Traders should note that the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index also gained 5.1% between Jan. 20 and Jan. 23, fueled by investors’ hope in China reopening for business after its COVID-19 lockdowns and weaker-than-expected economic data in the U.S. and the Eurozone.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More
The name of the testnet is “Withdrawal-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1.” According to Web3 node provider Alchemy, a “shadow fork” is a fork of the mainnet that is intended to be used only for testing purposes.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More
Bitzlato, a tiny Russian crypto exchange that was charged with money laundering by the U.S. Department of Justice last week, converted around $1 billion in assets linked to criminal activities, according to EU Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, or Europol.Europol said on Monday that Hong Kong-registered Bitzlato received $2.3 billion in total. Around 46% of the funds were linked to criminal entities sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and activities like ransomware, cyber scams, money laundering, and child abuse.Europol said that users mostly converted bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), litecoin (LTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), dash (DASH), dogecoin (DOGE), and USDT into Russian roubles.Bitzlato was especially close to Hydra Market, a Russian darknet marketplace for drugs and illegally obtained financial information. Europol said that around 1.5 million BTC was transferred between Bitzlato users and Hydra Market, which was shut down in April 2022.Europol said that five people have been arrested so far, including Bitzlato CEO Anatoly Legkodymov who got arrested by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in Miami last Wednesday. The exchange’s financial and marketing directors have also been arrested.On top of that, authorities have searched eight houses, taken down the digital infrastructure of the exchange, seized crypto wallets holding around $19.5 million, and frozen over 100 accounts involving over $108 million.Authorities investigating the case come from Cyprus, Belgium, France, the United States, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are involved in the case.The shutdown of Bitzlato and the arrest of the alleged crime perpetrators is a good sign that regulators are serious about bringing justice to crypto criminals. However, the wider crypto community often criticizes regulators for not preventing crime but merely punishing for it after the fact. Users should be careful when interacting with different centralized crypto platforms.Crypto Twitter Makes Fun of DOJ’s ‘Major Action’ Against Obscure Russian Exchange BitzlatoSee original on DailyCoin More
Crypto culture is heavily centered around online communities and social media, and memes are a widely used form of communication. They allow people to quickly convey complex ideas or emotions in a way easily understood by others in the community.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More
Joyner will become the chief of the pharmacy services segment, which also includes the company’s pharmacy benefits management business Caremark, effective Jan. 30. He will succeed Alan Lotvin, who plans to retire in April, CVS said. Bricker will start in the newly created role in February after serving as president of Express Scripts (NASDAQ:ESRX), rival Cigna Corp’s pharmacy benefits unit.The appointments follow some setbacks CVS faced in recent months in its businesses. Its largest health insurance plan for Medicare recipients received a lower performance rating from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in October. The lower rating could affect payments from the government for 2024, the company said.In the same month, Centene (NYSE:CNC) Corp replaced Caremark with Express Scripts to manage the insurer’s annual pharmacy spend of around $40 billion.The loss of the account, along with the ratings decline, will likely reduce 2024 revenue by $2 billion, CVS said in November. More
In a Jan. 23 declaration for United State Bankruptcy Court in the District of New Jersey, Crowell said without giving certain financial incentives, BlockFi might be unable to retain employees in a “highly competitive” crypto industry. According to the BlockFi executive, many staff were “highly likely to leave the company” amid the Chapter 11 process without “competitive compensation”, potentially adding to costs down the road.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More
While the price of risky assets are rising, the United States dollar index (DXY), perceived as a safe haven, extended its downtrend and declined more than 1% in January.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged the Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg with market manipulation, the agency announced on Friday.According to the SEC, Eisenberg stole around $116 million from the Solana-based decentralized exchange by manipulating the price of MNGO, the platform’s native token. The agency called MNGO a “so-called” governance token and “a security”.The SEC alleged that Eisenberg sold a large amount of perpetual futures for MNGO tokens and then bought them with another account. Then he bought a large amount of MNGO, which inflated its price and allowed him to borrow and withdraw around $116 million worth of various crypto tokens, effectively draining the whole Mango Markets treasury.“[…] Eisenberg engaged in a manipulative and deceptive scheme to artificially inflate the price of the MNGO token, which was purchased and sold as a crypto asset security, in order to borrow and then withdraw nearly all available assets from Mango Markets, which left the platform at a deficit when the security price returned to its pre-manipulation level,” said David Hirsch, Chief of the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit. “As our action shows, the SEC remains committed to rooting out market manipulation, regardless of the type of security involved.”
After the attack, Eisenberg took to Twitter to brag about his “highly profitable trading strategy”. Despite many comments about the potential illegality of his actions, he denied it multiple times and said that he believes his actions were “legal”.The SEC said that Eisenberg carried out his scheme while living in Puerto Rico. He was arrested there in December and charged with criminal and civil misconduct by both the U.S. Justice Department and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).The SEC said it’s still investigating the attack on Mango Markets, including other entities and people related to the event.The arrest of Avraham Eisenberg and the charges brought against him shows how even seemingly unimportant events in the crypto industry are noticed by the regulators. Anyone thinking of doing something similar to what Eisenberg did should reconsider their decision.You Might Also Like:Mango Markets Exploiter Arrested in Puerto Rico, Charged with Market Manipulation and FraudSee original on DailyCoin More
