Appeals court rejects Sam Bankman-Fried’s bid for release

November 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Appeal

The court cited Sam Bankman-Fried’s alleged witness tampering as the main grounds for rejecting his release bid.

FTX founder and convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried will stay jailed after failing to convince a United States appellate court that he should be freed while his legal team appeals his conviction.

In a Nov. 21 mandate, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said Bankman-Fried’s previous attempts to tamper with two witnesses while on pretrial release was a major reason behind rejecting his request.

“We have reviewed the Defendant-Appellant’s additional arguments and find them unpersuasive,” the court said.

*Bankman-Fried’s release motion was rejected by a U.S. appeals court. Source: Courtlistener*

Government prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of leaking Caroline Ellison’s diaries to The New York Times in July, which caused his bail to be revoked by a New York District Court.

Bankman-Fried argued the New York court failed to consider that he was engaged in activity considered freedom of speech protected under the First Amendment.

The appellate court, however, said the New York District Court ruled correctly and that witness tampering “falls outside the zone of constitutional protection.”

The 2nd Circuit has — rather belatedly — denied Sam Bankman-Fried's appeal of his pretrial detention.

"The record supports the district court’s conclusion that there was probable cause to believe
that the Defendant-Appellant attempted to tamper with two witnesses".
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) November 21, 2023

Bankman-Fried’s legal team also argued that the District Court failed to consider a less restrictive alternative to detention.

That argument was struck down, with the court stating that the District Court “thoroughly considered” all relevant factors, including Bankman-Fried while he was on pretrial release.

Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven fraud and money laundering-related charges on Nov. 2.

The former FTX CEO will remain behind bars while he awaits his sentencing on March 28 next year.

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Blockchain Association files support in suit to lift Tornado Cash sanctions

November 21, 2023 Coin Telegraph

amicus brief

The crypto advocacy group said OFAC must act within its statutory authority by sanctioning bad actors, not open-source software tools.

The Blockchain Association has thrown fresh support behind six plaintiffs suing the United States Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) over its sanctions on the crypto mixer Tornado Cash.

In a Nov. 20 amicus curiae brief to a U.S. appellate court, the crypto advocacy group argued OFAC’s decision to sanction the privacy protocol was not only unlawful but exceeded its statutory authority and was both “arbitrary and capricious” — contrary to the U.S. Constitution.

It’s the second amicus brief filed by the Blockchain Association supporting a group of Tornado Cash users appealing a lower court’s ruling that upheld OFAC’s decision to add the cryptocurrency mixer to its list of sanctioned entities.

Today we filed an amicus brief in the 5th Circuit appeal of Van Loon v. Treasury regarding OFAC’s sanctions against Tornado Cash.

Read Senior Counsel @MTCoppel's thread below for more. https://t.co/1pmSAt1Bds https://t.co/c5ScaTDr9N pic.twitter.com/e9ySvcKdeM
— Blockchain Association (@BlockchainAssn) November 20, 2023

Blockchain Association senior counsel Marisa Coppel emphasized in a Nov. 20 statement that OFAC needs to focus on sanctioning bad actors rather than outright banning tools, which she claimed it has no authority over.

“OFAC must see Tornado Cash for what it is: a tool that can be used by anyone,” Coppel said. “Rather than sanctioning a tool with a lawful purpose, OFAC should remain focused on the bad actors that misuse such tools.”

“OFAC’s action sets a dangerous new precedent that drastically exceeds their authority and jeopardizes law-abiding Americans’ right to privacy.”

In its brief, the Blockchain Association suggested OFAC should act within the bounds of the law by seeking approval from Congress to ban crypto mixers such as Tornado Cash.

“The proper remedy is to seek legislation from Congress that would provide supplemental authority in the uniquely decentralized digital asset context — not to improperly stretch its existing authorities,” it said.

“Such a power-grab would be a slippery slope that could threaten all manner of internet-based tools that have heretofore been freely available.”

The Blockchain Association has long held that Tornado Cash has no owner or operator and can function automatically without human intervention or assistance.

5/ OFAC’s authority only extends to persons or property…the Tornado Cash software is neither.

There is no owner.
No operator.
It functions autonomously.
And immutably.
— Marisa Tashman Coppel (@MTCoppel) November 20, 2023

OFAC first sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022. It alleged that individuals and groups had used the mixer to launder more than $7 billion in cryptocurrencies since 2019, including the $455 million stolen by the North Korea-affiliated Lazarus Group.

Crypto exchange Coinbase also backed the suit, pledging to

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Coinbase blasts SEC for ‘no straight answers’ following court order

June 19, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Appeals Court

The comment from the crypto exchange came after the SEC asked for more time to respond to Coinbase's rulemaking petition.

Coinbase has slammed the United States securities regulator for failing to answer questions asked in the U.S. Court of Appeals as part of its ongoing legal battle with the regulator.

In a June 17 letter filed in the Court, lawyers for the crypto exchange accosted the Securities Exchange Commission for continuing to offer “no straight answers” to the Court in relation to Coinbase’s rulemaking petition, which calls on the SEC to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets.

“When ordered by this Court to address the stark inconsistency between its litigating position and its actions and statements elsewhere, the SEC still offers no straight answers and instead repeats its talking points,” Coinbase’s letter said.

The letter was in response to the SEC’s June 13 submission requesting an additional 120 days to reply to Coinbase’s rulemaking petition.

Coinbase claimed the SEC is reluctant to inform the Court of updates on its decision, saying it “bristles even at being ordered to update the Court on its progress.”

The firm claimed the impact of the SEC’s silence, the lengthy delays and its enforcement actions continue to weigh on the crypto industry and SEC chair Gary Gensler "continues to charge well down the path to irreparably damaging a U.S. public company and an entire industry.”

On June 17, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, said in a series of tweets that it’s “unusual for the government to defy a direct question from a federal court.”

We couldn't wait until our deadline next week to address the SEC's response to the June 6 order from the Third Circuit. It is unusual for the government to defy a direct question from a federal court. But the SEC’s evasive response goes further, as we set out today. 1/5 pic.twitter.com/ssULmUpzi2
— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) June 17, 2023

Grewal said he’s hoping for the Court to grant a writ of mandamus — a court order to a government official ordering them to fulfill their official duties under the law — given thathe SEC knocked back Coinbase’s petition.

Coinbase is also submitting that the court instead set a deadline of 60 days or less starting from June 13 — the date of the SEC’s request.

In a separate case, the SEC sued Coinbase on June 6, alleging the trading platform broke various securities rules, most notably for purportedly offering cryptocurrencies that the regulator considers to be unregistered securities.

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Apple’s outside payments ban ruled as unlawful in likely win for NFTs and crypto

April 26, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Anti-Steering Provision

Unless Apple appeals the decision and has the ruling overturned, developers are free to direct app users to their own systems to make purchases.

A California court ruled Apple violated state competition laws by barring app developers from using alternative in-app payment methods apart from its own, which includes a 30% commission.

The decision may clear the path for cryptocurrency and nonfungible token (NFT) projects to add more functionality to their iOS apps.

The April 24 ruling was made by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case of Apple vs Epic Games — the creator of the video game Fortnite.

The court upheld the decision of a lower court from 2021 and said that Apple’s anti-steering provision harmed Epic.

The anti-steering provision is an Apple policy stating that iOS developers cannot communicate out-of-app payment methods through certain mechanisms such as in-app links.

The policy increased the costs of Epic’s subsidiaries’ apps that are still on Apple’s App Store and prevented other app users from becoming would-be Epic Games consumers, the court wrote.

Tim Sweeney, the founder and chief executive of Epic Games, tweeted on April 24 that the ruling “frees iOS developers” by allowing them to direct consumers to alternative payment solutions.

Fortunately, the court's positive decision rejecting Apple's anti-steering provisions frees iOS developers to send consumers to the web to do business with them directly there. We're working on next steps.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 24, 2023

While the court ruled in favor of Apple on most issues, the tech giant failed in its argument that the anti-steering provisions shouldn’t apply to Epic Games because it terminated Epic Games’ iOS developer account in August 2020.

The court ruled that Epic Games would have earned additional revenue since then — save for Apple’s policy — by applying the competitor-suit “tethering test” and the consumer-suit “balancing test” and found the anti-steering provision to be “unfair” pursuant to both tests.

The court looked at Apple’s anti-steering violation through a second angle, ruling that consumers would have flocked to Epic Games directly had they learned about its much lower commission rate of 12%, compared to Apple’s 30%.

“If consumers can learn about lower app prices, which are made possible by developers’ lower costs, and have the ability to substitute to the platform with those lower prices, they will do so — increasing the revenue that the Epic Games Store generates.”

If Apple doesn’t appeal the ruling, it could set a case law precedent benefiting creators of crypto and nonfungible token apps because they won’t be subject to Apple’s 30% “tax.”

Decentralized exchange Uniswap is one of the latest crypto projects to make its way into the App Store despite Apple initially withholding its launch in March.

Nearly two months ago, the European Union set new anti-monopolistic rules that require Apple to permit third-party app stores on its devices, which in turn allow consumers to circumvent Apple’s 30% commissions.

However, in December, Apple interfered with NFT transactions sent on Coinbase’s self-custody wallet, claiming that it’s entitled to “collect 30% of the gas fee” through in-app purchases.

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