Binance’s exec exodus, Nasdaq to trade AI orders and SBF loses bail appeal: Hodler’s Digest, Sept. 3-9

9 September 2023

Cointelegraph By Editorial Staff

A key talking point in the crypto community has been the ongoing exodus of executives from Binance amid growing regulatory troubles. Binance has seen the departure of 10 key executives from various departments in the first nine months of 2023. The latest to join the list is Helen Hai, executive vice president of Binance, who announced her resignation from her post on Sept. 6. On the same day, Gleb Kostarev, vice president of Eastern Europe, Turkey, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Australia and New Zealand at Binance, also announced his resignation, as did CIS general manager Vladimir Smerkis. Four top executives from Binance reportedly all left on the same day after Binance’s response to the United States Department of Justice investigation. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has hosed down recent rumors against his firm, assuring its balance sheet and employee retention remain robust despite the recent market uncertainty.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has approved Nasdaq’s request to operate its first AI-driven order type on Sept. 8. Called the dynamic midpoint extended life order (M-ELO), the new system expands on the M-ELO automated order type by making it “dynamic,” meaning it will use artificial intelligence to update and, essentially, recalibrate itself in real-time. The follow-on effect should be a significant acceleration of orders placed with the system. Nasdaq says the dynamic M-ELO demonstrated a “20.3% increase in fill rates and an 11.4% reduction in mark-outs” during its research and testing.

Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried lost an initial appeal to be released again on bail prior to his criminal trial. His lawyers had petitioned the court for temporary release, claiming the current measures to allow SBF to prepare for his trial were inadequate due to limited internet access. An appeals court denied the motion on Sept. 6, maintaining SBF’s detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The former FTX CEO had his bail revoked on Aug. 11, following allegations of witness intimidation for leaking, to The New York Times, personal notes and diary entries from former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. SBF has roughly four weeks to prepare for his Oct. 3 trial.

ARK Invest and 21Shares requested the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to approve the listing of shares of a spot Ether ETF on the Cboe BZX Exchange. The investment vehicle, called the ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF, will have crypto exchange Coinbase act as a custodian and will measure the performance of Ether based on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate. The proposal from ARK Invest and 21Shares is one of many spot crypto ETFs that will be reviewed by the SEC in the coming months. The U.S. regulator has been delaying decisions on crypto investments products lately, especially concerning Bitcoin spot ETF proposals.

Grayscale has told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it has no legal reasoning left to block the conversion of its flagship Bitcoin fund to a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). The company’s lawyers sent a letter to the SEC requesting the pair meet to discuss the next steps following the regulator’s court loss regarding the conversion of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) on Aug. 29. Grayscale added that it believes the SEC should conclude there are “no grounds” for treating the GBTC differently from Bitcoin futures ETFs whose filings “the Commission has previously approved.” According to Grayscale, its fund conversion application has been pending for nearly three times longer than the length of time stipulated by the SEC’s rules.

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $25,871, Ether (ETH) at $1,635 and XRP at $0.50. The total market cap is at $1.04 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Synthetix (SNX) at 12.86%, Stellar (XLM) at 9.83% and Render (RNDR) at 9.09%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Gala (GALA) at -14.74%, Mantle (MNT) at -7.49% and Flare (FLR) at -7.06%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Read also


Features

An Investment in Knowledge Pays the Best Interest: The Parlous State of Financial Education


Features

Is the cryptocurrency epicenter moving away from East Asia?

“I feel bad that I have to tell people that the United States is probably not where they want to be, but the tide is turning.”

David Schwartz, chief technology officer at Ripple

“I do think that the worlds of traditional and blockchain-based financial systems can co-exist, and likely will in the new future.”

Yida Gao, founder and managing general partner of Shima Capital

“DeFi is the future; the volume is somewhere between 5% to 10% of CeFi volumes, which is not small, right? […] The next bull run may very well make DeFi bigger than CeFi.”

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance

“ChatGPT will enable a bunch of people that have never had all this training to jump in, they can start right now and I start to worry about morphological design problems buried in there.”

Kang Li, chief security officer at Certik

“The Bitcoin Ordinal protocol is better designed for decentralization and security than the Ethereum NFT protocol. High-value NFTs will win on Bitcoin.”

Danny Yang, co-founder and CEO of Metagood

“Australia would have a regulated digital assets market. Instead, it is close to the end of 2023, and the government has no plan to implement these regulations.”

Andrew Bragg, Australian Senator

Bitcoin price can hit $46K by 2024 halving — Interview with Filbfilb

Bitcoin has a chance to end 2023 at $35,000 despite heading lower in between, veteran pseudonymous analyst Filbfilb believes. In an interview with Cointelegraph, the co-founder of trading suite DecenTrader revealed some BTC price targets that should resonate with the long-term holder base.

Based on the previous cycles, Filbfilb sees a contraction of new emitted supply to market in advance of the halving. “Coupled by increased speculative demand, this dynamic is likely to repeat in my opinion,” he pointed out in reference to a possible reversal in price behavior due to the upcoming halving.

Regarding BTC price action in 2023 compared to other pre-halving years, the analyst notes that “there has been a failure to break the 100-week moving average thus far, which is a notable difference [compared to pre-halving years],” Filbfilb stated, adding that “assuming no black swan event, around $35,000 by the end of the year and possibly as high as $46,000 some time pre-halving in Q1 2024.”

United States regulators have finally taken steps to resolve an enforcement case against collapsed trading organization Mirror Trading International (MTI). A district court in Texas ordered MTI to pay $1.7 billion in restitution to victims for operating a fraudulent scheme involving digital assets and forex, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced on Sept. 7. MTI went into provisional liquidation in late 2020 after one of its directors allegedly escaped the country, grabbing roughly $1 billion in Bitcoin that investors had entrusted to the company.

The former CEO of Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, Faruk Fatih ?zer, was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison by a Turkish court on charges of “establishing, managing and being a member of an organization,” “qualified fraud” and “laundering of property values.” The court gave ?zer and his two siblings the same jail sentence, along with a $5 million fine, local media reported. The Turkish crypto exchange was one of the largest digital asset trading platforms in the country before it abruptly imploded in 2021, halting services without prior notice, with ?zer fleeing the country with users’ assets totaling $2 billion in crypto.

The $41 million hack of crypto gambling site Stake was carried out by the North Korean hacking collective Lazarus Group, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation stated in an announcement. The group has stolen more than $200 million in crypto in 2023. Stake, a crypto gambling platform, was the victim of a cyberattack on Sept. 4 that drained over $41 million worth of cryptocurrency from its hot wallets. The Stake team stated that the hacker only obtained a small percentage of funds and that users would not be affected.

Stuffed down toilets, dismembered in suitcases — crypto has been the common denominator for several gruesome murders and mysterious deaths this year.

Famed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami’s new exhibition comments on digital ego and the shaky status of the NFT industry.

Irina Heaver moved to crypto after she could no longer “sit in the boardroom listening to that corporate bullshit.”

AIARK InvestBinanceBitcoinBitcoin ETFBlockchainChangpeng ZhaoChatGPTChinaCryptocurrenciesDeFiEther ETFEthereumFBIFederal ReserveFTXHackMirror TradingNasdaqNFTRegulationSam Bankman-FriedSECStakeThodexUnited SatesUnited StatesXRP

Read also

  

You might also like

Trump supports bill to buy 1 million BTC — Senator Lummis  
Trump supports bill to buy 1 million BTC — Senator Lummis  

US President Donald Trump supports the BITCOIN Act and has a team of experts in the White House working to roll out landmark digital asset legislation in the coming weeks, according to Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis. Speaking at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, Lummis said she is bringing the BITCOIN ACT to the “attention of the American people and the world,” adding that, “President Trump supports the bill.”In March, Lummis reintroduced the BITCOIN Act — landmark legislation that directs the US government to acquire 1 million Bitcoin (BTC) over five years. The acquisitions would be financed using existing funds within the Federal Reserve System and the Treasury Department. As Cointelegraph reported, the Trump administration has reiterated the need to use “budget-neutral ways” to acquire Bitcoin without burdening taxpayers.Source: CryptoGoosAt the Bitcoin Conference, Lummis said the Trump administration has a team working on “digital asset issues,” including legislation on stablecoins, market structure and the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve.“They will probably roll out in that order,” she said.“The Senate Banking Committee has passed the stablecoin bill out of committee,” said Lummis, adding: “We’re getting close to being ready to have it on the floor. We’ve worked for untold hours with the minority party to satisfy them, and we should be voting on it the week before we get back from this break.”Related: Senator Lummis’ new BITCOIN Act allows US reserve to exceed 1M BitcoinGENIUS Act on stablecoins is “going to pass,” says White House crypto czarThe White House seems to be in alignment with Senator Lummis. Last week, Trump’s top crypto adviser, David Sacks, said the GENIUS stablecoin bill is “going to pass” the Senate with bipartisan support after clearing a key procedural vote on May 19.On May 19, the Senate voted 66 to 32 to advance debate on the GENIUS Bill. Source: US SenateGENIUS refers to the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act, possibly the most comprehensive federal push to establish a legal framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins.Stablecoins have become one of the most prominent use cases for blockchain technology, with some industry advocates arguing that they could help extend the US dollar’s dominance as the global reserve currency.Collateralized, dollar-backed stablecoins like Tether’s USDt (USDT) and Circle’s USDC (USDC) account for more than 85% of the $250 billion market, according to CoinMarketCap.Related: Former CFTC chair criticizes STABLE Act amid calls for urgent regulatory clarity

Growing BTC reserve requires Congressional legislation — VanEck exec  
Growing BTC reserve requires Congressional legislation — VanEck exec  

Building a permanent US strategic Bitcoin reserve would likely require targeted legislation rather than executive action, according to VanEck’s head of digital assets, Matthew Sigel. Speaking at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas, Sigel said the most viable path forward may involve inserting Bitcoin mining incentives into the congressional budget reconciliation process.According to Sigel, the most effective path to growing a US strategic Bitcoin reserve would be through targeted amendments to congressional budget legislation. These could include tax credits for mining companies that use methane gas and other incentives aimed at encouraging miners to share a portion of their mined BTC with the federal government. He argued that such an approach would allow the reserve to grow organically over time. Sigel also highlighted the limitations of executive actions in achieving this goal:”The problem with executive action is that it’s going to prompt lawsuits. And anything over $100 million is going to get sued by the Elizabeth Warrens of the world. So, I would say start with something maybe in the Exchange Stabilization Fund for $100 million.”US President Donald Trump established the US Bitcoin Strategic Reserve through a March 7 executive order. According to the order, the US government can only acquire Bitcoin through budget-neutral strategies or asset forfeiture, prompting a range of different ideas on how to add to the government’s stockpile of nearly 200,000 BTC.From left to right, Alex Thorn, Matthew Sigel, Matthew Pines and Fred Thiel. Source: Turner Wright/CointelegraphRelated: Bitcoin’s new highs may have been driven by Japan bond market crisisLawmakers, officials pitch different ideas to grow strategic Bitcoin reserveWyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, the US lawmaker who introduced legislation for a Bitcoin strategic reserve in July 2024, proposed converting a portion of the gold certificates held by the US Treasury to Bitcoin.Converting gold to Bitcoin would allow the US government to purchase more Bitcoin without incurring a cost to the taxpayer, Lummis said.Bo Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, echoed the idea in March 2025.Hines called on the US Treasury to revalue its gold holdings, which are currently priced at just $42.22 per troy ounce, and convert a portion of those gains to Bitcoin. This strategy would also be budget-neutral, Hines said.The price of gold reached an all-time high of $3,500 per ounce in April but experienced a minor pullback to around $3,300 on May 27.Magazine: TradFi fans ignored Lyn Alden’s BTC tip — Now she says it’ll hit 7 figures: X Hall of Flame

ZKPs can prove I'm old enough without telling you my age  
ZKPs can prove I'm old enough without telling you my age  

Opinion by: Andre Omietanski, General Counsel, and Amal Ibraymi, Legal Counsel at Aztec LabsWhat if you could prove you’re over 18, without revealing your birthday, name, or anything else at all? Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) make this hypothetical a reality and solve one of the key challenges online: verifying age without sacrificing privacy. The need for better age verification todayWe’re witnessing an uptick in laws being proposed restricting minors’ access to social media and the internet, including in Australia, Florida, and China. To protect minors from inappropriate adult content, platform owners and governments often walk a tightrope between inaction and overreach. For example, the state of Louisiana in the US recently enacted a law meant to block minors from viewing porn. Sites required users to upload an ID before viewing content. The Free Speech Coalition challenged the law as unconstitutional, making the case that it infringed on First Amendment rights. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed on procedural grounds. The reaction, however, highlights the dilemma facing policymakers and platforms: how to block minors without violating adults’ rights or creating new privacy risks.Traditional age verification failsCurrent age verification tools are either ineffective or invasive. Self-declaration is meaningless, since users can simply lie about their age. ID-based verification is overly invasive. No one should be required to upload their most sensitive documents, putting themselves at risk of data breaches and identity theft. Biometric solutions like fingerprints and face scans are convenient for users but raise important ethical, privacy, and security concerns. Biometric systems are not always accurate and may generate false positives and negatives. The irreversible nature of the data, which can’t be changed like a regular password can, is also less than ideal. Other methods, like behavioral tracking and AI-driven verification of browser patterns, are also problematic, using machine learning to analyze user interactions and identify patterns and anomalies, raising concerns of a surveillance culture.ZKPs as the privacy-preserving solutionZero-knowledge proofs present a compelling solution. Like a government ID provider, a trusted entity verifies the user’s age and generates a cryptographic proof confirming they are over the required age. Websites only need to check the proof, not the excess personal data, ensuring privacy while keeping minors at the gates. No centralized data storage is required, alleviating the burden on platforms such as Google, Meta, and WhatsApp and eliminating the risk of data breaches. Recent: How zero-knowledge proofs can make AI fairerAdopting and enforcing ZKPs at scaleZKPs aren’t a silver bullet. They can be complex to implement. The notion of “don’t trust, verify,” proven by indisputable mathematics, may cause some regulatory skepticism. Policymakers may hesitate to trust cryptographic proofs over visible ID verification. There are occasions when companies may need to disclose personal information to authorities, such as during an investigation into financial crimes or government inquiries. This would challenge ZKPs, whose very intention is for platforms not to hold this data in the first place.ZKPs also struggle with scalability and performance, being somewhat computationally intensive and tricky to program. Efficient implementation techniques are being explored, and breakthroughs, such as the Noir programming language, are making ZKPs more accessible to developers, driving the adoption of secure, privacy-first solutions. A safer, smarter future for age verificationGoogle’s move to adopt ZKPs for age verification is a promising signal that mainstream platforms are beginning to embrace privacy-preserving technologies. But to fully realize the potential of ZKPs, we need more than isolated solutions locked into proprietary ecosystems. Crypto-native wallets can go further. Open-source and permissionless blockchain-based systems offer interoperability, composability, and programmable identity. With a single proof, users can access a range of services across the open web — no need to start from scratch every time, or trust a single provider (Google) with their credentials.ZKPs flip the script on online identity — proving what matters, without exposing anything else. They protect user privacy, help platforms stay compliant, and block minors from restricted content, all without creating new honeypots of sensitive data.Google’s adoption of ZKPs shows mainstream momentum is building. But to truly transform digital identity, we must embrace crypto-native, decentralized systems that give users control over what they share and who they are online.In an era defined by surveillance, ZKPs offer a better path forward — one that’s secure, private, and built for the future.Opinion by: Andre Omietanski, General Counsel, and Amal Ibraymi, Legal Counsel at Aztec Labs.This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.