CZ walks free, Caroline Ellison receives prison sentence, and more: Hodler’s Digest, Sept. 22 – 28

Top Stories of The Week

Binance founder CZ walks free from US prison

Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao walked free from a United States federal prison on Sept. 27 after serving a four-month stint for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) violations, a spokesperson for the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons told Cointelegraph.

CZ pled guilty in November to federal charges for failure to implement proper AML controls at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volumes, according to a Nov. 21 statement from the US Department of Justice. He also stepped down as Binance’s CEO.

With a reported net worth of approximately $60 billion, CZ is the wealthiest person ever to serve a prison sentence in the US.

Caroline Ellison sentenced to 2 years in prison

Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison was sentenced on Sept. 24 to two years in a minimum-security prison for her role in FTX’s collapse.

The sentence was handed down by Judge Lewis Kaplan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who determined that Ellison must also forfeit the roughly $11 billion she earned from FTX.

Kaplan said Ellison’s surrender date will be set on or after Nov. 7. Ellison could have faced 110 years in prison for her crimes, but Lewis expressed considerable sympathy for her. According to Bloomberg, the judge told her:

“You’re a very strong person, Ms. Ellison, in some ways, but not inviolable. Mr. Bankman-Fried had your kryptonite. […] You were vulnerable and you were exploited.”

Ellison clasped her hands in front of her as the sentence was read and family members in attendance at the trial wept.

The reclusive Ellison complained that she was subject to harassment from the crypto community in the media and in real life, which has made her afraid to go out in public. She cooperated extensively with the prosecution in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried, her former colleague and purported boyfriend, so much so that the prosecution recommended leniency for her.

Crypto founder paid LA cops to help extort victims for crypto, FBI alleges

The owner of a crypto company was charged in a case involving cryptocurrency fraud, bribery and corrupt law enforcement officials, federal prosecutors said.

Adam Iza, who ran the crypto trading platform Zort, accumulated wealth funneled through shell companies, spent on luxuries and concealed the receipt of tens of millions of dollars without reporting income taxes, according to a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit filed in an Los Angeles federal court on Sept. 23 and made available on Sept. 26.

Iza also allegedly paid three Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies to unlawfully file search warrants and access police data, according to the affidavit.

Iza — also known as Ahmed Faiq and “The Godfather” — allegedly bragged about paying as much as $280,000 a month to the deputies and is accused of using police information to try to coerce one alleged victim, identified only as “E.Z.,” into handing over a laptop used to store crypto.

Ethereum is a ‘dictatorship,’ claims Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson

Cardano’s Voltaire-era governance overhaul prevents it from becoming a “dictatorship” like Ethereum and sidesteps the “anarchy” of Bitcoin, its founder Charles Hoskinson said. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph at Token2049 in Singapore, Hoskinson attacked Ethereum’s governance model, claiming it relies too heavily on its co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, for direction.

Hoskinson said that blockchains can elect to keep the protocol forever simple, like Bitcoin, or “pick a king” to run things. However, Cardano’s new governance model solves the “governance trilemma” of “efficiency, effectiveness and integrity” by using delegated representatives and a members-based organization called Intersect to distill complex governance topics down for a vote. He added:

“If you have those three things, then you have a fair shot of avoiding the anarchy of Bitcoin or the dictatorship of Ethereum, and you actually have something that can move forward with one voice, but it’s still decentralized at the end of the day because it represents everybody.”

Kamala Harris finally breaks silence on crypto: Report

United States Vice President Kamala Harris made her first public statement about crypto during her US presidential election campaign. In comments made during a Wall Street fundraiser, Harris vowed to encourage investment in artificial intelligence and digital assets.

“We will partner together to invest in America’s competitiveness, to invest in America’s future. We will encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors,” Harris said at a fundraiser in Manhattan, Bloomberg reported on Sept. 22.

“We will create a safe business environment with consistent and transparent rules of the road,” Harris said. “We will invest in semiconductors, clean energy and other industries of the future, and we will cut needless bureaucracy.”It’s the first time Harris has publicly remarked about crypto since she became the Democratic Party’s presidential frontrunner. Her Republican rival, Donald Trump, has also worked to secure support from the crypto industry.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $66,048, Ether (ETH) at $2,685 and XRP at $0.59. The total market cap is at $2.33 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Shiba Inu (SHIB) at 48.96%, Wormhole (W) at 34.82% and Bonk (BONK) at 33.02%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Monero (XMR) at 8.27%, Nervos Network (CKB) at +1.09% and TRON (TRX) at +2.18%. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“You’re a very strong person, Ms. Ellison, in some ways, but not inviolable. Mr. Bankman-Fried had your Kryptonite. […] You were vulnerable and you were exploited.”

Lewis Kaplan, senior judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

“Where does this idea of embracing layer 2s or rollups come from? Was it some random Ethereum engineer — or was it Vitalik Buterin writing a blog post about it, talking about it, and advocating for it?”

Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano

“The government’s desire to decapitate the domestic crypto industry through covert rulemaking aimed at crypto-focused banks both initiated and worsened the banking crisis of 2023, the largest since the great financial crisis in 2008.”

Nic Carter, partner at Castle Island Ventures

“Keeping crypto allocation or skin in the game makes sense as the Fed has just given more juice to this bull market. But a lot is already in the price of risk assets.”

Aurelie Barthere, principal research analyst at Nansen

“The reality is, there’s probably two or three things a year that happen typically that actually impact the fundamental value of Bitcoin.”

Robbie Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock

“Your inconsistencies on this issue have set this country back. We could not have had a more historically destructive or lawless chairman of the SEC.”

Tom Emmer, United States Representative

Prediction of The Week

85% on Polymarket betting Ethereum won’t see new all-time high by 2025 

Despite Ether rallying by 15% in the last two weeks, ETH price has struggled to continue its momentum this week with a period of consolidation between $2,700 and $2,600. The largest altcoin currently has a $316 billion market cap and has facilitated over $15.7 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours.

According to a filing released on Sept. 24, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a delay in its decision to approve options trading for spot Ethereum ETFs.

Following the SEC announcement, the betting odds for an Ether all-time high substantially changed at Polymarket. According to the world’s largest prediction market, the current odds of Ether missing out on a new all-time high (ATH) in 2024 is 85%, compared to 71% a week ago.

Only 14% placed bets for a new ATH outcome, and less than 1% had unrealistic hopes for a new ATH within the next five days. Interestingly, the 1% of traders who hoped for a Q3 ATH had the higher overall betting value with $1.23 million, followed by a $1.07 million collective bet by the 85% of “No ATH in 2024” group.

FUD of The Week

Swan Bitcoin sues ex-staff over ‘rain and hellfire’ plan to steal mining biz

Bitcoin financial services firm Swan Bitcoin has filed a lawsuit against several former employees from its mining arm, alleging they stole the firm’s software code, resigned, and then used that code to kickstart their own mining business.

The ex-staff supposedly founded “counterfeit competitor” firm Proton and convinced one of Swan’s funding partners, stablecoin issuer Tether, to cut ties with Swan and work with them instead.

This was intended to “irreparably harm Swan’s ability to compete in the market,” Swan’s attorneys alleged in the Sept. 25 court filing. “They hatched a plan to steal Swan’s mining business from the inside, usurp Swan’s role, and cut Swan out from the Tether joint venture. They dubbed it ‘rain and hellfire.’”

Tornado Cash’s Roman Storm to stand trial after judge denies dismissal

Roman Storm, a developer and co-founder of Tornado Cash, will face criminal trial after a judge denied his motion to dismiss a case brought by the United States government.

In a Sept. 26 telephone conference, New York district court Judge Katherine Polk Failla denied Storm’s bid to toss three federal charges brought by the Justice Department, saying government prosecutors had lodged plausible allegations against him.

Storm and fellow co-founder Roman Semenov were charged in August 2023 with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

Failla said she “cannot simply accept Mr. Storm’s narrative that he is being prosecuted merely for writing code,” adding that she was convinced Tornado Cash was different from other financial services or money-transmitting firms.

SEC Chair Gensler plugs changes to exchange definition that worries crypto 

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission will continue to pursue changes to the definition of “exchange” and alternative trading systems, Chair Gary Gensler told attendees of the US Treasury Market Conference on Sept. 26.

Gensler was speaking about issues that affect the efficiency and resilience of the US Treasury bond market, but that proposal has been heavily criticized in the digital asset space.

One of the measures the SEC has taken to buttress the Treasury market was a change to the definition of a “dealer” that was meant to clarify the role of market participants such as principal-trading firms, which might use algorithmic and high-frequency trading strategies.

The changes, proposed in 2022, were criticized at the time by pro-crypto politicians for the spillover effect they would have on digital asset trading. Nonetheless, they were adopted in February.

Top Magazine Stories of The Week

Lady of Crypto will be ‘all out of crypto’ by September 2025: X Hall of Flame

The crypto influencer says everybody looks at her like she is crazy when she says she intends to sell all crypto by September 2025.

Worldcoin fined again! Crypto store clerk runs off with $500K cash: Asia Express

South Korea says Worldcoin violated its laws, Hong Kong’s cash for crypto scams on the rise, and DMM Bitcoin threatened with ban.

Crypto City Guide to Seattle: Site of CZ’s downfall and pot crypto vendors

The site of Binance founder CZ’s downfall and home to Bittrex, Erik Voorhees, Charlie Shrem and Roman Storm.