ChainCatcher message, The Wall Street Journal reviews Powell's 50 basis point rate cut, stating that the Federal Reserve's goal is to replicate the masterpiece of former Fed Chairman Greenspan in the 1990s, where the rate cut in 1995 laid the foundation for the subsequent soft landing of the U.S. economy and the prosperity of the late 1990s.

ChainCatcher news, according to the WSJ report, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France last Saturday, which has drawn "anger" from Russian officials.The Russian embassy in France issued a statement earlier on Sunday, stating that French authorities had refused their attempts to contact Durov. "After the news of Durov's detention appeared in the media, we immediately requested clarification from the French authorities regarding the reasons and asked them to ensure the protection of Durov's rights and provide consular access. As of today, the French side has remained silent on this issue. We are in contact with Durov's lawyer," the translated version of the statement read.Some Russian officials described the arrest as an indirect hostile act against Russia. Reports indicate that Durov holds dual citizenship in France and Russia, while others suggest he has dual citizenship in France and the UAE. Additionally, according to NPR, the Paris prosecutor's office stated that French officials are expected to respond to the arrest issue in a statement on Monday. Telegram also issued its first statement regarding the arrest that day, stating: "Telegram complies with EU laws, including the Digital Services Act," and "Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide; he frequently travels in Europe."While some news outlets claim that Durov could face 20 years in prison, the initial reports from French media did not mention this figure. Following Durov's arrest, many prominent figures in the crypto industry expressed their support for him, including X platform owner Elon Musk, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin (who noted that his views are based on the information available so far), TRON founder Justin Sun, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, among others.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Wall Street Journal, former U.S. President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama expressed their support for Kamala Harris's presidential campaign on Friday, marking the most significant sign of the Vice President's rapid consolidation of her position within the Democratic Party.

ChainCatcher news, May 17, according to The Wall Street Journal, AI cloud computing startup CoreWeave, supported by Nvidia, has raised $7.5 billion from investors including Bain Capital, Carlyle Group, and BlackRock, making this financing one of the largest private debt financings in history.Two weeks ago, CoreWeave had just completed a round of $1.1 billion in equity financing, with a valuation of $19 billion. As of the end of last year, the company had 14 data centers and plans to double that number to 28 data centers by the end of this year.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Wall Street Journal, former employees from Binance revealed that Binance's investigation team found that DWF Labs engaged in wash trading exceeding $300 million in 2023, manipulating the prices of YGG and at least six other tokens, violating the terms of use. After DWF's managing partner Grachev promoted YGG, DWF sold nearly five million tokens in two batches around the price peak, leading to a price collapse. Although Binance's market monitoring team recommended closing DWF's account, the head of Binance's VIP client department and her team questioned this finding and filed a complaint with the company's leadership.Subsequently, another Binance department responsible for assessing employee compliance conducted its own investigation into the market monitoring team and the evidence they collected, ultimately concluding that there was insufficient evidence that DWF was involved in market manipulation.A Binance executive stated that wash trading could be accidental self-trading and does not necessarily constitute manipulation. The company leadership ultimately rejected the request to close DWF's account and fired the head of the market monitoring team a week after submitting the report. In the following months, Binance laid off more investigators to cut costs, and some investigators also voluntarily left. Binance executives stated that the size of the investigation team is now roughly the same as it was before.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Wall Street Journal, in response to the SEC investigation in 2022, Binance expanded its market surveillance team by hiring more than a dozen investigators from Bank of America and hedge fund Citadel.It is reported that the team developed new software tools to track market manipulation and detect "wash trading," where traders act as both buyers and sellers in the same transaction to create a false appearance of market activity. The new technology has made investigators aware of the potential scale of the problem, particularly among VIP clients who rely on their business.Data shows that last year, top traders on the Binance platform with monthly trading volumes exceeding $100 million accounted for two-thirds of the total trading volume.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Wall Street Journal, a Binance spokesperson stated that the company will not engage in profit-making trades or manipulate the market under any circumstances, and its operations are subject to strict scrutiny.The spokesperson also noted that in the past three years, Binance has terminated the access of nearly 355,000 users, whose total trading volume exceeded $2.5 trillion, due to violations of platform rules.

ChainCatcher news, according to sources cited by Wall Street, Binance has fired its monitoring director after discovering that DWF Labs was suspected of market manipulation.

ChainCatcher news, German fintech entrepreneur and former head of European operations for cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Patrick Gruhn, purchased a gold pocket watch that survived the sinking of the Titanic for a staggering £1.175 million (approximately $1.5 million) last Saturday, setting a record for the highest auction price for Titanic-related artifacts.It is reported that this 14K gold pocket watch originally belonged to one of the wealthiest passengers on the Titanic, American real estate magnate John Jacob Astor IV. After placing his wife in a lifeboat, Astor chose to go down with the Titanic. On the night of the incident, he was seen smoking on deck until the ship sank into the icy Atlantic. A week later, salvage workers discovered the watch, engraved with his initials, on Astor's body, and remarkably, it was still ticking.According to the auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, Gruhn purchased the pocket watch as a gift for his wife, Maren Gruhn. They plan to exhibit this historical artifact in a museum in the United States, allowing the public to admire it.It is worth mentioning that Gruhn was the head of European operations under FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). At the end of 2022, SBF was arrested on fraud charges, leading to the bankruptcy of FTX. Gruhn stated that he was unaware of SBF's fraudulent activities before the collapse of FTX. He used the proceeds from the sale of the European operations to purchase the pocket watch. Currently, Gruhn has established a new cryptocurrency derivatives exchange in Europe and operates a German Catholic television network.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Wall Street Journal, social media company Reddit plans to reserve a portion of its IPO shares for its 75,000 most active users when it goes public next month, a move that is unusual in the stock market.According to sources, the company plans to set aside a certain number of shares for these so-called "redditors," although the exact number has not yet been determined.

ChainCatcher news, The Wall Street Journal reported last month that in the absence of Zhao Changpeng, He Yi has become the largest shareholder in Binance, holding extensive control over its marketing and investment departments. According to individuals familiar with the board recruitment process, He Yi exercised her influence during the election of Binance's new independent majority board. Sources familiar with the exchange's financial situation indicated that she holds at least 10% of the shares in Binance's Cayman Islands holding company.According to individuals familiar with the negotiations, during early settlement discussions, the Department of Justice had hoped for He Yi to leave as well, but it is unclear why this ultimately did not happen.

ChainCatcher news, according to WSJ, Montenegro's top judicial official privately stated that he plans to extradite Do Kwon to the United States instead of South Korea to face criminal charges.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is still looking for evidence to prove that Binance.US has a backdoor that can control customer assets like FTX. During a hearing held in federal court, Binance.US lawyers argued that the SEC had no evidence of asset misuse and requested U.S. District Judge Zia Faruqui to consider halting the SEC's investigation into potential fraud.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Wall Street Journal, court records show that since the "crypto winter" of 2022, professional firms (such as lawyers) providing services to at least 9 bankrupt companies have so far received approximately $770 million in fees, as some of these Chapter 11 cases have been delayed. In terms of payment, the fees charged by law firms, bankers, and other professional advisors guiding companies through bankruptcy typically take precedence over corporate creditors.So far, the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has paid $317 million in fees and expenses, with nearly two-thirds going to law firms and financial advisors.

ChainCatcher news, according to WSJ, Judge Lewis Kaplan in the SBF trial stated that closing arguments will begin at 21:30 Beijing time on Wednesday. Kaplan, the prosecutors, and the defense attorneys are expected to discuss legal instructions on Tuesday afternoon, and the judge will read these instructions to the jury before deliberation.The closing arguments from both sides on Wednesday are expected to last two to three hours, and according to this schedule, the jury may begin deliberation on Thursday.

ChainCatcher news, according to WSJ reports, informed sources say that a few months before the collapse of FTX, some of its U.S. employees discovered a so-called "backdoor" on the platform, which Alameda Research allegedly used to extract billions of dollars in customer funds from FTX.The employees who discovered this issue reported it to senior management in their department, and some claimed that management discussed the issue with an assistant to FTX founder SBF. However, the issue was never resolved. In the summer of 2022, senior team members who raised concerns about Alameda's special privileges over FTX were fired.This "backdoor" played a significant role in the charges against SBF, who is on trial in federal court in New York for fraud charges, which began this week. The former FTX head has pleaded not guilty to all charges.Prosecutors claim that SBF secretly ordered the programming of "special features" to steal FTX customer funds, including granting Alameda the ability to handle FTX's massive pool of funds. Court documents reveal that a line of code hidden deep within FTX's code allowed Alameda to have liabilities of up to $65 billion on FTX.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Wall Street Journal, informed sources revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice has been conducting an investigation for nearly a year, which could lead to criminal charges against Binance and Changpeng Zhao, as well as billions of dollars in fines. Binance and the Justice Department have been in discussions for several months, and internally, Binance has been debating whether Zhao should step down.Earlier this month, during a virtual meeting just days before the departure of Binance.US executives, then-CEO of Binance.US, Brian Shroder, stated that Zhao needed to address "his regulatory issues, place his shares in Binance.US into a blind trust, or sell his stock" in order for the U.S. platform to maintain its growth momentum.In response to the regulatory challenges, Binance co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer He Yi vowed last month in a letter to employees to overcome these troubles. He Yi stated, "Every battle is a matter of life and death; the only thing that can defeat us is ourselves. We have won countless times, and this time we need to win as well."Additionally, according to informed sources, Zhao has been quietly hiring new lawyers to handle the U.S. Department of Justice case, while he has remained at his home in the UAE, which does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

According to ChainCatcher news, citing sources from The Wall Street Journal, SVB's venture capital arm SVB Capital may be sold for between $250 million and $500 million, with SkyBridge Capital and Atlas Merchant Capital fiercely competing with Vector Capital in the final stages of bidding. Sources indicate that the final sale is not guaranteed and still requires review by the creditors' committee. A decision regarding the sale is expected to be submitted to the court in the coming weeks.It is worth noting that SVB Capital is not included in SVB's overall bankruptcy protection proceedings. SVB stated that despite being put up for sale, the division will continue its "normal operations."