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Caroline Ellison Says Alameda Paid Massive Bribe to Chinese Officials To Unfreeze $1,000,000,000: ReportCaroline Ellison, close confidant of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, says that the exchange’s trading arm Alameda Research paid a bribe to the Chinese government to unfreeze a billion dollars.
In court transcripts reportedby The Inner City Press, Ellison, also the former CEO of Alameda, was probed by United States Attorneys (AUSA) regarding her chats with Bankman-Fried on messaging app Signal.
Ellison reveals that Bankman-Fried insisted that all Signal chats were set to automatically delete after a certain amount of time, before admitting that Alameda paid Chinese entities to unfreeze $1 billion after being hit with a money laundering investigation.
Says the transcripts, according to Inner City Press,
“AUSA: Did you speak in coded terms?
Ellison: Yes. When we gave a large bribe to China – our accounts were frozen in a money laundering investigation.
AUSA: How much was frozen in China?
Ellison: $1 billion. Sam wanted to find ways to address it.
AUSA: How were they unfrozen?
Ellison: Alameda paid a bribe to Chinese government officials
[Lawyers for] SBF: Objection, move to strike.
Judge Kaplan: I will strike that.”
Ellison goes on to say that after exploring other avenues to try to unfreeze the funds, FTX executives David Ma and Constance Wang, both Chinese, were able to communicate with the officials.
According to Ellison, while Wang disagreed with the idea, Ma relayed information to FTX that the money could be unfrozen if $100 million was sent to certain crypto addresses.
“Ellison: Sam said Ma had found a way to get our accounts unfrozen, if we just sent to these crypto addresses, $100 million. It was November of 2021.
AUSA: Did you know who the recipient was?
Ellison: No
AUSA: Did you have a belief?
SBF’s lawyer: Objection!”
In March, Bankman-Fried was chargedby the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for allegedly bribing Chinese officials with $40 million, significantly less than the $100 million that Ellison described in her testimony.
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Generated Image: MidjourneyHamas Reportedly Used Crypto to Finance Attacks; Israeli Officials Freeze Assets on BinanceSummary
Hamas used Binance to fund its attacks on Israel, the exchange says it fully cooperates.
Palestinian accounts are unaffected, only those directly linked to terror organisations.
Hamas is officially designated a terrorist group, requiring all financial institutions and crypto exchanges to comply with authorities.
Binance faces its own legal challenges in several jurisdictions.
As Hamas attacked Israel over the weekend, followed by Israel’s declaration of war, reports indicate that security forces have struggled to keep pace with terrorist funding.
According to theTimes of Israel, Israel Police’s Lahav 433 unit, together with the National Bureau for Counter-Terror Finance (NLCTF) and the Ministry of Defence, the Shin Bet, has frozen several crypto wallets belonging to the terrorist organisation.
Binance Working Around the Clock to Assist
Sourcessuggestthat Hamas had accounts on Binance, and the exchange cooperated with the authorities.
A police statement read, “The Cyber Unit and the NLCTF immediately embarked on locating the accounts and freezing them, with the assistance of the Binance crypto exchange, in order to redirect the funds to the state treasury.”
Reutersreportedthat approximately 190 crypto accounts on Binance have been seized since 2021. At least two accounts were linked to Islamic State and Hamas-affiliated companies in Palestine.
Binance released a statement indicating their close collaboration with law enforcement in combating terror financing. A spokesperson added,
Over the past few days our team has been working in real time, around the clock, to support ongoing efforts to combat terror financing.
Binance Spokesperson
Hamas is The Target not People of Palestine
Hamas is a terrorist organization under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, which has significant implications for banks and financial institutions.
Yi He, co-founder of Binance, clarified that Hamas is not synonymous with Palestine, and Palestinian accounts have not been affected. He emphasized that all exchanges must comply with authorities concerning terror-related financing.
Heexplained, “Palestine has an organised government. Hamas is a local militant group. They kill civilians; that’s the problem. Therefore, any organisation, including banks and trading platforms, will need to cooperate on the receipt of freeze requests. This is not something Binance can decide on its own.“
Binance Facing Legal Challenges
Binance is currently involved in a legalbattlewith the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over allegations of selling unregistered securities. In March 2023, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also accused Binance of violating the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations.
Additionally, a secretfilingin August in the SEC vs. Binance case has raised some suspicions regarding potential criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
More pressure on Binance "The CFTC claims Binance knew it had facilitated potentially illegal activity, including with the Islamic militant group Hamas. The complaint says Lim received information in February 2019 “regarding Hamas transactions” on Binance" https://t.co/qLGWNW74iH
— Tom Richardson. (@tommyr345) October 10, 2023
In internal communications, Binance’s head of compliance, Samuel Lin, commented that small transactions by groups like Hamas were not of significant concern. This was in response to Binance receiving information about Hamas conducting transfers on the platform.
Lin noted at the time that only larger amounts of money would fall under money laundering provisions. He said, ” [terrorists] can hardly buy an AK47 with $600.”
Wall Street Memes Launches Epic Community Short Squeeze on Completion of $1M BuybackWall Street Memes Launches Epic Community Short Squeeze on Completion of $1M Buyback
Wednesday, October 11th, 2023 – New top meme coin Wall Street Meme’shas completed a one million $WSM buyback, pushing the price up 32% to $0.048 as it launches a community ‘short squeeze’ campaign reminiscent of the GameStop meme stocks phenomenon.
A short squeeze is when those betting the price of an asset will fall find themselves on the wrong end of a buying surge that forces successive short positions to be closed by buying back the asset, dramatically fuelling the size of the upward price movement.
The $WSM short squeeze campaign starts at 6pm UTC today, Wednesday October 11th. There are open interest short positions on OKX, MEXC, LBank and CoinW centralized exchanges that all face being liquidated in the squeeze.
Wall Street Memes is the outgrowth of an existing vibrant meme stocks-focused community. It aims to bring the same swashbuckling democratizing energy seen in meme stocks to the crypto scene.
Wall Street Memes has a highly engaged community of more than 1.1 million followers across, X, Instagram, Telegram and Discord, so the short squeeze has every chance of success.
Wall Street Memes short squeeze could be the GameStop event of crypto
Today Wall Street Memes is marshalling its social muscle to attack the short money that has entered the market on the back of perpetual futures listings on a number of exchanges.
Back in 2021, stocks such as GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry, Bad Bath & Beyond and Tesla caught the imagination of retail traders, guided and coordinated by the WallStBets sub Reddit.
In particular, GameStop and AMC were being heavily shorted by hedge funds. So successful was the short squeeze campaign that star hedge fund Melvin Capital was forced to close after being hit by heavy losses.
The Wall Street Memes community has responded enthusiastically to the short squeeze call. A message in the 38-000-strong Telegram group has been liked 541 times:
https://t.me/c/1921010863/645823
The tweet on X has attracted 824 replies, 949 retweets, 1,869 likes and 137,000 views:
In just a couple of weeks, Wall Street Meme has become the 7th-largest meme coin by market capitalization; its market cap is currently $83.7 million.
When measured by 24-hour volume ($40 million), $WSM is the fourth-most-traded meme coin, behind only Dogecoin, Pepe and Shiba Inu.
All told then, $WSM has the visibility and community to execute an epic short squeeze.
For a gauge of how the short squeeze could take off, consider the fact that the search volume interest over time for ‘wall street memes’ search term is now beating ‘wallstreetbets’, as can be seen in the Google Trends chart below:
As excitement builds in the run-up to the short squeeze, there have been rumors flying around about a major product launch, which the team flagged up to be taking place this month.
Interestingly there is talk of $WSM going on a price roll similar to Rollbit, which has returned 13,000$ for early buyers of $RLB. Rollbit started a daily buyback and burn program in August this year.
There is no firm information about the nature of the product Wall Street Memes will be introducing to its community this month.
However, also driving interest in $WSM is the likelihood of yet more tier 1 exchange launches this month too. The coin is already listed on OKX, HTX, Gate.io and nine more exchanges, as well as derivatives markets recently opening on MEXC, OKX, BitMEX among others.
There are persistent rumors that top centralized exchange Binance could be next to list $WSM.
Wall Street Memes ($WSM) price could blast 10x to a $1 billion valuation
The team aims to hit a $1 billion valuation in the medium term could be coming sooner than at first envisaged.
When Pepe launched on Binance it rocketed 200x. But $WSM has the utility that coins like Doge and Pepe lack.
Even Shiba Inu, which has returned 26,000% for some early investors, has struggled to add a utility layer, as seen in its troubled Shibarium launch.
Furthermore, the Wall Street Memes project is helped by the interactions Elon Musk has had with the community on X (formerly Twitter). There are even rumors that Musk may be one of thewhale buyersof $WSM.
Add to that the $WSM staking utility that enables token holders to receive rewards for holding the coin, and it arguably puts the token head and shoulders above the rest of the meme coin crowd.
Regarding $WSM’s yield-bearing utility, 470 million tokens are staked, earning an annual percentage yield of 43%. So as well as capital appreciation, owners of the $WSM token can lock in a passive income stream, making the token doubly attractive.
More good news – Wall Street Memes is also currently conducting a generous $50,000 airdrop competition, which can be enteredon Gleam.
For more on why Wall Street Memes is the mem project of the moment, check out the video from new coin launch expert Jacob Crypto Bury below:
As news about Wall Street Memes short squeeze spreads, the coming price action will be watched closely.
If $WSM has managed to bottle the lightning of the meme stocks craze and transfer it to crypto with a short squeeze that blows the doors off, then all bets are off on how high the $WSM price could go.
Buy $WSM on the website
Israeli Authorities, Binance Collaborate To Freeze Hamas-Linked Crypto WalletsAdvertisement
Israeli police, with the help of crypto exchange Binance, have frozen multiple accounts with suspected links to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Israel Disrupts Hamas Crypto Fundings
The world has become more aware of the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East due to the recent Israel-Palestine conflict. Over the weekend, the Israeli defense minister ordered the complete siege of the Palestinian enclave Gaza after Hamas’ unprovoked surprise attack on Israeli territory.
On Tuesday, the Cyber Unit of Israel’s police announcedits collaboration with the country’s defense ministry, intelligence agencies, and Binance in freezing several crypto accounts linked to Hamas.
The cryptocurrency exchange assisted the Israeli police in identifying and blocking the accounts in question. These accounts, as confirmed by the authorities statement, were created by Hamas and have been involved in fundraising via different social media platforms since Saturday. It’s pertinent to note that all the Hamas-affiliated funds seized are to be transferred to Israel’s national treasury.
Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and U.K., has been reaping generous bitcoin donations for some time now, using platforms like Binance to launder proceeds as it seeks to evade international sanctions.
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An investigation in May revealed that from 2021, Israeli authorities had frozen around 190 crypto accounts on Binance with alleged ties to terrorist groups. A large chunk of these addresses belonged to Palestinian companies that had associations with the Hamas.
Could Bitcoin Crash In Shorter Term Due To Israel-Hamas Tensions?
Bitcoin has exhibited resilience in its price despite the escalating war and the notable implications the tensions in the Middle East have had on the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians. The price of the flagship crypto fluctuated marginally over the weekend as the attack evolved into an all-out war.
However, some traders expect further escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hamas to rock the markets, causing a short-term drawdown in risky assets like cryptocurrencies.
Immediately after the warfare between Russia and Ukraine started, Bitcoin plunged by over 7%. While the losses were swiftly erased, it’s probable that investors will anticipate the conflict-driven volatility to continue.
In the long term, market participants still envision the recovery of the Bitcoin price especially if BTC spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are approved to launch in the United States.
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Binance freezes Hamas-linked accounts after Israeli requestThe freeze does not affect Binance accounts owned by ordinary Palestinian civilians.
Crypto exchange Binance has frozen accounts linked to Hamas militants as per requests from Israeli law enforcement.
According to an Oct. 10 WeChat post by Yi He, the exchange’s co-founder, the freeze is targeted toward Hamas and not the people of Palestine. As stated by He:
“Hamas is a designated terrorist organization by the United Nations. Therefore, any organization, including banks and trading platforms, will need to cooperate on the receipt of freeze requests. This is not something Binance can decide on its own.“
Yi He further explained that no trading platforms can refuse such requests: “Palestine has an organized government. Hamas is a local militant group. They kill civilians; that’s the problem. Hamas is not Palestine; the freeze is targeted towards Hamas, not Palestine.“
Earlier on Oct. 10, local news outlet Calcalist reportedthat Israeli officials froze the crypto accounts of Hamas militants with the help of Binance. Law enforcement claims that terrorists used the accounts to collect war-related funding via social media.
The day before, Cointelegraph reported that the local Web3 community in Israel launched a charity campaignto help Israeli civilians affected by the ongoing conflict. Dubbed “Crypto Aid Israel,” the initiative supports both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) donations, along with other ERC-20 tokens such as Tether (USDT). The movement has received nearly $50,000 in crypto donations since its release.
Yi He's explanation on WeChat. Source: WeChat
Yi He suggested that ordinary users would not be affected by the ban, including Palestinian civilians. “Referring to earlier incidents, when war broke out before Russia and Ukraine, we did not freeze the accounts of ordinary Russians,” she stated.
Magazine: The Truth Behind Cuba’s Bitcoin Revolution
Binance helps Israeli police freeze crypto accounts linked to HamasWhile the war between Palestine and Israel escalates, crypto enthusiasts have turned to the developments in the Middle East. According to a local source, Israeli police froze and seized cryptocurrency accounts linked to Hamas on Tuesday, “with the help of the crypto exchange Binance.”
Israeli police has frozen crypto accounts associated with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. It was reported that Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, assisted in freezing the crypto accounts.
Stay safe anything is possible in this war 🙏
— @BINT E HAWA (@BINTEHAWA939) October 10, 2023
The Hamas supposedly used the digital assets accounts to collect donations through social media platforms. The report shows the terrorists launched fund-raising campaigns amidst the war, asking individuals to contribute via cryptocurrencies.
However, Lavav 433’s cybercrime unit responded swiftly, identifying and freezing the accounts with Binance’s assistance. Also, the lawmakers will keep any seized funds in the country’s national treasury.
Binance’s regulatory stance
Binance has struggled with compliance issues recently, which have seen its business dwindling. In March 2023, the US Commodities Futures & Trading Commission suedBinance’s Changpeng Zhao. The regulator accused the crypto exchange of violating derivatives and trading rules.
Further, Israeli authorities have been monitoring Binance accounts. Since 2021, they have seized more than 190 accounts associated with terrorist groups.
While regulatory challenges forced Binance out of jurisdictions such as Canada, the exchange promised to cooperate with global regulators to streamline its offerings. It remains dedicated to that, and Binance has worked nonstop over the last few days to battle terrorism financing as Israel-Palestine conflict continues.
While Binance’s battle with CFTC continues, collaborating with the Israeli police demonstrates the firm’s commitment to working with regulators and ensure compliance. Also, fighting illegal undertakings on its platform showcases the necessity of ensuring a secure crypto market for global users.
The post Binance helps Israeli police freeze crypto accounts linked to Hamasappeared first on Invezz.eToro 拟以最高 2.31 亿美元收购 TradeZeroTechub News 消息，eToro 集团已同意收购 TradeZero Holding Corp，交易金额最高达 2.31 亿美元。此次收购将 TradeZero 的经纪交易商子公司纳入 eToro 旗下，增加了免佣金股票和期权交易业务。
TradeZero 拥有美国 SEC、FINRA 和 SIPC 监管资质，eToro 借此获得完全受监管的美国券商牌照。该公司在巴哈马、加拿大和欧洲也有业务布局。此次收购是继今年 4 月 eToro 以约 7000 万美元收购加密货币钱包 Zengo 后的最新动作。（CryptoBriefing）Bitpanda 与阿森纳合作因球员欧冠失点再受关注Techub News 消息，据 CryptoBriefing 报道，阿森纳加密货币交易合作伙伴 Bitpanda 因球员 Eberechi Eze 在欧冠决赛罚丢点球而再度成为焦点。Eze 于 5 月 30 日点球大战中失手导致阿森纳 4-3 落败，但该事件引发的全球讨论使 Bitpanda 获得大量品牌曝光。
阿森纳于 2025 年 8 月 14 日与 Bitpanda 达成多年合作协议，指定其为官方加密交易合作伙伴。尽管 Eze 失误引发争议，但其拒绝改变技术的坚韧态度可能为 Bitpanda 提供营销契机，将球员抗压形象与金融服务品牌相关联。Kalshi 与 Bezel 合作上线 Rolex、Omega 等名表价格波动预测合约Techub News 消息，Kalshi 在 X 平台发文表示，已与奢侈手表交易平台 Bezel 达成合作，正式上线 Rolex、Omega、Cartier、Tudor 等知名腕表价格走势的预测合约。用户可直接在平台交易这些奢侈品价格波动市场。币安 HODLer 空投上线 DoubleZero 代币 2ZTechub News 消息，币安 HODLer 空投上线 DoubleZero 代币 2Z。Upbit 将上线 DoubleZero 代币 2Z 现货交易Techub News 消息，Upbit 将于 10 月 2 日 21:00 上线 DoubleZero 代币 2Z 现货交易，支持韩元、BTC、USDT 交易对。币安 Alpha 和币安合约将上线 DoubleZero 代币 2ZTechub News 消息，币安 Alpha 和币安合约将上线 DoubleZero 代币 2Z。DoubleZero 将于 CoinList 启动代币 2Z 销售Techub News 消息，DoubleZero 将于 CoinList 平台启动代币 2Z 销售，面向 Solana、Sui、Aptos、Avalanche 和 Celestia 网络的验证者开放，时间为 4 月 2 日至 4 月 22 日。2Z 代币将用于支付网络使用费、奖励贡献者并支持去中心化治理。验证者需在 4 月 2 日至 4 月 10 日通过提交公钥及可选的价格和预算参与，只有在 4 月 10 日之前提交表格的人才有资格购买 2Z。这是 CoinList 自 2019 年以来首次对美国合格投资者开放的代币销售。
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