ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Green United promoter Kristoffer Krohn filed a motion on October 24 in the U.S. District Court for Utah, requesting the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the SEC's allegations in a $18 million cryptocurrency mining fraud case. Krohn argues that the SEC's application of securities law is incorrect, claiming that the company is selling high-performance computing hardware rather than securities.Previously reported, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Marie McIff Allen dismissed the defendants' motion to dismiss, stating that the SEC's allegations of unregistered securities sales are "well-supported."

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, as WazirX undergoes debt restructuring following a hacker attack, its digital custody partner Liminal issued a statement addressing security vulnerabilities. Today, Liminal released an update in response to WazirX's so-called "false advertising campaign," clarifying its role in the incident.The statement said that although WazirX accused Liminal of causing a $235 million theft in July, WazirX continues to use its digital custody services, holding over $175 million in assets on its platform. Liminal emphasized that it cannot initiate transactions involving WazirX funds and stated that only the WazirX team has the capability to execute such transactions.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cryptonews, the short video application TikTok is under scrutiny for allegedly operating in the UK in a manner similar to cryptocurrency exchanges. It is reported that a compliance expert has warned the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), suggesting that TikTok undergo checks for money laundering and terrorist financing. The expert emphasized that the virtual tokens on TikTok could potentially be indirectly exchanged for real currency through its creator program, which is concerning.This scrutiny stems from TikTok's virtual currency system—TikTok tokens. Users can purchase tokens with real money and gift them on the platform or during live streams. They may also have the option to exchange these tokens back for cash. This process is similar to cryptocurrency trading. Given the strict regulations surrounding cryptocurrency businesses, this system has raised regulatory concerns. Critics argue that TikTok's handling of virtual currency may face the same scrutiny as cryptocurrency platforms. Additionally, such cryptocurrency-like transactions have raised concerns about the security of users' financial data, especially considering the geopolitical sensitivities.It is reported that the letter stated: "TikTok provides funding transfer services for money service businesses through its rewards program and facilitates the exchange of crypto assets for currency or currency for crypto assets, or makes arrangements for such exchanges." As of the time of publication, neither TikTok nor the FCA has responded to Cryptonews' request for comment.

ChainCatcher News, the U.S. SEC has reached a settlement with trading firm Rimar regarding its allegations that the company provided false information to investors about its claims of using artificial intelligence (AI) to execute automated trading in cryptocurrencies and other assets.The SEC stated that Itai Liptz, the owner and CEO of Rimar LLC and Rimar USA, along with Rimar USA board member Cliffard Boro, claimed they could use AI to trade cryptocurrencies, stocks, bonds, and other investments, raising nearly $4 million from 45 investors.However, the SEC pointed out that the company did not actually use AI, and the claim of using emerging technologies was merely a "buzzword" to deceive investors, which the agency referred to as "AI-washing." Rimar USA agreed to settle the allegations and will pay a total of $310,000 in civil penalties without admitting or denying the findings of the regulatory investigation.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Wormhole has initiated a new proposal in the Curve governance forum, suggesting to reduce the collateral cap for crvUSD's TUSD to zero "to completely eliminate exposure to TUSD" due to regulatory risks and solvency issues.The proposal also suggests reducing the mintable amount of PayPal's stablecoin PYUSD from $15 million to $5 million, "thus making the reliance on each PegKeeper suitable for the importance of their respective pools." Currently, the main collateral for minting crvUSD also includes ETH and WBTC.Previously, on September 24, the U.S. SEC reached a settlement regarding allegations of fraud against TrueCoin and TrustToken involving unregistered sales of investment contracts related to TrueUSD. The allegations claimed that 99% of TUSD's reserve funds were invested in high-risk offshore funds, raising concerns about its safety and solvency.

ChainCatcher news, FTX's former co-CEO Ryan Salame's partner Michelle Bond pleaded not guilty to four counts of campaign finance violations in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. These charges include conspiracy to cause illegal campaign contributions, causing and accepting excessive campaign contributions, causing and accepting illegal corporate contributions, and causing and accepting intermediary contributions.The charges stem from Bond's alleged concealment of funding sources during her 2022 campaign for a Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. It is alleged that Salame arranged for FTX to pay $400,000 to fund her campaign, while Bond is accused of making false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and congressional committees. Notably, Salame had previously pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 months in prison, but after Bond was indicted, he requested the court to withdraw his plea, claiming it was based on a promise from prosecutors not to investigate his partner. Judge Lewis Kaplan stated he would consider whether to withdraw Salame's plea.Currently, Bond remains free on a $1 million bail but is restricted to travel within the continental United States. Judge George Daniels has scheduled a pretrial conference for January 2025. In the criminal cases against FTX and Alameda Research, as of September 18, only Salame and SBF have been sentenced to imprisonment. Sentencing hearings for other implicated executives will take place in the coming months.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has responded to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's allegations of violating federal securities laws.In legal documents submitted on September 12, the cryptocurrency exchange denied the SEC's allegations, stating that the assets cited by the regulator do not meet the legal definition of securities. Kraken stated in the documents that it has not violated "Sections 5, 15(a), and 17A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934," because the cited assets "are not securities or investment contracts."

ChainCatcher news, Kraken responds to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allegations of violating federal securities laws. The SEC claims that several digital assets offered by Kraken are unregistered securities. In its legal response, Kraken firmly denies these allegations, insisting that the assets in question do not meet the legal definition of securities under U.S. law, including Cardano (ADA), Algorand (ALGO), Cosmos (ATOM), and other digital assets traded on Kraken are not investment contracts. The exchange argues that the SEC has failed to demonstrate that the digital assets in question meet the standards outlined in the Howey test, and therefore are not under the jurisdiction of the SEC.

ChainCatcher news, according to Caixin, on September 5 local time, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stated in court that former President Trump’s defense attorney John Lauro claimed that Trump does not plead guilty to the charges in the amended indictment. Chutkan stated that she would consider issuing a summons for Trump.

ChainCatcher news, the SEC has charged the cryptocurrency asset investment advisory firm Galois Capital Management LLC for failing to comply with client asset protection regulations and misleading investors about the redemption notice period. To settle the SEC's charges, Galois has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $225,000, which will be distributed to the harmed investors of its funds.The SEC's investigation found that since July 2022, Galois Capital failed to ensure that certain cryptocurrency assets held by its managed private funds were custodied by qualified custodians, violating the custody rules of the Investment Advisers Act. The company stored some assets on trading platforms of non-qualified custodians, including FTX, resulting in the loss of about half of its managed assets when FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.Additionally, Galois Capital informed some investors that redemptions required a five-business-day notice, while actually allowing other investors to redeem with shorter notice, constituting misleading behavior. Corey Schuster, co-director of the SEC's Asset Management Division, emphasized that they will continue to hold advisors accountable for violating core investor protection obligations. Galois Capital has agreed to cease the violations and accept censure but did not admit or deny the findings of the SEC's investigation.

ChainCatcher news, according to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea will investigate the negligence of Telegram suspected of deep forgery.

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by Reuters, Elon Musk and his electric vehicle company Tesla (TSLA.O) have successfully won the dismissal of a federal lawsuit that accused them of defrauding investors by exaggerating the value of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin and engaging in insider trading, resulting in billions of dollars in losses. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan issued this ruling on Thursday evening.Investors accused the world's richest man of profiting from trades at their expense through Twitter posts, an appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in 2021, and other promotional stunts, using multiple Dogecoin wallets controlled by him or Tesla. They also claimed that Musk deliberately inflated the price of Dogecoin by over 36,000% over two years, only to let it crash, while he and Tesla often timed their trades based on Musk's public statements and activities regarding Dogecoin.However, Hellerstein stated that Musk's tweets about "Dogecoin being the currency of the future on Earth, usable to purchase Tesla cars, or sent to the moon by his company SpaceX" were "idealized and exaggerated, not facts, and easily falsifiable," meaning that no rational investor could rely on these tweets to file a securities fraud lawsuit, and thus "could not comprehend" the market manipulation and insider trading allegations raised by the investors. Hellerstein dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. The investors initially sought $258 billion in damages and amended their complaint four times over two years. In seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, Musk's lawyers argued that his "harmless and often silly tweets" posed no issue. They also stated that there was no evidence that Musk owned two wallets for suspicious trading, nor was there evidence that he or Tesla had ever sold Dogecoin.

ChainCatcher News: A U.S. court dismissed the allegations that basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal was the "controller" of the NFT project Astrals. The court ruled that Shaquille O'Neal participated in the Solana NFT project Astrals as a "seller" rather than a "controller," and granted Shaquille's request, dismissing some of the allegations against him in the unregistered securities class action that began in May 2023.The court dismissed the claims that the legendary basketball player was the "controller" of Astrals, with the plaintiffs alleging that O'Neal exercised "actual power or control" over the project. However, U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno ruled that O'Neal was a successful "seller" who attracted buyers for Astrals products. The judge also denied the defendants' motion to dismiss the allegations that Astrals NFTs and Galaxy tokens are financial securities.Astrals is a Solana-based NFT project featuring 10,000 unique 3D avatars, aimed at promoting investment in a virtual world and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called Astralverse. The project also has its own cryptocurrency, Galaxy, which serves as the governance token for the DAO.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, MonkeDAO has launched an internal investigation in response to allegations that validator node earnings have been misappropriated. The allegations claim that since December of last year, approximately half of the validator node earnings (about 586 SOL, currently worth $89,200) have not been returned to the DAO's treasury. MonkeDAO's General Counsel Ariel Givner stated that the DAO is aware of the matter and is ensuring operational transparency and accountability, committing to provide a detailed explanation and address any potential issues.

ChainCatcher news, in a report on July 31, renowned cryptocurrency skeptic Molly White claimed that Coinbase donated to the Fairshake crypto super PAC while actively negotiating contracts with the federal government, seemingly violating campaign finance laws.Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal called these allegations "misinformation." He stated that under the "literal language" provision of Federal Regulation Code 111.51, Coinbase is not a federal contractor and is therefore exempt from certain campaign finance regulations.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX was hacked this month, resulting in a loss of $230 million. The compromised multi-signature smart contract wallet used in the attack was reportedly imported to the Liminal platform.However, cryptocurrency custody service provider Liminal refuted claims that the attack involved its infrastructure. A spokesperson stated that the company's systems were not breached, leading to WazirX's loss of $230 million in crypto assets. The spokesperson said, "As a wallet infrastructure support platform, we emphasize that this incident originated externally, highlighting the critical importance of comprehensive security measures across platforms."

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, a proposal passed by Compound Finance has sparked accusations of governance attacks within the community, claiming that a small group was able to force the implementation of the proposal by acquiring a large amount of tokens on the open market.Last Sunday, Proposal 289 was narrowly approved with 682,191 votes to 633,636 votes, allocating 5% of the Compound treasury funds (499,000 COMP tokens, worth approximately $24 million) to a year-long interest-bearing protocol designed by the "Golden Boys." Voting on the proposal began at 11:40 PM local time on Thursday and continued through the weekend.However, community members allege that there are hidden circumstances behind these vote totals. Michael Lewellen, a security architect at OpenZeppelin and a security advisor for Compound Finance, stated in a post on X that some accounts accumulating COMP tokens on the open market are linked to several proposals aimed at transferring COMP assets to the goldCOMP product created by the "Golden Boys."In response to Lewellen's security alert, several community members, including Wintermute Governance, Columbia Blockchain, Penn Blockchain, and StableLab, expressed similar concerns.

ChainCatcher message, Mystiko.Network posted on X stating that the team recently became aware of allegations regarding certain transactions of its tokens and responded as follows:Mystiko has noted these allegations and immediately launched an internal investigation;The investigation confirmed the existence of problematic addresses and their transaction history;These addresses appear to meet the criteria for early contributors to the ecosystem, with multiple transactions in the network;The team firmly believes in rewarding early contributors and upholding the principles of fairness in DeFi;Looking ahead, the team will strive to enhance transparency and optimize governance to better serve the community.