good morning. Here’s what’s happening:
price: Before bitcoin regained ground, it fell below $29,700, its lowest since late June.
insight: Jarek Jakubcek, Head of Law Enforcement Training at Binance, fights global cryptocurrency fraud by training law enforcement on what to look for.
The boom after Ripple’s partial victory over the SEC in a court ruling last week was a distant memory, with bitcoin temporarily dropping to $29,769 on Monday, its lowest since late June.
However, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has regained lost ground, recently trading at $30,130, roughly flat over the past 24 hours and in that range for much of the last month. Bitcoin soared above $31,700 last Thursday after the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Ripple’s sale of XRP tokens through exchanges and algorithms did not constitute an investment contract.
Analysts say Bitcoin could continue to fall below this threshold until the SEC decides whether to approve one of multiple spot Bitcoin ETF applications filed last month by financial services giants including BlackRock. suggests that there is These filings spurred a mid-June surge in BTC and other cryptocurrencies seeking price promotions.
However, the SEC, which has rejected numerous spot BTC applications over the past two years, is unlikely to move for many months given the slow pace of its decisions so far. The agency is still gathering information about the proposal.
“The only focus remains on the United States (ETFs),” Edward Moya, senior market analyst at forex market maker Oanda, said in a phone interview with Coindesk. “People will not be so optimistic until we have further updates on ETFs operating in the US.”
“There may be a lot of back and forth before we get firm approval (from the SEC),” he added.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, recently hovered at $1,913, down nearly half a percentage point from Sunday at the same time, well below last week’s high of over $2,000. Other major cryptocurrencies also surged last week, but rebounded slightly after falling on Monday. XRP and ADA, the tokens of the Cardano smart contract platform, recently dropped 1.5% and 0.6% respectively, while SOL, the native crypto of the Solana blockchain, dropped more than 2.8%.
Stocks edged higher with the Nasdaq Composite Index up 0.9% and the S&P 500 up 0.3%, helped by strong second-quarter results from a number of big banks last week. Bank of America and Goldman Sachs report second-quarter results on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
In an email early Monday morning, Moya said, “As Customers Bancorp emerges as the winner from the downfall of Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital Corp., small cryptocurrency firms will find a bank that can help facilitate their transactions.” We have made some progress,” he said.
He added that “Bitcoin may remain in the $29,500-$31,500 range until there are big headlines on the cryptocurrency.”
Moving from TradFi to DeFi, Avoiding Fake Law Enforcement Subpoenas, and Politically Sensitive Claims: A Day in the Life of Binance’s Jarek Jakubcek
For Jarek Jakubcek, Head of Law Enforcement Training at Binance and former cryptocurrency expert on the Europol Cyber Crime Center (EC3) Dark Web team, no day is boring.
Based in Dubai, Jakubcek’s responsibilities span global reach, including Asia-Pacific, where not only retail cryptocurrency adoption but also bad guys and scams are surging.
“Cryptocurrency as a practical technology can be exploited by criminals basically because it is convenient and practical,” he said.
Jakubcek spends a lot of time gathering evidence and training law enforcement agencies across the region to track down who is behind these schemes. And they are often the same scammers in traditional finance, namely fraud centers in Southeast Asia.
“We all know there is no such thing as a guaranteed high profit, but for many financially naive people this may sound like a reasonable proposition,” he explained. increase. “For this reason, it is very important to promote cryptocurrency literacy and raise awareness of the potential risks associated with cryptocurrencies.”
Law enforcement has been investigating cryptocurrency crime for years and has had many operational successes thanks to blockchain transparency.
Despite being easy to use for anyone, including criminals, it is also beneficial to investigators as its activity takes place on-chain, not hidden in bank accounts or shell companies.
VPNs and other methods of masking connections are often prevalent, so tracking wallets to exchanges and requesting KYC data rather than relying on tracking IP addresses to phone companies is more effective.
Although Jakupchek spends much of his time working with genuine law enforcement agencies around the world, sometimes his group encounters fraudulent requests. It’s not necessarily the bad guys, and can trick private detectives who try to impersonate cops to get more information. client.
One private investigator, Jakubcek, recalled being dissatisfied with Binance’s initial refusal to disclose customer data to individuals and sending a second request from a fake domain name.
“This wasn’t a regular law enforcement domain, so when we checked the domain, we found it had been registered a day before the request,” Jakubcek said. “It was clear that the private investigator wanted to pretend to be something he wasn’t.”
Fake Court Orders and Political Issues
Fake court orders to move funds are also something his team is working on.
“We know what a law enforcement request should look like, so we are very lucky to have a team of about 30 former law enforcement people,” he said. said.
Global companies like Binance struggle to avoid geopolitics, a simple by-product of operating in many markets around the world.
Law enforcement requests may sometimes conflict with national interests.of 2020 and in 2021For example, the United States has announced a series of sanctions against Hong Kong’s political leaders and key law enforcement officials for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and for their involvement in enforcing the controversial national security law.
There is still no clear answer as to how Binance will balance legitimate law enforcement requests under local rules with competing global interests.
“There are jurisdictions where we have to be sensitive, and we also have to consider the nature of the crime and who is being investigated. , we will not respond.” ,” he said.
So far, 90% of requests from Hong Kong are “purely fraud-related,” Jakubchek said.
“Personally, I don’t remember any politically sensitive requests from Hong Kong,” he said. “I’m not saying nothing happened, but I don’t remember anything like that happening in my investigative career in the Asia-Pacific region.”
In the latest episode, ‘The Hash’ has made headlines such as XRP overtaking BNB token to become the world’s 4th largest digital asset by market cap following Ripple’s partial court victory. addressed the topic of The panel delved into what this ruling means for the future of cryptocurrency regulation. Separately, the group also discussed bail for Celsius founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky, which was set at $40 million by a judge following his arrest. was done. And Hush also mentioned new details about what luxury fashion brand Gucci is doing in the world of NFTs.
