Just days after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued it, the American arm of Binance, the giant cryptocurrency exchange, announced some painful news: It will no longer allow customers to trade on its platform using U.S. dollars. Banking partners of the exchange’s U.S. unit, Binance.US, had been spooked by the S.E.C.’s action, the company said, and […]
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Crypto Crackdown: Coinbase and Binance Lawsuits Shake Markets
In more blows to the cryptocurrency sector, two of its biggest players were sued this week by the Securities and Exchange Commission: On Monday, the agency filed charges against Binance, the world’s biggest exchange, and the next day it accused Coinbase, the only publicly listed exchange in the United States, of violating securities laws. The […]
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Crypto Firms Start Looking Abroad as U.S. Cracks Down
The wave of government enforcement against cryptocurrency companies is beginning to remake the industry. Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States, has opened a business in Bermuda. Gemini, a rival firm based in New York, is seeking a license in the United Arab Emirates. And Bittrex, an exchange in Seattle, has shut down […]
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Apple Bets the Vision Pro Can Take the Metaverse Mainstream
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 […]
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An A.I.-Generated Picture Stokes a Stock Market Plunge
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. […]
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Mountain of FTX Evidence: Emails, Chat Logs, Code and a Notebook
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 […]
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Sam Bankman-Fried, in First Detailed Defense, Seeks to Dismiss Charges
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 […]
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F.B.I. Searches Home of Top FTX Executive
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 […]
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The Crypto Detectives Are Cleaning Up
Before a new breed of cryptocurrency detectives helped bring him down, Ryan Felton marketed his crypto scheme with a grandiose promise: He was creating “Netflix on the blockchain.” He called the crypto-themed streaming service FLiK. For a small amount of the popular digital currency Ether, customers could purchase a FLiK token, which would give them […]
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Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty to Additional Set of Charges
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 […]
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Sam Bankman-Fried Is Charged With Foreign Bribery
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 […]
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Bankman-Fried Is Charged With Foreign Bribery
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 […]
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Do Kwon, Crypto Fugitive, Led a Very Public Life While on the Run
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 […]
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The Younger Brother Caught in the Middle of the FTX Investigation
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. […]
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Crypto Wants Its Shine Back
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 […]
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Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Sets Off Blame Game Between Crypto and Tech
SAN FRANCISCO — For once, the crisis didn’t seem to revolve around a cryptocurrency company. The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday set off panic across the technology industry. But crypto executives and investors — who have endured a year of near-constant upheaval — seized on the moment to preach and scold. Centralized […]
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Why Regulators Plan to Sue Over JetBlue’s Deal for Spirit
The next big antitrust fight takes off The Justice Department plans to sue to block JetBlue’s deal to buy the low-cost airline Spirit Airways for $3.8 billion, JetBlue acknowledged on Monday. Word of the suit — which could come as soon as Tuesday — sent shares in Spirit down nearly 9 percent. Expect prosecutors to […]
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Everyone Pivots to A.I., and Bad News for Crypto
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 […]
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‘Effective Altruism’ Led Bankman-Fried to a Little-Known Wall St. Firm
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 […]
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Authorities Step Up Their Crypto Crackdown
“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 […]
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Judge Signals Jail Time if Bankman-Fried’s Internet Access Is Not Curbed
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 […]
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Users Find Microsoft’s New Chatbot Technology Unreliable.
“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 […]
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FTX Negotiates for Return of $400 Million From Obscure Hedge Fund
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 […]
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Sam Bankman-Fried Needs Tighter Bail Restrictions, Judge Says
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. […]
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FTX Inquiry Expands as Prosecutors Reach Out to Former Executives
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 […]
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