Crypto Twitter This Week: Coinbase’s Legal Drama, Sam Bankman-Fried

Legal intrigue was the topic of the week, keeping Crypto Twitter on the edge of its seats and booing and cheering in equal measure.

A federal judge on Monday refused to be fired The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has found most of the regulator’s key claims in its ongoing lawsuit against Coinbase to be “valid,” and there is general agreement that the SEC has jurisdiction over much of the cryptocurrency industry.

Coinbase executives, as expected, were quick to dismiss the ruling and made it clear that this does not mean a loss for the cryptocurrency exchange, merely that the case is now proceeding to trial.

But legal experts say the judge in the case once He seemed persuaded. Coinbase’s argument found that much of the logic supporting the SEC’s argument was sound.

The buzz surrounding this ruling grew so much that even Edward Snowden commented on it. It dismissed the ruling as meaningless and predicted that other rulings, political developments and legal structures in the United States would eventually force the SEC to halt its enforcement campaign against the massive financial institutions. Cryptocurrency industry.

Of course, the biggest legal news this week came on Thursday when FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was disgraced. sentenced to 25 years in prison Sentenced to federal prison for alleged involvement in criminal fraud on cryptocurrency exchange.

Details of the sentencing hearing were filtered primarily from the Manhattan courtroom and relayed around the world through a single Twitter account.Inner City Press-any We often live-tweet New York City trial transcripts.

Bankman-Fried’s sentencing transcript was filled with gems that immediately went viral. The former billionaire’s lawyer praised him as a “beautiful enigma” and the judge in the case, Lewis Kaplan, called the cryptocurrency founder’s testimony the worst he had ever seen. The defendant has been on the bench for nearly 30 years.

Many cryptocurrency users voraciously consuming live tweets of sentencing hearings were more accustomed to tracking constantly fluctuating cryptocurrency prices than engaging in hours-long legal proceedings. Nearly two hours have passed since the hearing began, with Bankman-Fried, his attorneys, the FTX victims, and Judge Kaplan all giving lengthy speeches. Some Twitter users were pushed to their limits, desperate for headlines about the defendant’s sentence.

It wasn’t long before news arrived. And when it did, Crypto Twitter was split between those who had hoped Bankman-Fried had received a harsher sentence and others who had been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Probably a rough federal prison For the first time, appropriate punishment is being meted out to non-violent offenders.

But arguably Bankman-Fried’s sentencing was a historic and cathartic milestone for the cryptocurrency industry, one that quickly became immortal. usually dark A provocative creation by digital artist Beeple.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.