A US federal judge in the Southern District of New York has sentenced Caroline Ellison, a member of the ring of executives who presided over the fraud that led to the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, to two years in prison. In addition, she has been ordered to forfeit $11 …
Read More »A Mysterious School for the Network State Crowd Is Now in Session
Last month, venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan announced the Network School, a three-month learning retreat marketed to people interested in “network nations,” a kind of utopia for the anarchocapitalist set. The inaugural class is 150 people. It starts today. Details about the school have been shrouded in secrecy, even for the …
Read More »The Trumps Have Gone Full Crypto With World Liberty Financial
Eric and Donald Trump Jr., the sons of former president Donald Trump, have pledged to “make finance great again” with a new family-run crypto endeavor called World Liberty Financial. In a meandering livestream on X on Monday, the Trump family and their associates described World Liberty Financial as a crypto …
Read More »People Are Setting Themselves on Fire and Getting Punched in the Face to Pump Their Crypto Coins
One night in May, Mikol Ayala stood in an empty parking lot in Florida with his arms out to his side and legs akimbo as two people covered him in isopropyl alcohol. “Get ready to put me out,” Ayala told them. Then the fireworks began. The scene, illuminated by a …
Read More »The World’s Biggest Bitcoin Mine Is Rattling This Texas Oil Town
On a good day, the stretch of highway from Dallas to Corsicana takes an hour to drive. The route passes gleaming white water towers that stand over single-story towns, cowboy churches, and DW’s Adult Video, a porno pitstop that still—if the billboard can be believed—does a roaring trade in DVDs. …
Read More »‘Should Art Be Regulated by the SEC?’: NFT Artists’ New Lawsuit Seeks Answers
Since around 2013, Jonathan Mann’s sole job has been writing and posting a song online each day. With titles ranging from “Yeah, I’m Rocking a Headband” to “Joe Biden, Retire” (posted July 1), his pop tunes are at turns whimsical and topical. Some go viral. Still, says the Connecticut-based Mann …
Read More »Tether Was Playing a Risky Game, a New Celsius Suit Reveals
On June 12, 2022, Alex Mashinsky, founder of crypto lender Celsius, made an urgent plea for help. As the price of bitcoin crashed, panicked customers were rushing to withdraw billions of dollars’ worth of crypto from their Celsius accounts. But after a series of bad investments, the company no longer …
Read More »Flush With Cash, Tether Has Got Microsoft, Google, and Amazon in Its Crosshairs
Paolo Ardoino, the new CEO of crypto company Tether, is grappling with a difficult but enviable problem: how best to spend billions of dollars. Recently flush with cash, Tether is pushing into unfamiliar new fields, like AI. Ardoino’s ambitious plan is to mount a challenge to Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. …
Read More »People Are Using Memecoins to Bet on the US Election
On July 13, as word spread that a would-be assassin had narrowly missed killing Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a trading frenzy began. Within an hour of the shooting, the price of TRUMP, a cryptocurrency inspired by the former president, had jumped up by more than a …
Read More »Craig Wright Faces Perjury Investigation Over Claims He Created Bitcoin
A judge in the UK High Court has directed prosecutors to consider bringing criminal charges against computer scientist Craig Wright, after ruling that he lied “extensively and repeatedly” and committed forgery “on a grand scale” in service of his quest to prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of bitcoin. In …
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