Brazil has marked a milestone in the judicial system by finding three citizens guilty of cryptocurrency fraud through a Ponzi scheme, which affected approximately seven thousand investors and amounted to $190 million.

Federal judge José Guimarães sentenced those involved: Antônio Inácio da Silva Neto, Luiz Carlos de Souza, and Fabrícia Campos Silva. The citizens are “linked to the company Braiscompany, which promised returns of up to 15 % per month thanks to alleged automated trading software.”

The sentence amounts to a total of 170 years in prison for those involved, in addition to the obligation to “repair the economic damages caused and seize assets acquired with illicit funds.”

The ruling by the Brazilian judicial system sets a precedent throughout the region, as it is the most severe known related to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

M.Pino

Source: cripto247

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La entrada Brazil hands down the largest sentence for cryptocurrency fraud apareció primero en Bitfinance.

Robinhood Securities LLC and Robinhood Financial LLC will be required to pay a $45 million fine for failure to comply with various rules imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

SEC official Sanjay Wadhwa said: “Today’s order finds that two Robinhood firms failed to comply with a broad range of significant regulatory requirements, including failing to accurately report trading activity, comply with short-selling rules, file suspicious activity reports on a timely basis, maintain books and records, and protect customer information.”

The investigation includes charges of providing suspicious data since 2019, exposing customer data to hackers, violating regulations on “maintaining electronic communications and protecting operational data,” among others.

Both brokers admitted to the SEC’s allegations and have agreed to “conduct internal audits and remediation plans to address these issues.” In this regard, Robinhood Securities will pay a fine of $33.5 million and Robinhood Financial will pay $11.5 million.

M.Pino

Source: beincrypto

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La entrada Robinhood fined $45 million by SEC apareció primero en Bitfinance.

The Central Bank of Chile, the local regulatory body in monetary matters, indicated that bitcoin will not be incorporated as a reserve asset.

According to the entity, “cryptocurrencies do not meet the IMF criteria.” Hence the decision not to incorporate bitcoin into its treasury.

The authorities have indicated: “International reserves aim to maintain economic and financial stability in the face of adverse external shocks and the conduct of exchange rate policy. Therefore, they must meet high criteria of security, liquidity and quality, according to the definitions of the IMF to guarantee central banks their immediate availability with a limited impact on the market and efficient access in case they need to be used in periods of crisis.”

The Central Bank of Chile stressed that cryptocurrencies do not have these essential legal characteristics and, in addition, are affected by high volatility.

In the local scenario, “the law establishes narrow criteria for the assets that can be included in the books of the Central Bank of Chile. Specifically, the regulations limit reserve assets to “gold, securities, negotiable instruments, instruments issued or guaranteed by foreign states, central banks or international financial institutions.”

For now, Chile does not contemplate a change of assets to include cryptocurrencies, which represent a high risk for its reserves and to comply with the mandate to guarantee the economic and financial stability of the country.

M.Pino

Source: diariobitcoin

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La entrada Chile rules out incorporating bitcoin as a reserve asset apareció primero en Bitfinance.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, declared on his Twitter account that his country will not sell the alleged reserves of bitcoin it owns, even though its value has exceeded $60,000.

In his words: “We will not sell, of course, in the end 1 BTC = 1 BTC (this was true when the market price was low and it is true now)”.

In addition, Bukele has criticized the alleged media silence about the increase in the value of bitcoin in recent days. According to him, when the market price of bitcoin was low, literally thousands of articles were written about the alleged losses of his country.

However, now that the price is so high, the authors of those op-ed articles, analysts, pundits and journalists are completely silent.

Bukele also pointed out that if they sold, they would make a profit of more than 40 % (only for purchases in the market), and their main source of BTC is now their citizenship program.

Since last January 23, when it fell to $38,500, the price of the cryptocurrency has revalued by 56.97 %.

K. Tovar

Source: Bancaynegocios

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La entrada El Salvador will not sell its bitcoin reserves apareció primero en Bitfinance.

On February 28, between 9:00 and 10:00 PST, the price of bitcoin experienced a rapid rise. However, this sudden increase also had consequences for Coinbase, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchange platforms. Users began to report that their accounts showed a balance of 0 dollars, which caused concern on social media.

In response to these allegations, the exchange issued a statement assuring that they are aware of the situation. The platform team is investigating the issue and promised to provide an update soon. They also reassured users that their assets were safe.

Despite Coinbase’s efforts, the bug persists at the close of this issue. However, the platform insists that users’ funds are not at risk.

The price of bitcoin peaked at 64,000 just before the incident, but at the time of this article, it has dropped back to $61,400. The volatility of cryptocurrencies remains an important issue, and investors should be alert to sudden changes in the market.

K. Tovar

Source: Cointelegraph

(Reference image: @healthy_pockets, X)

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La entrada Coinbase experienced problems with its balance apareció primero en Bitfinance.

The bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX got the judge’s approval to sell more than $1 billion in shares of artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.

Judge John Dorsey of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court ruled at a hearing on 22 February that the sale could take place after FTX made concessions with some clients who opposed the sale.

Clients had alleged that Anthropic’s shares did not belong to FTX; they said they were acquired with embezzled client funds, citing evidence presented during the criminal trial of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

However, they agreed to the sale if they were later allowed to claim money from it for FTX users. FTX’s attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell, Andrew Dietderich, told the court that they are selling the shares of Anthropic “and we put the money in the bank.”

He added that FTX will reimburse users with the funds from the sale of its stake in Anthropic and add them to the $6.4 billion it currently has in the bank, an amount more than enough to reimburse anyone who can show they own a share of the profits.

The financial frenzy of Anthropic, one of the most attractive AI start-ups, raised $7.3 billion last year, as the appeal of AI changes the way business is done in Silicon Valley.

FTX filed a motion earlier this month to sell its 7.84% stake in Anthropic. It first invested about $530 million in the AI startup in April 2022, months before it collapsed and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November of that year.

K. Tovar

Source: Cointelegraph

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La entrada FTX will be able to sell $1 billion dollars apareció primero en Bitfinance.

The United States Federal Reserve Board announced that it has completed an enforcement action against Farmington State Bank, a financial institution linked to the defunct cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.

According to the statement issued on February 6, the Fed reported that, following the enforcement action taken in July 2023, Farmington closed its operations and no longer operates as a bank.

Formerly known as Moonstone, Farmington State Bank received approximately $11.5 million from FTX’ssister company, Alameda Research, through FBH Corporation in March 2022. The Fed stated in August 2023 that the enforcement action was carried out to close operations and protect depositors.

After the FTX collapse in November 2022, Farmington initially announced its intention to leave the crypto space and return to its “original mission” as a community bank. However, neither the Fed’s enforcement action nor the termination of its action explicitly mentioned FTX or Alameda.

On January 31, the Fed announced that interest rates would remain in the range of 5.25% to 5.50%. Sometimes, the Fed’s announcements correlate with falls or increases in the price of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.

K. Tovar

Source: FederalReserve

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La entrada The Fed withdrew measures from a bank linked to FTX apareció primero en Bitfinance.

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador declared himself the winner of the country’s presidential election. According to its own figures, it would have obtained more than 85 % of the votes in the preliminary ballot of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). Although these results have yet to be ratified in a final ballot with the physical records, Bukele’s advantage over his opponents seems overwhelming.

In his victory speech at the Historic Center of San Salvador, Bukele declared: “We have won the presidency of the Republic for the second time with more than 85% of the votes.” The New Ideas (NI) party, led by Bukele, is in the lead, while the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN, left) received 110,244 votes and the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena, right) received 96,700 votes.

However, the judge of the TSE, William Wellman, warned that the results presented by Bukele are not official. According to Wellman, “we are the ones who give the official results” and “what is said outside of here is not official until we affirm it”.

If the figures are confirmed, Bukele would become the first president of El Salvador to be re-elected, despite the constitutional prohibition. His victory is based on his focus on security, which included the detention of more than 75,000 Salvadorans without charges, which resulted in a significant decrease in homicide rates in the country.

Although some analysts question the long-term sustainability of this strategy, Bukele garnered massive support from voters seeking a solution to the violence and insecurity in El Salvador.

K. Tovar

Source: UniónRadio

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La entrada Bukele declared himself the winner of the presidential elections apareció primero en Bitfinance.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. appointed George Osborne, former UK Treasury Secretary, as an advisor as it faces growing regulatory scrutiny in the United States.

Coinbase has announced that Osborne will join the company’s Global Advisory Board, which includes other notable political figures such as former U.S. Senator Patrick Toomey, former U.S. Secretary of Defense. UU. Dr. Mark T. Esper and former U.S. Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney.

Osborne brings significant experience in government and international affairs, having served as Chancellor from 2010 to 2016. In addition, he was an advisor to BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, from 2017 to 2021.

In a statement, Osborne said: “There is a tremendous amount of exciting innovation in finance right now. Blockchains are transforming financial markets and online transactions. Coinbase is on the verge of these advances. I look forward to working with the team there as they build a new future in financial services”.

Coinbase has been sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last June for offering unregistered securities. The former chancellor’s experience could prove useful to Coinbase at this time of growing regulatory pressure.

Osborne has held numerous high-level positions since leaving the Government in 2016. He is currently president of the British Museum.

K. Tovar

Source: Cointelegraph

(Reference image source: @adamantiumnews, X)

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La entrada Coinbase recruited a former UK minister apareció primero en Bitfinance.

Binance.US, the arm of Binance for the US market, stopped operating this week in Alaska and Florida due to conflicts with local authorities.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), this decision is due to the investigations and processes that the exchange faces in the US, which has led the regulators of those states to take action on the matter.

In the case of Florida, the regulators sued Binance.US to protect local citizens. This occurs despite the fact that the company still has a license to operate in that state, but that expires in April of this year.

As for Alaska, the halt of operations is due to the fact that local banking regulators rejected renewing the license of Binance.US, without giving further explanations on the matter.

These actions in Alaska and Florida against Binance.US are part of the efforts of the regulators to supervise more closely the companies in the crypto sector. This is related to the problems that Binance had and that resulted in a million-dollar agreement to resolve the accusations against it, which allows it to continue offering its services in the country with certain restrictions.

At the end of last year, the US government reached an agreement with Binance for the payment of more than USD $4,000 million in fines, mainly before the Treasury Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

K. Tovar

Source: Diariobitcoin

La entrada Binance.US suspended operations in Alaska and Florida due to regulatory issues apareció primero en Bitfinance.