2023-08-03
Hopin founder Johnny Boufarhat is stepping down as CEO: https://hopin.com/... The company is also selling its trademark virtual events platform for an undisclosed price
Sifted
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at $7.75B in August 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral; CEO Johnny Boufarhat steps down
Amy Lewin / Sifted :
Hopin was a startup sensation during the pandemic, hitting a $7.8bn valuation. But as the pandemic receded, the virtual events at the core of Hopin's business receded too. Boufarhat still had it made: he had sold $195mn of his shares: https://www.ft.com/...
Sifted
Hopin, the struggling virtual events startup valued at $7.75B in August 2021, sells its Events and Session units to RingCentral; CEO Johnny Boufarhat steps down
Amy Lewin / Sifted :
2023-07-14
The SEC has sued Alex Mashinsky and Celsius Network, one of the first companies to collapse in last year's crypto downturn Filing: https://storage.courtlistener.com/ ...
Bloomberg
The US arrests and charges former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky with six counts; the SEC, CFTC, and FTC sue Mashinsky and Celsius; Mashinsky pleads not guilty
2023-07-13
The SEC has sued Alex Mashinsky and Celsius Network, one of the first companies to collapse in last year's crypto downturn Filing: https://storage.courtlistener.com/ ...
Bloomberg
The SEC, CFTC, and FTC sue ex-Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky and the company over alleged fraud and more; Mashinsky was arrested and charged with six counts
Alex Mashinsky, the former chief executive officer of Celsius Network Ltd., was accused by prosecutors of orchestrating a yearslong scheme …
2023-03-29
Here's the detail of the new China bribery claim against SBF. Which “Alameda trading counterparty” was under investigation in China? https://www.documentcloud.org/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Reuters
US prosecutors file a new indictment against SBF, accusing him of ordering an Alameda payment of $40M+ in cryptocurrency to bribe Chinese government officials
2023-03-28
Executives at a major lender to Sam Bankman-Fried's defunct hedge fund had privileged early access to issuances of new tokens backed by the disgraced entrepreneur's crypto exchange FTX Scoop w/ @nikasgari https://www.ft.com/...
Financial Times
Sources: Sam Bankman-Fried gave some Genesis executives the chance to invest in presale of FTT and Serum at a discount, before the tokens were issued publicly
Financial Times :
Executives at a major lender to Sam Bankman-Fried's defunct hedge fund had privileged early access to issuances of new tokens backed by the disgraced entrepreneur's crypto exchange FTX Scoop w/ @nikasgari https://www.ft.com/...
Reuters
Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyers and prosecutors agree on new bail terms, including giving SBF a phone without internet and a monitored laptop with limited functions
Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried said they reached an agreement with U.S. prosecutors on Monday on revised bail conditions …
The CFTC have a whole bunch of bad-looking internal messages, despite what it calls Binance's use of auto-deleting Signal chats for business discussions https://twitter.com/...
CFTC
The CFTC sues Binance, CEO CZ, and a former chief compliance officer, calling the company's compliance efforts “a sham” and its structure “intentionally opaque”
The CFTC have a whole bunch of bad-looking internal messages, despite what it calls Binance's use of auto-deleting Signal chats for business discussions https://twitter.com/...
Binance Blog
Binance CEO CZ says CFTC's complaint contains “incomplete recitation of facts” and Binance does not agree with “characterization of many of the issues alleged”
Today, the CFTC filed an unexpected and disappointing civil complaint, despite our working cooperatively with the CFTC for over two years.
2023-03-16
2 / These unnamed ‘officers’ were paid the best of $85mn in the year before the bankruptcy https://twitter.com/...
FTX
An FTX bankruptcy filing describes $3.2B+ in payments and loans to founders and executives, chiefly from Alameda Research, including ~$2.2B to Sam Bankman-Fried
Identify Over $3.2 Billion in Transfers to Founders and Key Employees — Forensic Work Continues on Intercompany and Other Transactions
FTX has published its ‘Schedules and Statements of Financial Affairs’ — detailed documents about payments made before the bankruptcy. The headline is SBF took out billions. But other $ transfers are hidden because of the secrecy in the case A brief 🧵 https://www.ft.com/...
FTX
An FTX bankruptcy filing describes $3.2B+ in payments and loans to founders and executives, chiefly from Alameda Research, including ~$2.2B to Sam Bankman-Fried
Identify Over $3.2 Billion in Transfers to Founders and Key Employees — Forensic Work Continues on Intercompany and Other Transactions
4 / At Alameda, this unnamed person received $180mn in August 2022 as an apparent loan repayment, just a couple of months before the bankruptcy https://twitter.com/...
FTX
An FTX bankruptcy filing describes $3.2B+ in payments and loans to founders and executives, chiefly from Alameda Research, including ~$2.2B to Sam Bankman-Fried
Identify Over $3.2 Billion in Transfers to Founders and Key Employees — Forensic Work Continues on Intercompany and Other Transactions
2023-03-13
Looks like cost of bailing out SVB/Signature's uninsured depositors will be met by a levy on other banks https://www.federalreserve.gov/ ... https://twitter.com/...
CNBC
New York shuts down Signature Bank as US regulators cite a “systemic risk exception” like for SVB, announcing all of Signature's depositors will be “made whole”
U.S. regulators said Sunday it shut down New York-based Signature Bank, a second financial institution …
2023-02-15
🚨 The Celsius creditors committee is proposing to sue a string of former executives including co-founders Alex Mashinsky, Daniel Leon and Nuke Goldstein https://cases.stretto.com/... https://twitter.com/...
The Block
Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius proposes a sale to investment firm NovaWulf, founded in 2021 by Wall Street dealmakers; smaller creditors may regain 70% of funds
- Proposed sale would see smaller creditors get around 70% of their money back — Larger creditors would become shareholders …
2023-02-09
Riveting must-read by @joshckoliver on the last days of FTX https://www.ft.com/...
Financial Times
Inside FTX's final hours, described by employees, chat logs, and Sam Bankman-Fried: panic selling assets, trying to raise funds, SBF's silence, and bankruptcy
In January, I walked up the front steps of a single-storey, grey-shingled house in a neighbourhood on the fringe of Stanford University.
Something that remains a puzzle to me is whether it ever occurred to Sam Bankman-Fried (or his advisers) to remain CEO in the bankruptcy, and thereby attempt to protect himself. The route he chose seems not at all the usual path: https://www.ft.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Financial Times
Inside FTX's final hours, described by employees, chat logs, and Sam Bankman-Fried: panic selling assets, trying to raise funds, SBF's silence, and bankruptcy
In January, I walked up the front steps of a single-storey, grey-shingled house in a neighbourhood on the fringe of Stanford University.
2023-02-06
Yat Siu has survived being kicked off the App Store, booted off a stock exchange & clashing with his auditors. But can this blockchain gaming pioneer survive the crypto winter? Big Read on his $5.9bn Animoca Brands venture w/ @jemimajoanna @ThomasHHChan https://www.ft.com/...
Financial Times
A profile of blockchain gaming pioneer Yat Siu, who founded Animoca Brands, valued at $5.9B in September 2022, as he copes with the crypto winter and regulators
Financial Times :
Animoca's auditor described “significant risks of management override of controls [and] potential for undisclosed related party transactions” in March 2020. 2 yrs later the gaming co had ridden the crypto boom to a $5.9bn valuation, and had a new auditor https://www.ft.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Financial Times
A profile of blockchain gaming pioneer Yat Siu, who founded Animoca Brands, valued at $5.9B in September 2022, as he copes with the crypto winter and regulators
Financial Times :
2023-02-04
Google invests $300mn in buzzy artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic. The company is also backed by Sam Bankman-Fried, whose stake is a key asset in the FTX bankruptcy. Scoop w/ @RichardWaters https://www.ft.com/...
Financial Times
Sources: Google invested ~$300M in Anthropic for a ~10% stake, making the generative AI startup use the money on Google Cloud, echoing Microsoft's OpenAI deal
2023-01-31
Never use Slack https://twitter.com/...
CoinDesk
Independent examiner: Celsius misled investors and sometimes used new customer funds to pay for withdrawals, CEO Alex Mashinsky made false claims, and more
Shoba Pillay was appointed by a New York bankruptcy court to look at whether the crypto lender operated as a Ponzi scheme