The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Singapore-based firm Terraform Labs and its CEO, Do Kwon, with “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.”

A federal judge has warned former FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, that he could “conceivably” have his bail revoked if there was “probable cause” to believe he was engaging in attempted witness tampering.

In the Mt Gox crypto exchange's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, the biggest creditor has chosen to receive an early payout in Bitcoin instead of fiat currency, alleviating certain worries regarding the token's price prospects.

 Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• SEC Sues Terraform Labs Over TerraUSD
• FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fred Could Have Freedom Revoked, Judge Warns
• Top Mt Gox Creditor Opts for Bitcoin Payout
• Crypto Market Movers – RNDR, MINA, KEEP

SEC Sues Terraform Labs Over TerraUSD

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Singapore-based firm Terraform Labs and its CEO, Do Kwon, with “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.”

According to the regulator, from 2018 until UST’s collapse in May 2022, Terraform and Kwon “raised billions of dollars from investors by offering and selling an inter-connected suite of crypto asset securities, many in unregistered transactions.”

These sales reportedly included assets mirroring U.S. equities and the “algorithmic stablecoin”,TerraUSD, which the SEC says Terraform advertised as a “yield-bearing” coin that paid up to 20% interest through the Anchor Protocol.

According to the complaint, Terraform and Kwon provided alternative ways for investors to invest in their cryptocurrency business, such as selling crypto asset security tokens called MIR (also known as "mirror" tokens) and even LUNA itself.

The SEC also accused Terraform and Kwon in its complaint of deceiving investors when promoting the LUNA token by claiming that a “popular Korean mobile payment app” utilized the Terra blockchain for processing transactions, which would increase the value of LUNA.

Additionally, the complaint alleges that Terraform and Kwon provided misleading information regarding the stability of UST, which depegged from the US dollar in May 2022 amid a wider ecosystem collapse that saw both LUNA and UST become nearly worthless.

FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fred Could Have Freedom Revoked, Judge Warns

A federal judge has warned former FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, that he could “conceivably” have his bail revoked if there was “probable cause” to believe he was engaging in attempted witness tampering.

During a recent hearing on Bankman-Fried’s bail conditions, Judge Lewis Kaplan noted there was “probable cause to believe” the former CEO has “committed or attempted to commit a federal felony while on release, namely witness tampering.”

Kaplan reportedly noted that the hearing wasn’t a bail revocation one, but said it “could get there, conceivably.” In the hearing, the judge pointed out that it would be naive to assume that Bankman-Fried would be unable to use the internet with the imposed restrictions, as he is residing with his parents, who both have laptops and cellphones.

The prosecutor, Nicholas Roos, appeared to concur, acknowledging that there might not be a viable solution to address the issue. This led Judge Kaplan to suggest that revoking Bankman-Fried's bail could potentially mitigate the risks involved.

Top Mt Gox Creditor Opts for Bitcoin Payout

In the Mt Gox crypto exchange's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, the biggest creditor has chosen to receive an early payout in Bitcoin instead of fiat currency, alleviating certain worries regarding the token's price prospects.

Mt Gox Investment Fund has chosen to receive an early payout in September this year over waiting for all the litigation around the case to be resolved, which estimates suggest could still take up to nine years.

According to Bloomberg, the fund will receive 90% of what’s collectable, and the bankruptcy trustee won’t have to sell Bitcoin in the open market, since the creditor chose to receive in Bitcoin.

Mt Gox’s creditors have until March 10th to determine if they wish to receive the September payout or defer it in anticipation of recovering a larger percentage of their claims at a later date.

Crypto Market Movers – RNDR, MINA, KEEP

Several tokens are leading the charge in the last 7-day period. Some of these are well-known cryptocurrencies with more liquid trading pairs, so we’ll be focusing on these over low-cap cryptos that may have higher percentage changes.

Render token (RNDR) - Render Token is an Ethereum-based distributed GPU rendering network and marketplace. RNDR is a utility token that powers and serves as currency on Render Token's ecosystem.

Mina Protocol (MINA) - The goal of the Mina Protocol is to create a nimble blockchain that maintains a consistent size of only 22 kB, regardless of the number of transactions processed on the network. This compact size should enable anyone to operate a node and support the network's security without requiring advanced computer equipment.

Keep Network (KEEP) - Keep is an incentivized network for storing and encrypting private data on the public blockchain. The network is made of off-chain containers for private data known as keeps, while the KEEP work token enables it to be completely permissionless.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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