Sam Bankman-Fried thought ‘taking FTX deposits through Alameda was legal’: Report

Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried addressed a New York courtroom under oath without the 12-member jury present.

According to reports from the courtroom on Oct. 26, SBF’s highly anticipated testimony kicked off with defense attorney Mark Cohen questioning the former FTX CEO on his use of the messaging app Signal and retention of communications data at the crypto exchange. Bankman-Fried reportedly claimed he acted in accordance with company policies on records, and none of the media set to “auto-delete” were “channels for decisions.”

“Why did you turn off auto-delete?” Cohen asked Bankman-Fried.“I had heard from regulators,” he replied.

Cohen pressed the former FTX…

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LayerZero’s wstETH bridge deployment draws Lido DAO ire

LayerZero recently introduced a bridge token allowing users to move Lido’s $5.5 billion wrapped staked ether (wstETH) token between Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB, and Scroll. 

There was one small problem, however: LayerZero apparently didn’t wait for Lido DAO’s permission before deployment.

LayerZero’s announcement of its omnichain fungible token (OFT) before a DAO vote led some Lido DAO members to feel that the DAO is being strong-armed into approval. While Lido DAO’s power has been a subject of concern lately, one member says the DAO has limited leverage to prevent situations like this one.

LayerZero announced its wstETH standard on Wednesday, and Binance’s BNB chain followed…

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Lummis, Hill push for ‘swift’ DOJ action against Binance, Tether 

Senator Cynthia Lummis and Rep. French Hill penned a letter to US Department of Justice Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday.

Hill and Lummis — both of whom have been advocates for crypto — penned the letter following reports that Hamas, and “bad actors,” used Tether and Binance.

Israeli authorities reportedly asked Binance to shutter around 100 accounts tied to Hamas. Tether froze 32 addresses controlled by both Hamas and “Russian-linked entities.” 

The letter cites a report from the Wall Street Journal which is facing controversy after Elliptic — the blockchain analysis firm named in the WSJ report, refuted the figures cited in the article.

The two asked Garland…

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Core devs rule out Dencun fork this year

Ethereum client developers confirmed on Thursday that the anticipated Dencun upgrade will not be implemented in a network hard fork before the end of 2023.

Already last month, when the new Holešky testnet was successfully launched behind schedule, the consensus was that putting the upgrade through its paces by the time December holidays rolled around was unlikely.

When an optimistic scenario was put forward on today’s All Core Developers call, the consensus was evidently with pseudonymous Prysm developer Potuz, who commented, “there is no way we are forking mainnet in 2023.”

He pointed to consistent consensus issues arising on the 10 developer networks (devnets) that have been…

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Crypto reshapes the American dream for younger generations: Report

A new Coinbase report on the state of crypto has revealed the disillusionment of younger generations (Gen Z and Millennials) with the traditional American dream and the financial system. It shows young Americans are more open than older generations to unconventional paths to financial independence, such as crypto, than older generations.

According to the report, young people find the American dream less achievable, partly due to high housing costs, inflation and an outdated financial system. Instead of following conventional paths, they are actively building new models of work, ownership and finance that are more flexible and don’t rely on legacy intermediaries.

Younger generations are…

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Ray Youssef: The Ray Narrative

This article is featured in Bitcoin Magazine’s “The Withdrawal Issue”. Click here to subscribe now.

A PDF pamphlet of this article is available for download. 

When I started out as an entrepreneur, I never thought armed men would one day barricade themselves in my office or that my staff would resign because they feared for their lives. But that’s exactly what happened this past January when my co-founder and former COO, Artur Schaback, stormed into our Estonian office with a friend and four armed thugs to demand money.

The first thing Schaback did when he arrived at the office was to demand that our chief of information security (CISO) give company access to Schaback’s friend, a…

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Solana Labs launches Web3 incubator offering dev and fundraising support

Solana Labs unveiled an all-new incubator program for project development on the Solana blockchain on Oct. 26. 

Title simply “Solana Incubator,” the program will offer fundraising, development, networking, and marketing support for web and blockchain projects seeking to build on Solana’s platform.

Building a web3 startup on the Solana network? ️

Today, @SolanaLabs introduces their Solana Incubator, so you can get hands on technical, go-to-market, and funding support!

Learn more and apply https://t.co/W10WnEgDwQ

— Solana (@solana) October 26, 2023

The Solana Incubator will accept applications through Nov. 30. Those accepted will purportedly receive support from the Solana Labs…

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Citadel Securities says Terraform acted in ‘bad faith’ by alleging role in UST depeg

Citadel Securities, in response to a court filing from Terraform Labs earlier this month, says it had nothing to do with the 2022 depeg of the stablecoin UST. 

In a filing that pushes back against a motion to compel by Terra, Citadel claimed that Terra is attempting to “deflect” from allegations that it conspired with Jump Trading to “pump up the asset prices.”

“Terraform uses a motion to compel to pursue a ridiculous conspiracy theory ‘exposing’ the purportedly hidden role of Citadel Securities in its self-imposed disaster. Not only is the time period of the request irrelevant, but the theory is baseless,” the filing said.

Terraform did not immediately respond to a…

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JUST IN: Lawmakers urge DOJ to probe Binance and further scrutinize Tether for potential illicit financial activities

Following recent attacks on Israel, Republican lawmakers, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., have formally requested the U.S. Department of Justice to assess the potential involvement of Binance and Tether in aiding terrorism funding. Their letter emphasized the urgent need to act swiftly against any entities that may be violating sanctions laws and the Bank Secrecy Act, in order to prevent further funding to those targeting Israel.