Minutes before he was supposed to testify to the jury on Thursday, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried faced a delay from Judge Lewis Kaplan, who dismissed the jury to determine how much of Bankman-Fried’s statements about the lawyers’ involvement in the alleged FTX fraudulent transactions were relevant to the trial.

JPMorgan’s global head of payments, Takis Georgakopoulos, has disclosed that the company handles over $1 billion in daily transactions using its digital asset JPM Coin, which was launched back in 2020.

The King of the UK has approved a bill that will help law enforcement agencies confiscate and freeze cryptocurrency that has been used for crime. The law, called the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, targetscrimes such as drug trafficking and cybercrime.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Bankman-Fried’s FTX Testimony Delayed by Judge’s Inquiry into Relevance
• JPMorgan Moves Over $1 Billion Daily With Its JPM Coin
• UK Passes Law to Seize Illicit Cryptocurrency
• Digital Asset AUM Sees First Increase Since July Following ETF Rumours

Bankman-Fried’s FTX Testimony Delayed by Judge’s Inquiry into Relevance

Minutes before he was supposed to testify to the jury on Thursday, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried faced a delay from Judge Lewis Kaplan, who dismissed the jury to determine how much of Bankman-Fried’s statements about the lawyers’ involvement in the alleged FTX fraudulent transactions were relevant to the trial.

Bankman-Fried then gave a preview of his testimony to the judge on the witness stand. Kaplan’s final decision could be crucial for his defense.

During the hearing, FTX pushed back on prosecutors’ claims that he and other FTX executives used apps that automatically delete messages to cover up wrongdoing, and said he tried to disable these features at the time the firm went bankrupt in November 2022.

Bankman-Fried is charged with orchestrating a fraudulent scheme that siphoned up to $10 billion from FTX’s customers, with prosecutors saying he used the stolen funds for political contributions, real estate purchases, and other extravagant spending.

Bankman-Fried wants jurors to believe that he acted with lawyers’ awareness – not necessarily that he had legal approval, but that he had no fraudulent intent. The former CEO of FTX’s claims counter those of the firm’s former top lawyer Sun.

Sun testified earlier in the trial that he only found out in November 2022 that Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund Alameda Research was taking billions in customer money from FTX.

JPMorgan Moves Over $1 Billion Daily With Its JPM Coin

JPMorgan’s global head of payments, Takis Georgakopoulos, has disclosed that the company handles over $1 billion in daily transactions using its digital asset JPM Coin, which was launched back in 2020.

During a recent interview, Georgakopoulos noted that current payment systems are slow, especially for cross-border transactions, and added that they separate money and information, which makes it hard to track or reconcile transactions, while making money less fungible.

JPM Coin is JPMorgan’s solution to these problems, and now over $1 billion worth of JPM Coin is being moved on a daily basis “for a number of large companies,” he said,

The next step, according to the executive, would be to create a retail version of the asset, which is a stablecoin pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar at a 1:1 ratio. The coin’s aim is to serve as a temporary vehicle for real-time gross settlement between JPMorgan’s institutional clients.

UK Passes Law to Seize Illicit Cryptocurrency

Charles III, King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms, has approved a bill that will help law enforcement agencies confiscate and freeze cryptocurrency that has been used for crime. The law, called the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, targets various types of crimes, such as drug trafficking and cybercrime.

Provisions in the bill give broader power to local police, allowing them to seize cryptocurrency with criminal links without a conviction, something that experts believe could be useful, especially in cases where time is critical.

The bill was introduced last September and was amended to include measures against terrorism, as well as other provisions to help authorities track down crypto assets linked to crime.

While the UK has expressed plans to become a global crypto hub and has passed legislation to legitimize digital assets in the country, it is actively cracking down on cryptocurrency-related crime and has already seized millions of pounds worth of crypto tied to criminal activity.

Digital Asset AUM Sees First Increase Since July Following ETF Rumours

Following positive market developments in October, the total assets under management (AUM) for digital assets products saw a 6.73% spike to $31.7 billion, marking the first increase since July 2023.

AUM for products based on Bitcoin climbed 11.1% to $23.2 billion to now have a 73.3% market share, up from 70.5% in September. Ethereum-based products, on the other hand, saw a decline of 5.45% to $6.35 billion, recording a 20.1% market share.

Dig deeper via CCData’s latest report, Crypto Custody: An Institutional Primer,

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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