The crypto sector needs a little Christmas right this very minute, but that doesn’t seem likely.
Cryptocurrency investors have been pounded by a series of setbacks and scandals, including most recently–and most spectacularly–the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.
Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, the alleged grinch who stole crypto, arrived in New York from the Bahamas just in time for the holidays to face a stocking-full of federal charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and campaign finance violations.
He received more bad news when two close associates pleaded guilty to federal charges in the Southern District of New York in connection with the collapse, according to court documents.
Zixiao (Gary) Wang, 29, is a FTX co-founder and former chief technology officer. Caroline Ellison, 28, is the former CEO of Alameda Research, the hedge fund founded by Bankman-Fried. Both of them agreed to provide the authorities with all the information at their disposal to further assist in the investigation of the collapse.
And it seems like the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s empire is the gift that keeps on giving–only not in a good way.
Winston Ma, a New York University Law School adjunct professor, said “it looks like the FTX bankruptcy domino just reached the auditing sector.”
‘Rocking the Crypto World’
Ma, author of Blockchain and Web3: Building the Cryptocurrency, Privacy, and Security Foundations of the Metaverse, cited news reports about Mazars Group, which said that it…
