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The FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, has publicly declared his innocence. He responded to charges of fraud, money laundering, and recent allegations concerning breaches of election campaign finance laws. He articulated his defense on August 22nd in the Southern District Court of New York.

After detecting phishing attempts, Terra (LUNA) has temporarily frozen its primary domain, Terra․money. The company's directive? Avoid sites with this domain until they say otherwise. While the team has ramped up protection for the Station Wallet, a word of caution: avoid the desktop and mobile apps for a bit. But if you're a fan of the Station Chrome extension, the latest version is good to go.

Xterio, the gaming Web3 platform, has revealed its decision to create an independent ecosystem following OpenSea's refusal to charge author royalties on NFT resales. This new initiative will support content creators through the launch of an NFT marketplace, exclusive tokens, a rewarding mechanism, and diverse affiliate programs. Xterio's officials have said that the launch of this marketplace is imminent, expected within the following weeks.

The country intention to seek a court-ordered shutdown of Facebook unless the social media giant takes decisive action to address alleged investment and cryptocurrency scam advertisements on its platform. According to the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, over 200,000 individuals fell victim to deceptive Facebook ads. The ministry highlighted that common tactics employed by scammers included crypto investment and trading schemes, often featuring images of celebrities and prominent financial figures, and promising daily returns of up to 30%. The ministry is in the process of gathering evidence regarding these scam advertisements, with their number estimated to be over 5,300.

Cheongju’s administration has reached out to seven South Korean crypto exchanges, including Upbit and Bithumb, to investigate the holdings of around 8,520 individuals who owe a minimum of 1 million won ($750) in local taxes. After the investigation, authorities in Cheongju aim to seize cryptocurrency assets from such tax evaders. Crypto have increasingly been used for hiding assets in South Korea. Over the span of 2021 and 2022, a total of around $180 million worth of crypto were seized by the South Korean government from individuals who evaded their taxes.

As per BitInfoCharts, the wallet address bc1q…859v2 received its initial deposit of BTC on March 8. Over the following three and a half months, it amassed 118,000 BTC (nearly $3.1 billion). Speculations quickly spread across X (Twitter), suggesting it might be BlackRock strategically increasing its BTC holdings. However, the wallet belongs to the US-based exchange Gemini. It transferred its funds from an older wallet, which was also among the top BTC holders nearly a year ago. The current top three wallets are as follows: Binance cold wallet — 248,597 BTC. Bitfinex cold wallet — 178,010 BTC. Gemini new wallet — 118,300 BTC.

A significant security vulnerability has been identified in the WinRAR utility, potentially allowing threat actors to execute remote code on Windows systems. Dubbed CVE-2023-40477, this flaw arises from improper validation during recovery volume processing. To take advantage of this, users would need to be tricked into visiting a malicious webpage or opening a compromised archive file. The flaw, discovered by a researcher named goodbyeselene, was reported on June 8, 2023, and addressed in WinRAR 6.23 on August 2, 2023. Users are urged to update to the latest version for protection.

The Central African Republic (CAR) is expanding its Sango blockchain initiative to include the tokenization of land and natural resources. Recently, the CAR National Assembly passed a law, receiving unanimous approval, that facilitates online business visa applications and simplifies the process for both locals and foreigners to establish businesses in sectors like real estate, agriculture, and forestry. This move follows CAR's earlier efforts in the crypto space, including the launch of Project Sango in May 2022 and its brief adoption of Bitcoin as a national currency.

Coin Center, a crypto-focused policy nonprofit, has reached out to Congress members, urging for more transparent crypto tax regulations. In a letter to Senate Finance Committee's Ron Wyden and Mike Crapo, Coin Center emphasized the need for guidance on cryptocurrency taxation, especially concerning capital gains. They suggested a threshold for gains below which no tax would be due. Coin Center also stressed the importance of a "de minimis" exemption, without which, every small crypto transaction could become a taxable event. This exemption would simplify the use of cryptocurrencies for daily payments, especially for micropayments.

Coinbase and Circle, five years after jointly launching USDC, are evolving their partnership. Coinbase is acquiring an equity stake in Circle, emphasizing their shared vision for the financial future. To further its reach, USDC will launch on six new blockchains between September and October, expanding its multi-chain presence to 15. With clearer global stablecoin regulations, Circle will assume all governance, including smart contract management. The Centre Consortium, initially governing USDC, will dissolve.

Imperial College London has teamed up with AI startup FluidAI to address challenges in the crypto market using artificial intaligance (AI). The collaboration will focus on enhancing the tokenized market for various stakeholders, including institutions and retail investors. FluidAI emphasizes the need to tackle liquidity aggregation issues in the crypto domain. AI can help predict and offer optimal bid and ask prices in the market.

After the market crash on August 18, analyst Andrew Kang adopted a bullish stance. He opened long positions on Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Arbitrum (ARB). However, this decision resulted in a significant loss. Due to his use of extremely high leverage, which reached up to 100x, Kang's positions became vulnerable and were liquidated not once, but as many as fourteen times. These successive liquidations caused Kang to lose approximately $432,000 in a single day. This incident highlights the risks associated with trading and employing high leverage, especially during periods of intense market volatility.

Beginning on August 31, the popular NFT marketplace OpenSea will not charge royalties for NFT secondary transactions, signaling a change in artist earning policy. Previously, creators were able to set a commission of 2.5% to 10% and earn from every resale. However, with the new update, the creator fee is left up to the discretion of the buyer. For collections on non-Ethereum blockchains, the creator fee will only remain mandatory until February 29, 2024. After this date, the entire platform will make royalties optional.