The Israel-Palestinian conflict has seen some of the worst violence in the region in decades. The militant group Hamas launched devastating attacks from Gaza into Israel on Saturday and on Tuesday Israeli air strikes hammered Gaza, razing entire districts.
What’s crypto got to do with it? Hamas had endorsed crypto as a fundraising method for years, using complex techniques to make it harder for blockchain researchers to track. Then in April it said that it would stop receiving fundraising via bitcoin. But Israel’s police said in a statement on Tuesday that it had frozen cryptocurrency accounts that were being used to solicit donations for Hamas on social media. (The statement didn’t say how many accounts were frozen or the value of the crypto seized, and Hamas couldn’t be reached for comment.)
The police said Binance helped them locate and freeze the accounts. Binance said it had been working round the clock to “support ongoing efforts to combat terror financing.”
Regulators around the world have long called for tighter controls on crypto exchanges to prevent illegal activities, from money laundering to the financing of terrorism. You can find more Reuters reporting on crypto accounts linked to Hamas here.
Elsewhere, the Sam Bankman-Fried trial got to the testimony of Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, which was Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund. (Check out the profile on her here).
Ellison said Bankman-Fried directed her and other executives to defraud FTX customers by taking their money without their knowledge. She said: “He was the one who set up these systems that allowed Alameda to take the money and he was the one who directed us to take customer money to repay our loans.”
Ellison also described Bankman-Fried’s ambition, saying that he viewed political donations as an inexpensive way to get power. He even believed there was a 5% chance he could become president, she said. She’ll continue testifying today.
Another member of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, FTX’s former chief technology officer Gary Wang, testified last week. He said that Bankman-Fried told him to give Alameda special trading privileges on FTX, including a $65 billion line of credit, and that Bankman-Fried’s tweets assuring customers that the exchange was “fine” were not true.
FTX’s marketing to retail investors could be a key issue in the trial, with prosecutors saying FTX commercials promoted the exchange as trustworthy. In his opening statement, Bankman-Fried’s lawyer said such investments were risky: “crypto was not for everyone”. An old FTX tweet tells a different story.
Struggling to keep up with the trial coverage? Here’s a summary of the opening statements, five key moments from the first week, and a guide to who’s who.
