The DeFi Crackdown Expands

Plus another FTX guilty plea

Author

Nathaniel Whittemore
September 08, 2023

The Breakdown First Five - Friday September 8 2023

Welcome back to The Breakdown First Five — the 5 most interesting and/or important stories in bitcoin, crypto, and markets to start your day.

5. Salame Pleads Guilty

Former FTX executive Ryan Salame has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make unlawful political donations and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Salame said he knew that taking loans he didn’t intend to repay from FTX to make political donations was illegal. Headlines blared that he would forfeit $1.5B, the actual deal is more like $6M including his house. Salame will also hand over the keys to his shiny 2021 Porcshe.

4. 11,196 Years in Prison

Faruk Fatih Özer has been sentenced to spend 11,196 years behind bars over the collapse of Turkish exchange Thodex. Özer turned off the exchange and disappeared in 2021, leaving 400,000 customers in the lurch. Thodex was one of the largest exchanges in Turkey at its peak. The criminal investigation saw 83 people detailed with 21 facing charges. 16 were ultimately acquitted for lack of evidence.

3. Appealing LBRY Fine

LBRY are saddling up to fight the SEC again. The on chain data storage protocol lost their case against the SEC in November. The loss caused the project to fold and fines were ultimately vacated due to a lack of resources. LBRY will now appeal that decision and reopen the case, armed with the subsequent Ripple decision and other positive findings over recent months.

2. IMF & FSB: You Can’t Ban Crypto

The IMF and FSB have published a joint policy paper advising that crypto bans are ineffective. The paper was commissioned for this week’s G20 summit and suggested that nations should instead focus on monetary policy soundness, capital outflows and crypto taxation. Blanket bans simply push crypto activity offshore, they warned. Stablecoins were top of mind as a link between crypto and tradfi as well as an accessible way to exit local currencies.

1. CFTC DeFi Crackdown.

The CFTC have announced settlements with three DeFi platforms. Opyn, Deridex and 0x all settled allegations that they failed to register before offering derivatives trading to US customers. In a dissenting opinion Commissioner Mersigner criticized the CFTC for failing to conduct rulemaking or offering a path to compliance. She said the three cases with differing facts were lumped together “presumably for messaging purposes”.

Thanks for reading -NLW