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According to court documents, Gary James Harmon, 31, of Cleveland, Ohio, perpetrated a scheme to steal cryptocurrency that was the subject of pending criminal forfeiture proceedings in the case of Larry Dean Harmon, Gary Harmon’s brother. In February 2020, Larry Harmon was arrested for his operation of Helix, a darknet-based cryptocurrency money laundering service, known as a “mixer” or “tumbler.” Helix laundered over 350,000 bitcoin – valued at over $300 million at the time of the transactions – on behalf of customers, with the largest volume coming from Darknet markets. Law enforcement seized various assets, including a cryptocurrency storage device containing Larry Harmon’s illegal proceeds generated through the operation of Helix, which were subject to forfeiture in the criminal case. However, law enforcement was initially unable to recover bitcoin stored on the device due to the device’s additional security features.
Knowing that the government was seeking to recover the bitcoin stored on the seized device for forfeiture in Larry Harmon’s criminal case, Gary Harmon used his brother’s credentials to recreate the bitcoin wallets stored on the device and covertly transfer more than 712 bitcoin, valued at approximately $4.8 million at the time, to his own wallets ...
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Per the order, Steynberg engaged in an international fraudulent multilevel marketing scheme (MLM) to solicit Bitcoin from the public for participation in an unregistered commodity pool operated by MTI, a South Africa-based company.
From approximately May 2018 to approximately March 2021, Steynberg, as the controlling person of MTI, and the company falsely claimed to trade off-exchange retail forex through a proprietary "bot" or software program.
“Either directly or indirectly, the defendants misappropriated all of the Bitcoin they accepted from pool participants,” reads the order for final judgment.
CFTC Cites $1.7 Billion MLM in Its 'Largest Fraud Scheme Case Involving Bitcoin'
The CFTC found that Steynberg, individually and as the principal and agent of MTI, accepted at least 29,421 Bitcoin, valued at over $1.7 billion at the end of March 2021, from at least 23,000 individuals in the U.S. and worldwide, to participate in the commodity pool without being registered as a commodity pool operator (CPO), as required by the law.
Steynberg has been held in Brazil on an Interpol arrest warrant since December 2021 and is still a fugitive from South African authorities, per the announcement.
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been ordered by a U.S. court to respond to cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase's (COIN) complaint over how it applies securities laws to digital assets.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals said in a Wednesday filing that the SEC must file its response within 10 days. Coinbase may then file a response seven days thereafter.
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A key metric tracking the crypto market liquidity tanked sharply over the weekend, leaving paper-thin order books that could amplify price swings.
Crypto research firm Hyblock Capital's global bid and ask indicator, which aggregates the dollar amount of resting bid and ask orders for more than 1,100 coins listed worldwide, fell by 20% across spot markets on Saturday.
The sharp decline happened as alternative cryptocurrencies like SOL, MATIC, DOGE and others crashed amid rumors of a fund liquidating its coin holdings.
According crypto hedge fund Assymetric's CIO Joe McCann, some market makers likely pulled out from the market during the altcoin crash, causing a sharp decline in the amount of resting bid and ask orders.
"The @hyblockcapital Global Bid/Ask metric dropped a full 20% during the collapse. Seems like a bunch of MMs [market makers] pulled inventory creating paper-thin order books," McCann tweeted. Other observers argued that the decline in liquidity stemmed from a single market maker running out of collateral.
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BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, is close to filing an application for a Bitcoin ETF (exchange traded fund), according to a person familiar with the matter.
BlackRock will be using Coinbase (COIN) Custody for the ETF and the crypto exchange’s spot market data for pricing, the person said. Coinbase declined to comment.
BlackRock began working with Coinbase to make crypto directly available to institutional investors midway through last year.
It wasn't clear if the ETF will be spot or futures. BlackRock did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
To date, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which oversees ETFs in the U.S., has rejected every application for a spot bitcoin ETF, though it has approved several bitcoin futures ETFs for trading.
Polygon Labs, the Ethereum scaling platform, has released an open database that shows positive use cases of blockchain on any application from across the world, it announced on Thursday.
Called "The Value Prop," the database hosts as many as 39 use cases and over 300 applications, with numbers expected to increase. Polygon Labs conceived the project as a “Wikipedia for use cases.”
"This is just the beginning. It's not like this is going to be a stagnant website," said Rebecca Rettig, Chief Policy Officer at Polygon Labs in a pre-launch interview with CoinDesk. "It's going to grow as people see it and say, 'Oh, we want more applications that are on Solana to be listed on here. Please put them up on the website.'"
The clamor for use cases has been growing among regulators as jurisdictions grapple with the challenge of framing legislation that not only supports innovation but also protects citizens.
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... Bitcoin , ether and other cryptocurrencies should be regulated as gambling given the significant risks they pose to consumers, a panel of UK lawmakers said in a report on Wednesday. ...
U.K. parliamentarians have voted through a new bill that could recognize crypto as a regulated activity in the country.
The approval of the Financial Services and Markets Bill (FSMB) on Monday by Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, means the bill is going to enter the final stages before it is put into law.
The wide-ranging bill, spanning over 340 pages, was introduced in July to take advantage of Brexit freedoms and give regulators more power over the U.K. financial system. While the original bill included a proposal to regulate stablecoins under the country’s payments rules, amendments to treat all crypto as a regulated activity and measures to supervise crypto promotions were added later as the bill progressed through Parliament.
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Next, the FSMB will be returned to the lower house of Parliament to agree on a final version. Once both houses agree on the document, it will be sent to the King to be approved and passed into law. The bill can be sent back and forth between the chambers of Parliament until a consensus is reached.
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