Ether (ETH) price has declined by 14.7% since its peak at $2,120 on April 16, 2023. However, two derivatives metrics indicate that investors have not felt this bullish in over a year. This discrepancy warrants an investigation into whether the recent optimism is a broader response to Bitcoin (BTC) breaking above $34,000 on Oct. 24.

One possible reason for the surge in enthusiasm among investors using ETH derivatives is the overall market’s excitement regarding the potential approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States. According to analysts from Bloomberg, the ongoing amendments to the spot Bitcoin ETF proposals can be seen as a “good sign” of progress…

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The defense began making their final plea to the jury Wednesday afternoon in Manhattan as Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial nears its end. 

“The government has tried to turn Sam into some kind of villain, some kind of monster,” lead defense attorney Mark Cohen began during closing arguments Wednesday. 

One of the few areas of agreement between both prosecution and defense appears to be that witnesses have been inconsistent. As might be expected, they subsequently disagree on which side is being dishonest. 

“The government’s core case” is based entirely on “witness testimony that is not consistent,” Cohen argued. 

The defense added a new point to their argument…

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Federal prosecutors claimed Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried “doubled down” on the use of customers’ funds when he purchased Binance’s $2 billion stake in FTX in 2021. According to U.S. government attorneys, Bankman-Fried paid for the buyout with funds from FTX customers.

The prosecution is delivering its closing arguments on Nov. 1 at the Southern District Court of New York, where Bankman-Fried’s trial has been taking place since Oct. 3. Jurors in the case reportedly heard from ​​Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos:

“The defendant had a choice: come clear or double down? He doubled down. Here’s when he doubled down. He used customer money to buy back FTX’s stock from Binance…. Read more on Cointelegraph

Ava Labs will sunset its Etherscan-run block explorer and replace it with a new product, dubbed Routescan, on Nov. 30.

Users will be required to back up the information they have included on the block explorer before the deactivation date, including addresses, private name tags and private transaction notes. 

According to the Etherscan website, the decision to discontinue block explorers is often the result of various factors, including the expiration or non-renewal of a service agreement or lack of team bandwidth.

Luigi D’Onorio, the head of DeFi and developer relations at Ava Labs, told Blockworks that Snowtrace as a domain will continue to live on, but the Etherscan deployment…

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London-based financial giant HSBC is trying its hand at gold tokenization.  

The bank launched tokenized ownership of physical gold held in its London vault on Wednesday, noting its use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) to trade the assets.  

The approach “generates a permissioned digital representation of clients’ physical gold holdings,” the company said in a news release. One token on HSBC’s gold tokenization platform is equivalent to 0.001 troy ounce.

Tokenized physical gold can be traded between HSBC and institutional investors through the HSBC Evolve platform.

HSBC is not new to using the blockchain. The company teamed up with Wells Fargo in December 2021 to use a…

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As Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial comes to a close in Manhattan, prosecutors began making their final pleas to the jury Wednesday. 

In a two-and-a-half-hours-long (so far) closing argument, the prosecution called back a familiar narrative: Bankman-Fried knowingly and intentionally stole from customers and defrauded investors. 

“Where did the money go? What happened? Who was responsible?” Prosecutor Nicolas Roos said at the start of the government’s closing arguments. “You know the answers to those questions.”

Read more: He said, she said: Testimonies from SBF and Caroline Ellison aren’t matching up

Roos told the jury that the government already knows who is…

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