CZ and Binance face new lawsuits, RFK Jr quits campaign and more: Hodler Digest August 18

The main news of the week

Former FTX Excursion partner hit with campaign finance charges

US authorities have charged former FTX Digital Markets co-founder Michelle Bond with campaign finance violations.

In an indictment unsealed Aug. 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams alleges Bond and an unnamed associate illegally funded her 2022 run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions, making and receiving excessive campaign contributions, making and receiving illegal corporate contributions, and making and receiving funnel contributions.

The unnamed co-conspirator — Bond's “love partner” and “high-level executive at the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange” Salamee is unlikely to mention — allegedly facilitated the $400,000 payment to Bond from the firm. The prosecutor made false statements to the Federal Election Commission and a congressional committee to cover up her and her staff's actions.

McDonald's Instagram Hackers Grimace memecoin get 700 thousand shillings

Fraudsters who hacked the official McDonald's Instagram page on August 21 used the fast-food giant's social media site to buy the memecoin “GRIMACE,” spending more than $700,000 in Solana.

According to scripts shared on X, McDonald's Instagram page ran a series of posts promoting mock tokens based on the fast food chain's purple grimace.

Several posts described the sham memecoin as “McDonald's attempt at Solana,” which has been crushed by its 5.1 million followers worldwide.

According to data from blockchain analytics service Bubblemaps, the hacker first used Solana's memecoin deployer pump.fun to acquire 75% of Grimace tokens before distributing Grimace tokens among nearly 100 different wallets.

Following posts from the official McDonald's account, the price of GRIMACE memecoin rose from a capitalization of a few thousand dollars to 25 million dollars in 30 minutes, according to Dex Screener data. When the hacker dropped their hold, the token's value plummeted and within 40 minutes, the price of memecoin dropped to $650,000.

CZ and Binance face new charges for allegedly hoarding stolen cryptocurrencies

Binance and its former CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, are facing a new class action lawsuit from three crypto investors who say they were unable to recover their stolen assets because the exchange failed to prevent money laundering.

According to the lawsuit filed on August 16 in the United States District Court in the Western District of Washington, Seattle, the plaintiffs cryptocurrency was stolen, and the money was sent to Binance to eliminate the connection between the thieves. and their digital assets” made them unavailable. The defendants argued that a key feature of crypto transactions is a “permanent record of those transactions” on the blockchain, making them “permanently and precisely traceable.”

“Therefore, without a place like Binance.com to launder crypto, there is a risk that if a bad actor steals someone else's crypto, authorities can track them on the blockchain,” the indictment states. .

The accused Binance was an important part of the money laundering process, which violates the Law of Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations.

RFK Jr. said he's not stopping the presidential campaign.

In the year Speaking at an event broadcast live from Phoenix on Aug. 23, Kennedy said, “I'm simply being suspended,” but his campaign for the 2024 U.S. presidency is far from over. RFK Jr. In order not to be a “spoiler” for Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump, he would recuse himself in 10 backwater states.

“I believe I will win the election with a fair system,” Kennedy said. “In my heart, I don't believe I have the right path to winning an election in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and control of the media, so I cannot in good conscience ask my staff and volunteers to continue their work.”

Independent United States presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also known as RFK Jr., has announced his withdrawal from the 2024 race, criticizing the Democratic Party and the media.

The court denied Kraken's request to dismiss the SEC's lawsuit

A U.S. federal court has dismissed crypto exchange Kraken's lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging that Kraken is operating an unregistered securities exchange, according to a court filing on Aug. 23.

In November, the SEC declared Kraken “working [a] crypto trading platform as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, dealer and clearing agency.

According to the opinion of the US District Court in Northern California, “the SEC has clearly alleged that at least some of the crypto transactions that Kraken facilitates on its network involve investment contracts and therefore securities.”

The ruling is a setback in the industry's ongoing battle with the SEC to determine which cryptocurrencies, if any, qualify as “securities” under US law and fall under the SEC's jurisdiction.

“Once again, a court has confirmed that the framework used to distinguish securities for nearly 80 years still applies, regardless of the labels,” an SEC spokesperson said in a statement. They should get the same protection.”

Crypto trading platforms must register with the SEC and “ensure that they have safeguards against fraud and embezzlement, commingling of client assets and conflicts of interest. As long as they do so, investors will continue to be harmed,” the spokesperson said.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) at $64,714, Ether (ETH) at $2,791 and XRP at $0.61. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market cap is $2.27 trillion.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers for the week were PopCat (SOL) (POPCAT) at 71.30%, Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) at 44.64%, and Klaytn (KLAY) at 39.01%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week were Helium (HNT) up 3.06%, Zcash (ZEC) up 1.47% and Litecoin (LTC) up +0.65%. Be sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis for more information on crypto prices.

The most memorable quotes

“The last Bitcoin half-cycle bull rally started in Q4. Whales won't let Q4 get boring with flat YOY performance.

Co-founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, Ki Young Ju

“LLMs should have crypto wallets. Let's help AI agents get work done (on your behalf) and participate in the economy.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong

“I think it all boils down to something that no other blockchain ecosystem can offer developers: the 950 million Telegram users who are changing tons.”

Tim Wong, chairman of the Katzen Foundation

“Technical indicators are improving, and with some traders holding short positions, there is a chance of a short squeeze.

Marcus Thielen, CEO of 10x Research

“Ask yourself if you know what you're investing in. Fraudsters can create fake news and reviews to make an investment look legitimate.”

Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Australia's securities regulator

“This acquisition will enable us to serve European investors, provide global exposure to clients and expand our product portfolio with new ETPs.”

Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise Asset Management

Forecast of the week

Bitcoin must ‘clear resistance' at $62K to avoid another ‘Black Monday'

Bitcoin is at a critical point: it needs to hit $62,000 and stay there to avoid a retest of $49,000, notes one crypto exchange analyst. However, many crypto traders believe that Bitcoin is unlikely to fall below $50,000 anytime soon.

“The price action suggests a corrective pattern rather than a strong bullish reversal,” Kraken said in a technical market update published by Cointelegraph on August 21.

At press time, Bitcoin is trading at $60,691, having not reached $62,000 since then.

August 9, according to CoinMarketCap data.

The market update shows that Bitcoin is trading near the 200-day moving average of $59,500, which gives more weight to recent price data.

To avoid retesting $49,000, Kraken says, Bitcoin needs to “retest” at $62,000.

Bitcoin was finally released in 2015. It fell from $50,000 to $49,842 on August 5th, which is known as “Crypto Black Monday”, its first visit to that level since February.

The move to $62,000 was an unexpected move for a large number of futures traders, who lost $1.04 billion in short positions, according to CoinGlass data.

FUD of the week

SEC opposes Richard Hart's bid to dismiss $1B securities lawsuit

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has backed down on Hex (HX) founder Richard Hurt's request to drop his $1 billion securities suit, arguing it has full authority to take the matter to heart.

“On the court's motion to dismiss all of the claims against it, it has rejected the claims and the applicable law,” the SEC said in its counterargument in New York federal court on August 22, 2007. , but was held on July 8.

In the year In a resignation letter filed on August 22 with the SEC on April 8, Heart – whose real name is Richard Shuler – said the regulator had no jurisdiction over him because he “lives abroad and has not been accused of stepping foot in the United States during the relevant period.”

The SEC said it did not allege Mr. Heart “engaged in any conduct” directed toward the United States and did not request any U.S.-based entities, employees, contracts, invoices, marketing efforts or travel related to Mr. Heart. “

The SEC hit back, saying that it “directed most of its promotional efforts, especially to investors in the United States.” Hart appeared twice before the Las Vegas conference in March and September 2022 to discuss HEX, Pulsechain and PulseX – securities it says are unregistered.

Almost 80% of hacked cryptocurrencies never recover in value – Immunefi

Most hacked cryptocurrencies never recover from exploitation in terms of value, according to the latest OnChain Security report.

Over 77.8% of hacked cryptocurrencies experienced a sustained negative price impact six months after the hack. Additionally, 51.1% of hacked tokens saw a price drop of more than 50% six months after the protocol was hacked, according to a report shared by Immunefi with Cointelegraph.

However, hacked protocols continue to do much of the damage after the hack, said Mitchell Amador, founder and CEO of Imunefi. He told Cointelegraph.

“The millions lost in the hack will immediately face huge losses due to the market impact and dependency impact, along with months of lost time rebuilding your emotionally shattered team and business.”

Spot Ethereum ETFs Record Longest Outflow Among Dry Investments

U.S.-based spot ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have recorded five straight days of outflows since their July 23 launch, losing $92.2 million in the five days from Aug. 15-21.

Most of the investments made in the recently approved nine-spot Ether ETF were covered by outflows from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which exceeded $2.5 billion as of August 21st.

According to data from Farside Investors, the grayscale fund withdraws from ETHE every day except August 12.

During this period, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) reported a cost of 158.6 million dollars. But comparable returns from BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust ETF ( ETHA ), Fidelity Ethereum Fund ( FETH ) and Bitwise Ethereum ETF ( ETHW ) helped offset the losses.

The best magazine stories of the week

Dorsey's ‘algorithmic marketplace' could fix social media… so why hasn't it?

Censorship is not the answer to fake news and poison on social media. We need to give users more choice than forced content.

11 Critical Moments in Ethereum's History That Made the Number 2 Blockchain

Nine years after Ethereum's launch, we look at the critical turning points that saw ETH become the second most popular cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin miners steamroll after power theft, exchange ‘shutdown' scam: Asia Express

Malaysia steam interest Bitcoin miners, Chinese state company wants to export the culture as NFTs.

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Cointelegraph magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.