The consequences of moral bankruptcy (a cryptocurrency tale)

On March 28, 2024, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Caplan sentenced Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison. Mr. Bankman-Fried defrauded FTX cryptocurrency platform speculators and lenders of over $11 billion, using the stolen money to fund his lavish lifestyle, buy expensive real estate, make illegal political donations, and bribe Chinese officials.

Ethical investing – cryptocurrency “mining” #3

Almost one year ago, on September 1, 2021, we wrote about the risks associated with leveraged cryptocurrency plays (see Ethical investing – cryptocurrency “mining”), referring to the example of an unnamed publicly traded “miner” that at the time was trading at $10.26 (September 1, 2021 market close).

Investing in a social media age

There is a broad range of trends in the investing space that social media posters tend towards, with most being grouped at opposite ends of the spectrum in our observation.

Beheading the Hydra

Much like Hercules in Greek mythology, German police have scored an impressive victory against Russian criminal organization Hydra, formerly the world’s largest darknet marketplace. In the process of shutting down Hydra, police seized the website’s servers along with Bitcoin valued at €23 million. 17 million users of the website, along with 19,000 seller accounts, are now known to police.

Yet another cryptocurrency fraud

Quite frankly, we are tired of writing about cryptocurrency fraud, running rampant and scamming vulnerable people. The latest caught the public eye by naming itself after the international hit show, Squid Game. A week ago (October 26, 2021), Squid cryptocurrency was trading at US$0.01. In less than a week it had exceeded US$2,856, when the criminals behind the scam made off with the funds invested by “players”, totalling some US$3.38 million.

China’s central bank deals with cryptocurrencies

Western “freedoms” often come at a price for society, whether it be a supposed right to bear arms or vaccine refusal. In a move that deals with the realities of cryptocurrencies that we have been talking extensively about of late, China’s central bank yesterday (September 24, 2021) has effectively made them illegal in that country.