The Bahamas Regulator Denies Requesting FTX To Manufacture New Tokens

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The allegations made by FTX debtors have been rejected by the Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB), which also expresses worry over the fact that the inquiry has been hampered.

According to a statement that was made public on January 3rd, the SCB had to provide clarifications on significant inaccuracies that were made by John J. Ray III, the representative of the United States-based FTX debtors, in press and court files.

The Chapter 11 Debtors had made a public challenge to the Commission’s assessments of the value of digital assets that had been moved to digital wallets that were in the authority of the Commission in November 2022.

It stated that these assertions were based on inadequate information and that the debtors did not exercise due diligence by obtaining information from the Joint Provisional Liquidators. Additionally, it claimed that these statements were based on incorrect information.

During a court filing before the United States House of Financial Services Committee, the CEO of FTX, John J. Ray III, testified under oath and made public statements alleging that the Commission instructed FTX to mint a substantial amount of new tokens. This allegation was made in the statement.

The Chapter 11 Debtors have also said that the digital assets that are in the custody of the Commission and held in trust for FTX customers and creditors have been stolen. However, the Chapter 11 Debtors have not provided any evidence to support their assertions.

The Commission expressed its worry that its investigation is being hindered because the Chapter 11 Debtors are refusing to let the Court Supervised Joint Provisional Liquidators access to FTX’s AWS System. The Commission is concerned that this denial would jeopardize the inquiry.

The announcement made by the Bahamian securities regulator follows news from court filings made in December 2022, in which FTX lawyers claimed that the government of the Bahamas reportedly requested that the former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), issue a new cryptocurrency controlled by local officials. The announcement comes after the news was made public.

According to the original allegations, the Bahamas regulator allegedly requested that SBF issue new digital assets with a total value of hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Morocco Completed Crypto Regulation

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It’s possible that Morocco will introduce its first crypto law sometime in the next few days The paper was initially produced by the Central Bank, and it is currently being reviewed by the industry stakeholders that have an interest in the topic.

Towards the end of the month, during the course of the press conference, the Governor of Morocco’s Central Bank, Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM), Abdellatif Jouahiri, announced that there would be a series of meetings that would take place between the BAM and the market actors.

In addition, regulatory authorities from Morocco, such as the Moroccan Capital Markets Authority (AMMC), the Insurance Supervisory Authority, and the Social Security Authority, will be among the participants (ACAPS).

It is going to take place before any crypto-related law is ever put into effect.

The BAM collaborated with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank during the process of putting up the document. This was done in coordination with the World Bank.

Moroccan authorities are said to have also contacted the central banks of France, Sweden, and Switzerland in order to investigate their level of competence in regulatory matters pertaining to digital assets. This was done in an effort to learn more about the regulatory capabilities of these three countries.

The definition of crypto that will be provided by the proposal will be one that is specific to the circumstances in Morocco. The definition will make an effort to protect individuals without restricting innovation in any way.

Even though the details of the bill have not been made public, it is reasonable to expect that it will contain restrictions that are significantly more stringent than those that are already mandated by law, which makes it unlawful to engage in cryptocurrency trading.

The proportion of Moroccans who claimed to own digital assets went from 2.4% in 2021 to 3.1% in 2022, making Morocco the country in Northern Africa with the industry that was expanding at the fastest rate in 2022.

To the findings of a study that was just made public by Chainalysis, the sector of the cryptocurrency industry that is active in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the one that is expanding at the rate that is the most rapid across the entire world. The number of transactions that took place in the MENA region between July 2021 and June 2022, it is clear that consumers obtained a total of 566 billion dollars’ worth of bitcoin during that time period.

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Lee Jung-Hoon, Former Bithumb Chair Acquitted In First Instance

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The 34th Division of the Criminal Agreement of the Seoul Central District Court said on January 3 that it has found Lee Jung-hoon, the former chair of the cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb in South Korea, not guilty of the charges brought against him.

Due to allegations of fraud, Jung-Hoon was on trial for allegedly breaking the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (Act on the Aggravated Punishment Of Specific Economic Crimes Act).

Since October 2018, when negotiations for the acquisition of Bithumb from Kim Byung-gun, chairman of the cosmetic surgery company BK Group, were taking place, the case has been ongoing. It is alleged that the former chairman defrauded Kim Byung-gun of 100 billion won ($70 million) during those negotiations.

Should Jung-hoon have been found guilty, the maximum term he might have received was eight years in prison.

According to the local press, in the formal answer that Bithumb provided to the judgement, the company stated that it respects the decision made by the court.

The conversation also made it clear that the company is managed by “professional management” and that the previous chairman is not involved in the day-to-day business activities.

After being accused of stock price manipulation and embezzlement, Bithumb’s largest shareholder executive, Park Mo, was discovered dead on December 30, almost a week before the decision was issued.

In August of 2022, courts in Singapore reached a verdict that found Byung-gun guilty of selling BXA tokens without first obtaining Jung-permission. hoon’s These recent events are a direct result of that verdict.

As a result of the verdict, he was required to hand up all of the money that he had made through the sale of BXA to the organization BTHMB, which is situated in Singapore.

Later on in the month of October 2022, Jung-hoon cited a mental health issue as the reason he was unable to attend a parliamentary session held during the upheaval that occurred inside the Terra environment.

In the wake of the failure of the Terra Luna cryptocurrency exchange, the South Korean government conducted a search warrant at many businesses, including Bithumb.

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Alameda Research Problems Precede FTX For Sam Bankman-Fried

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Alameda Research, the now-defunct cryptocurrency trading business, was dangerously close to failing in 2018, far before FTX came into the scene, according to new investigations that investigate Sam Bankman-Fried and the exchanges that he caused to fail.

A study that was published in The Wall Street Journal and cited former workers stated that Alameda had significant financial losses as a result of the trading algorithm that it used. The program was developed to execute a high volume of transactions in a short amount of time in an automated fashion. Tthe company was losing money because of its incorrect predictions on how prices would fluctuate.

The decline in value of the XRP token in 2018 caused Alameda to lose approximately two-thirds of its assets, and the company came within a hair’s breadth of going out of business. Reports indicate that Bankman-Fried was successful in saving the trading company by soliciting financial support from lenders and investors and assuring them of profits of up to twenty percent on their investments.

Later in the month of April 2019, FTX was introduced with the intention of providing institutional investors with a secure refuge.

Bankman Fried leveraged Alameda as a growth engine with the introduction of the FTX, when the trading business became the primary market maker for the exchange. This allowed Bankman Fried to continue its expansion.

Some individuals who are knowledgeable with Alameda’s strategies assert that the exchange has on occasion taken the losing side of a bargain in order to attract customers.

In a previous statement, Bankman Fried said that Alameda and FTX have always functioned separately. However, a new complaint filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicates that this is not the case. During the course of the case, it was discovered that Bankman Fried had given instructions to develop a piece of code in order to acquire an unfair advantage.

Regardless of the amount of collateral that Alameda put up with the exchange, the code would allow it for the company to keep a negative balance on the FTX. The Alameda has always been a ship that was doomed to sink from the very beginning.

However, Bankman Fried not only saved it in 2018 with borrowed money but also utilized it afterwards to construct the now-defunct FTX crypto exchange and fuel its expansion. In 2018, Bankman Fried rescued it with borrowed cash.

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