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 has reportedly responded to several media inquiries via email, claiming that he never thought his actions as F were a breach of the law. Meanwhile, Tether has been busy adding to its Bitcoin stash, announcing a recent acquisition of nearly 9,000 BTC, and Tron has accused the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of overreach, arguing the agency’s lawsuit against it crosses international jurisdiction and goes “too far.”
SBF speaks out after sentencing
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried responded to questioning following his 25-year prison sentence last week, stating that, “I never thought what I was doing was illegal.”
As reported by ABC News, the former executive responded to questions via email from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where he has been held since last August.
“I’m haunted, every day, by what was lost. I never intended to hurt anyone or take anyone’s money,” SBF reportedly said.
SBF blamed “bad decisions” for the collapse of FTX and its sister company, Alameda Research, but claimed that he never acted selfishly.
Following last week’s verdict, SBF is expected to remain in federal prison until the age of 57. Judge Lewis Kaplan compared SBF to a “thief,” and said his attempts to pursue crypto regulation was “an act.”
SBF’s lawyers intend to appeal the verdict, they stated last week.
Tether boosts Bitcoin reserves with latest acquisition
Tether, the company behind the Tether USDT
$1.00 stablecoin, acquired 8,888 Bitcoin BTC$68,953 worth $618 million on March 31.
Following the acquisition, Tether’s wallet now holds 75,354 Bitcoin bought at an average price of $30,305, worth around $5.2 billion at the time of writing, according to on-chain data.
The wallet is up over 128%, with a current unrealized profit of $2.94 billion, according to CoinStats data.
Tether is now the seventh-largest Bitcoin holder in the world, according to BitInfoCharts data. Binance’s cold wallet is the largest Bitcoin holder, with over 248,597 Bitcoin worth $17.31 billion at publication.
Tron argues that the SEC is “not a worldwide regulator,” lawsuit goes “too far”
The entity behind layer-1 blockchain Tron has asked a New York federal court to dismiss a U.S. SEC lawsuit against it, arguing the regulator is overreaching by targeting “predominantly foreign conduct.”
“The SEC is not a worldwide regulator,” and its effort to apply U.S. security laws to “predominantly foreign conduct” goes “too far,” the Tron Foundation said in a March 28 dismissal motion.
In March 2023, the SEC sued Justin Sun, the Tron Foundation, file-sharing platform backers, the BitTorrent Foundation, and its San Francisco-based parent firm Rainberry — the latter two were acquired by Tron in 2018 — alleging the sale of Tron TRX$0.1200 and BitTorrent (BTT) tokens are unregistered securities offerings.
The Singapore-based Tron said in its motion that the SEC’s case is against “foreign digital asset offerings to foreign purchasers on global platforms” for which it has no authority.
Tron claimed the tokens were sold “entirely overseas” with steps taken to avoid the U.S. market and that the SEC didn’t allege they “were offered or sold initially to any U.S. residents.”
