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FTX Founder Arrested, Charged with Fraud by SEC
FTX Founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of defrauding investors.
Bankman-Fried was arrested Bahamian authorities Monday at the request of the U.S. government. Just 24 hours later, the now infamous former crypto wunderkind has been charged with violating the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The SEC’s complaint seeks injunctions against future securities law violation that prohibits Bankman-Fried from participating in the issuance, purchase, offer or sale of any securities except for his own personal account.
FTC Opposes Microsoft Activision Blizzard Acquisition
Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard hit a rodblock Thursday when the Federal Trade Commision (FTC) reportedly opposed the deal.
According to the FTC, the acquisition could violate anti-monopoly regulations, citing Miucrosoft’s penchant for freezing out other gaming rivals by withholding its content.
Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella had previously stated that acquisition would “play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms.”
The FTC is caught between two media megaliths, however, as the regulatory body filed a lawsuit against Meta in July alleging “its ultimate goal of owning the entire ‘metaverse.’”
Whether the FTC will side with Microsoft to allow more competition in the metaverse space or with Microsoft’s gaming rivals is yet to be determined.
Report Suggests Bahamas Officials Asked Bankman-Fried to Mint New Assets Post-FTX Fallout
According to a Dec. 12 Bloomberg report, Bahamas government officials asked Sam Bankman-Fried to mint new digital assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, following the collapse of FTX in November.
The authorities also reportedly asked the former FTX CEO to transfer the new tokens to the control of island officials. FTX’s lawyers also said in a court filing Bahamas officials tried to help Bankman-Fried regain access to key computer systems of the now-defunct FTX trading platform.
According to American lawyers, Bahamas officials were “responsible for directing unauthorized access” to FTX systems in order to take over control of digital assets under the supervision of a U.S. court.
The report has strained ties between the U.S. and the Commonwealth of Bahamas during the same period when Bahamas officials arrested Bankman-Fried at the behest of the U.S. government.
Mintlayer to Launch New Token
Mintlayer — a layer-2 solution that unlocks decentralized finance (DeFi), smart contracts, atomic swap, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and apps for Bitcoin — has announced its token launch event: March 21, 2023.The team has decided to issue disbursements to all tokenholders that have supported the project in the form of ERC-20 tokens. The Mintlayer utility token can be used to purchase various services from RBB Lab.
