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Recently Extradited Terra (LUNA) Founder Do Kwon Set To Appear in U.S. Court Today: Report

Recently Extradited Terra (LUNA) Founder Do Kwon Set To Appear in U.S. Court Today: Report

The disgraced co-founder of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem is set to appear in a US court today after recently being extradited from Montenegro. According to a new report by Reuters, Do Kwon is facing fraud charges in the US related to the multibillion-dollar downfall of Terra in 2022 and will make his first court appearance […]

The post Recently Extradited Terra (LUNA) Founder Do Kwon Set To Appear in U.S. Court Today: Report appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

Crypto criminals who are spending their first New Year’s in prison

From Sam Bankman-Fried to the man responsible for hacking Bitfinex, many convicted felons are ringing in 2025 behind bars.

Though Bitcoin ended 2024 having reached an all-time high price of more than $100,000, the year also marked the end of criminal cases of many high-profile cryptocurrency industry leaders and scammers.

In its heyday, FTX was one of the most prominent cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, bringing in millions of users from dozens of countries. That changed in less than a week in November 2022 after the firm reported liquidity problems and was forced to declare bankruptcy.

After a lengthy extradition process from the Bahamas, former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried was moved to United States custody and initially released on bond. He was held in a correctional facility after a federal judge revoked his bail in August 2023, prior to his criminal trial, conviction and sentencing. 

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Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

Solana co-founder sued by ex-wife over millions worth of staked SOL

Elisa Rossi, the ex-wife of Solana co-founder Stephen Akridge, accused him of taking millions of dollars worth of her SOL staking rewards.

Solana co-founder Stephen Akridge was sued by his ex-wife, who accused him of secretly profiting from her stash of the blockchain’s token through staking rewards.

Akridge was hit with a lawsuit filed in San Francisco’s Superior Court on Dec. 24 by Elisa Rossi, who alleged her ex-husband earned “millions of dollars in staking rewards” from Solana (SOL) tokens she claims are hers, without her knowledge.

The complaint said Akridge was Solana Labs’ principal engineer after helping establish the company in 2018. He is now CEO of the cybersecurity company Cyber Grant.

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Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

Tornado Cash dev wants charges dropped after court said OFAC ‘overstepped’

Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm has petitioned a judge to drop the criminal charges against him after an appeals court found the Treasury unlawfully sanctioned the crypto mixer.

Roman Storm, the co-founder of crypto mixing platform Tornado Cash, has told a United States federal judge that his criminal charges should be dropped after an appeals court found sanctions against the platform’s smart contracts were unlawful.

Storm said in a Dec. 18 motion in a Manhattan district court that an opinion last month from the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court on a separate case finding the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) exceeded its authority in sanctioning Tornado Cash’s smart contracts “makes clear that all three counts of the indictment are fatally and legally flawed.”

He argued the opinion “most obviously impacts” his charge of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a law central to the US sanctions apparatus, as the appeals court found the smart contracts “are not the ‘property’ of a foreign national or entity” meaning they “cannot be blocked” under the law.

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Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

Self-Proclaimed Bitcoin Creator Craig Wright Declared in Contempt of Court

Self-Proclaimed Bitcoin Creator Craig Wright Declared in Contempt of Court

A man who claims to be the creator of Bitcoin (BTC) has been declared in contempt of court in the UK. Australian computer scientist Craig Wright has been handed a one-year sentence, suspended for two years, for filing a $1.2 trillion lawsuit against the payments firm Block. The judge says Wright violated a previous court […]

The post Self-Proclaimed Bitcoin Creator Craig Wright Declared in Contempt of Court appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

Alleged SEC hacker allowed to travel for the holidays

A federal judge has given Eric Council Jr., who pleaded not guilty to compromising the SEC's X account, permission to travel to North Carolina between Dec. 23 and Dec. 29.

Eric Council Jr., the individual who allegedly hacked the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account in January and posted a message suggesting that Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) had been approved, will be allowed to travel for the holidays. 

In a Dec. 13 filing with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Council could travel to North Carolina with a third-party custodian between Dec. 23 and Dec. 29. The judge said the alleged hacker “must provide Pre-Trial Services with his precise itinerary and information concerning where he will be staying at least two business days before traveling.”

Council pleaded not guilty to hacking the SEC’s X account on Jan. 9 and posting a message suggesting that the commission had greenlighted spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs at a time when many in the industry expected a decision. The fake message, complete with a quote from SEC Chair Gary Gensler, shook markets before the commission officially approved the investment vehicles roughly 24 hours later.

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Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

Australia fines Kraken operator $5M for regulatory breaches

Kraken Australia operator Bit Trade must pay $5 million plus court costs after the Federal Court sided with the country’s corporate watchdog.

Australia’s Federal Court fined the Australian operator of United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken 8 million Australian dollars ($5.1 million) after siding with the country’s corporate regulator.

In a Dec. 12 judgment, Justice John Nicholas ordered Bit Trade, which operates Kraken Australia, to pay the fine within 60 days and cover court costs. The court found that Bit Trade failed to comply with design and distribution obligations and acted as a credit facility without a license.

The penalty is less than the $12.8 million sought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which Nicholas described as “excessive.” Still, it exceeded Bit Trade’s request to limit the fine to $2.5 million, which the judge deemed “insufficient.”

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Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

FDIC asked banks to ‘pause’ crypto activities — Court docs

Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal claimed the letters provided evidence that an alleged US government attempt to debank firms “wasn’t just some crypto conspiracy theory.”

Court documents filed in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) showed the US regulatory body asked certain financial institutions to pause crypto banking activities.

In a Dec. 6 filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the court released “pause letters” sent by FDIC officials to the boards of directors for different US banks, whose names were redacted.

According to the letters sent in 2022, the FDIC requested the institutions “pause all crypto asset-related activity” in response to the uncertain regulations around digital assets.

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Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

Court blocks ‘Faketoshi’ Craig Wright’s appeal in Bitcoin creator case

The UK Court of Appeal suggested that Craig Wright’s appeal grounds contained “multiple falsehoods,” including reliance upon some “fictitious authorities.”

The United Kingdom Court of Appeal has rejected Craig Wright’s attempt to appeal a High Court ruling that declared he is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.

Hodlonaut, a Bitcoin (BTC) influencer extensively covering Wright’s “Faketoshi” saga, took to X on Nov. 29 to report that Wright’s application for permission to appeal has been “brutally denied.”

According to the court, Wright provided false arguments for being Nakamoto, including those suspected to be created with artificial intelligence.

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Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days

Ex-Binance employee sues UK exchange, alleging bribery: Report

Amrita Srivastava, who worked at Binance from 2022 to 2023, alleged reporting a bribe at the crypto exchange resulted in her dismissal.

A former senior employee at Binance has reportedly filed a lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange’s United Kingdom arm, making allegations including bribery and unfair dismissal.

According to a Nov. 28 Bloomberg report, former Binance employee Amrita Srivastava sued the crypto exchange in the UK, claiming that another worker solicited bribes from a customer. She alleged that she was unfairly dismissed from her position a month after bringing the matter to management’s attention in April 2023. 

Srivastava alleged that the unnamed Binance employee accepted the bribe “under the guise of providing consultative services.” An exchange spokesperson reportedly said the alleged bribe “was already known,” and Srivastava’s employment was terminated for “poor performance” at the firm.

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Defi Frenzy: Dex and Perpetuals Smash $52.81B in January’s First 4 Days