Welcome to the Fintech Files, your weekly cheat sheet on the chaotic world of cryptocurrency. This is online editor Justin Cash, standing in for your regular crypto correspondent Alex Daniel, who is off this week.
SBF vs the US
Dramatic scenes continued in the Bahamas this week. After a chaotic court hearing in which his local and US counsel appeared to be at odds with each other, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried agreed to be extradited to the US. Stand up straight, the court told SBF during his brief appearance, before he was escorted back to jail.
If and when Bankman-Fried arrives in the US, he will likely appear in federal court in New York, where he would be arraigned and expected to enter a plea. A reminder: he was indicted last week on eight criminal counts, including fraud and conspiracy offences.
Legal teams have said they are keen for a speedy resolution to the drama, but expect the fallout to rumble on well into 2023.
Headlines this week
Grayscale boss Michael Sonnenshein says firm may explore tender if bitcoin ETF fails
Mazars halts work for crypto firms including Binance
Binance US strikes $1bn deal for Voyager Digital’s assets after FTX collapse
The year in crypto
If you were looking for a neat recap of everything that’s gone on in the world of crypto this year, you could do worse than this review from trade body CryptoUK. It even comes with a video of the sector’s 2022 highlights.
“If we could use one word to sum up the year for the UK crypto industry it would be turbulent,” the group’s blog post reads. Indeed. From setting up a parliamentary group on crypto to the potential regulation of stablecoins, from defi donations to the war in Ukraine to banks banning crypto transfers, there’s certainly been plenty to keep the lobbyists busy.
Financial News has taken our own stabs at annual reviews as well. We featured some of the leading lights of the fintech world in our flagship An Audience With profile series over 2022. You can see who made the cut of our favourites here.
We also borrowed the wisdom of leading crypto experts for our monthly webinar series, Barron’s Live. Now things have quietened down a bit, you’ve got time to listen back to our conversations with them here.
Finally, have you taken our year-end quiz yet? Crypto nerds might find a few questions to tease them here.
Our favourite stories from around the web
Lord Johnson of Marylebone — yes, of that Johnson clan, specifically Boris’s brother — has quit as adviser to a subsidiary of Binance, The Times reports.
Speaking of Binance, Reuters had a special report into the exchange giant’s finances. After an analysis of corporate filings, there is still plenty of confusion around revenue, profit, cash reserves, its in-house crypto coin, and margin risk.
In the world of fintech regulation, the Financial Conduct Authority fined TSB nearly £49m over an IT meltdown four years ago. Here’s the BBC’scoverage.
To contact the author of this story with feedback or news, email Justin Cash
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