Tag: Crypto

Ex-LA Cop Gets 5 Years for Helping Crypto ‘Godfather’

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A former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for helping Adam Iza, a jailed crypto founder dubbed “The Godfather,” extort victims. A California federal court handed Michael Coberg 63 months in prison and an order to pay $127,000 in restitution for helping Iza extort one of his rivals and arrange a drug possession arrest of another person, the Los Angeles US Attorney’s office said on Monday.  Coberg had pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to commit extortion and conspiracy against…

OpenSea delays SEA token launch as CEO cites challenging crypto market conditions

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OpenSea is delaying the launch of its highly anticipated SEA token, with CEO Devin Finzer saying the company decided to push back the timeline due to difficult conditions across the crypto market. an update on $SEA. the team has been building at full speed, and the foundation had planned to kick off the first steps as part of our march 30th event. but @openseafdn is pushing back the timeline. a delay is a delay. i’m not going to dress it up, and i know how it lands. the… — dfinzer.eth…

T. Rowe Price Updates Filing for Actively Managed Crypto ETF

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T. Rowe Price, the $1.8 trillion asset manager best known for managing mutual funds and retirement accounts, has amended the registration statement for its proposed Active Crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF), updating a prospectus first submitted in October that outlines plans for an actively managed fund investing directly in digital assets. The amendment with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was submitted on Monday and lists 15 eligible digital assets that may be considered for the portfolio, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Avalanche (AVAX) and Shiba…

US, UK, and Canada Launch Joint Operation to Disrupt Crypto Fraud

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The US Secret Service, UK National Crime Agency, and Canadian authorities have partnered to disrupt fraudulent schemes related to crypto, raise awareness of scams, and recover stolen funds. In a Monday notice, law enforcement agencies from the three countries — including Canada’s Ontario Provincial Police and the Ontario Securities Commission — said that they had launched “Operation Atlantic,” focusing on identifying people at risk of losing or those who had already lost crypto through “approval phishing” schemes. “Approval phishing and investment scams cost victims millions in financial loss each year,”…

Crypto wealth manager Abra to list on Nasdaq in blockbuster $750 million merger

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Abra, a digital asset wealth management platform, will transition into a publicly traded company through a merger with New Providence Acquisition Corp. III. The combined entity, Abra Financial, is expected to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker ABRX. The transaction sets Abra’s pre-money valuation at $750 million and allows existing stockholders, including Adams Street, Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital, RRE Ventures, and SBI, to roll all their shares into the combined company, according to a Monday announcement. https://twitter.com/AbraGlobal/article/2033500209997844503/media/2033414651908857856 The deal makes it the first publicly traded firm to offer both SEC-registered…

Crypto Funds Add $1B as Bitcoin and Ethereum Lead Gains

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Crypto investment products continued their momentum last week, signaling resilience to geopolitical stress and strengthening the case for Bitcoin’s role as a safe-haven asset. Crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) recorded $1.06 billion in inflows last week, led by $793 million into Bitcoin (BTC), CoinShares reported on Monday. The inflows mark three consecutive weeks of positive flows totaling $2.7 billion, driving net inflows to around $1.2 billion year-to-date. CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill, said the rising momentum over the past few weeks underscores the resilience of digital assets, particularly Bitcoin, as…

CLARITY Bill Takes the Decentralization out of Crypto — Crypto Exec

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The regulatory provisions outlined in the US Digital Asset Market Structure Clarity Act, otherwise known as the CLARITY Act, threaten to give large financial institutions control over crypto, according to Dr. Friederike Ernst, co-founder of the Gnosis blockchain protocol. Regulations in the CLARITY crypto market structure bill assume that activity must pass through centralized intermediaries, which risks consolidating crypto rails in the hands of a few entrenched players, Ernst told Cointelegraph. The preface of the CLARITY crypto market structure bill. Source: United States Congress “Blockchain’s real breakthrough was not just…

Balaji Urges Crypto Industry to Build Tools for Refugees

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Tech investor and former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan has called on the crypto industry to develop more financial tools for refugees and stateless people. In a Saturday post on X, Srinivasan said the number of displaced individuals could grow as global conflicts intensify and economic migration increases. He pointed to examples ranging from Ukrainians fleeing war to workers leaving the Gulf countries amid regional tensions. “We should build more crypto tools for refugees and stateless people,” Srinivasan wrote, suggesting that blockchain-based systems can provide financial infrastructure when traditional…

Crypto Can Fight Money Laundering Without Stifling Financial Freedom

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Opinion by: Ana Carolina Oliveira, chief compliance officer at Venga Crypto doesn’t have a money laundering problem on its own. At least, not when compared to traditional finance, where the practice is at least twice as prevalent and over 90% of which is believed to go undetected. Money laundering is a general problem wherever we see the transfer of funds. That’s the good news.  Blockchain records everything for posterity. When money laundering does occur, an indelible record is created that allows the illicit financial flows to be traced from end…

BlackRock Won’t Consider Exotic Crypto ETFs

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BlackRock’s digital assets head, Robert Mitchnick, said the $14 trillion asset manager won’t get too creative with the types of crypto exchange-traded funds it offers, even as it launched a staking-focused Ether ETF on Thursday. Speaking on CNBC’s Crypto World segment on Friday, Mitchnick acknowledged that some of the crypto ETF structures that other asset managers are experimenting with may appeal to certain investors, but said BlackRock will continue to take a more measured approach: “Will we see some more exotic structures coming into the space? I think no question,”…