South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinbit has reportedly been seized by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency for allegedly inflating its trading volumes via wash trading.

Fidelity Investments’ chief strategist, Peter Jubber, is set to head a new bitcoin index fund, the “Wise Origin Bitcoin Index Fund I, LP.”

The largest darknet marketplace selling illicit goods, Empire Market, is believed to have exit scammed with about $30 million worth of bitcoin under its control.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• South Korean Crypto Exchange Coinbit Seized Over Wash Trading Allegations
• Fidelity’s Chief Strategist Files for New Bitcoin Index Fund
• Darknet’s Largest Market Allegedly Exit Scammed to Steal $30 Million in BTC

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $11,393.08 (0.20%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $3.35 bn. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $384.52 (0.66%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $1.48 bn. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 4,388.19 (-0.88%).

South Korean Crypto Exchange Coinbit Seized Over Wash Trading Allegations

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinbit has reportedly been seized by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency for allegedly inflating its trading volumes via wash trading.

South Korea’s oldest newspaper, the Seoul Shinmun, reports Coinbit’s offices have been raided by authorities, as the platform is believed to have manipulated its trading volumes to the point 99% of the volume was created via wash trading in recent months.

Authorities allege the activity led to “unfair profits” of at least 100 billion won (roughly $8.4 million) for the cryptocurrency exchange and its team. Coinbit’s owner Choi Mo and other team members, according to researchers, manipulated trading volumes via two main exchange accounts, trading major cryptos against ghost accounts to inflate volumes with one, and pumping little-known altcoins with the other.

Several branches of Coinbit’s offices are reportedly cordoned off as investigations are ongoing. Authorities believe the exchange’s alleged wash trading affected its over 250,000 monthly active users. The platform’s accounting practices were also reportedly poor.

Fidelity’s Chief Strategist Files for New Bitcoin Index Fund

Fidelity Investments’ chief strategist, Peter Jubber, is set to head a new bitcoin index fund, the “Wise Origin Bitcoin Index Fund I, LP.”

The fund has a $100,000 minimum buy-in and was disclosed Wednesday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It’s tied to Fidelity Investments via Jubber and Fidelity’s brokerage service and distribution subsidiaries, which are set to receive sales compensation from the new fund.

Wise Origin will share a Boston office building with Fidelity. A Delaware corporation called FD Funds GP is Wise Origin's general partner, and Jubber is FD Funds' president. It’s currently unknown how the fund will approach bitcoin investing. It has yet to raise capital from investors.

Darknet’s Largest Market Allegedly Exit Scammed to Steal $30 Million in BTC

The largest darknet marketplace selling illicit goods, Empire Market, is believed to have exit scammed with about $30 million worth of bitcoin under its control.

Anonymous darknet journalist dark.fail has revealed the marketplace was dealing with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from a banned vendor, and that it quoted an Empire Market moderator known as “Se7en” saying the administrators were being blackmailed to pay the attacker between $10,000 and $15,000 in bitcoin a week.

The moderator speculates the administrators behind Empire Market decided to give up on the project once a new attacker started hitting the website’s servers. An Empire Market staff members reportedly told dark.fail the market shut down with 2,538 BTC worth of user funds under its control.

Empire Market was launched in early 2018 after authorities took down darknet market giant AlphaBay. It grew to 1.3 million users before the alleged exit scam.

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