Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges. Bankman-Fried, who is facing eight criminal charges including wire fraud and campaign-finance violations, pleaded not guilty to all charges via his lawyer at a hearing in federal court in New York. The former CEO of the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX made his second appearance in the courthouse on Tuesday. At his first appearance last week, he was released on a personal recognizance bond, and shortly after, flew back to his parents’ home in California. His not guilty plea was expected, according to an earlier report in the Wall Street Journal.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
Bitcoin miner Core Scientific will shut down 37,000 mining rigs it hosts for Celsius Mining. Core turned the machines off after moving to reject its contract to host the equipment. The two firms have been engaged in litigation over the 2020 deal, which Core Scientific says is costing it $2 million in revenue per month. Both companies are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy: Celsius Mining filed last July, along with its parent company, Celsius Network, and Core filed last month.
Shiba Inu-themed BONK tokens are yielding nearly 1,000% for Solana liquidity providers. Bonk, which was issued on Dec. 25, has returned 2,220% to traders in the past week, with a 150% rise in the past 24 hours alone. The token was airdropped to Solana NFT communities and creators, which led to quick hype and trading volumes for the token. Early investors aren’t the only ones gaining, however. Liquidity pools on Solana-based decentralized exchanges such as Orca have attracted over $20 million in volume for trading pairs involving BONK.
Market Insight: Binance Bounces Up
Source: CryptoCompare
Even as trading volume on centralized exchanges declined 46% in 2022, Binance remained the leader with a 66.7% market share in December versus 48.7% to start the year, according to a report by CryptoCompare.
That jump in market dominance came even as spot trading volume on Binance tumbled 45.3% during the year to $5.29 trillion.
Among the 11 exchanges tracked, Binance and Bybit were the only ones that saw their market shares increase steadily in each quarter of 2022, the report said.
The chart shows bitcoin’s perpetual futures funding rates going back to late October.
The recent positive flip in funding rates suggests investors with long positions are paying short sellers to keep their bullish positions open.
“Moderately positive aggregate funding rates indicate traders are taking a predominantly bullish stance,” Lewis Harland, portfolio manager at Decentral Park Capital, said.
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