Web3 is Going Just Great

An instructional video posted to social media by the platform encourages people to "do [their] patriotic duty" by going to a District Court in a blue state, then "Secretly snap a photo of the judge. Don't let the bailiff see you." The video shows a person uploading a photograph of Judge James Boasberg, who is presiding over the Trump administration deportation flights case, and reporting him for "terrorism".

The project has been likened to Stasi programs in which citizens were paid to spy and report on their neighbors.

The founder of ICERAID, Jason Meyers, claims that he had had conversations with the White House about the project, although the website for the tool states it is not affiliated with any government agency and is not a website of the US government. Meyers has faced several enforcement actions resulting in disciplinary penalties over his involvement in security sales, and in 2014 was permanently banned by FINRA from broker-dealer activities after misappropriating investor funds. Meanwhile, multiple users have complained about not receiving their promised ICERAID tokens, and the project reportedly changed its terms after the token presale to reduce the amount of money buyers would earn for participating.

In addition to promoting the token through the usual means, Novogratz got a large tattoo on his shoulder representing the token. Sadly for him, although the LUNA token would later fade away after crashing in spectacular (and fraudulent) fashion, tattoos are forever.

Recently, $7 million was spent in a Polymarket market over whether Ukraine would agree to Trump's proposed mineral deal. Though no mutual agreement was reached, the market resolved to "yes". When it was challenged, a large holder of the UMA token cast a substantial number of yes votes to sway the outcome of the resolution, leaving the outcome in place.

Although Polymarket acknowledged that "This market resolved against the expectations of our users and our clarification" (referring to a Polymarket clarification that the resolution was too early as no mutual agreement was reached), they also refused to issue any refunds, writing that "this wasn't a market failure". "This is an unprecedented situation, and we have been in war rooms all day internally and with the UMA team to make sure this won't happen again. This is not a part of the future we want to build," the team member added.

Binance announced that they had fired the employee, as "This behavior constitutes front-running based on non-public information obtained from his previous role and is a clear breach of company policy." The company became aware of the insider trading after they were alerted by outside parties who submitted tips to the company.