Two crypto arrests and an interesting bit of crypto news from the EU

[thewayne]

The first is the arrest of Faruk Ozer, a Turkish crypto exchange founder. The exchange collapsed, losing over $2B in "investments", and he fled. An Interpol red notice went out and he was caught and returned to Turkey for trial. Over 80 people were arrested in the collapse, including several of his relatives and friends.

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/04/20/collapsed-turkish-crypto-exchange-thodexs-ceo-faruk-ozer-extradited-arrested-in-istanbul-report/

https://slashdot.org/story/23/04/20/2339229/collapsed-turkish-crypto-exchange-thodexs-ceo-faruk-ozer-extradited-arrested-in-istanbul


Next up, a Seattle startup's former CFO invested $35M of the company's money into a crypto platform that he controlled as a side business. Except that no one else knew or gave permission to move the money into a crypto fund. The fund went bust, all the money vanished.

The only bit of good news is that the company is very well-funded and will probably weather the loss.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/seattle-startups-ex-cfo-accused-of-diverting-35m-losing-it-in-crypto-crash/

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/05/18/2148258/seattle-startups-ex-cfo-accused-of-diverting-35-million-losing-it-in-crypto-crash


In the EU, starting next year crypto exchange will require licensing, will have to report on energy consumption, and transactions on exchanges will have to be traceable. Person to person transactions aren't included in this, unless it is above EU$1,000.

From the article: "To better protect crypto investors, the EU's rules ensure that crypto assets can be traced—just like money transfers—and suspicious transactions can be blocked. They also provide "enhanced consumer protection and safeguards against market manipulation and financial crime," EU lawmakers announced. The rules do not apply to person-to-person transfers but do cover transactions above 1,000 euros from self-hosted wallets any time they connect to wallets hosted by crypto-assets service providers.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/landmark-crypto-rules-make-exchanges-liable-for-customer-losses-in-eu/

Comments

[disneydream06]

I will do my best to never have anything to do with crypto. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Fortunately that's something that's very easy to do. :-)

[silveradept]

The more I hear about crypto and the stellar entities who are running and using it, the more I think it might be something that, if it can't be outlawed entirely, it should be regulated into the ground such that nobody thinks of it as a get-rich-quick idea.