The Block
Quick Take Oregon man Sam Ikkurty was accused of defrauding investors from a purported “crypto hedge fund” that allegedly ran like a Ponzi scheme. The CFTC alleges that Ikkurty failed to return the promised “net profits” to investors and failed to mention that the fund’s performance fell 98.99% within months.
Quick Take The Donald Trump-connected crypto project World Liberty Financial will reportedly involve a non-transferable governance token and credit protocol. According to a CoinDesk report citing since-deleted Github code, the protocol is largely based on DeFi protocol Dough Finance.
Quick Take Experts say SEC Chair Gary Gensler could stay on at the agency if Donald Trump is elected to become president in November. “The norm is to step back,” said former SEC commissioner and acting chair Michael Piwowar.
This represents the second largest monthly on-chain lending market liquidations in history, behind May 2021.The following is an excerpt from The Block’s Data and Insights newsletter.
Quick Take As a result of a partnership, Ethena’s USDe will become available for deposit on Ether.fi in exchange for a new liquid restaking token called eUSDe. The new token “will provide a dollar-pegged asset for EigenLayer restaking.”
Quick Take Monthly non-vote transactions on Solana hit a multi-month low in August, according to data from The Block. However, one analyst views the expected Fed rate cut as a potential boost for liquidity on the Solana network.
Matter Labs trimmed its workforce by 16% as demand for ZKsync Era continues to fall.The SEC charged and settled with the crypto-focused investment advisory firm Galois Capital over custody issues.The entity behind the WazirX hack moved $6.5 million in ether to the sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash.The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.
Quick Take The charges involved a private fund that mostly invested in crypto, the SEC said in a statement on Tuesday. The SEC and Galois Capital agreed to a settlement, according to the agency. Galois Capital did not admit or deny the agency’s findings.
Quick Take In Scotland, a man convicted for being the “technical brains” behind a 2020 assault and robbery of cryptocurrency had £110,000 (about $144,000) worth of bitcoin seized.
Quick Take CEO Alex Gluchowski said the market environment and business needs have changed significantly over the course of this year. ZkSync has about 92,620 active addresses as of Monday, down from a peak north of 455,000 in April.
