Another "Crypto" Fraud 🚨💸😿

Valko

Another "Crypto" Fraud 🚨💸😿 Valko

Specs’ Insights

SEC settles with ‘Bitcoin Beautee’ over $1.7B HyperFund scheme

The SEC and US Attorney’s Office of Maryland announced charges against Sam Lee and Brenda Chunga, aka “Bitcoin Beautee."

⌐◪-◪ → Another fund that “guaranteed” investors high returns bites the dust. How many times are people going to fall for this?

Sam Lee and Brenda Chunga — aka Bitcoin Beautee — raised over $1.7B to allegedly invest in mining operations. The problem, however, was there was no real source of revenue. It was a pyramid scheme.

This is yet another example of a TradFi vehicle being used to scam investors. Sadly the mainstream media will place the blame on crypto when that was just the bait — combined with people’s greed — in the same ol’ mouse trap.

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Solana stimulus inbound.

This week Jupiter may very well deliver one of, if not the single largest airdrops in crypto’s history.

The timing couldn’t be better as Jupiter metrics are roofing.

⌐◪-◪ → Jupiter (JUP) is about to execute what may be the largest single airdrop in history, and the hype has led to a surge of DeFi activity on Solana:

SOL daily active addresses flipped BTCSOL processed $112B stablecoin transfers in 7DJUP flipped Uniswap in 24H DEX volume

It’s amazing how motivated/engaged people get for these things, I mean, I suppose it is FREE money.

My business brain questions how sustainable these practices are, because at the end of the day, it’s just an extreme version of paid customer acquisition.

Except unlike ads where users click/engage out of interest — which better qualifies them as a legitimate customer — these users click/engage out of greed.

What happens when they get their fix? They take the money and run.

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Taproot Wizards Debut Sale of Bitcoin NFTs 'Quantum Cats' Marred by Tech Issues

The collection was on sale for 0.1 BTC ($4,300) each, meaning upwards of 300 BTC ($13 million) could have been raised if the full series of 3,000 had been placed.

⌐◪-◪ → Taproot Wizards had a rough day yesterday trying to mint out their new ordinals collection, Quantum Cats.

For the cat lovers out there, the mint was postponed to Feb. 1st at 12 pm ET: 12-5 pm for the whitelist, and 5 pm+ public sale.

Personally, I won’t be collecting any of these cats — I’ve got my fair share between CryptoKitties and Mooncats — but for those looking to learn about Ordinals, this might be your opportunity!

Taproot Wizards co-founder and beloved Ordinals maxi, Udi Wertheimer, addressed the community and failed mint in a post on X yesterday.

I suppose it’s a good thing Taproot Wizards has $7.5M in fresh capital from investors, though I wouldn’t want to have to explain this flop to my shareholders. Good luck Udi, I believe in you!

Bonus: DeeZe unintentionally experienced the entire mint fail on shrooms. Fucking cats.

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Everything Else

⛓️ Crypto & DeFi

Vitalik gives 4 use cases for Crypto x AI
Coinbase to charge fees on USDC to USD conversions over $75M
Binance allows traders to hold funds in independent Swiss banks
Abracadabra Finance drained of $6.4M after MIM token depeg
dYdX Foundation requests $30M budget for 18 months
Starknet partners with Celestia on L3 data availability
dYdX Chain adds liquid staking support
OKX to enable Doginals, Atomicals, Stamps, and Runes standards
Phantom flips Coinbase in app store downloads
X receives a money transmitter license in Nevada

🏦 Wallstreet & VC

Invesco and Galaxy slash spot Bitcoin ETF fees
BlackRock starts advertising IBIT ETF on Google
Anthony Scaramucci predicts $170k BTC post-halving
BTC mining company GRIID starts trading on NASDAQ
Spot ETH ETF approval unlikely until late 2025, says TD Cowen
Portal raises $34M from Coinbase Ventures for Bitcoin-based DEX
Binance Labs invests in Ethereum liquid restaking protocol Puffer
Decentralized BBO Exchange raises $2.7M from Arrington Capital
Gevulot raises $6M for zk-proof-based blockchain

🏛️ Legal & Regulatory

FTX Estate sells $1B worth of SUI token warrants for $100M

🌎 Rest of the World

Bitpanda exchange to withdraw from Netherlands
German police seize 50,000 BTC ($2.7B) from movie pirating site
Floki blocks Hong Kong users from staking amid regulatory warnings
European securities regulator wants to limit non-EU crypto firms

🖼️ NFTs & Metaverse

Deadfellaz and Animoca Brands announce partnership
NFT Game SkyArk misuses Binance brand in $115M mint
Immutable zkEVM launches L2 mainnet in “early access” offering
Billionaire biohacker Bryan Johnson launches NFT collection
Magic Eden launches multi-chain wallet
Solana 'MixMob' launching MXM governance token this week

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