“Should Have Bought” is a news podcast by the ForkLog editorial team covering the week’s main industry events and the hottest tokens.
Topics: raid on market makers, Bitcoin below $60,000 and further correction risks, empty hype from HBO, Justin Sun as Prime Minister of Liberland.
Special guest: BitOK founder Dmitry Machikhin.
Participants: ForkLog authors Vasily Smirnov and Alex K.
“Nefarious” Market Makers
Federal prosecutors in Boston have made history by filing criminal charges for market manipulation and spoofing in the crypto market.
The case involves 18 individuals and organizations, including market makers Gotbit and ZM Quant. Over $25 million in cryptocurrency has been seized, and 26-year-old Gotbit founder Alexey Andryunin has been arrested.
The companies artificially inflated trading volumes, creating the illusion of active investments to sell tokens at inflated prices.
The FBI launched a crypto asset to identify fraudsters. The NextFundAI project was promoted as a token for early-stage AI project investments, promising to distribute 80% of profits among holders in USDT.
Experts from Lookonchain discovered that the wallet funding the creation of NextFundAI also manipulated the SAITAMA token, earning over $11 million.
Bitcoin at $59,000
On the evening of October 10, Bitcoin’s price fell below $59,000 but soon returned to levels above $60,000.
The correction was driven by disappointing macroeconomic data from the US and a lawsuit by the SEC against market maker Cumberland, accused of operating as an “unregistered dealer.”
The publication of inflation data virtually ruled out the possibility of a significant rate cut by the Fed in November. A reduced appetite for risk led to an increase in outflows from BTC-ETFs from $40.6 million to $120.8 million in a day.
Justin Sun’s High Office
Tron founder Justin Sun has been elected Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed microstate of Liberland. This unrecognized territory lies between Croatia and Serbia, covering an area of six square kilometers.
“The electoral process, governed by a simple set of rules, was entirely algorithmic to ensure transparency. This system has a unique ability to eliminate doubts about election results,” states the website of the “free republic.”
Liberland’s national motto is “live and let live,” and its official currency is Bitcoin.
A “Tap-to-Earn” for TikTok
The Solana project SonicX has launched a Tap-to-Earn style game on TikTok, aiming to “become Notcoin” on the short video platform. The game is built on the Sonic SVM gaming L2 solution, and the project plans to collaborate with content creators and launch advertisements.
Users will be able to earn points, upgrade accounts, and invite friends, influencing the upcoming airdrop. Each tap will be recorded on the blockchain, similar to the Tapos game on Aptos, which processed over 323 million transactions in three days.
Sonic SVM CEO Chris Zhu believes that even 1% of TikTok’s audience could bring up to 10 million users.
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