News Roundup — 'Crypto King' Sam Bankman-Fried faces decades in jail after guilty verdict

Major news stories this week;

1. 'Crypto King' Sam Bankman-Fried faces decades in jail after guilty verdict
2. Bitcoin white paper turns 15 as Satoshi Nakamoto’s legacy lives on
3. There are now nearly 40M Bitcoin addresses in profit — A new record
4. U.K. Publishes Final Proposals for Crypto, Stablecoin Regulation
5. Abu Dhabi Global Market introduces comprehensive DLT Foundations Regulations

Story Summaries;

1. The jury delivered its verdict after just four hours of deliberations and found Bankman-Fried guilty on all seven charges. Sentencing is scheduled for 28 March 2024. Also in March 2024 he will be tried on an additional five charges, brought by the Justice Department in the months after his initial arrest, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit acts of bribery, and securities fraud.
2. Last Tuesday marked 15 years since the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, shared the Bitcoin white paper to a mailing list of cryptographers on Oct. 31, 2008 — a date also annually celebrated as Halloween. “I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,” Satoshi famously said in the opening sentence before linking the document titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.”
3. According to on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, there are now nearly 40 million Bitcoin addresses in profit, marking a new record. Despite Bitcoin's price being 50% below its all-time highs, 80% of Bitcoin addresses are "in the black" at a price of $34,000. This indicates that the recent gains in Bitcoin's price have significantly impacted investor profitability. The number of addresses in profit as of October 30th reached 39.1 million, surpassing the previous peak of 38.1 million in November 2021.
4. The U.K. government published its final rules for the crypto ecosystem, saying it plans a phased introduction of regulation, with legislation for fiat-backed stablecoins being introduced early next year. Other crypto areas, such as algorithmic stablecoins, will follow as the government brings activities like lending and trading into the fold of conventional financial regulation, according to an update published Monday. These rules will bring relevant activities under the purview of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The plans are in line with an April 2022 policy set out by Rishi Sunak, then finance minister and now prime minister, to make the U.K. a crypto-asset hub and are likely to be welcomed by an industry that has complained the government has been dragging its feet.
5. The Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Registration Authority has introduced comprehensive regulations governing Web3 organizations. The international financial free zone’s regulatory framework is “purpose-built” and the first of its kind, the agency claimed. The Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Foundations Regulations will provide for the operation of blockchain foundations, Web3 entities, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and traditional foundations expanding into DLT. Blockchain foundations provide financial and other forms of support for a blockchain without direct involvement in it. The regulations enable the creation of a “DLT Foundation” by submitting a signed charter that includes a description of the foundation’s initial assets and details about its governance and token issuance (if any), along with the organisation’s white paper, tokenomics paper and a link to a technical document called a DLT Framework.
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And that’s all for last week’s news! Wishing you a great week ahead!

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