Cryptocurrency & Mining - Page 3

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the creator of the highly popular artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, is close to securing $100 million in funding for another one of his projects called Worlcoin.

According to a new report by the Financial Times, which spoke to three people familiar with the deal, Sam Altman is on the verge of securing a new round of $100 million in funding from new and existing investors for Worldcoin, a project that aims at creating a global digital currency that is distributed equally and fairly to everyone. The project's foundations lay with Worldcoin's proof-of-personhood protocol that involves users participating in a biometric scan of their irises, which is then verified against a government-issued ID such as a driver's license.

Once the user is verified, Worldcoin is able to distribute the token out to the unique personhood address. Additionally, last week Worldcoin announced World App wallet and World ID, a new protocol that will enable users to sign in to websites, applications, and other cryptocurrency-related applications. The company was only founded in 2019 and has since reached a $3 billion valuation, attracting the attention of many investors around the world that are interested in the utility of iris scans.

Microsoft's Edge browser has been on a run of adding various bits and pieces of functionality of late, and the firm isn't letting up, with another new feature having been spotted: a crypto wallet.

The Edge team might be introducing a built-in way of managing your crypto assets right in the browser, as flagged up in a tweet by well-known leaker Albacore on Twitter (spotted by Bleeping Computer).

This feature consists of a 'non-custodial' crypto wallet (meaning you, not Microsoft, are in complete control of the funds within), supporting multiple Ethereum accounts (and maybe Bitcoin in the future).

According to new court records, the army of professional lawyers and advisors has billed a collective $38 million plus expenses for just the month of January.

FTX, the previous position holder for the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, filed for bankruptcy in November after it was discovered exchange officials were illegitimately managing customer funds. Since then, a widespread effort has been implemented to clean up the financial mess created by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), along with his other top-ranking officials from FTX and its sister company Alameda Research. Notably, some of these officials have turned on SBF and are cooperating with regulators and authorities.

Shortly after the collapse of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO of the company, and John Ray III was brought in as the new CEO. Notably, John Ray III was responsible for assisting in the clean-up process of the energy firm Enron. FTX bankruptcy administrators have Sullivan & Cromwell on retainer as counsel, as well as Quin Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Landis Rath & Cobb. All of the aforementioned firms contain approximately 180 lawyers and more than 50 staffers that are all working on the FTX case.

One of the key members in the downfall of what was the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, will plead guilty to fraud charges.

A new report from Bloomberg has revealed that former FTX executive Nishad Singh is currently working on striking a plea deal with New York prosecutors that have filed charges of fraud against Singh. The report indicates the former FTX executive will plead guilty to the fraud charges and his involvement in the alleged scheme that resulted in the collapse of FTX. The publication cited its source as 'people familiar with the matter'.

Singh was the director of engineering at FTX and if a plea deal is struck, would be the newest member of Sam Bankman Fried's (SBF) inner circle to plead guilty, with FTX co-founder Gary Wang and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, both entering into plea deals last year near the time of the collapse. If the plea deal is struck between Singh and authorities, it could involve working with prosecutors on their case, which was outlined in both Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang's plea deals.

The former Coinbase employee is Ishan Wahi, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in court on Tuesday, February 7.

The former product manager at Coinbase was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the Southern District of New York. Notably, Wahi pleaded not guilty to wire fraud back in August, which was based on an insider trading scheme that involved the former Coinbase employee informing his brother and his friend Sameer Ramani about coming token listings on the platform. Wahi's brother Nikhil pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in September and received a 10-month sentence.

According to reports, federal prosecutors are describing the Wahi case as the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrencies. Notably, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is also coming after Wahi and charged him back in July last year, deeming 9 out of the 25 tokens involved in the case as "securities". However, lawyers representing Wahi filed to dismiss the SEC charges, claiming that tokens bought and sold on the secondary market aren't securities.

Ripple has announced a new president will take the helm at the company as the cryptocurrency coin reaches the end of its long lawsuit with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The company took to its blog to announce that Monica Long, Ripple's senior vice president, and general manager, will be taking up the position of president of the company. Long started her career at Ripple when the firm was in its infancy, counting just ten employees back in 2013. Sticking with Ripple long made her way up the ranks to eventually be given the position of general manager in 2020.

According to Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, "Even in the current challenging crypto environment, Monica has helped guide Ripple to a very unique place of growth and financial strength. She's been an instrumental adviser to me over the years, and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to partner with her even more closely as she embarks on her role as president."

A blockchain investigator has revealed the hackers behind the Harmony Bridge attack that occurred in June 2022 are trying to move millions in stolen funds.

Reports indicate that blockchain investigator ZachXBT found evidence that the group of hackers behind the Harmony Bridge exploitation that cost the startup $100 million are trying to move the stolen funds to a few different wallets on various cryptocurrency exchanges. For those that don't know, Harmony is a US cryptocurrency startup that discovered in June 2022 that its Horizon blockchain bridge, which allows users to send/receive assets from one blockchain to another, had been hacked.

ZachXBT took to Twitter with on-chain data that backed up his claims that the hackers behind the Harmony attack transferred stolen assets to six different cryptocurrency exchanges. Notably, ZachXBT states that the appropriate cryptocurrency exchanges were notified of the transfer and at least partly froze the assets. Additionally, the movement of the stolen funds to the new addresses comes only days after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the culprits behind the $100 million Harmony hack. The FBI named the Lazarus Group and APT38 as responsible criminals.

A new report claims the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accidentally leaked the personal information of many cryptocurrency miners.

The claims come from the Washington Examiner, which published a report that stated it had seen screenshots of the SEC failing to bbc all of the people involved in its investigation into the blockchain company, Green. As the report states, the SEC has been privately investigating Green for years and communicated with many of its members that cooperated with the regulatory body. Green's users answered all of the SEC's questions, and on January 6 the regulatory body failed to bbc all 650 users in an email, leaking their personal information online.

Notably, the information that was leaked contained personal data such as names, email addresses, and more. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have said that the leaked information is more than enough for a hacker to access the "nodes", or computers used to mine the Green cryptocurrency token. These nodes are used to verify transactions of the coin across the network, and according to crypto enthusiasts, they are now compromised.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced it will be filing charges against FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF).

The announcement from the SEC comes shortly after Bahamian law enforcement revealed that SBF had been arrested, which was confirmed by the US Attorney's Office Southern District of New York. The arrest by Bahamian authorities was done at the request of the US government, with Bahamas Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Ryan Pinder, adding that if the US requests extradition, the Bahamas will respond "promptly".

Notably, Bahamian prime Minister Philip David said that both countries have a "shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law." According to reports, SBF is facing charges of wire and securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, and money laundering.

On a recent Twitter post, Elon Musk announced that he is taking action against a small number of bad actors who control large armies of bot and spam accounts on the platform.

In the post, Musk stated that he is shutting down the IP addresses of these individuals in order to combat their malicious activity. This move is a response to the growing problem of bots and spam accounts on Twitter, which have been used for a variety of nefarious purposes, such as spreading misinformation, manipulating public opinion, and spamming cryptocurrency scams. These bot armies have become increasingly sophisticated and can be difficult to identify and combat.

Musk's decision to shut down the IP addresses of these bad actors is a bold move that could have significant repercussions for the individuals involved. It will likely disrupt their ability to operate their bot and spam accounts, at least temporarily. However, it is unclear how effective this move will be in the long term, as the individuals involved may simply switch to using different IP addresses or find other ways to continue their malicious activity.