OpenAI CEO Sam Altman showed his enthusiasm for Bitcoin (BTC) during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, calling it a “super logical” step up the tech tree.
Altman emphasized the importance of a global currency that works independently of government control, highlighting its potential to combat corruption.
Altman and Rogan both expressed reservations about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with Rogan particularly concerned about the possibility of CBDCs being linked to a social credit score, resulting in increased surveillance. Altman also criticized the United States government’s treatment of the cryptocurrency industry.
Altman wrote about Bitcoin in a blog post published a decade ago, in which he claimed that a society in which transactions were conducted in Bitcoin would be more transparent and less prone to corruption. Sam Altman is also the founder of Worldcoin (WLD), which has come under investigation over privacy concerns.
FTX Insurance Fund Figures were Faked Using Simple Python Code
FTX’s so-called “Backstop Fund” figure was a big lie, according to the crypto exchange’s former chief technology officer.
Crypto exchange FTX used hidden Python code to misrepresent the value of its insurance fund — a pool of funds meant to prevent user losses during huge liquidation events — according to testimony from FTX co-founder Gary Wang.
In a damning testimony on Oct. 6, FTX’s former chief technology officer, Gary Wang, said that FTX’s so-called $100 million insurance fund in 2021 was fabricated and never contained any of the exchanges’ FTX tokens (FTT) as claimed.
Instead, the figure shown to the public was calculated by multiplying the daily trading volume of the FTX Token by a random number close to 7,500.
FTX’s insurance fund was designed to protect user losses in case of huge, sudden market movements and its value was often touted on its website and social media.
According to Wang’s testimony, however, the amount contained within the fund was often insufficient to cover these losses.
For example, in 2021, a trader exploited a bug in FTX’s margin system to take an outsized position in MobileCoin, which resulted in a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars for FTX, according to Wang.
When Bankman-Fried realized that the insurance fund had all but been exhausted, Wang said he was told to make Alameda “take on” the loss. This was supposedly an attempt to hide the loss, as Alameda’s balance sheets were more private than FTX’s.
Binance and OKX Racing to Comply with New UK Rules
Major global cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and OKX have announced that they’re working to comply with new financial promotion regulations in the United Kingdom.
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) enacted the country’s new Financial Promotions (FinProm) Regime on Oct. 8 for cryptocurrency firms, aiming to ensure fair, clean, and transparent crypto promotions.
Binance announced on Oct. 6 that it has launched a new domain for U.K. users and partnered with the local peer-to-peer lending platform Rebuildingsociety.
In line with the compliance update, Binance’s U.K. retail users will be redirected to a localized domain starting from Oct. 8, which will only show Binance products and services that are permitted in compliance with U.K. regulations. Such products will include spot and margin trading, Binance Pay, its nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, loans, and others.
OKX issued a statement on FinProm compliance on Oct. 6 as well. The exchange said it had reduced its token offering to around 40 assets and adopted eye-catching risk warnings on its interface. One such warning is located at the top of OKX’s main page, inviting investors to take a few minutes to learn more about the risks of crypto investment.
Additionally, OKX has launched a dedicated U.K. account on X (formerly Twitter). The firm has promised to mention the products and services that will comply with new U.K. regulations on the social media page.