FTX declared bankruptcy this month with $900 million in assets against $9 billion in liabilities. Its founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, is being questioned by police in the Bahamas, and many customers are unable to withdraw their deposits. Its holdings of Serum’s SRM, a token Bankman-Fried developed, dropped from a value of more than $2 billion to less than $100 million. Things got worse over the weekend after FTX was apparently hacked, leading to the loss of an additional several hundred million. Some commentators are already calling it cryptocurrency’s “Lehman moment,” referring to the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers …

Circle, the company behind the issuance of USDC Coin (USDC) said recent events have caused it to miscalculate its financial projections — referring to the collapse of FTX and a decision by rival exchange Binance. In September, crypto exchange Binance announced it will auto-convert USDC to its own stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD), last week saw the collapse of FTX. Circle’s 2022 miscalculated projection was noted in its amended S-4 registration statement which was filed to the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) on Nov. 14. The S-4 is a registration statement is a document that companies fill out and submit …

Will former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried be held accountable for his mismanagement of investor funds? After most of the entities tied to his cryptocurrency exchange became insolvent last week, blockchain analysts concluded the insolvencies came as a partial result of the exchange’s trading house, Alameda Research, burning through nearly $10 billion in cash that technically belonged to FTX customers. To date, the company has declined to elaborate on the contractual details that made the arrangement possible — or legal. In the aftermath of FTX’s collapse, skeptics have questioned whether the elite — in Washington or elsewhere — will be motivated …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has extended its window to decide on whether shares of ARK 21Shares’ Bitcoin exchange-traded fund could be listed on the Chicago Board Options Exchange BZX Exchange. In a Nov. 15 announcement, the SEC issued a notice for a longer designation period for the application of ARK 21Shares’ Bitcoin (BTC) ETF, originally filed with federal regulator on May 13. The SEC twice extended its window to approve or disapprove of the crypto investment vehicle in July with an extension and in August with a comment period. “The Commission finds that it is …

Up until the start of this week, Bitcoin (BTC) had been demonstrating record-low volatility, and this gave altcoins enough latitude to paint some nice technical setups. At the same time, on-chain data and technical analysis were beginning to suggest that BTC was midway through carving out a bottom, and many analysts believed that brighter days lay ahead. Fast forward to the present, and the volatility spike the market received actually turned out to be a black swan event. As you already know, FTX is kaput. Alameda Research is kaput. BlockFi has put a stop to withdrawals, citing an inability to …

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Cyprus, or CySEC, reportedly issued a statement amid FTX filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States that the regulator requested the exchange halt operations for its Europe arm. According to a Nov. 11 Reuters report, the CySEC said it had asked FTX Europe to “suspend its operations and to proceed immediately with a number of actions for the protection of the investors” on Nov. 9. It’s unclear why the financial regulator chose to reiterate its call to the crypto exchange, given FTX Europe was one of roughly 130 companies in FTX Group …

Tom Emmer, the recently re-elected Republican lawmaker representing Minnesota’s 6th district in the United States House of Representatives, has alleged Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler had been helping FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to gain a “regulatory monopoly” through the crypto firm. In a Nov. 10 tweet, Emmer criticized Gensler for “run[ning] to the media” amid FTX’s liquidity issues causing ripples throughout the crypto market. According to the Republican lawmaker, his team was looking into the SEC chair’s alleged collaboration with Bankman-Fried and FTX, but only cited reports presented to his office as evidence without providing details. Interesting. @GaryGensler …

Recent developments in the Ripple vs Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) case appear to have bolstered investor confidence in XRP-tied investment products, according to investment data from CoinShares’ head of research James Butterfill. In its latest Digital Asset Fund Flows published on Nov. 7, Butterfill noted that XRP investment products have seen a third consecutive week of institutional inflows, clocking $1.1 million. Butterfill said the figures imply "improving investor confidence as the SEC case against Ripple looks increasingly fragile." The last few weeks have seen Ripple Labs gaining increasing support from heavy hitters in the crypto industry including Coinbase and …

A United States District Court ruled in favor of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Nov. 7 in its case against blockchain-based file-sharing and payment network LBRY. The court granted the SEC’s request for a summary judgment filed May 5. The SEC sued developer LBRY, Inc. in March 2021 — after the agency had brought similar charges against Ripple — claiming that its LBRY Credit token (LBC) was sold as a security under the 1933 Securities Act. According to the SEC, LBRY raised more than $11 million in U.S. dollars, Bitcoin, and services from investors between 2016 and 2021 without …

The United States will go to the voting booths on Nov. 8 to decide the fate of all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 34 out of the 100 Senate seats. The outcome will decide the prevailing power balance in Washington and has the potential to affect the crypto industry. Perhaps that’s why 38% of eligible voters will consider candidates’ positions on crypto, according to a recent survey. Another survey suggests that crypto regulation is a bipartisan issue, with 87% of Democratic and 76% of Republican respondents saying they want clarity from the U.S. government on digital assets. …

Over several years, social media influencers have earned a bad rep among regulators for shilling risky and unvetted tokens to millions of investors. Pursuing the crackdown on such scenarios, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reportedly issued a subpoena to influencers who were found promoting cryptocurrencies such as HEX, PulseChain and PulseX. Swedish researcher Eric Wall shared an official letter from the SEC dated Nov. 1, which was addressed to influencers. It read: “We believe that you may possess documents and data that are relevant to an ongoing investigation being conducted by the staff of the United States Securities …

The entity supporting research and development of Polkadot as well as overseeing fundraising efforts for the blockchain has argued that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission should not consider the DOT token a security under its regulatory purview. In a Nov. 4 blog post, the Web3 Foundation Team’s chief legal officer Daniel Schoenberger said Polkadot’s native token (DOT) had “morphed” and was “software” rather than a security. Schoenberger said the claim was “consistent with the views” it had shared with the SEC following discussions it began in November 2019. “While the Polkadot vision had not contemplated that the blockchain’s …