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Ethereum’s success as dominant “smart contracts” blockchain attracts rivals, and some investors speculate that Polkadot might have momentum.

Mask Network, the protocol that allows users to send encrypted messages and even cryptocurrencies over Twitter, announced a funding round Tuesday.

Beleaguered crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX and its founders are facing yet another lawsuit that alleges racketeering, money laundering, and market manipulation.

Păun Gabriel-Razvan, a resident of Bucuresti, Romania, filed the lawsuit in the Northern District Court of California on Friday. He alleges that HDR Global Trading Limited, the operator of BitMEX, the exchange’s founders Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, and Samuel Reed and others, engaged in and facilitated racketeering activities, “earning Defendants billions of dollars in illicit profits.”

The complaint comes one month after a similar lawsuit was filed against BitMEX and founders by plaintiff Dmitry Dolgov, a Moscow resident. Both Dolgov and Gabriel-Razvan are represented by the same attorney — Pavel Pogodin of Consensus Law.

“Pavel Pogodin of ‘Consensus Law’ continues to file spurious claims against us, and others in the cryptocurrency sector,” a BitMEX spokesperson today told The Block. “As we’ve said before, regrettably, Mr. Pogodin operates just like a patent troll, filing ‘copy and paste’ complaints against us based on rehashed information culled from the internet. We will deal with this through the normal litigation process and remain entirely confident the courts will see his claims for what they are.”

The new 197-page lawsuit claims that the defendants sidestepped know your customer (KYC) or anti-money laundering (AML) requirements and accepted “unlimited funds from anyone, without a single question asked.” Due to this lack of oversight, “hackers, tax evaders, money launderers, smugglers, drug dealers all flocked to BitMEX flooding the platform with hot money,” the lawsuit claims.

Gabriel-Razvan’s lawsuit also claims that “BitMEX directly participates in and financially benefits from the market manipulation and money laundering through its internal trading desk and indirectly,” and describes a specific example of how this occurs:

“A money launderer (Defendant) would open two exchange accounts – a helper account on one or more exchanges used by BitMEX to calculate its index price (Coinbase Pro, Kraken and BitStamp) and a winner account on BitMEX,” the lawsuit explains. “The money launderer would then enter into a large leveraged derivatives position on BitMEX and immediately execute market orders from the helper account with maximum slippage to move the index price in a favorable direction.”

Gabriel-Razvan claims that he suffered “significant damages” in an amount to be proven at trial. “Plaintiff suffered the loss of property…Plaintiff seeks three times the amount of actual damages sustained, costs of suit, and reasonable attorney’s fees.”

The Block has reached out to Pogodin for specific details on damages sought and will update this story should we hear back. Pogodin has previously filed similar complaints against crypto companies Ripple and FTX.

BitMEX and founders were recently also hit by twin lawsuits by the U.S. government. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) accused them of running an unregistered trading platform, violating KYC and AML regulations and the Bank Secrecy Act.

© 2020 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.

Following a recent Mac update, users will have to find alternatives if they want out from under Apple’s eye.

Bitcoin has breached the $17,000 mark today, soaring to its highest price since January 8, 2018.

The surge to $17,000 occurred fast. Less than a week ago, on November 12, bitcoin was trading at around $16,000 levels. At the time of writing, the world’s largest cryptocurrency trades at $17,037 on Coinbase, according to tracker TradingView. 

Source: TradingView

Bitcoin futures are also growing in popularity. The aggregate open interest in bitcoin futures touched an all-time high at around $6.3 billion on Monday. Open interest is the value of outstanding derivative contracts that are yet to be settled.

© 2020 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.

Bitcoin is outshining the precious metal by a significant margin as expectations soar of a swift global economic recovery enabled by promising coronavirus vaccines.

Bitcoin last traded above $17,000 on Jan. 7, 2018.

Quick Take

• Securitize is a digital securities platform and SEC-registered transfer agent that helps facilitate the full lifecycle of security tokens
• Centrifuge is a Berlin-based fintech company, which built a P2P Protocol that provides asset originators with access to the DeFi ecosystem
• Centrifuge plans to mitigate some DeFi challenges with Securitize’s DS Protocol and using its regulatory-compliant investment services
• A so-called “hybrid finance (HyFi) solution” can bring the proper checks and balances to the DeFi ecosystem, allowing more real-world assets to be offered in open finance contracts

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The CI Galaxy Bitcoin Fund has had a preliminary prospectus approved by Canadian securities regulators for an initial public offering.

Quick Take

• Tether’s *Q4 blacklistings on Ethereum grow about 130% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.
• Tether’s increased blacklisting activity is likely correlated with a more active involvement in recent community efforts to recover funds from prominent exchange / DeFi hacks.

This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
You can continue reading
this Genesis research on The Block.