SBF test is underway, Mashinsky test is ready, Binance’s market share will decrease

This week's main news

Opening arguments begin in the Sam Bankman-Fried trial

Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried began the Oct. 4 trial in New York after jury selection began the previous day. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tane Renn told jurors that SBF used FTX's client funds to enrich itself and gain credibility with politicians through donations. “The defendant is responsible for the crash in the crypto market. But he committed fraud. That's what the evidence in this trial shows. He hears from the inside circle. His girlfriend will tell you how they stole money together,” said Ren. SBF lawyer Mark Cohen “Girlfriend Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and Changpeng Zhao, CEO of rival cryptocurrency exchange Binance, say they share some of the blame for FTX's collapse. See our detailed coverage of the first week of the Sam Bankman-Fried trial.

Alex Mashinsky's jury trial is set for September 2024.

Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of crypto lender Celsius, will be tried in September 2024 on charges of fraud and market manipulation, a judge said on October 3. Mashinsky remains free on $40 million bail, with travel and financial restrictions, in. Until then. Celsius filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, and Mashinsky was arrested in July of this year. He was accused of defrauding investors out of billions of dollars. The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission all have active charges against Mashinsky. Former Celsius chief revenue officer Ronnie Cohen-Paven pleaded guilty to four felony charges in September.

Binance spot market share has decreased for the 7th month in a row

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance continues to lose market share for the seventh month in a row. Analysts say HTX (formerly Huobi), Bybit and DigiFinex were beneficiaries of Binance's slide. According to CCData analysis reported by Bloomberg, Binance's spot market share fell from 38.5% in August to 34.3% in September. The share of Binance on the exchange market decreased from 53.5% to 51.5% in the same period. The ongoing struggle with regulators in the United States has been identified as one of the reasons for the decline in Binance's market share, but they pointed to the end of zero-fee trading on the exchange for major trading pairs and Binance's exit from the Russian market, which consists of 7. % of the traffic.

Alameda Sends $4.1B FTT Tokens to FTX Before Crash: Nansen Report

According to a report shared with Cointelegraph by blockchain data analyst Nansen, between September 28 and November 1, 2022, FTX transferred $4.1 billion worth of domestic FTT tokens to Alameda Research. FTX and Alameda Research control around 90% of FTT supply. Nansen suggested that the companies were using each other to boost their balance sheets. FTX transferred $388 million of stablecoin to Alameda Research during the same period. According to reports, Alameda Research failed to pass on a Nov. 6 offer to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to buy the exchange's FTT stake for $22. The two entities battled to contain the chaos caused by the misrepresentations in their accounts. FTX filed for bankruptcy days later.

Valkyrie will hold back on Ether futures contract purchases until the launch of the ETF

Asset management firm Valkyrie said in a Sept. 29 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it will not buy Ether before obtaining approval for an exchange-traded fund (ETF). Cointelegraph previously reported that Valkyrie plans to allow investors to gain exposure to ETF futures before launching its combined Bitcoin and Ether Strategy ETF in early October. Not only that, but Valkyrie said it will sell ETH futures that it already bought. Valkyrie is one of several financial firms expected to start offering ETH futures ETFs soon. The SEC has delayed decisions on many of them. Observers say that a possible US government shutdown is a threat.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) at $27,880, Ether (ETH) at $1,640 and XRP at $0.52. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market cap is $1.07 trillion.

Among the largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers for the week were Trust Wallet Token (TWT) at 18.11%, Avalanche (AVAX) at 17.5%, and Render (RNDR) at 17%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week were ApeCoin (APE) at -9.5%, THORChain (RUNE) at -9.3% and Curve DAO Token (CRV) at -8.8%.

Be sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis for more information on crypto prices.

The most memorable quotes

“We allowed Almeida to spend unlimited money.”

Gary Wang, co-founder and former chief technology officer of FTX

“He told me to use Signal. He told the whole company. It also had automatic cancellation. […] He said. [auto-delete] Everything was low to protect the messages. If regulators find things they don't like, it can be bad for the company.

Adam Yedidia, former FTX employee and SBF classmate

“Macroeconomic headwinds are limiting our ability to generate revenue, and we need to reduce roles in international trade in response to current market conditions and business realities.”

Pascal Gouther, CEO and Chairman of Ledger

“Gravity in crypto remains in BTC for the time being, with a promising event down the line still supporting bullish stocks.”

Vetle Lundem, senior analyst at K33

“Innovating with traditional finance is relatively difficult. In crypto, it is much better and more efficient. And it is very cheap in terms of price. So, you can see that the pace is much faster, and now we can serve a larger audience than traditional finance.

Lennix Lai, head of international business at OKX

“At the end of the day, banks have trillions of dollars trading with each other, but there's a cutoff point where you can't trade globally. That's a huge pain point, and it's expensive and inefficient.”

Akshay Chopra, Vice President, CEMEA Head of Innovation and Design at Visa

Forecast of the week

While facing the American ‘bear steepener', Bitcoin expects a bull market – Arthur Hayes

With bond yields rising to a 30-year high, financial markets are due for “massive liquidity injections” in the near term, said BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes. This should provide the next impetus for the crypto bull market, he said.

“Why do I like these markets when yields scream higher? Banking models don't have a concept of a bear cone,” argued Hayes. A “bear cone” describes the phenomenon of long-term interest rates rising faster than short-term interest rates.

“The more this bear slips, the more someone goes belly up, the faster everyone realizes that there's no other way to save the government bond markets than money printing, the faster we're going to go back into a crypto bull market,” Hayes said.

FUD of the week

Crypto experienced a 153% YOY increase in hacking and fraud in Q3.

Blockchain security platform Immunefi has released a new report on crypto hacks and scams for the third quarter. According to the report, the number of thefts and frauds increased by more than 153 percent from July to September 2023. In Q3 2022, there were only 30 incidents, while in Q3 2023 there were 76 incidents. More than $680 million worth of crypto was lost to fraud and hacking during the quarter. The biggest hack of the quarter was the Mixin protocol, which raised more than $200 million, making it the second largest multichain hack with more than $126 million. The two most targeted networks were BNB Chain and Ethereum.

Bitcoin analysts are still predicting a fall in BTC price to $20K.

Bitcoin owners were thrilled when the coin hit a six-week high in October, but technical analysts are warning that it could soon head for a $20,000 crash. According to an anonymous Bitcoin trader Cryptobullet, the current chart shows a classic “head and shoulders” pattern which means that the price is about to fall overall. The bottom of the left shoulder of this pattern is around $20,000, which indicates that the price will fall to that level before the recovery. João Wedson, the founder and CEO of the crypto business Dominando Cripto, went further, saying that Bitcoin could fall below $20,000. According to Wedson, the current price action is creating a fractal similar to the 2020-2022 period. The last time this happened, the price went up a lot at the beginning, but fell to low levels at the end of the fractal. From Wedson's point of view, this means we could be under $20,000 at the start of the move.

In response to authorities' crackdown on fentanyl, the US Treasury has imposed sanctions on crypto wallets

The United States Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced that it has sanctioned several wallets linked to illegal drug manufacturers and distributors. According to Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, the wallets “received millions of dollars on top of hundreds of deposits” in payments for various fentanyl-related crimes. The wallet sanctions were launched as part of a prosecution targeting some Chinese-based chemical manufacturers. Valerian Labs, Hanhong Pharmaceutical and Hebei Crovel Biotech are three of the parties involved in the lawsuit.

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Cointelegraph magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.