Former FTX executive Singh pleads guilty to criminal charges
Nishad Singh, former FTX executive and confidante of ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, pleaded guilty to criminal charges on Tuesday, and will cooperate in the investigation of his former boss. The former director of engineering admitted to being aware of FTX sister firm Alameda Research’s use of customer funds to make leveraged bets without their knowledge. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to his charges – numbered eight and counting – insisting that the firm’s poor bets were not based in fraudulent motives, but poor management.
Visa crypto head lashes out against bearish rumours
A Visa executive has labelled reports about the payments company pausing its crypto investments during the bearish market as “inaccurate.” Reuters reported Tuesday that US payment companies Mastercard and Visa were “slamming the brakes” on their much-hyped crypto partnership goals following the industry’s sharp downturn in 2022. Visa’s head of crypto Cuy Sheffield responded to the article on Twitter, insisting that the company is still pressing forward with proposed partnerships and plans to “improve fiat on- and off-ramps.”
2/ We continue to partner with crypto companies to improve fiat on and off ramps as well as progress on our product roadmap to build new products that can facilitate stablecoin payments in a secure, compliant, and convenient way.
— Cuy Sheffield (@cuysheffield) February 28, 2023
Illuvium DAO seeks to prevent Su Zhu ‘gaming session’
The community behind NFT gaming entity Illuvium is trying to cancel a scheduled contest between Illuvium CEO Kieran Warwick and Three Arrows Capital co-founder Su Zhu, citing “scam by association.” Illuvium DAO is the decentralised autonomous organisation behind the project. Its members are unanimous in rejecting the proposed gaming session, which is slotted for March 8. Three Arrows Capital collapsed in July following a bevy of risky bets gone wrong, contributing to the wider contagion of crypto companies crumbling over the past year.
Crypto community fears Oasis.app’s $202m counter-hack setting new precedent
The crypto community is concerned that a $202 million counter-hack will set a dangerous precedent. Some fear it could see protocols respond to future court orders by seizing user funds. Their concerns comes after a judge-sanctioned counter-exploit clawed back $202 million stolen during a $320 million hack last year. The first hack exploited cross-chain bridge Wormhole to steal the assets. The counter-exploit was carried out by Oasis.app, one of the applications the hackers used to move the stolen funds. A judge of the High Court of England and Wales ordered Oasis.app to take “all necessary steps” to retrieve the funds on February 21.
NOW READ: Cryptojacking attacks soar as criminals pivot from ransomware
Soooo as much as I love the Wormhole hacker getting pwned, what I don’t love is that MakerDAO’s Oasis Automation has a backdoor that let them seize assets from a user based on a court order….
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) February 24, 2023
What happens when US courts demand they seize from US users in the future?
Ex-Biden aide reveals US plans to ‘crowd out’ crypto with CBDC
Daleep Singh, a former economic advisor to US President Joe Biden, told US senators on Tuesday that Biden’s administration seeks to develop a central bank digital currency to “crowd out” private crypto coins. In a Senate Banking Committee Hearing, Singh cited Russia’s alleged use of crypto to subvert sanctions and implement ransomware attacks as reasons behind the push. Singh’s comments were in response to questions fielded by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is trying to increase crypto regulations with a renewed anti-money laundering bill.
NOW READ: New Congress body to hold first-ever hearing on regulatory ‘attack’ on crypto
Ethereum’s Shanghai-Capella update moves closer with Sepolia testnet deployment
Ethereum’s next major update has moved one step closer to implementation, with a successful run on the Sepolia testnet. The update, dubbed “Shanghai-Capella,” must undergo testing gauntlets on three separate test networks, so-called testnets, before being deployed in March. Shanghai-Capella will be a major milestone for the platform, as it will allow Ethereum validators to withdraw staked ETH from the platform for the first time since the chain moved to proof-of-stake in September. The September event is referred to as “The Merge” and was a major achievement for Ethereum, eliminating the bulk of the protocol’s environmental impact by getting rid of the energy-intensive proof-of-work mining method made notorious by Bitcoin.
More DeFi news from around the web...
2023 will be year of crypto token price divergence: Bank of America – CoinDesk
UBS says Mt. Gox repayments are unlikely to destabilize bitcoin price – The Block
Optimism forges ‘superchain’ to challenge Arbitrum for supremacy in layer 2 market – The Defiant