Issue 69 – Nice
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I'm mollie White and you're listening to the audio feed for the citation ation needed newsletter deter. You can see the text version of the newsletter online at cite needed dot news. Issues sixty nine nice coin base threatens me that continuing to report on their activities would be n is also election spending hits a fever pitch with several new crypto o packs coming out of the woodwork.

This issue was originally published on november second twenty twenty four. My previous issue about facing legal threat as an independent writer was apparently well timed as coin base is the latest entry on the diversities threatening me with legal action over my factual reporting in this issue. More on that, and the latest developments in the gypo lobby's efforts as the U.

S. Election swiftly approaches. Also, a few of you have requested merge specific to the location needed newsletters so you can show your support. I've heard your calls and added a few new items to the store that you can check out. That's that store that mallie way that net in the courts.

Former F T X had of engineering nichole singh has become the force of the five F T X defendants to be sentenced, a CoOperator generally viewed as less central to the fraud than sam bank man fried or bank man freed second in command Caroline ellison saying, is the first of the bunch to receive a non custodial sentence. He will spend three years on supervised release. Singh and ryan salon were the two defendants with the least severe charges, which heavily underscores the benefits of CoOperation when IT comes to sentencing.

Sam, who pleaded guilty but did not CoOperate or agreed to testify against his former boss, has just begun his seven and a half year prison term, saying will not see the inside of a prison cell slum claims he was not even offered the opportunity to CoOperate, although he hasn't situated that he might have been had he agreed to lie something, he also claims the other CoOperators chose to do the last fendant to be sentenced. Gary wong is likely breathing somewhat of a sigh of relief after seeing things sentence however its possible wong may still end up with some prison time as a result of his wirefly ud charge, which Carries a healthier maximum sentence. Then seeing security fraud and campaign finance charge, we will find out the outcome on november twenty years, the government is still working on negotiating the return of some political donations made either by sandbank ment freed or by singing on bank man fried behalf to various left leaning political action committees, including the senate majority pack, Emily's list, slash women vote, future forward pack and G, M, I pack.

Each individual pack received donations of around one million to two million dollars. Geert done the x employee who allegedly stole two million dollars from the pumped out fun meme coin launchpad and then bragged about IT on twitter, has moved to withdraw his guilty plea in his U. K.

Court case. This was against the recommendations of his lawyers who withdrew their illegal representation following his decision. Dunn has remained active on twitter throughout the process, tweet about other cyp da projects he's been developing and posting screen shots of conversations with ChatGPT in which he seems to be workshopping.

His own legal defense said defense appears to revolve around the argument that anyone could have hacked, pumped up fun. And he just happened to be the one to do. IT eric council junior, a twenty five year old allegedly responsible for compromising the S. C, C.

Twitter account and tweet that the bit coin tps had been approved a day before the decision was actually announced, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud after perpetrating the sim swap attack by impersonating ing the person whose phone number was linked to the S C, C. Twitter account, purchasing a replacement sim card and then resetting the passer into the twitter account. Council was paid an undisclosed amount in bitcoin council.

Then pull the classic innocent person move, googling things like, quote, what are the signs that you are under investigation by the enforcement or the FBI, even if you have not been contacted by them? And quote, how can I know for sure if I am being investigated by the FBI? And quote, what are some signs that the FBI is after you? This is why when I commit crimes, I immediately go home in google, things like, quote, someone stole my laptop and hacked the government, or quote, how to prove being framed for a crime I didn't do.

An interesting new case has been filed by blockchain gaming company fractured labs against trading firm and market maker jump crip to alleging that jump a fraid fracture and manipulated the gets for its dio token fracture has described a pumped dump scheme allegedly perpetrated by jump in concert with the Justin sun affiliated crypto currency exchange H T X, formally huo by amu zingy. Much of the complaint seems to come down to allegations that jump critical did not do the market manipulation they had promised to do when they advised fracture that they would, quote, maintain the pricing parameters that were required as part of a agreement. Instead, fracture claims jump in in H, T X, hired online influencers to pump the deo token Price, then profited millions of dollars when they dumped the token and caused its Price to crash from almost one dollar to less than half a cent.

The suit is still very early. IT was filed on october fifteen, and jump has yet to respond, but it's an interesting compliment to the recent action from U. S. Line enforcement and regulators implicating marketing kers got bit my trade, Z M. Quants and seal as global in providing quote on demand market manipulation.

The practice has long ban an open secret in the cypher world to the point that sum in the industry occasionally seem to forget that it's illegal, but now IT seems that some companies may face more scrutiny for this activity. Speaking of those charges against the market makers, the founder of my trade quickly entered a guildea ply. Jo, who founded and Operated my, reportedly told the client that their service was to locate, quote, other buyers from the community, people you don't know about or don't care about, because, quote, we have to make the other buyers lose money in order to make profit.

As a part of his plea, jw agreed to stop providing a service that used wash trading bots to falsify cyp to currency trading volume for token creators, bots that were wash trading millions of dollars a day for around sixty different cyp to currencies. He also faces up to five years in prison in potential fines and is scheduled to be sentenced in february as forgot bit, the department of justice file a supercede ding indicating to add charges against the company's founder in CEO, alex I and rein. They alleged that got bit are in tens of millions of dollars in proceeds from their wash trading if convicted on the wires fraud charge and re in faces up to twenty years in prison jiaji omar, who created a fake replica a of the coin base pro website beginning in june twenty twenty one and used IT to drain victims coin base accounts, husband sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to wire d conspiracy earlier this year, he's successfully defrauded hundreds of people of more than twenty million dollars in total, which he spent on luxury vehicles and trips.

Although he is in indian citizen, he was arrested by U. S. Authorities in december twenty twenty three after he flew into atlanta. It's been a bad few days for creators of knock off board apes, the creator of the undead aped society salona based N F T project who was invited in january after rug pulling a spin off project in April twenty twenty two was found guilty unwired fraud, conspiracy and money launder ing charges. A co defendant had already pleaded guilty to the same charges earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the creator of mute APP planet, who is charged in january twenty twenty three for the two point nine million dollar rug pull, has been ordered to forfeit one point four million dollars and pay an additional fifteen thousand dollars fine. The monthly spent in jail while awaiting trial was deemed sufficient by the judge, though prosecutors had sought a three year prison term. Crag Wright, whose claims of being the toshio commodo were definitively rejected earlier this year when he lost a court case aimed at stopping him from continually trying to sue bitcoin developers, is once again trying to sue bitcoin developers.

His latest lawsuit, which he filed without legal representation against bitcoin core developers and jack orse's fin tech company block six, nine hundred eleven million pounds, equivalent to one point one eight billion U. S. Dollars in damages, he argues that this is the difference in market cap between bitcoin and his fork of the project called bitcoin S.

V, which he instance is the real bitcoin. The judge in the earlier cope of the right case had placed an injunction preventing right from bringing any new lawsuits based on his claim that he is the option arcade. This newest lawsuit was almost immediately placed on hold pending a hearing in the cop case to determine if right is in contempt of court.

The right has argued his newest lawsuit is not predicated on claims that he is setoc. Kobo wants to force the nouns based right to attend the contempt hearing in person in the united kingdom, but Wright has argued that his autism, Christmas plans and the likelihood of jet lag should prevent such a thing. The former C E O of the australian cyp to currency exchange mine digital has been charged with fraud over allegations he told the equivalent of one point five million U.

S. Dollars from a customer who gave him the money to purchase bitcoin. Instead, the money went to paying the company's debts and other purposes. IT might have bought the CEO a little bit of time, but mine digital collapse two months later in september twenty, twenty two, and creditors are reportedly oed around sixteen lion dollars in bankrupted the F, T, X estates has been pursuing legal action against various firms still hanging on to cyp du assets that F T X says belong to them.

They recently settled a lawsuit by by crypto currency exchange, with bybee agreeing to return one hundred seventy five million dollars in assets held on the platform and buy back F T X is bit tokens for around fifty three million dollars. The original lawsuit sought to recover assets Priced around three hundred and twenty seven million dollars at the time of F X is collapse, but that we're Priced around one billion dollars at the time the suit was filed. They've also filed suit against another cyp du exchange, q coin.

F T X is lawyers claimed that q coin has quote without justification, refused to turn over the assets and seeks the return of the funds as well as potential the images q coin has disputed after xx version of events, claiming that they had repeatedly tried to contact after ex to discuss the frozen funds in governments and regulators. D, S, C, C has filed yet another wells notice, this time against the immutable block chain gaming infrastructure company. As usual, the news comes from immutable themselves and is filled with the industry's typical accusations that the S, C, C is, quote, targeting some of the largest and most reputable actors in the space.

Instead of providing, quote, clear guidelines for compliance, somewhat unusually immutable tries to connect the wells notice to the U. S. Election writing quote IT does not take in a stute observer to connect the timing without finding any indication as to why they think the timing would be related at all in elections and political influence.

With only days until the U. S. Election, things have reached a fever pitch.

Even with very little time left to spend, IT firms and executives in or connected to the cyp to currency industry have been pouring even more money into races we've already spent over one hundred million dollars to influence. Ripple C E. O Chris larson, who I mentioned last issue, has been supporting the Harris.

And previously biden campaign and other democrats for years dropped a wapping ten million dollars more on the Harris supporting future would pack in the last days of september. Although he is the only individual out of the thirty one I follow and follow the cypher, who has contributed specifically to back Harris. His total contributions of almost twelve point six million dollars outspend the combine ten point six million dollars from the nine people who have a dedicated support to trump.

However, despite its C. E, O spending, ripple still seems to be trying to play both sides. Corporate contributions have gone in equal amounts to both the progressive protect progress and conservative defending american jobs. Script to super packs and ripple chief legal officer Stewart alderton, I has spent three hundred thousand dollars of his own to back trump. Mark Anderson contributed another two million dollars to trump s campaign on october seven, bringing his total trump spending the cycle to five point three five million dollars.

This contribution came on the same day his Andrews and horowitz cofounder, ben horowitz, sort of followed through on his earlier back peddle in which he'd promised to make a, quote, significant donation to Harris. Horowitz did indeed donate an additional two point five million dollars after that promise, but he went to black pack, a left leaning super pack that focuses on engaging black voters. Although black pack does support Harris, IT also supports a list of candidates down the ballot, and it's not clear if horowitz's his money will be earmarked for Harris or use more broadly.

Ironically, one of the other candidates supported by black pack is ohio senator shared red Brown, who has been facing off against our public. An opponent, bernie marino mario, has been backed by forty million dollars in spending from the crypto currency industry super packs, packs, which horrod has personally supported to the tune of twenty three point five million dollars. Horowitz and his wife have also both maxed out their individual contributions to marino coin base.

The other major recent contribution came from coin base, with C E. O brian armstrong announcing on twitter that the company had dumped another twenty five million 点 into the fair shape crypto o focus super pack on top of the forty six point five million dollars they're previously provided。 Coin base still holds an active contract with the U.

S. Marshals. And as I reported the summer, federal contractors are prohibited from contributing to political entities, including super packs, despite being the subject of our complaint with the F V C pertaining to their twenty five million dollar contribution to fair shaking may, which was also within the prohibited time period.

Coin base has brazenly doubled this amount with a second contribution, while we've not, at least that i've seen, argued that they were unaware of this campaign finance prohibition, which would already be unlikely given clear warnings, unfair shakes, website that contributions by federal contractors are prohibited, this newest contribution seems to definitively remove that potential line of argument for them. Instead, coin bases, only rebuttal to our complaint has been to claim that despite that pesky federal contracting theirs, they somehow aren't a federal contractor due to a detail and how the contract is funded because the contract is being paid out of the pool of seized crypto currencies. Other assets known as the department of justice asset for future fund, they have argued they do not fall within the definition of federal contractor used by the F, U.

C, because they are not paid with quote funds appropriated by the congress and argument that lawyers at public citizens have plainly described as quote incorrect and one that we've rebutted on August five in our supplemental filing, which reads quote. As the supreme court has recently explained, quote and appropriation is simply a lot that authorizes its expenditure from a specific source of public money for designated purposes. Under this definition, congress is enacting of twenty eight U S, C, section five, twenty four c one.

Creating the assets for future fund and authorizing the attorney general to make expenditure from that fund for specific purposes was an appropriation. Indeed, over the past five decades, both courts in the department of justice have considered the statutory creation of the fund n to be an appropriation. The congressional search service has similarly described the statute as, quote, a permanent appropriation coin basis.

Only communications with me since the F, C, C complaint have been public made via a handful of tweet from chief legal officer, police gray wall. In them, he outlined his argument while also insinuating that I am intentionally spreading, quote, misinformation on behalf of my shadow ye backyard. Well, great wall has come up with this rather creative legal theory under which he argues coin basis contributions were not prohibited.

He has not identified any factual areas in my reporting. As far as i'm aware, neither he nor anyone else from coin base have commented on our positions since we made the supplemental filing on August. Face except to repeat the claim in a tweet without adding any further support for IT that the funds with which they are being paid are not congressionally appropriated.

Despite that grey wall retweet, my recent post highlighting coin basis contribution and its apparent violation of this prohibition, with the threat writing quote once again with feeling repeating most representations of facts after previously being put on notice is unwise. And for the record, gravel is not some total hack with no legal background, but he is in fact an x magistrate judge who is somehow now found himself reduced to issuing impett threats on twitter. For coin base, I assume the position pays pretty well, but I can't imagine any salary, which I would be willing to post with a straight face, that I would be T T T wise for a writer to continue to report on my company.

Let's do you think grey wall is simply a loose canon, perhaps sent off the rails by knowledge of coin bases, poor earnings that would be reported the next day. Coin base communications team member jacket in sales also reshuffling at, quote, say, IT louder for the people in the back. Some coin base supporters have found themselves in the awkward position of trying to defend one of largest crypt T O currency companies that on one hand, claims to support individual freedoms and fight back on behalf of the little guy against powerful institutions, but on the other hand threats independent writers with baseless lawsuits.

Ironically, several have accused me, but not coin base of law fair. Others have pretended that his tweet somehow isn't a legal threat. However, many, even within the cyp da world responded to his tweet to criticize both gray while and coin base for this clear attempt to silence me. Stand with crypto coin basis asked her turf lobbying group stand with cypher has been hard at work getting out the vote for their preferred candidates, both the ones they've formally endorsed and the ones they've conspicious sly left off their list in order to avoid the risk of appearing to back losers despite leaving burning marino off their endorsements list.

Stand with crypto u through a private benefit concert in acronis hio that was nonetheless free to attend for anyone willing to fork over their contact information and download the coin base APP headlining the show was the one's popular ban, the black keys self described quote, pretty liberal mother fuckers who once made fun of quote, right clicking and fs, and now found themselves playing the show to benefit a stanchly conservative candidate whose election could turn the senate over to a republic lan majority. Likely, they chose to take this gig for the paycheck despite all that after they were forced to cancel every concert on their plan tour this summer due to poor ticket sales. The black keese themselves from the stage referred to the event as the quote, weird gig we've ever played, perhaps referring to the fact that their staging was set up backwards, with the band facing around two hundred fifty attends, standing with them on the stage, but leaving the large orchestra, a cee ding area empty, and the roughly two hundred fifty people in the balcony area left to stare at scaffolding for the lights and the performance bags.

This bizarre choice was likely related to the fact that only around five hundred people bothered to show up for a free concert in a venue that seats five times as many people after more than thirty minutes of opening reMarks extolling the virtues of crap do during which one attended, joked, theyd been tracked into attending a timeshare presentation, and another loudly asked the speaker, quote, why should we vote for crypto and was ignored. The black keys launched into a seat that wasn't much longer in between. Songs irritated concert goers who had been relegated to the balcony.

Y shouted at the band members to turn around, or at least turn off the light so they could see. Meanwhile, after regularly encouraging crowds to quote video tape and tape record anything I say, marino's campaign has been accused of using audio jams to try to sort those, trying to ask questions of the senate hopeful, such as, quote, do you have any other opinions on women over fifty you would like to share? This is a reference to marinas comments earlier this year that suburban women are single issue voters for candidates who support abortion rights.

And that that's quote a little crazy, by the way, especially for women that are like past fifty. I'm thinking to myself, I don't think that's an issue for you physically barring children is certainly not an issue for marino either. But that somehow didn't stop him from expressing his own viewing independent and interview last year that it's, quote, insane that quote, as a father of two daughters, if one of them became pregnant as a result of a rape, they could get an abortion without first obtaining his consent.

Marino's daughters are around thirty years old. Other cyp to packs, a new super packed called the bitcoin voter pack, has cropped up to find almost seventy five thousand dollars and ads and text messaging campaigns for trump and senate candidates. Ted creese, a republican from taxes, and dave mccoy, a republican from pencil mania.

It's all reported source of funding thus far as sixty five thousand dollars from the bitcoin voter project, which is supposedly a five o ency for although I wasn't able to find a group with that name in the irs database, the organization was created by three executives from the bitcoin mining companies, marathon, digital riot and clean Spark. They've put out a few ads, including one in pennsylvania urging voters to vote for trump in mcc. IT features trumps comments about, quote, ensuring that the future of bitcoin and cyp to will be made in america.

And promises the industry will create jobs for pennsylvanians despite bitcoin minds not typically employing very many people. Another ad aid in texas threatens that quote, america's financial freedom is under attack, shows crews arguing that taxes should be, quote, the oasis on planet earth for bitcoin and crypto. Another group, the bitcoin freedom pack, has emerged to dump three hundred fifty thousand dollars into the taxi senate race to back crews against his democratic opponent, who has also been friendly towards script.

Recent contributions from these two packs seem to betray nervousness around the closest of that race, which has tightened in samples to even or extremely close odds. The bitcoin freedom packs website puts their strategy blindly. Quote, we believe the only way to protect big coin is to beat democrats in the house and senate this november so we can block White house regulations and remove anti bitcoin senators such as Elizabeth warn and shared red Brown from their powerful positions on the hill. A joint fund raising committee called republicans for a program to senate majority was created and then disbanded almost as quickly, registering with the fc on August twenty six and then filing a termination report on october thirty years.

The group listed as beneficiaries of its fundraising various packs for the republican senatorial candidates, sam Brown of nava, bernie marino of ohio, microorganism ichigan, dave macc of pennsylvania as the national republican senator orio committee, the group brought in a total of two hundred eight thousand dollars over its short lifespan, bringing in about half of that just from coin base executives, including CEO brian armstrong, who contributed twenty three thousand three hundred dollars, president Emily choy, who contributed twenty thousand dollars, vice president cara cambell, who contributed thirteen thousand two hundred dollars, and chief policy officer fire suz, who have contributed thirteen thousand two hundred dollars. Other notable contributions, all in the amount of thirteen thousand two hundred dollars, came from multiple in capital cofounder to share gene paxos, CEO, Charles kasar illa han ventures, Katherine on formally of coin base Anthony's cara mi, venture capitalist mike dudas and agree White cough of both the White cough group and trumps world liberty financial crypto project. Another thirteen thousand two hundred dollar contribution came from toby camel, a man who served prison time and was fine as a result of both criminal and civil insider trading cases in twenty fourteen, and then who was fine six million dollars by the ftc earlier this year for deceiving customers who are trying to obtain ppp loans.

He listed his profession in the F. C. Report has retired.

Another contribution came from ryan salk s best known for his trump y melt t down earlier this year that saw him ousted from the missouri blockchain analytics company had founded. He lost his job title as founder of new co. Of the money raised by this committee.

Bernie marino and mike Rogers both received a bit over fifty thousand dollars. Dave moment received around forty three thousand dollars, sam Brown received around thirty eight thousand dollars, and the n. Rsc received less than one thousand dollars.

The remaining sixteen thousand dollars are so went to Operating world liberty financial and Donald trump, when I published to the last recap issue, trumps world liberty financial token had only been live for about a day and had only sold about eight hundred seven million, or four percent of the twenty billion tokens theyve been hoping to offload on a credited robes during the public sale. Even that twenty billion had been massively reduced from the sixty three billion than thirty five billion that they originally plan to offer that really in. I was a little hesitant to confidently describe the project as a flop.

Now, two weeks in, i'm happy to a full week after the sale began, the number of token sol had cropped up to only around nine hundred thirty six million, or four point seven percent of the target. Now two weeks in, we've hit nine hundred seventy five million, or four point nine percent. I spent a hot minute since i've had to calculate a log rethoric aggression, but if my math is right at this rate, trump h should his twenty billion token milestone at some point in around a brazilian years.

However, rather than wait that long, the project has changed its plans, and october thirty filing with the S C, C indicates that the project now, quote, only plans to sell tokens up to thirty million dollars in the offering before terminating sale. Though it's a major reduction from the three hundred million dollar target originally planned, it's still a far cry from the two point seven million dollars in sales theyve reported thus far. This is obama for trump, who, according to the projects, quote, gold paper, only begins to receive payout ts after world liberty financial establishes a reserve consisting of the projects first thirty million dollars in revenue.

Meanwhile, the project is reportedly considering launching a stable coin. This is highly amusing to me, given trans forceful opposition to central bank digital currencies. When I earlier this year about the possibility of the federal reserve creating a digital currency, which despite conservative talking points, IT has never proposed doing problem, said that a quote, digital dollar would be, quote, very dangerous.

He said the digital dollars would be, quote, a dangerous threat to freedom, potentially allowing the government to quote, take your money and you wouldn't even know. IT was on leader at the bitcoin twenty twenty four conference. Trump pledged, quote, there will never be A, A, C, B, D, C, while in president of the united states.

Forget IT, but a digital dollar controlled by and for the financial benefit of him, just showing where to sign egypto twitter regular claims to have identified the bitcoin wallet linked to the novelty physical bitcoin presented as a gift to Donald trump at that same bitcoin twenty twenty four conference. If IT is indeed the same one, those who believe trump is a true believer, bitcoin hoddle er, are likely to be disappointed. Within a couple months, he sold IT off on the german I cyp du exchange.

The trader, who has poured more than thirty million dollars into bets on Polly market favouring Donald trump to win the election, has done an interview with the wall street journal using the student in tao and claiming to be a frenchman with absolutely no political agenda, whose quote instance is just making money. The journal was careful to note they could not confirm all of taos claims, including that he's only betting his own money, nor could they rule out links between tao and political organizations or trump associates. Rather unbelievably, he claims that he chose to bet tens of millions of dollars simply because he thought pollsters were underestimate support for trump.

He has also play bets that trump win the popular vote, a highly unlikely proposition if trump loses the election tail stand to lose the tens of millions. His wager, which he said is the majority of his liquid assets, while some Polly market Better is favouring, have been exciting their positions, or at least hedging their beats of the election draws nearer, causing his so called odds on the platform to lump from previous highs of around sixty seven percent. This is not an option for tao, who holds around forty percent of the contracts on trump to win and would likely crash the markets if you tried to sell.

This report of a french whale underscores a point that is bizarre, not often prominently mentioned in discussions of polymer as a platform that could be a kin to, or even more reliable than traditional polling data, that is, americans are not permitted to trade on the platform. Well, it's hard to know how many americans are cirConstance ting Polly markets, weak enforcement of this restriction. Many of the trades on the platform come from people who will not be voting in the election, but are instead watching IT from a far while.

Non americans are, of course, perfectly capable of providing high quality analysis of the american elections. Trades on Polly market are not a keen to polls of american voters. Furthermore, two separate investigations by blockchain research firms have both found evidence of significant wash trading on Polly mark election markets.

An investigation by chaos labs estimated that one third of trades on the platform's presidential election market were wash trades, while the investigation by ink digital at that wash trading was a quote, significant portion of the in the presidential election market. Researchers also found that Polly market had been vastly overstating the volume in their markets by conflicting a traded share, which may sell from anywhere from one cent to one dollar with one dollar of volume at the time of the report. On october thirty s Polly market was reporting two point seven billion dollars in trading volume on the presidential election market, when in reality only one point seventy five billion dollars in transactions had occurred at the time of writing.

Polly market, one point nine nine billion dollars in volume on the presidential market, suggesting they may have updated their figures since the report. Elsewhere in crypto, a bunch of cyp to currency companies have just done rounds of major layoffs in very quick succession. MAdams developer consensus announced on october twenty nine that they had laid off twenty percent of their total team, which is likely somewhere in the ballpark of one hundred fifty people.

They blame me the move on the sec, because, of course, they did. Later that same day, the centralized exchange D Y D X announced IT had laid off thirty five percent of its court core team, though it's not clear how big that team was in with the next day crypt to currency exchange, cricket announced layoffs. New york times reporting the cuts affected around fifteen percent of its employees or around four hundred people, both D Y D X in crackin blamed the layoff are needing to have more builders in fewer managers.

Cracker's layoff s included the company's chief Operating and chief technical officers and venture capitalist argent. Cei was appointed as a new co CEO alongside existing CEO David ripply two years ago, cracking and let off one thousand, one hundred people at the time, around thirty percent of its employees, and around the same time it's founder. And then CEO just see Powell stepped down after internal turmoil and an investigation into sanctions evasion.

However, he remained on as chairman as youtube mega influencer. Mister beast is facing scandal after scandal pertaining to allegations of the treatment and sexual harassment at his company, deceiving his fans and contests and other such things. Now a group of cyp to researchers have alleged that he's also been involved in massive cyp to pumped dump schemes.

It's not clear if regulatory or law enforcement investigators have picked up the allegations, and the cyprus leaves website outlining research ends only with quote, advice for mister beast, like, quote, stop using mAdams swap. They charge point eight, seven, five percent fees. Jess, mr.

Beast, if you're gonna insider trade, at least do IT somewhere with low fees. Trends move quickly, but game development doesn't. Despite the record low popularity of nf ubisoft many columns, S S Y attempts over the last few years to force nfs on their customers have finally culminated in a launch trailer from N F T game called champions tactic gramma chronicles.

Although the trailer makes no mention of the nfs, ubisoft seems almost embarrass assed by the launch, putting practically no marketing behind IT. The blue sky social network, which I quite like, has raised a fifteen million dollar funding round LED by blockchain capital. Some other participants in the funding round are also cyp to focused investment companies or have p funds.

In the announcement, blue sky goes to great links to try to distance themselves from that whole blockchain thing, which I think really highlights just how toxic even a faint wife of blockchain has become to Normal people who just want a Normal social network. Why i'm not personally rushing to jump ship over this funding announcement, I do think IT is concerning. Venture investors are not philanthus us and blue sky's path to profit abilities unclear despite their promises in their announcement.

Quote, not to hyper financial ze the social experience through tokens, crypto trading N F T A. One wonders if that will hold up once service is come knocking at the door looking for returns on their investments, particularly now that their new board member, blockchain capital partner, kinge's shaw, will have a say in the future of the platform. The golden state warriors N, B, A team have adopted coin base as a new sponsor after their previous sponsorship from F, T, X didn't work out so well.

Is there a team sponsorship curse? Or is that just a stadium thing? The web three is going just great.

recap. There were seven entries between october sixteen and november second, averaging point four entries per day. Seventy three point four two million dollars was added to the grist counter.

Hack the U. S. A. IT appears that someone may age to hacker wallet controlled by the U. S. Government, which was holding asset seized in connection to the twenty sixteen bit for next hack, more than twenty million dollars was empty from the wallet than the thigh, quickly began sending some of the funds to various exchanges, activity that helped to distinguish the transactions as likely theft, rather than the government moving crypto assets around as they sometimes do.

Curiously, within a day of the hack, the attacker returned around nineteen point three million dollars to the original wallet. One wonders if perhaps they suddenly realized that the juicy wallet that they had targeted his own by a rather menacing adversary. There are a lot of open questions around this incident, including who controlled the wallet on behalf of the government.

As I mentioned earlier, in this issue, the U. S. Marshals have turned over at least some of their custody and asset management responsibility, ie. S to coin base.

However, some of the stone funds were withdrawn from the def I barhom and lending platform y and it's not clear if coin basis responsible for managing assets parked in defy protocols like this. Then there's the question of why the U. S.

Marshals have assets on platforms like OA at all. While many people use these platforms to earn yield on their cyp to holdings, it's a bizarre choice for the U. S.

Government to do so, particularly given the U. S. Regulators scrutiny of cyp to lending services, everything else, a supply chain attack stemming from a java script animation library resulted in losses for users of one inch.

Another third platforms, the m two cyp to currency exchange was hacked for thirteen point seven million dollars. The sharpe meme coin rug hold for a three point four million dollars. The blockchain company fortie acquired game studios, demanded secure acy and then shut them down the tap.

Yokado was exploded for most of its assets over four million dollars, and radiant capital was exploited again, this time for at least fifty million dollars. Worth a read, cory doctor o. Provided his perspective on blue sky, including on their recent funding round in an article title, blue sky and initiation ation.

I particularly like his point, quote, plenty of people have commented that now that a VC is holding blue skies per strings in certification will surely follow doubly so because the VC is called blockchain capital, which at this point might as well be grafted sm, coya and tour capital. But I don't agree with this at all. It's not outside capital that leads to initiation ation. It's leverage than initial es. The service cory is a fellow possy r and major inspiration to me when I adopt at the practice.

And his opted not to use blue sky because he is vote to quote, never again devote my energy is to building up an audience on a platform whose management can severe my relationship to that audience and will personally, i've gone the root of using the platforms that interest me, even the incident fiction prone ones like blue sky and threads, but hedging my bets by plugging them into my passe system, where they can just as trivial ly be unplugged. Mike magnic, who I also deeply admire and who has recently ban a promising addition to blue sky's board, provided a response to some of horry's points. In my opinion, telling someone to just host their personal data server is not a terribly feasible proposition at this point in time, but I hope to see IT rapidly become so, at which point i'd expect people like corry to be more amenable to trying the platform.

Four or four media published a peace titled the billionaire, the threat, not the solution. I love this piece by Jason cobbler about how billionaire buying media outlets won't, as one such billionaire ends, protect journalism. He also gives the nod to my recent piece and just go independent, which is lovely of him.

In the news, mark cuban, whose cypher bags are also heavy, says that crypto is waiting for its instagram moment, the moment when egypto APP comes along that's so compelling that even grandma has to make a cyp to wallet to use IT. I point out the slight issue that compelling apps don't tend to require cyp to wallets. We also talk about election stuff A, B.

This article is published in ink, and its titled mark cuban says cyp du is waiting for its instagram moment. But hasn't its mainstream arrival already come and gone? Tech crunch wrote about my running with the D.

M. C, A scammer that I described. Last issue in a peace titled prominent crypto critics says someone offered bribes to take down a blog post.

That's all for now, folks, until next time this has been mi White. Thanks for listening to this issue of the citation needed newsletter. To learn how to support my work, visit mollie White dot net lash support. If you'd like to read the text versions of these episodes, sign up to receive the newsletter in your email, or support my work on a recurrence ring basis, go to cite needed that news.