The Perils of Trump Coin.

On the eve of the presidential inauguration, news filtered out that President Trump was releasing a “meme coin” called $Trump. Memecoins are cryptocurrency assets with no practical financial value but reference popular internet trends. In a report published by Reuters today, companies affiliated with Trump received $100 million in trading fees, and 50 of the most prominent investors in the Trump coin have made a $10 million profit. While this benefits Trump and his associates, it opens a massive ethical can of worms. There is a very real scenario: a foreign power such as Saudi Arabia could fill up its digital wallet with Trump coins instead of staying at one of Trump’s properties to curry favor with the new administration, as had happened during the first term. It will be fascinating to see how this story develops, but it highlights how murky the crypto world can be.

Prosecutors in SBF Case Want a 40 to 50-Year Sentence.

On Friday, Federal prosecutors in the Sam Bankman-Fried fraud case want him to serve 40 to 50 years in prison. He faces a possible maximum sentence of 110 years. According to a report in the New York Times, the federal probation service has recommended that SBF face 100 years in prison, which equates to a life sentence. SBF’s lawyers, unsurprisingly, are calling for a much more lenient sentence of six and a half years. I would have to assume that SBF’s sentence will be in the 40 or 50-year range, given the extent of the fraud he committed.

SBF found Guilty in Fraud Trial.

After a two-week trial, Sam Bankman-Fried, better known as SBF, has been found guilty of fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy. Bankman-Fried was the former CEO of FTX and was heavily involved in the effective altruism movement. According to an article in Yahoo, SBF claimed numerous times that he had nothing to do with the alleged $8 billion fraud. However, it became apparent that his co-defendants, such as former girlfriend Caroline Ellison, testified that SBF directly told Ellison to move money from FTX accounts to prop up Alameda, a failing cryptocurrency hedge fund closely linked to FTX and run by Ellison. According to CBS, SBF also used some of the stolen money to buy expensive real estate and fund political campaigns and charitable projects.

The big question is what comes next for both SBF and the crypto industry, at least. According to an article by NASDAQ, SBF will very likely spend the rest of his life in prison, which will hopefully set an example to anyone else thinking about enriching themselves through crypto. As for the FTX users affected by the scam, they should be able to recoup at least 90 percent of their losses after a bankruptcy settlement agreed last December. SBF may also have to pay his victim restitution at his sentencing. What happened to FTX will hopefully encourage governments and other financial entities to tighten the regulations around cryptocurrency and ensure that something on this scale never happens again.