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The CFTC on Monday filed suit against the crypto exchange and its CEO Changpeng Zhao.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly bribed one or more Chinese officials to unfreeze Alameda Research accounts, according to a new superseding indictment in his criminal case. 

The 13-count superseding indictment was unsealed on Tuesday morning. The filing includes a new count for conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. 

Bankman-Fried and others allegedly directed and caused the transfer of approximately $40 million in cryptocurrency intended to benefit one or more Chinese government officials, according to the indictment. 

“Bankman-Fried and others agreed to pay cryptocurrency to one or more foreign officials in China to influence and induce them to unfreeze the accounts in order to assist Bankman-Fried, Alameda, and others in obtaining and retaining business for, and directing business to, Bankman-Fried, Alameda, and others,” the superseding indictment says. 

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York previously unsealed a 12-count superseding indictment against Bankman-Fried in February. The former FTX boss has not been arraigned on five of the 13 charges in the new indictment. 

Bankman-Fried was arrested in December, a month after his crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy protection. The FTX founder is accused of mishandling customer funds, among other misdeeds, and could spend the rest of his life in jail if convicted on all charges. He has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges and is awaiting an October trial. 

Three former FTX and Alameda executives have pleaded guilty to criminal charges. 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Only the pool for borrowing and lending SOL tokens would be impacted by the proposed changes.

The release comes in the days after competitors, Polygon and Matter Labs, came out with their own zkEVMs.

A superseeding indictment was unveiled on Wednesday.

Digital payments processor Zebedee announced an upgrade to its platform that leverages Bitcoin’s Lightning Network to enable fast, secure and low-cost cross-border payments between the U.S., UK, EU, Brazil and the Philippines.

The Zebedee app, which lets users play games, browse the web and listen to podcasts to earn and transfer bitcoin, now connects directly to partners worldwide — including Pouch.ph and Bipa — to facilitate multi-currency payments.

“In order for bitcoin to take its place as the native money of the internet, which really means the main form of money for the modern age, we have to make it so intuitive and simple to use for the average person that it ceases to be about bitcoin, it’s just global money,” said Andre Neves, CTO and co-founder of Zebedee, in a statement, adding: “Our new feature provides a major step in that direction, as it gives our users the ability to select high-quality global providers with the push of a button and start sending instant transactions across the world in seconds.”

How it works

The integration operates similarly to open-banking standards, where users connect their bank accounts once and then seamlessly move money between accounts. With the new global payment functionality, users can instantly convert bitcoin earnings to their local currency or send fiat money to friends or family in other countries.

For example, a user in Brazil can earn bitcoin by playing a game like Solitaire and instantly transfer that money via Bipa in exchange for Brazilian reais. Similarly, a user in the U.S. can transfer funds to friends and family in the Philippines, who can then immediately receive them in Philippine pesos via Pouch.ph.

“We are thrilled to be a launch partner of Zebedee for this new feature for borderless transactions, as it aligns perfectly with our vision for the financial inclusion of the Philippines. Together with Zebedee, we can continue pushing this technology forward to let our customers move funds between their bank accounts and any Lightning wallet in the world more seamlessly than ever,” said Ethan Rose, CEO of Pouch.ph.

Improving accessibility

Using the Bitcoin Lightning Network for global fiat transactions can be challenging for non-technical users, creating a barrier to entry. Zebedee’s upgrade aims to remove this obstacle, making the Lightning Network more easily accessible and providing a faster and cheaper way to send money worldwide.

“In over a year since we’ve been working with Zebedee, we have learned the vital importance of giving users who want to use their digital assets in the real world an easy, intuitive and quick way to move and exchange bitcoin. The remarkably simple new user experience created by Zebedee is a powerful move towards broadening our reach to more users in Brazil,” said Luiz Parreira, CEO and co-founder of Bipa.

Zebedee’s solution is designed to be currency-agnostic, focusing on strategic partnerships in key markets worldwide. Backed by global VCs and gaming studios, including Initial Capital, Lakestar, Kingsway Capital, The Raine Group and Square Enix, the company aims to expand its partner network to cover more countries and currencies over time.

Zebedee is not the only company leveraging the Lightning Network to facilitate global money transfers, with platforms like Strike and CoinCorner offering similar services.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Orderly Network, a decentralized trading infrastructure protocol based on the Near blockchain, raised an undisclosed amount of funds from India’s CoinDCX Ventures in a strategic investment round.

While Orderly Network did not disclose the size of the investment in a statement, its chief operating officer Arjun Arora told The Block that the funding was realized via a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) at a flat valuation of $200 million — the same valuation when Orderly raised funds from Nomura’s Laser Digital in November.

CoinDCX Ventures completed its investment in Orderly last month, Arora said, adding that initial talks began in late October.

As for what led CoinDCX Ventures, a unit of CoinDCX — one of India’s largest centralized crypto exchanges — to bet on Orderly, its managing director Rohit Jain said order book decentralized exchanges (DEXs) “are the next phase in the evolution of DEXs” as they offer centralized exchange-like experience but on-chain and with self-custody benefits.

“We are very bullish on this model and while a few teams are building in the space, we think Orderly is perhaps the best team to build this out,” Jain told The Block.

Orderly Network was incubated in 2021 by the Near Foundation and Woo Network. Its mainnet went live last October and currently offers an infrastructure for spot order-book trading. “Right now, we have six spot markets and one dApp, i.e. WooFi DEX,” Arora said. The next plan is to support perpetual futures and multiple dApps by the end of April, he said, adding that multichain support will also follow next.

“Users can expect to see multichain perps across the blue-chip Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) and non-EVM chains,” Arora said. “Users can also expect native deposits and withdrawals from blue chip chains.” He declined to comment on specific blockchains that will be supported.

The current total value locked or TVL of Orderly Network stands at $6.2 million, according to DefiLlama. Arora expects the TVL to “drastically increase” with the launch of perps, new dApps and multichain support in the coming months.

As for Orderly’s native token, it’s expected to launch in the second half of the year, according to Arora. To keep up with its growth plans, Orderly looks to increase the team size of its full-time employees from the current 32 people by hiring across functions, Arora said.

Orderly is CoinDCX Ventures’ fifteenth investment. The venture unit was launched in May 2022 with a $12 million fund. It has thus far invested in 15 startups, including Stader Labs, Space & Time and Unstoppable Domains.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Cyril Mathew previously led business development teams at Stripe and Coinbase.

AllianceBlock, a blockchain-agnostic platform, has signed a deal with business data provider Crunchbase to import traditional finance data into the DeFi ecosystem.

Some analysts say Binance’s recent decision to include other stablecoins in its zero-fee trading program could have contributed to lesser dependence on BUSD.