Need to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, Web3 and crypto regulation.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial is set to conclude next week, with closing remarks from both sides scheduled for Nov. 1. Meanwhile, crypto asset manager Valkyrie amended its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) filing and the Bitcoin
BTC $34,471 white paper turned 15.
SBF trial in the home stretch
Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial is set to conclude next week after judge Lewis Kaplan denied the defense’s request for acquittal.
According to reports, the case will move to closing arguments early on Nov. 1 after attorneys declined to call any further witnesses.
Earlier in the day, prosecutor Danielle Sassoon of the Southern District of New York asked Bankman-Fried if he thought it was permissible to spend $8 billion of FTX users’ money.
“I thought it was folded into risk management,” he said. “As CEO of Alameda, I was concerned with their portfolio. At FTX, I was paying attention but not as much as I should have been.“
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to all seven charges filed against him for his alleged role in defrauding investors. He faces an additional five charges that will be prosecuted in March during a second trial.
Crypto asset manager Valkyrie amends spot Bitcoin ETF filing
Digital asset manager Valkyrie Investments is the latest firm to amend its spot Bitcoin ETF filing with United States securities regulators.
Valkyrie filed an updated spot Bitcoin ETF with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Oct. 30, according to the SEC database.
The updated form S-1 registration statement for the Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund aims to offer investors an opportunity to invest in common shares backed by Bitcoin. The shares represent units of fractional undivided beneficial interest and ownership of the trust and are expected to be traded under the ticker symbol “BRRR” on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
“The information in this prospectus is not complete and may be changed,” Valkyrie stated in the filing, adding that the firm is not allowed to sell BRRR securities until the registration statement is effective.
The amended filing comes about a month after the SEC delayed its decision on the Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund in late September.
Valkyrie’s updated spot Bitcoin ETF joins at least six other recently amended spot BTC ETF filings made by Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, VanEck and ARK Invest.
Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper turns 15
Today marks 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.”
The whitepaper proposed a decentralized system that could facilitate peer-to-peer transactions which could solve the “double spending” problem often associated with digital currency.
It proposed to achieve this via a network of nodes to validate and record transactions through a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, launching just two months later on Jan. 3, 2009.
