Two former top executives of Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed cryptocurrency trading platform, FTX, have pleaded guilty to federal criminal fraud charges and are cooperating with the prosecution of the former FTX CEO.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said in a complaint that FTX’s exchange token, FTT, was sold as an investment contract and is a “security,” in a move that could have a wide-ranging impact on the cryptocurrency industry.

Social media giant Twitter has added a new feature allowing users to see the price performance of numerous digital assets through the use of so-called “$cashtags” on the platform’s search tab.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Two FTX Execs Plead Guilty to Fraud
• SEC Calls FTX’s FTT Token a Security
• Twitter Adds Crypto Price Indexes to Search Function

Two FTX Execs Plead Guilty to Fraud

Two former top executives of Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed cryptocurrency trading platform, FTX, have pleaded guilty to federal criminal fraud charges and are cooperating with the prosecution of the former FTX CEO.

The executives are Caroline Ellison, who was the chief executive officer of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a founder of FTX. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed civil fraud charges against Ellison and Wang, adding to the fraud complaints they had previously filed against Bankman-Fried.

Ellison was a close confidant of Bankman-Fried and has been targeted by prosecutors for her role in manipulating FTX’s exchange token, FTT. It was used by Alameda as collateral for its investments.

The guilty pleas and cooperation are seen as major advances in the federal prosecution of Bankman-Fried, who is in U.S. custody after agreeing to be extradited from the Bahamas to face trial in the Southern District of New York.

The federal government has accused Bankman-Fried of carrying out a widespread and ongoing fraud that resulted in the bankruptcy of FTX, following a ban run on the platform. Now, two of his closest advisers are assisting the government in its case against him.

SEC Calls FTX’s FTT Token a Security

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said in a complaint that FTX’s exchange token, FTT, was sold as an investment contract and is a “security,” in a move that could have a wide-ranging impact on the cryptocurrency industry.

In its complaint, the SEC wrote that if “demand for trading on the FTX platform increased, demand for the FTT token could increase, such that any price increase in FTT would benefit holders of FTT equally and in direct proportion to their FTT holdings,” and added:

"The large allocation of tokens to FTX incentivized the FTX management team to take steps to attract more users onto the trading platform and, therefore, increase demand for, and increase the trading price of, the FTT token."

The SEC’s claim came in its complaint against FTX co-founder Gary Wang and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. In it, the regulator highlighted FTX would use the proceeds from the token sale to fund the development, marketing, business operations, and growth of FTX while using language to point out FTT is an “investment” with profit potential.

The regulator also said FTT’s “buy-and-burn” program is akin to a stock buyback where revenues from FTX would repurchase and burn FTT to increase its value. The program is similar to others used by various other exchanges with their own token.

Twitter Adds Crypto Price Indexes to Search Function

Social media giant Twitter has added a new feature allowing users to see the price performance of numerous digital assets through the use of so-called “$cashtags” on the platform’s search tab.

According to Twitter Business, whenever tweets with the ticker of a major cryptocurrency, exchange-traded fund, or stock are made with “$” in front of it, a clickable link showing them search results on tweets related to that assets will appear, feature price graphs for that asset.

The chart will also appear if users simply search for the ticker symbol of the asset. Twitter CEO Elon Musk commented on the move, saying it is “one of the many product improvements coming to financial Twitter.”

At the time of writing, only a few major cryptocurrencies show a chart in the search bar, although Twitter business has said it expects to expand its coverage of symbols “in the coming weeks.”

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