Bitcoin ETFs may face hacker threats, Ellison seeks no prison time, and more: Hodler’s Digest, Sept. 8

Top Stories of The Week

FBI reports Americans lost $5.6B to cryptocurrency fraud in 2023

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center has released its cryptocurrency fraud report for 2023. Americans lost $5.6 billion due to cryptocurrency fraud that year, up 45% from 2022, it said. Crypto-related complaints represented 10% of the total received, but almost 50% of the total lost that year, the FBI said.

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The report found that of the 69,000 crypto-related complaints the FBI received in 2023, people over 60 were most often victimized, accounting for almost $1.6 billion of the losses. Almost 71% of the crypto fraud was related to investment schemes, and about 10% involved call center fraud and government impersonation scams.

The FBI received complaints from over 200 countries, but the vast majority of complaints and losses were from the United States. Many of the losses were the result of confidence schemes. The FBI had one main piece of advice to avoid this type of scam:

“There is one thing these scammers typically will not do — they will not meet with you in real life. If an investment opportunity comes from someone who you have never met in person […] be extremely cautious of the advice.”

Crypto becomes US election issue for the first time — Survey

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin will likely play a role in the coming United States presidential election, as increasing numbers of U.S. crypto investors are concerned about the candidates’ approach to regulating the industry.

The vast majority of crypto owners in the U.S. plan to consider the crypto regulation stance of U.S. presidential candidates in the upcoming election in November, according to a new report by Winklevoss twins-founded crypto exchange Gemini.

Released on Sept. 10, Gemini’s latest “Global State of Crypto” report featured a survey of 6,000 adults representing a random sample of the consumer populations in the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Singapore and Turkey. The survey was conducted online from May 23 to June 28, 2024.

According to Gemini’s findings, as many as 73% of U.S. respondents who currently own crypto said that a candidate’s stance on crypto would have “some impact” on their vote.

Additionally, another 37% of respondents indicated that a presidential candidate’s position on crypto would have a “significant impact” on their vote.

Caroline Ellison asks for time served, citing cooperation with US gov’t

Lawyers representing former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison recommend that she be sentenced to time served after pleading guilty to seven felony counts related to cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s downfall.

In a Sept. 10 filing in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Ellison’s legal team submitted letters from friends, colleagues and family members recommending she serve a light sentence. The attorneys recommended that the former Alameda CEO, based on the Probation Department’s Pre-Sentence Report (PSR) terms, be sentenced to time served with three years’ supervised release at her Sept. 24 hearing.

“The PSR grounds this recommendation in Caroline’s extraordinary cooperation with the government, her otherwise unblemished record, and the numerous testimonials of Caroline’s honesty and ethical behavior both before she started working at Alameda and since she left Alameda,” the filing said.

“Caroline poses no risk of recidivism and presents no threat to public safety. It would therefore promote respect for the law to grant leniency in recognition of Caroline’s early disclosure of the crimes, her unmitigated acceptance of responsibility for them, and—most importantly—her extensive cooperation with the government.”

Ellison’s lawyers added:

“Without in any way diminishing the very serious crimes here, we respectfully submit that the policy goals and interests of justice […] do not require sending Caroline to prison, and accordingly request a non-custodial sentence.”

Vitalik: L2s that aren’t at least ‘stage 1’ are dead to me

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has reiterated his stance on layer-2 decentralization, stating that he only plans to acknowledge scaling solutions at “stage 1” of his decentralization scale.

In a Sept. 12 post on X, Buterin said that he takes this “seriously” and that, starting next year, he only plans to publicly mention layer-2 networks that are “stage 1+.”

He added that there “may be a short grace period for new genuinely interesting projects,” stating:

“It doesn’t matter if I invested, or if you’re my friend; stage 1 or bust.”

Buterin said many zero-knowledge rollup teams have told him “they’re on track to be stage 1 by year-end,” and he was “excited to see that happen.”

“The era of rollups being glorified multisigs is coming to an end. The era of cryptographic trust is upon us,” he said.

Bitcoin ETFs are next major target for North Korean hackers — Cyvers

North Korean hackers, including the infamous Lazarus Group, may begin targeting larger financial entities, including United States-based Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The Lazarus Group is associated with some of the most notorious hacks in the cryptocurrency space, including the biggest hack in decentralized finance — the $625 million Ronin bridge hack.

Hackers could start shifting their attention to the U.S. Bitcoin ETFs due to the sizable potential payout, according to Michael Pearl, vice president of GTM strategy at on-chain security company Cyvers.

Pearl told Cointelegraph in an exclusive interview:

“Only recently the FBI has issued a warning that North Korean hackers are going to try to infiltrate and steal money from ETFs. So, all those ETFs […] are storing the base Bitcoin somewhere. And you can be certain that somebody is already planning and thinking of how they’re going to steal it.”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $60,436, Ether (ETH) at $2,444 and XRP at $0.57. The total market cap is at $2.11 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Nervos Network (CKB) at 84.94%, Popcat (SOL) (POPCAT) at 50.15% and Bittensor (TAO) at 37.63%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Helium (HNT) at 2.99%, TRON (TRX) at +0.84% and Unus Sed Leo (LEO) at +1.13%. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“We firmly believe that digital assets are not merely a passing trend, but a fundamental shift in the fabric of finance.”

Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered

“Pump.fun and Solana have been the current craze to find new gems, but that’s also catering to a specific type of degen trader, […] which is entirely different from leverage trading an established meme like Pepe on major centralized exchanges.”

Ilias Salvatore, growth lead at Flooz

“Insurance coverage of third-party custodians is a joke. It’s simply not economical to insure the full value of these assets given the risks involved and difficulty in recovering lost funds.”

Jameson Lopp, co-founder and chief security officer at Casa

“For the first time in United States history, crypto has become a significant campaign issue in a presidential election.”

Gemini, cryptocurrency exchange

“Without in any way diminishing the very serious crimes here, we respectfully submit that the policy goals and interests of justice […] do not require sending Caroline to prison, and accordingly request a non-custodial sentence.”

Caroline Ellison’s legal team

“If history repeats, Bitcoin may be heading for three straight months of positive upside Monthly returns.”

Rekt Capital, pseudonymous crypto analyst

Prediction of The Week

VanEck, StoneX analysts peg Ether price upside at $12K to $22K

Ether (ETH) spot price could potentially rise to between $12,000 and $22,000 by the end of this decade in an upside scenario, according to two estimates from analysts at cryptocurrency brokerage StoneX Digital and asset manager VanEck.

Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of digital asset research, expects the Ethereum network to generate up to $66 billion in annual free cash flow by 2030, driving ETH’s spot price as high as $22,000 per token.

David Kroger, a data scientist at StoneX, sees ETH prices climbing to roughly $4,600 over the next 18 months.

FUD of The Week

Brazilian bank suspends native crypto token trading following 97% price drop

Nubank, one of Latin America’s largest crypto banks and backed by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, announced on Sept. 10 the immediate suspension of trading for Nucoin, its native cryptocurrency. The token’s price has dropped over 97% over the last year.

Nubank announced the creation of the Nucoin token on the Polygon blockchain on Oct. 19, 2022. Almost two years after the announcement, the bank closed its trading. The bank has given customers who have at least 10 reals in Nucoins the option to convert them to Bitcoin or stablecoin USDC by Dec. 9.

As Cointelegraph Brazil reported, if a user does not proceed with the conversion, the cryptocurrencies will be kept for accumulation and “future benefit from the rewards program.”

“To protect you and all participants from potential volatility in the market value of Nucoins due to potential reactions to this update, we have chosen to suspend your trading immediately,” Nubank said in an email to customers, according to the media report.

Kraken denies SEC claims, argues digital assets aren’t securities

Kraken, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, has responded to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) claim that it violated federal securities laws. The SEC alleged that multiple digital assets the crypto exchange offers qualify as unregistered securities.

In the legal filing response, Kraken firmly denied the allegations, maintaining that the assets in question do not meet the legal definition of securities under U.S. law.

eToro US to cease nearly all crypto trading following SEC settlement

Popular stock trading platform eToro is ceasing trading for nearly all crypto assets after reaching a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

EToro was charged with operating an unregistered brokerage and clearing agency related to its crypto trading platform.

The trading platform has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle the charges related to its unregistered brokerage and clearing agency operations, the SEC announced on Sept. 12.

As part of the settlement, eToro has agreed to “make only a limited set of crypto assets available for trading” in the U.S. and to cease violating applicable federal securities laws.

In line with the settlement, eToro’s U.S. customers will only be able to trade Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ether tokens, allowing customers to sell their other crypto assets for up to 180 days starting Sept. 12.