Samourai Wallet Founders Arrested

The Breakdown First Five - Thursday, April 25, 2024

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. Massive El Salvador Hack

Hackers have struck El Salvador’s Chivo wallet again, this time leaking the source code to the nation's Bitcoin ATMs. Earlier this month, the entire database of 5.1 million users was reportedly leaked, exposing the personal data of almost the entire adult population. The Salvadoran government has denied the database leak had occurred but have not yet addressed the latest security issue. 

4. CZ Apologizes

Binance founder CZ has apologized for his “poor decisions” and accepted “full responsibility” ahead of next week’s sentencing. He placed 161 letters of support on the court record. He Yi, the mother of CZ’s children, wrote that he was sure to “encounter blind spots” managing a company of Binance’s size. Within the crypto wild west, she called him a “guardian of this wilderness”. The DOJ has asked for a 3 year sentence at the hearing on April 30. 

3. Nigeria Denies Freezing Accounts

The Central Bank of Nigeria has denied that it issued a directive to freeze crypto related bank accounts. In the latest bizarre twist in this story, news broke that the Central Bank had told financial institutions to stop payment for six months on any accounts transacting with Bybit, KuCoin, OKX and Binance. The twitter correction was flooded with replies from people who have had issues with their accounts. 

2. HK ETFs Ready to Launch

Hong Kong Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have received their final approval and are expected to begin trading on April 30. The products will use in-kind creation and redemption, meaning authorized traders can deposit tokens directly to receive ETF shares. At this stage it sounds like traders in mainland China will be banned from accessing the products. Bloomberg analysts estimate $1B in flows over the first two years.

1. Samourai Takedown

Popular Bitcoin privacy tool Samourai wallet has been taken down and its founders arrested. The charges are conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmission business. Although this is another serious escalation in the war on crypto privacy the arrests were to be expected. Samourai spent years thumbing their noses at US authorities. Still, online financial privacy is normal and needs to be defended.