A federal judge has allowed identities of guarantors who signed on sureties for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bond to be made public following a request from several news outlets. Court documents released on Feb. 15 showed that the two previously unidentified individuals were Andreas Paepcke, a senior research scientist at Stanford University and Larry Kramer, a former dean of Stanford Law School. The two signed on as sureties for Bankman-Fried’s bail on Jan. 25 for $200,000 and $500,000, respectively. Eight major news outlets petitioned Judge Lewis Kaplan in a Jan. 12 letter, requesting the court disclose the …

Judge John Dorsey of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware has denied a motion appointing an independent examiner for FTX. In a Feb. 15 hearing, Judge Dorsey said he had some discretion under the law to choose whether to appoint an examiner in the FTX bankruptcy case despite some of the the parties meeting the debt threshold with the loss of funds. According to the judge, appointing an examiner would be an “unnecessary burden” on FTX’s debtors and creditors. He also cited CEO John Ray’s experience under similar circumstances. “There’s no question that if an examiner …

Silvergate Bank and its CEO Alan Lane have been accused of “aiding and abetting” a “multibillion-dollar fraudulent scheme orchestrated by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF)” and two of his entities, FTX and Alameda Research, in a newly proposed class action lawsuit. The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court of the Northern District of California on Feb. 14 by lawyers representing a San Francisco-based FTX user who — just like all other FTX customers — was frozen out of around $20,000 in crypto when the exchange collapsed last year. Plaintiff Soham Bhatia alleges that Silvergate Bank, its parent …

Users of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX have reportedly taken aim at financiers who promoted the platform suggesting their efforts added an “air of legitimacy” to the now-defunct exchange, a case labeled as "tricky" by a crypto lawyer. A Feb. 15 Bloomberg report revealed a class-action suit filed Feb. 14 by FTX investors against venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and private equity firms Thoma Bravo and Paradigm. The firms were accused by the investors of touting “their own investments” of hundreds of millions of dollars in FTX. It was alleged the firms were involved in a promotional marketing campaign in 2021 …

The official committee of Celsius creditors proposed suing Celsius co-founder Alex Mashinsky and other executives for "fraud, recklessness, gross mismanagement and self-interested conduct" that eventually led to the collapse of the crypto lender. In a proposed complaint filed in a New York Bankruptcy Court on Feb. 14, attorneys representing the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors said the move follows six months of investigations into Celsius’ current and former directors, officers and employees. The committee is made up of seven Celsius account holders and was appointed by the U.S. Trustee in July 2022. The committee represents the interest of Celsius' account …

Despite attempts to police cryptocurrency through enforcement actions, United States financial regulators “are bound by legal reality” and Congress will ultimately decide crypto regulations the policy expert for the crypto advocacy group Blockchain Association has suggested. The association's chief policy officer, Jake Chervinsky, shared his views in an extensive Feb. 14 Twitter thread on the state of crypto policy. He noted neither the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) “has the authority to comprehensively regulate crypto.” 14/ No matter how many enforcement actions the SEC and CFTC bring, they are bound by legal reality: …

Prosecutors behind the criminal case against former FTX chief executive officer Sam Bankman-Fried have requested additional time to consider the legal implications of him using a virtual private network, or VPN. In a Feb. 13 filing with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the Justice Department had uncovered that Bankman-Fried accessed the internet on Jan. 29 and Feb. 12 — the second date being Super Bowl LVII. According to Williams, the government’s view was that using a VPN “raises several potential concerns”, citing examples of U.S.-based users accessing certain …

Eddy Alexandre, CEO of purported crypto trading platform EminiFX has pleaded guilty to commodities fraud in a New York district court, agreeing to pay back millions to investors who lost funds to his "cryptocurrency investment scam. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Feb. 10 that Alexandre submitted a guilty plea to one count of commodities fraud, and will pay over $248 million in forfeiture along with restitution yet to be specified. Alexandre was arrested and charged in May 2022 over his role in EminiFX and originally pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea on Feb. 10. He …

One of the founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club copycat NFT collection RR/BAYC has filed an opposition notice against 10 trademark applications from Yuga Labs. The move marks another strange twist in the ongoing intellectual property dispute between BAYC creators Yuga Labs and RR/BAYC founders Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen. Cahen filed the opposition notice to the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on Feb. 9. The opposition status on all of the trademark filings currently read “pending” at the time of writing. Yuga Labs’ trademark applications were mostly submitted in the latter half …

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is reportedly being probed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over whether it breached rules around the offering of securities. According to a Feb. 8 Bloomberg report, the probe relates to certain offerings that Kraken has made to U.S. clients. A person with knowledge of the matter said the probe is at an advanced stage and could reach a settlement in the coming days. However, at this stage, it is not clear which offerings are being scrutinized by the securities regulator. When asked about the alleged probe, an SEC spokesperson told Cointelegraph, "The SEC …

The holding company of troubled crypto lender Genesis Global Capital, Genesis Global Holdco LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York on Jan. 19. Genesis is the latest crypto platform to file for bankruptcy, joining Celsius, Voyager, BlockFi and FTX. The application of Chapter 11 provisions to the crypto industry raises a series of new issues for courts. Here’s a preview of what creditors can expect, and what casual observers can learn about the implications of a Chapter 11 process for an entity in the crypto industry. The Chapter 11 process is going to threaten “crypto anonymity” Preserving …

The judge overseeing crypto exchange FTX’s bankruptcy case has granted a motion allowing the firm’s debtors to request subpoenas for information and documents from former colleagues and family members of Sam Bankman-Fried. In a Feb. 8 filing, Judge John Dorsey said FTX debtors were authorized under bankruptcy court rules to issue subpoenas to certain individuals “for the production of documents, electronically stored information, or tangible things”. The original motion filed on Jan. 25 defined the target of the subpoenas as insiders not “currently cooperating with the Debtors to provide important information” — a list which includes Bankman-Fried, former Alameda Research …