SEC takes aim at influencers for securities fraud; SBF allegedly made political donations in others’ name

On Dec 14, 2022

The biggest news in the cryptoverse for Dec. 134 includes CryptoSlate’s analysis suggesting that the bottom for Bitcoin may not be in yet and Congressman Tom Emmer alleging that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler knew about FTX’s fraud.

CryptoSlate Top Stories

US authority alleges that SBF donated to politicians using other people’s name

An indictment filed by the Southern District of New York (SDNY) alleged that the arrested FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried made political donations in the name of other persons.

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was arrested by the Bahamas authority on Dec. 12 and set to face trials in the U.S. for crimes including money laundering and wired fraud.

According to the filing by SDNY Attorney Damian William, SBF allegedly made donations to politicians using other people’s names, which is a violation of U.S. campaign finance regulations.

The FTX founder and his unnamed accomplices allegedly donated over $25,000 to U.S. politicians.

Binance Proof of Reserves fall by $3.5B in 24 hours

Over the last 24 hours, the Binance USD (BUSD) and Bitcoin (BTC) Proof of Reserves (PoR) have fallen by $3.45 billion, and $472.86 million respectively — according to Glassnode data analyzed by CryptoSlate.

Within that same period. Binance PoR also witnessed approximately $1.86 billion in inflows of both USD Coin (USDC), and Tether (USDT). A margin decline in Ethereum (ETH) was also observed.

Binance’s PoR total USD currently sits below $40 billion, as can be observed below in the Glassnode chart below. This reveals a steep decline since the start of the year and a fall in PoR holdings of approximately $13.2 billion since Sept.

SEC charges eight in $100M social media securities fraud

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged eight individuals with a $100 million securities fraud scheme involving major social media platforms, Twitter and Discord.

Seven of the defendants reportedly promoted themselves as successful traders on the social media platforms and encouraged their followers to buy selected stocks by posting targets and updates on their own positions. However, when share prices and/or trading volumes increased, the defendants allegedly sold their shares without disclosing their intentions, resulting in fraudulent profits of around $100 million.

Elizabeth Warren working on bipartisan bill to tackle crypto money laundering

U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is teaming up with Republican Senator Roger Marshall to work on a bipartisan bill that will introduce new legislation to close loopholes in the financial system that allow digital assets to be used for money laundering.

In an exclusive statement to CNN, Warren said:

“I’ve been ringing the alarm bell in the Senate on the dangers of these digital asset loopholes, and I’m working in a bipartisan manner to pass common-sense crypto legislation to better safeguard U.S. national security.”

The bill, called the ‘Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act’, would attempt to bring the digital asset ecosystem into compliance with the existing system of anti-money laundering in the worldwide financial system.

Congressman Tom Emmer alleges SEC Chairman Gensler was aware of FTX fraud

U.S. Congressman Tom Emmer has alleged that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler knew that FTX was fraudulent, but still held meetings with the disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Emmer in a tweet shared a section of the SEC’s filing which reads:

“From the inception of FTX, Bankman-Fried diverted FTX customer funds to Alameda, and he continued to do so until FTX’s collapse in November 2022.”

In scrutinizing the SEC’s filing, Congressman Tom Emmer alleged that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler was aware that FTX was fraudulent from its inception.

“Gary Gensler knows that FTX was fraudulent from its inception. This is egregious considering he had more meetings with Bankman-Fried than anyone in the space.”

Research Highlight

Research: On-chain Bitcoin metrics show the bottom may not be in

CryptoSlate’s analysis of on-chain Glassnode metrics indicated mixed results for a Bitcoin bottoming.

Previous research published on Sep. 27 looked at the Percent Supply in Profit (PSP,) Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV,) and Supply in Profit and Loss (SPL) metrics, all of which indicated a bottom was forming at the time.

In revisiting these same metrics, it was noted that the PSP and MVRV still point to a bottoming, but the SPL no longer does.

Bitcoin outperforms Layer 1s SOL, ETH, DOT, BNB, ATOM in December

In December, Bitcoin outperformed the native tokens of the Solana, Ethereum, Polkadot, Binance, and Cosmos ecosystems, according to data analyzed by CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin dominance (BTC.D) has also begun trending upward this month. The chart below shows BTC.D starting December at 39.9% and moving progressively higher. The current reading is 41.5% – a seven-week high.