• Aug 11, 2024

Detained Binance Exec's Health Is ‘Shockingly Bad’ in Nigerian Prison, Wife Says

Tigran Gambaryan—a former high-ranking executive at cryptocurrency exchange Binance who was taken into custody in Nigeria in February—is still being denied access to his legal team and experiencing a rapid decline in his health, according to his legal team. According to a statement shared with Decrypt, the circumstances for Gambaryan have worsened significantly since July 16, when the Abuja court adjourned for a holiday. Although the next hearing will not take place until October 11, his legal r...

• Aug 11, 2024

Bitcoin Miner Marathon Aims to Raise $250 Million to Buy More BTC—But It Could Be Risky

In a bold move that has raised eyebrows in the cryptocurrency industry, Marathon Digital Holdings—one of the world's largest Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies—has announced plans to raise $250 million through a private offering of convertible senior notes.  While the company frames this decision as a way to strengthen its Bitcoin holdings and support its long-term HODL strategy, industry experts are raising questions about the potential risks and implications of this approach. The convertible notes...

• Aug 11, 2024

Bitcoin Miner Argo Repays $35 Million Bailout Loan From Galaxy Digital

Top Bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain announced Monday that it had finished repaying a $35 million rescue loan from Galaxy Digital.  Argo said that it had repaid the loan—which came from crypto asset manager and financial services firm Galaxy in 2022—ahead of schedule.  Things were looking bad for the London-based company back in 2022, when a crypto bear market forced the miner to sell parts of its Bitcoin holdings to cover rising energy costs.  Things took a turn for the worse when it called off a...

• Aug 11, 2024

'I'll Be Fine' in Prison: Pump.fun Attacker Pleads Guilty in London

Jarett Dunn (aka Stacc on Twitter) pleaded guilty Monday to fraud by way of an abuse of position, as well as transfer of criminal property. This comes after the Canadian national drained an estimated $2 million from Solana meme coin factory Pump.fun in May and airdropped the funds to random wallet addresses. When Dunn attacked Pump.fun, many spectators hailed him as crypto’s Robin Hood. The meme coin launchpad is the home to countless pump-and-dump schemes, as well as a number of questionable cr...

• Aug 11, 2024

Bitcoin Bandits Swipe $700,000 in Apparent Targeted Attack in Costa Rica

Thieves stole roughly $700,000 worth of Bitcoin along with other belongings in a robbery in a Costa Rican beach town last week, according to local news reports. At least eight armed robbers violently robbed a group of Israeli nationals at a social event in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, taking a “substantial” amount of Bitcoin from them, local news agency Teletica reported Friday. The assailants, who were heavily armed and wearing police uniforms, appeared to have had law enforcement training, accordin...

• Aug 11, 2024

SEC Charges NovaTech Founders in Alleged $650 Million Crypto Scheme

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against the founders of NovaTech for running a Ponzi scheme that netted $650 million in cryptocurrency, the agency said on Monday. The SEC is accusing Cynthia and Eddy Petion of allegedly orchestrating the scam as a “crypto asset investment program” and multi-level marketing (MLM) company that, according to the agency, primarily targeted the Haitian-American community between 2019 and 2023. “NovaTech and the Petions caused untol...

• Aug 11, 2024

Coinbase Urges SEC to 'Abandon' Its 'Irrational' DeFi Exchange Rule

Coinbase once again came out swinging Monday against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC’s) yearslong attempt to expand a bureaucratic definition of the word “exchange,” which if successful would bring the DeFi ecosystem firmly under the regulator’s purview.  In an eight-page comment submitted to the SEC on Monday, Coinbase Chief Legal Office Paul Grewal chastised the potential rule change as “arbitrary” and “irrational” in several respects, and urged the agency to “abandon its effo...

• Aug 11, 2024

Bitcoin Price Slump Tied to Rise of Kamala Harris Over Trump, Says Bernstein

Growing excitement over the Kamala Harris presidential campaign may be contributing to Bitcoin’s recent price decline, analysts at Bernstein wrote in a report published Monday. Odds that Harris will win the election have shot up in recent polls, as well as on crypto prediction markets platform Polymarket since President Joe Biden backed out of the race for the Democratic candidacy in favor of his vice president. This is a bearish sign, according to analysts at the investment firm, due to how Dem...

• Aug 11, 2024

Democratic Crypto Voters Are Still 'Up for Grabs' This Election: Poll

Could crypto holders influence the result of this year’s U.S. presidential election? According to Paradigm, a prominent crypto venture capital firm, fresh polling data suggests yes. In a report released by Paradigm Monday, the company stated that “making inroads with crypto owners” could boost Vice President Kamala Harris’ victory odds come November. Specifically looking at Democrats, the company found that plenty of “crypto voters are up for grabs.”  Former President and current Republican cand...

• Aug 11, 2024

Crypto Startups Raised $2.7 Billion in Q2—Here's the Good and Bad News

In a notable shift from the previous quarter, venture capital (VC) funding in the cryptocurrency sector experienced a modest rise in total investment value during Q2 2024, even as the number of deals saw a significant decline. According to the latest PitchBook report, startups in the crypto space secured a total of $2.7 billion across 503 deals. The good news is that it represents a 2.5% increase in invested capital compared to Q1 2024, but there's been a 12.5% drop in deal volume. VC Sentiment...