...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet.
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Prager Metis is among the auditors who audited FTX, and was noted by FTX's CEO-in-bankruptcy John J. Ray III for advertising itself as "the first CPA firm to officially open its headquarters inside the metaverse".
None of the clients involved with the faulty audits were disclosed in the lawsuit, and the SEC has not issued any statements connecting the charges to the FTX collapse.
Three Arrows Capital fell apart in June 2022, and was among one of the first major collapses that set off a domino effect of crypto company failures throughout that summer and the rest of the year.
The change is scheduled to go into effect on October 16.
Police have received more than 2,200 complaints pertaining to the exchange, involving $191 million (and counting) in possible losses. Eleven people, including various crypto influencers who had promoted the exchange, were taken in for questioning. However, police have said those eleven people were not likely central to the fraud, and that the leaders of the JPEX project are on the run.
According to the South China Morning Post, "The alleged case of financial fraud involving HK$1.37 billion is the largest of its kind in Hong Kong's history."
However, a bug on the part of the counterfeiter prevented massive losses. The spoofer used only six decimal places instead of eight, meaning that those who tried to redeem the fake tokens only received $250 instead of $25,000.
Upbit later re-enabled Aptos transactions after patching the bug.
Sun offered a bounty to the hacker to return 95% of the funds, also promising to hire them as a "security white hat advisor" for the exchange. Otherwise, he threatened to go to law enforcement.
In their announcement, Mixin wrote that "the database of Mixin Network's cloud service provider was attacked by hackers", leading to some confusion as Mixin is supposed to be a decentralized network that ostensibly shouldn't have a centralized cloud database.
Mixin announced they would be suspending deposits and withdrawals pending analysis of the incident. They also told users that they would be compensated "up to a maximum of 50%" on assets that had been stolen from them, and receive "tokenized liability claims" (that is, IOUs) for the rest.
These types of scams draw in tens of millions of dollars each month, and one researcher has estimated around $350 million in Tether have been stolen in these types of scams since September 2021.
This is the second theft from Balancer in a month, after it warned of a critical vulnerability on August 22, and that vulnerability was exploited for around $2 million several days later.
The JPEX cryptocurrency exchange was the subject of a September 13 consumer warning by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), who said they were promoting services to Hong Kong residents without proper licensure. The following day, attendees of the Token 2049 crypto event observed that JPEX had abandoned the booth they'd rented. Then, JPEX hiked their withdrawal fees to as high as $999, and limited withdrawals to $1,000.
According to the South China Morning Post, customers have filed at least 83 complaints about the exchange, pertaining to crypto assets priced at $4.3 million. Hong Kong police have disclosed they are investigating the firm.
JPEX released a statement that the SFC was "exerting undue pressure on our platform", and asserted that the watchdog should "bear full responsibility for undermining the prospects" of the crypto industry in the region. Later, they accused their "partnered third-party market makers" of "maliciously fr[eezing] funds". They announced that, as a result, they would be pausing their Earn product. They also suspended their platform's gaming feature.
"Personally, we believe decentralization only works for the 'informed', it's not for everyone, no offense meant," wrote PolkaWorld on Twitter.
The trailer for the show features a duo pitching "Ape Water": Bored Ape-branded canned water that sells for $2.80/can. "We want to reimagine water... When you scan the can, that's when crypto and web3 is unlocked," says the booster. Revolutionary.
Even crypto Twitter seemed less than enthused, with one person writing that the show was "like Shark Tank, but cringe". Another wrote, "Just take a peep at the panel of judges it's full of crypto grifters and scammers".
However, the Holesky launch was a failure when developers misconfigured the network, causing it to fail to initiate. Developers announced they would try to relaunch the project a week after its intended go-live date. At least it was just a testnet.
Nouns NFTs have been popular since the project's launch in 2021, and in mid-2022 enjoyed a floor price of over 100 ETH (then over $150,000). Now they tend to sell for around 35 ETH (~$57,000). The DAO has used its substantial treasury to fund a wide range of projects, from creating Nouns short films, to distributing eyeglasses to kids, to partnering with Bud Light for a Super Bowl commercial in 2022.
Now, however, more than half of the project has opted to leave, with some leavers citing flawed decisionmaking and lack of leadership. As for the new fork, some Nouns owners may choose to "ragequit" — that is, forfeit their NFT and cash out their portion of the treasury (around 35.5 ETH, or $57,850, apiece). Some arbitrageurs have been buying Noun NFTs for months, hoping to use this ragequit functionality to profit.
Lawrence, Paffrath, and Nash are far from the only people facing class actions over their endorsements of FTX. Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Steph Curry, Shaquille O'Neal, Larry David, are also facing lawsuits over their activities in promoting the firm.
Remitano acknowledged the hack, writing that they had suffered a "data breach from a third-party source". They have claimed that users' assets will not be affected by the theft.
Remitano is a peer-to-peer crypto exchange focused on emerging markets, including Nigeria, Pakistan, Venezuela, and Malaysia.
This isn't the first time Cuban has been burned by the crypto industry. In June 2021, he lost "enough that I wasn't happy about it" in the collapse of the Titan stablecoin. Cuban is also a defendant in a class action lawsuit related to his endorsement of Voyager, a crypto broker that collapsed in July 2022.
Although Genesis Global Capital filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, portions of its business were excluded from the bankruptcy and continued to operate.
The series was developed by Mila Kunis and her production company, and she, Ashton Kutcher, and Chris Rock all performed in the show, which ultimately aired six episodes accessible only to those who hold the NFTs. The premise, according to the SEC, is "house cats that become sentient after being exposed to their owner's medical marijuana".
The SEC determined that the project had marketed the NFTs as an investment in a web series enterprise, and had therefore violated securities laws by not registering with the SEC. Stoner Cats 2 LLC agreed to a cease-and-desist order, and will pay a $1 millon penalty.
