Binance hires ex-Kraken compliance chief; Coinbase faces patent infringement lawsuit

On Sep 23, 2022

The biggest news in the cryptosphere for Sept. 23 includes Kraken’s former compliance chief’s switch to Binance, the new patent infringement lawsuit Coinbase has to face, and Bitcoin mining firm Compute North’s chapter 11 bankruptcy.

CryptoSlate Top Stories

Binance hires former Kraken compliance chief

Binance hired its rival Kraken‘s chief of compliance and said it is looking to hire more personnel to work at its compliance department.

Steven Christie left Kraken to become Binance’s new senior vice president of compliance. He is leading a 750 people team in Binance, including the cyber investigations team.

Bitcoin mining firm Compute North files for bankruptcy, CEO resigns

Compute North, a Bitcoin (BTC) mining data center, has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The company reportedly owes $500 million to nearly 200 creditors while having assets valued between $100 and $500 million.

CFTC levies $250K fine on bZeroX, charges Ooki DAO for regulatory violations

In one day, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined a blockchain trading protocol, bZeroX, and filed a federal civil enforcement action against bZeroX successor, Ooki DAO (OOKI).

The CFTC revealed that bZeroX was operating an illegal decentralized trading service from 2019 to 2021. Ooki DAO, on the other hand, faced federal civil enforcement action for allegedly offering illegal leverage and margin trading.

Celsius shareholders want their own legal representation in a bankruptcy case

Shareholders of the bankrupt Celsius Network want the company to dollarize the crypto holdings of its customers and pay them their shares.

The stakeholders argue that the Unsecured Creditors Committee is prioritizing the retail customers to ensure they get maximum value without considering the situation of the equity holders.

IRS secures court approval to probe records of M.Y. Safra Bank, SFOX users over failure to report taxes

The International Revenue Service (IRS) has been legally going after M.Y. Safra Bank users, arguing that they failed to pay their taxes.

On Sept. 22, a U.S. judge granted the IRS a petition which forced M.Y. Safra Bank to submit records of its taxpayers. Upton receiving the petition, the IRS also insisted on receiving the same records from the cryptocurrency prime broker SFOX, saying that the M.Y. Safra Bank offered services to SFOX users as well.

U.K. should lower crypto tax rate to encourage growth – MP Matt Hancock

Former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Music and Sport Matt Hancock said the U.K. must adopt a long-term approach towards crypto.

He said:

“HMRC has taken a revenue-maximizing approach…applying it in a sledgehammer way… what we need to do is take a growth-maximizing view where revenues in the future will be far greater.”

Currently, the U.K. law treats crypto trading the same as other assets and imposes a fixed 20% tax rate on all capital gain.

Binance to add opt-in button for 1.2% LUNC burn tax on all trades

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao stated that the exchange is implementing an opt-in button for the Terra Luna Classic (LUNC) tax burn.

This button will be visible to LUNC holders, and they can switch it on if they want to burn 1.2% of their LUNCs in each transaction.

Research Highlight

Debunking the FUD surrounding Bitcoin transaction fees

CryptoSlate analysts published an exclusive report about the Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt (FUD) on Bitcoin transaction fees. The transaction fees tie the Bitcoin network together, and people who’d like to see Bitcoin fail rely heavily on FUD attacks.

The attackers are not random individuals on Twitter. Instead, we see that the World Economic Forum, national regulators, and central banks attack Bitcoin by claiming “it will consume more power than the entire world” or “it is not a secure network.”

News from around the Cryptoverse

Coinbase sued for infringement of crypto transfer technology

Veritaserum Capital LLC has filed a patent lawsuit against Coinbase for allegedly infringing the patent for a crypto transfer technology awarded to Veritaserum’s founder, Reuters reported Sept. 23.

Veritaserum claimed that several Coinbase services violated the patent and requested $350 million in compensation for its damages.