A bet on injecting iPhone-esque magic into virtual reality It’s here (or it will be “early next year”): Apple unveiled its long-awaited entry into virtual reality, or what the tech giant calls “spatial computing,” in the form of the Apple Vision Pro, a $3,500 device that looks like exquisitely designed futuristic ski goggles. The initial […]
Read More
Fake news, real market drop For a few minutes on Monday, an ominous image of black smoke billowing from what appeared to be a government building near the Pentagon set off investor fears, sending stocks tumbling. Experts quickly dismissed the picture as a fake, most likely cobbled together with artificial intelligence, and markets swiftly recovered. […]
Read More
Snippets of computer code. More than six million pages of emails, Slack messages and other digital records. And a small black notebook, filled with handwritten observations. For months, federal prosecutors building the criminal case against the fallen cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried have assembled a vast and unusually varied array of evidence. The documents include crypto […]
Read More
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has issued his first detailed legal defense since prosecutors accused him of fraud, seeking to dismiss several of the charges and claiming that the high-powered law firm representing FTX in its bankruptcy has been doing the government’s bidding. In court filings late Monday, lawyers for […]
Read More
The F.B.I. carried out a search on Thursday morning at the Potomac, Md., home of Ryan Salame, a former FTX executive who was a major campaign contributor to Republican political candidates, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Mr. Salame, who ran FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary, was part of the close circle of advisers around […]
Read More
SAN FRANCISCO — Faking it is over. That’s the feeling in Silicon Valley, along with some schadenfreude and a pinch of paranoia. Not only has funding dried up for cash-burning start-ups over the last year, but now, fraud is also in the air, as investors scrutinize start-up claims more closely and a tech downturn reveals […]
Read More
The disgraced cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried on Thursday pleaded not guilty to an array of criminal charges, including new accusations that he committed bank fraud and bribed a foreign official. Sporting a new haircut that trimmed his distinctive mop, Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, was back in Federal District Court in Manhattan to be arraigned on an updated indictment […]
Read More
Federal prosecutors added a foreign bribery charge to the growing list of crimes already pending against the FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, according to a new indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. Federal prosecutors said that in 2021 Mr. Bankman-Fried instructed those working for him to pay a bribe of $40 million to […]
Read More
Federal prosecutors added a foreign bribery charge to the growing list of crimes already pending against the FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, according to a new indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. Federal prosecutors said that in 2021 Mr. Bankman-Fried instructed those working for him to pay a bribe of $40 million to […]
Read More
A year ago, Mr. Kwon was one of the richest and most powerful figures in the crypto industry. After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in computer science, he started Terraform Labs, which issued two closely linked digital currencies: TerraUSD, a stablecoin with a price of $1, and Luna, a more traditional cryptocurrency with […]
Read More
The money flowed freely at a pandemic-prevention organization run by the younger brother of Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul. Just over $375,000 financed a failed campaign in Colorado to increase taxes on cannabis sales in order to support pandemic research. Another $1 million was spent on consulting and advertising expenses in a single year. […]
Read More
At a cryptocurrency conference in Denver this month, a group of singers clad in bright orange onesies took the stage to perform what one industry website later described as an anthem for the crypto faithful, a “blockchain ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’” The chorus was a list of crypto’s most notorious villains, from the trash-talking entrepreneur Do Kwon […]
Read More
Listen and follow ‘Hard Fork’Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon | Google Snapchat launches a chatbot. Meta plans to “turbocharge” its A.I. work. Elon Musk explores “BasedAI.” At this point, who isn’t making an A.I. play? Plus: the latest with FTX and the great crypto crackdown. Also, a new TikTok filter is making people […]
Read More
To close observers of Wall Street, the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried carried a curious twist: The man whose unbridled recklessness may have led to one of the largest financial frauds in history started his trading career — and met many of his future lieutenants — at an under-the-radar firm known for keeping a tight grip […]
Read More
“Simply a fraud” The legal clampdown on crypto’s accused villains, fraudsters and fallen stars has stepped into a higher gear, a shift that’s contributing to more volatility in the price of digital assets. Atop the crypto crime blotter on Friday is the S.E.C.’s decision to charge Singapore-based Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon with […]
Read More
Judge Kaplan noted that the hearing was not called to consider bail revocation, “but it could get there, conceivably.” A lawyer for Mr. Bankman-Fried, Mark S. Cohen, called the government’s proposal “draconian,” noting that it would prevent his client from doing research or viewing evidence. He also denied that Mr. Bankman-Fried had committed any wrongdoing […]
Read More
“Not ready for human contact”? Microsoft’s decision last month to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, makers of the chatbot sensation ChatGPT, has been a boon for investors. The stock has jumped more than 12 percent in that period, adding nearly $250 billion to Microsoft’s market cap, on hopes that the underlying technology would live up […]
Read More
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have also seized assets they contend were acquired with money misappropriated from FTX’s customer accounts. Last month, the prosecutors disclosed that they had seized more than $600 million in assets belonging to Mr. Bankman-Fried, including cash and stocks kept in bank and brokerage accounts. It’s unclear why prosecutors have not seized […]
Read More
A Kraken crackdown The S.E.C.’s decision to charge the crypto exchange Kraken with securities violations over a popular way for the industry to make money sent more chills down the spines of executives across the sector. At 7:40 a.m. Eastern, the price of Bitcoin traded at $21,757, down nearly 3.9 percent in the past 24 […]
Read More
A federal judge on Thursday ordered lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, to create a plan with prosecutors that would ensure Mr. Bankman-Fried does not delete text messages he sends while he awaits trial on charges that he orchestrated the theft of billions of dollars in customer deposits. […]
Read More
Federal prosecutors are scrutinizing a growing array of people tied to Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed cryptocurrency empire, including his father, his brother and former colleagues, as part of a rapidly expanding investigation into one of the biggest American financial crime cases in more than a decade, according to 13 people with knowledge of the inquiry. The […]
Read More