‘I’m Not a Regulator, But I Can Take a Look’ and 20 Crypto Jokes

December 17, 2022

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This week in crypto was, unsurprisingly, another FTX week. Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to start a new business to pay back victims of the collapse, but soon he was arrested in the Bahamas following criminal charges the US filed against him, after which he was denied bail and was held in a detention center known for overcrowding and a lack of toilets. The new FTX CEO said that $1 billion worth of assets was recovered, and claimed that Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire had no corporate controls and a surprising lack of financial and other record-keeping.

Meanwhile, mid-week, Binance saw more than $3 billion of net withdrawals as rumors about alleged problems spread, with some reports claiming that Binance and Changpeng Zhao could be facing money laundering charges in the US, and some investors not being satisfied with the exchange’s Proof-of-Reserves audit. Also, Kevin O’Leary slammed Binance during a Senate hearing on Wednesday. Its competitor Coinbase saw a 66% increase in requests from law enforcement this year compared to last year. As this was happening, a US senator said he was not a regulator but that he saw no reason crypto should exist, and another US senator put forward a bipartisan bill aimed at cracking down on money laundering loopholes in the crypto industry.

As all this was happening, MetaMask teamed up with PayPal to enable its US users to buy ETH from within the wallet via the payment giant, Apple said it’d allow iPhone and iPad users to install non-App Store apps next year, and Busan said it would become the first city to launch and operate a crypto exchange by the end of 2023. Meanwhile, Lodestar Finance lost $6.9m in an exploit, and disgraced biotech entrepreneur Martin Shkreli claimed to know who Satoshi Nakamoto is.

In mining & regulation news: repeated blackouts in Cuba made operating crypto mining rigs impossible, while Russian energy providers hunted illegal crypto miners who were plying their trade from home. The G20 countries planned to create a policy consensus on crypto in a bid to regulate it, while, in Brazil, the regulators said they’d look into ways to police the issuance of tokenized assets, and the Public Ministry claimed that the “Bitcoin Pharaoh” hired “professional gunmen” to murder his crypto competitors. Speaking of crime, police in China arrested 63 people accused of laundering $1.72 billion via crypto, and French prosecutors shut down two crypto scammers who used “suitcases” full of counterfeit cash to trick crypto investors.

Now that we’ve been thoroughly newsed, let’s get totally joked.

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Good morning, CT! A sat for your thoughts.

How’s everybody doing?

Nothing new in the regulationland.