTX’s collapse — as contributing to its chapter submitting. Court docket paperwork present Prime Belief owed greater than $85 million in fiat and $69.5 million in crypto to its purchasers. The collapse of the Terra ecosystem triggered a serious market crash in 2022, affecting a number of corporations together with FTX, BlockFi, Celsius Community and Voyager Digital.

PEPE whale seizes dip alternative, buys $529K price of tokens

A Pepe holder purchased 640 billion Pepe tokens for 320 Ether valued at $529,000 after the worth of the frog-themed memecoin dropped by roughly 15% as a result of current adjustments to a multisig pockets and issues about potential developer manipulation. In line with on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, the whale bought PEPE at a median value of $0.000001163. The worth of the once-popular memecoin plunged after adjustments associated to the quantity of signatures required to signal transactions led to worries a couple of potential “rug pull,” which was later confirmed by one of many venture’s co-founders.

Winners and Losers

On the finish of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $26,040, Ether (ETH) at $1,653 and XRP at $0.52. The entire market cap is at $1.05 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the many greatest 100 cryptocurrencies, the highest three altcoin gainers of the week are Bone ShibaSwap (BONE) at 18.58%, Sui (SUI) at 12.86% and Toncoin (TON) at 11.97%. 

The highest three altcoin losers of the week are Pepe (PEPE) at -21.07%, XDC Community (XDC) at -9.62% and ApeCoin (APE) at -8.35%.

For more information on crypto costs, make sure that to learn Cointelegraph’s market evaluation.

Most Memorable Quotations

“If historical past had been to repeat itself, the following halving would see bitcoin rising to $35k earlier than the halving and $148k after.”

Pantera Capital

“A brand new computing period has begun. Firms worldwide are transitioning from general-purpose to accelerated computing and generative AI.”

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA

“A few of the individuals who at the moment suppose that there shouldn’t be efficient regulation enforcement on-chain would really feel in a different way in the event that they obtained hacked, defrauded, or misplaced their non-public keys.”

Mike Kanovitz, CEO of Jurat

“You could possibly by no means underestimate the injury the SEC’s lawsuit has prompted – not solely towards Ripple – however #XRP. Three years of adoption – that’s what it’s prompted.”

John Deaton, pro-XRP lawyer

“AI won’t ever substitute human creativity as a result of it would all the time lack the important spark that drives essentially the most proficient artists to do their greatest work, which is intention.”

Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube

“Blockchain and AI can definitely co-exist — they’re each pillars of Web3.”

Aydin Kilic, CEO of Hive Digital Applied sciences

Prediction of the Week 

Bitcoin ‘overconfidence reigns’ however bulls should reclaim $27.8K — Dealer

Bitcoin must reclaim one key shifting common to “regain its bullish standing,” argues fashionable pseudonymous analyst CryptoCon, warning that bulls remained too optimistic in regards to the $26,000 BTC value assist holding.

For CryptoCon, the 20-week exponential shifting common (EMA), now at $27,750, should be gained again as assist to ensure that the uptrend to be protected. “I’ve been overlaying this shifting common so much lately, however I imagine it’s crucial for Bitcoin to regain its bullish standing,” he wrote.

The evaluation in contrast present BTC value motion to its rebound from 2018 cycle lows. “It is rather essential that Bitcoin each rises above and retests the 20 Week EMA as assist,” CryptoCon famous with a chart displaying the similarities between 2019 and 2023, with the retest and subsequent profitable EMA reclaim circled.

FUD of the Week 

Chinese language official sentenced to life in jail for Bitcoin mining, corruption

A Chinese language authorities official has been sentenced to life in prison for illegitimate business operations related to running a 2.4 billion Chinese yuan ($329 million) Bitcoin mining enterprise and for unrelated charges of corruption. Prosecutors say Xiao Yi — a former member of the Jiangxi Provincial Political Consultative Conference Party Group — “covered up” the mining operation by instructing relevant departments to fabricate statistical reports and adjust the classification of electricity consumption. From 2017 to 2020, his facility’s electricity consumption accounted for 10% of the city of Fuzhou’s total electricity consumption.

FBI flags 6 Bitcoin wallets linked to North Korea, urges vigilance in crypto firms

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has flagged six Bitcoin wallets linked to North Korean state-backed hacking group Lazarus. The six wallets contain 1,580 BTC worth $40 million believed to be hoarded from various cryptocurrency hacks over the past year. The FBI in its investigation found that Lazarus Group moved approximately 1,580 BTC linked with several crypto exploits. The hacking group has been actively involved in multiple crypto-linked exploits over the years and are believed to have stolen nearly $2 billion in crypto since 2018.

OpenSea manager accused of insider trading sentenced to 3 months in prison, $50K fine

A federal judge has sentenced former OpenSea product manager Nathaniel Chastain to three months in prison for wire fraud and money laundering related to insider trading on the platform. He was accused of using insider information in his position at OpenSea to profit off the trading of NFTs. In his position as product manager, he had the authority to choose which NFTs would be featured on the OpenSea website. He purchased 45 NFTs prior to them being featured and then resold them.

Recursive inscriptions: Bitcoin ‘supercomputer’ and BTC DeFi coming soon

Some believe that Ordinals and recursive inscriptions could supercharge the Bitcoin network as a viable competitor to smart contract platforms. It’s not going to be easy, though.

From crying in his car to putting the first 3D object onchain — the story of Giant Swan. Plus royalties race to the bottom accelerates due to OpenSea.

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Editorial Staff

Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.