➡️Robinhood Agrees $600 Million Buyback of Seized Sam Bankman-Fried HOOD Stake From US Marshal Service

On August 30, Robinhood entered into a $605.7 million (HOOD) share buyback agreement with the US Marshal Service (USMS) to reclaim shares formerly held by Same Bankman-Fried (SBF) through Emergent Fidelity Technologies.

At the beginning of this year, the US government took possession of the 55 million HOOD shares owned by Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, co-founders of FTX, through their holding company, Emergent Fidelity Technologies, after Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, and Emergent filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022.

Last November, just six months before Bankman-Fried's company filed for bankruptcy, he disclosed a 7.6% stake in Robinhood.

However, he clarified that he had no intention of taking control of the retail trading platform. At that time, he expressed excitement about Robinhood's business prospects and potential collaboration opportunities with FTX.

According to a US Securities and Exchange Commission Filing dated August 30, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York approved the share repurchase agreement on August 28.

📌No, SpaceX Isn't the Cause of This Multi-Billion Dollar Bitcoin Bloodbath

This was the first thought that crossed the mind of Reetika, a Dubai-based bitcoin (BTC) and crypto trader, during her usual routine of checking prices after waking up.

An unexpected and major sell-off in the crypto markets jolted what was an otherwise boring few weeks for crypto and the sentiment was likely shared worldwide among traders and crypto hopefuls, Reetika told CoinDesk in a message.

Bitcoin plunged on Thursday as traders sold the tokens en masse based on several unrelated catalysts, causing the crypto markets to lose 6.7% in overall capitalization in what marked one of the biggest drops in recent months.

In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin fell as much as 9% to $25,000 from $28,500 on Binance, leading to a market-wide fall that sent major tokens like litecoin (LTC) tumbling by 14%. This caused more than $1 billion in crypto futures to be liquidated, a 14-month high.

Some pointed to space exploration company SpaceX’s supposed bitcoin sales – an unsubstantiated claim – while others said the bankruptcy of China Evergreen’s may have had something to do with the fall. However, neither of these events may have impacted prices.

SpaceX merely wrote down the value of its bitcoin holdings, as per a WSJ report. Among accountants, that is the reduction in the book value of an asset when its fair market value has fallen below the book value.

Asset write-downs are common among businesses – as it reduces the value of any holdings for tax purposes. As of Asian morning hours on Friday, SpaceX did not confirm, or report, any sales of its bitcoin holdings. As such, it remains unknown how much bitcoin or crypto the Elon Musk-owned company holds.

✔️Metaverse to help tackle global warming: Study

A recent study suggests that the metaverse, a virtual 3D environment where the physical and digital worlds merge, has the potential to contribute to the reduction of global surface temperatures by up to 0.02 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

Published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, the study highlights the metaverse's ability to lower greenhouse gas emissions, decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

The study emphasizes the potential benefits of metaverse-based remote working, distance learning, and virtual tourism in improving air quality.

By reducing transportation and commercial energy usage, the metaverse can also contribute to transforming energy distribution, with a greater energy supply directed towards the residential sector.

OneCoin’s Head of Legal and Compliance Pleads Guilty To Wire Fraud and Money Laundering Charges


🔼OneCoin’s legal chief pleaded guilty to money laundering and wire fraud charges, according to a statement released today from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

‼️Bulgarian national Irina Dilkinska, 42, faces up to 10 years in prison for her role in OneCoin’s notorious crypto fraud scheme. In a Manhattan federal court, Dilkinska confessed to aiding in the laundering of $110 million in illicit profits generated through OneCoin, as well as assisting in the running of day-to-day operations at the fraudulent firm. Her sentencing hearing has been scheduled for February 14 next year.

🟢Dilkinska was previously charged in March and extradited from Bulgaria to the United States.

💬 “As OneCoin’s so-called ‘Head of Legal and Compliance’ Irina Dilkinska accomplished the exact opposite goal of her position,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “As she has now admitted, Dilkinska facilitated the laundering of millions of dollars of illicit profits OneCoin accrued through its multi-level-marketing scheme.”

🔔OneCoin was a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme conducted by Bulgaria-based company OneCoin Ltd and Belize-based OneLife Network Ltd, founded by Ruja Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood. OneCoin covertly engaged in a database entry scam that mimicked transactions absent from a genuine blockchain, and there was no mining activity supporting the purported release and circulation of the cryptocurrency.

South Korean Police Shut Down ‘International Crypto Fraud’ Ring, Freeze $1.2m

📣 South Korean police have swooped on a group of suspected “international” crypto fraudsters, freezing over $12 million and arresting 49.

‼️ Newsis reported that the Cyber Investigation Department of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has “arrested a total of 49 people, including the six suspected leaders of six separate organizations.”

🔔 The group has been charged with fraud, with officers suspecting the group of “operating a fake cryptoasset investment site.” The site was mainly used to attract overseas investors in locations including the Philippines, police spokespeople explained.

⚠️ Police think the group was active from September 2020 until April last year, and that it managed to raise over $11.5 million from at least 253 victims. Officers think the group targeted potential victims by buying personal data leaked to the internet. And police claimed the group had bought access to “1.62 million pieces of illegally acquired personal information.”

🔼According to police sources, the group also tried to lure would-be investors onto their site by “randomly distributing” promotional messages to public crypto-related chat app groups.

South Korean High Court Sentences Crypto Scammer to 9 Years in Jail ‼️

🔔 A branch of the South Korean High Court has jailed a convicted crypto scammer who operated a bogus token trading platform for nine and a half years. Per Seoul Kyungjae, the case was heard at the Busan High Court (Ulsan Tribunal) on November 12. The scammer, unnamed for legal reasons, was originally sentenced to serve eight years by an Ulsan-based district court. But the High Court upheld the scammer’s guilty verdict – and increased the jail term after hearing additional evidence from prosecutors.

📣 The court heard that the individual, named as A in the national media, told victims that they could use “crypto market manipulation” methods to make “x50 profits” on their initial stakes. The court heard that the bogus crypto exchange was operational from March to August 2019. Prosecutors said that A had “advertised” the platform on social media channels. The scammer raised almost $1 million from “about 90 victims,” the court heard.

⚠️ A claimed that the platform made use of a sophisticated piece of software “developed in-house” that manipulated crypto prices. A also tried to promote a cryptoasset that they claimed could be used to pay at “convenience stores, department stores, and gas stations.” But the court heard that A was in debt to the tune of about $0.5 million when making these claims, and was on probation while operating the scheme.

Talos and Uniswap Forge Landmark Deal to Boost DeFi Access for Institutions 📣


📌 Talos – a digital trading infrastructure provider – has teamed up with Uniswap and Fireblocks to connect institutional traders to the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

⬆️Per a press release from Uniswap on Thursday, Talos’s clients will be able to use the protocol’s trading APIs to access trading for thousands of tokens with their familiar Talos order book format.

🔔 Once launched, Talos clients can execute orders on Uniswap using its time-weight average price (TWAP) algorithm – a widely used price oracle mechanism designed to exclude short-term price manipulations.

⚠️The integration will allow Talos’s strategies to seamlessly interact with both centralized and decentralized liquidity venues and help achieve best execution.

Anton Katz, CEO and Co-Founder of Talos, stated:

“At the cornerstone of the DeFi ecosystem, Uniswap has the breadth of assets and depth of liquidity that institutional traders need… Together, we share a vision of making digital assets more accessible in a financial marketplace that’s more open.”

✔️ Uniswap is the world’s largest decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity venue, currently boasting $3.6 billion in TVL, according to DeFiLlama.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Expresses Willingness to Cooperate on Granting More Powers to Regulate Crypto Exchanges 📣

🟢The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, John Lee, has responded to the recent investigation into the unlicensed virtual-asset trading platform Hounax.

🔼 On November 27, Chief Executive John Lee addressed the recent virtual platform supervision fraud and emphasized the importance of government supervision to protect investors and crack down on unlicensed platforms. According to a local news blog, he expressed a willingness to cooperate with regulators and grant additional powers if needed to crack down on unlicensed crypto exchanges.

He said,

💬“If it is necessary to provide power to regulatory agencies, the government will actively cooperate.”

✔️ His comments highlight the need for government supervision to protect investors and combat unlicensed platforms in the crypto space, as the recent Hounax fraud case follows a similar incident involving JPEX, a crypto exchange. The JPEX exchange scandal received over 2,000 complaints and resulted in approximately $180 million in losses.

🔴 A total of 66 individuals have been arrested in connection with the JPEX scandal. In response to these events, local regulators in Hong Kong are strengthening crypto regulations to prevent future industry catastrophes.