Bitcoin price tested above $29,000, the CFTC filed suit against Binance and Changpeng Zhao, MicroStrategy bought 6,455 BTC for $150 million, and other events of the week.
Bitcoin tests above $29,000
On the morning of March 30, Bitcoin tested above $29,000. At its peak the price reached $29,184 (on Binance), a level last seen in June 2022.
By the weekend, prices had retraced. At the time of writing, digital gold was trading near $28,000.
Over the week, most assets in the top 10 by market capitalization finished in the green. The exception was BNB Coin (BNB). The price of the cryptocurrency fell by 3.6%. The best performer was XRP — up 17%.
The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies stood at $1.22 trillion. Bitcoin dominance index fell to 44.6%.
CFTC files suit against Binance and Changpeng Zhao
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a suit against the cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its chief Changpeng Zhao. In the regulator’s view, the platform violated derivatives trading rules by operating without the required registration.
Zhao called the regulator’s suit “unexpected and disappointing,” since the exchange had cooperated with the CFTC for more than two years. In turn, CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam stated that Binance’s actions are a clear case of evading the law, so the U.S. authorities should have intervened aggressively and as quickly as possible.
Following this, a court in the Southern District of New York stopped the deal to purchase Binance.US assets from Voyager Digital. Media reports also emerged about ties between Binance and China.
Former FTX chief accused of bribing Chinese officials
Former FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried is accused of bribing a Chinese official to unfreeze Alameda Research’s accounts. Court documents show the bribe amounted to $40 million.
According to Reuters, Bankman-Fried is not planning to plead guilty. He also does not intend to enter into a plea deal with prosecutors on any of the other charges, which could carry more than a hundred years in prison in total.
On March 28, the former FTX chief was granted new bail conditions. He will receive a phone without internet access and a laptop with limited functionality, with access allowed only to approved websites. The use of any other electronic communications is prohibited.
It was also revealed that Bankman-Fried paid court costs from a gift he gave to his father using funds borrowed from the platform. In 2021, he transferred $10 million to him using a loan from Alameda Research.
At the end of the week, the Cyprus-regulated FTX Europe launched a dedicated website, the functionality of which allows European clients of the bankrupt platform to submit withdrawal requests. Clients of FTX Trading, where most users were served, received emails listing balances at the time of its closure.
MicroStrategy bought 6,455 BTC for $150 million
According to an SEC filing, from 16 February to 23 March 2023 MicroStrategy bought additional about 6,455 BTC for ~$150 million at an average price of $23,238. It holds 138,955 BTC worth $4.14 billion.
The company also repaid a Silvergate loan of $205 million with a 22% discount.
Fragment added premium-subscription payments for Telegram in TON
The Telegram marketplace Fragment added the ability to purchase premium subscriptions for the messenger using Toncoin (TON) with a 20% discount.
During the week, the True USD (TUSD) stablecoin team became a partner of The Open Network. The collaboration will allow users to quickly and securely transfer assets to the TON network via Orbit Bridge.
What about Do Kwon
Montenegro’s Justice Minister Marko Kovac said that Terraform Labs’ Do Kwon will be tried in the country before the extradition process, which the United States and South Korea are pursuing. Kwon himself intends to appeal the decision to extend his detention by 30 days.
It was also announced that Kwon registered a company in Serbia three weeks after Interpol issued the red notice in September 2022.
What to discuss with friends?
- An Irish farmer has learned to mine bitcoin using cow manure.
- Gucci entered into a partnership with Yuga Labs.
- The creator of ‘Satoshi’s Skull’ admits his misgivings about Proof-of-Work.
- Hackers stole bitcoins in 52 countries via a fake Tor browser.
Gary Gensler: rules for regulating crypto companies in the U.S. already exist
SEC Chair Gary Gensler expressed confidence that the activities of crypto companies should be regulated under securities laws. He also reiterated his thesis that the vast majority of digital assets, except Bitcoin, fall under this definition.
This week the regulator charged the crypto trading platform Beaxy and its executives with unregistered activity as a securities exchange, broker and clearing agency.
DEX SafeMoon lost $9 million in a hack
An unknown compromised the liquidity pool of the SafeMoon DEX on BNB Chain and withdrew assets worth about $9 million. PeckShield experts suggested that the bug exploited by the hacker arose from a prior update to the burn function’s code.
A few hours after the incident the unknown actor sent a transaction to SafeMoon’s deployment address with the signature:
“Hey, relax, we accidentally front-run the attack against you and would like to return the funds. Let’s set up a secure channel of communication and talk.”
BNB Chain proposes lowering fees
The BNB Chain community is considering a proposal to reduce transaction fees in the BSC consensus protocol in response to rising competition from L2 solutions. The target threshold is set at $0.005.
Team behind Sui Network launched a ‘permanent testnet’ for the project
The Mysten Labs, founded by former Meta engineers, unveiled a ‘permanent testnet’ for Sui Network.
The test network will continue operating after mainnet launch, and the data stored in it will not be erased after each software update. The project’s mainnet launch was scheduled for Q2 2023.
U.S. government sold 9,861 BTC for $215 million
On March 14, U.S. authorities sold 9,861 BTC for a total of about $215.7 million. The assets sold formed only part of more than 50,000 BTC seized from James Zhong in November 2021. He pleaded guilty to illegally obtaining them on the Silk Road darknet marketplace.
See also:
- Bitcoin exchange Bittrex will wind down operations in the United States.
- The THORChain network suspended operations due to a vulnerability.
- Binance opened a regional hub in Georgia.
- Belarus extended tax breaks for the Bitcoin industry until 2025.
What to read this weekend
The decentralized legacy of Pavel Durov—the Open Network—continues to develop actively. But one of the project’s main risks remains centralisation due to excessive concentration of utility tokens among a small group of ecosystem participants tied to TON Foundation.
ForkLog found out who controls most of the premine assets.
Together with the team behind the decentralized security protocol HAPI Labs we explored how “dirty” crypto becomes “clean” and how AML services should label it going forward.
The ForkLog AI editorial team tested a new version of the GPT-4 neural network, whose access was opened to ChatGPT Plus subscribers, examined its capabilities and compared them with GPT-3.5.
At the end of March, ForkLog magazine prepared a calendar of important events for the coming month.
In traditional digests, they collected the week’s main events in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is reflected in new investments in infrastructure and in the growing attention companies give to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of the last weeks are in ForkLog’s overview.