Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, took the stand as a star witness against failed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, claiming that he directed her to commit crimes.
Ellison, who is the ex-girlfriend of SBF, pleaded guilty to committing fraud in December last year and is cooperating with the FTX investigations.
She stated in court: “he directed me to commit these crimes.” Ellison said that Bankman-Fried told her to take $14 billion dollars from FTX clients and used $10 billion to repay loans and some of the money to fund Alameda’s investments. Ellison also indicated that Bankman-Fried advised adding FTX-owned Paper Bird to Alameda’s balance sheet to alleviate perceived risks.
When Ellison performed a risk assessment, she estimated that Alameda would have a 0% chance of being able to repay its loans, even if it used FTX’s customer funds. Ellison also said that when she became co-CEO of Alameda, things “didn’t change much” and that SBF was who she reported to.
The trial, in which Bankman-Fried is facing seven criminal charges, is expected to conclude in mid-November.
Israel Freezes Hamas-Linked Crypto Donation Accounts
Israeli police have seized cryptocurrency accounts used to collect donations for the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
Israel Police’s Cyber Unit, along with the Ministry of Defense, the Israel Security Agency, and other national intelligence agencies, effectively blocked crypto accounts on centralized exchanges employed by Hamas to raise funds for their operations, according to a Tuesday announcement on X.
The Police’s Cyber Unit worked with UK law enforcement and froze another account held at UK-based Barclays bank, which Hamas publicly disclosed for receiving donation funds, the statement said.
These funds were redirected to the state treasury with the support of crypto exchange Binance, the Times of Israel reported on Tuesday.
The exact amount of funds and number of crypto accounts seized was undisclosed.
“The Israel Police, Ministry of Defense, and other partners will continue the fight against terrorist financing and targeting the strategic financial assets of terrorist organizations,” police said.
Chinese Government-Owned Paper Launches NFT Platform
China Daily, an English-language newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, wants to create its very own metaverse and nonfungible token (NFT) platform.
According to a recent announcement, China Daily is awarding 2.813 million Chinese yuan ($390,000) to a third-party contractor that can design the NFT platform within its budget specifications. The contractor can be “either a Chinese or foreign” firm specializing in blockchain, China Daily wrote. In addition, the mainnet of the blockchain firm that wins the contract must be capable of handling upwards of 10,000 transactions per second.
Contractors will have until Oct. 17 to submit their application and design the platform within three months’ time. The aim of the China Daily NFT Platform is to “improve the spread of the influence of the Chinese Civilization” through means such as the use of the “metaverse, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (AR), and Blockchain, irreplaceable digital assets (NFT), big data, cloud computing and other technologies.”
Developers stated that the platform must allow “uploading, displaying, and managing digital collections and supports multimedia forms and multiple collection types.” Pricing, bidding and limited-time functions must also be integrated into the NFT platform alongside multi-currency settlement.