Celebrity Crypto Endorsements: Fortune Not Favoring the Brave

Mike Tyson, Tom Brady: Celebrity Crypto Endorsements Are Disasters For Fans

Matt Damon started touting crypto investing when Bitcoin was worth twice as much as it is now. Mike Tyson’s NFTs have plunged more than 90% since he introduced his collection. And investors who allege they lost millions on a pump-and-dump scheme are suing Paul Pierce.

Months into a rout for crypto assets, the full extent of the financial pain suffered by millions of everyday Americans is still being calculated. What’s clear, though, is that scores of celebrities touted the life-changing power of crypto investing at the worst possible time — just as the speculative mania was approaching its peak. The entreaties to get involved in the space came in multiple forms — everything from big-budget TV ads trumpeting particular exchanges to cryptic tweets touting obscure tokens.

Big Wall Street Pay Is Risked for Tiny Gains in Insider Cases

Brijesh Goel had made it from investment banker to a principal at Apollo Global Management when he was arrested for allegedly passing deal tips during his time at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. For now, prosecutors claim he made $85,000 from the scheme.

It’s a staggeringly low number for a banker with Goel’s potential: A vice president at Goldman can make $750,000 a year, while a principal at Apollo can make upwards of $1 million with the promise of much more to come.

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“They do it because they think they’re never going to get caught,” said Jeffrey Cramer, a former prosecutor who is now a senior managing director at security and investigations firm Guidepost Solutions LLC. “It’s free money.”

‘Congress won’t regulate trades,’ stock ban won’t happen

Amid renewed chatter about the importance of cracking down on legislators’ stock trades, high-ranking staffers tell The Post the likelihood Congress will actually regulate itself is so low, it’s laughable.

“You’re not getting members of Congress to self-regulate the money they can or can’t make,” a DC insider told The Post. “Why would they do something that doesn’t benefit them?”

Statement in Honor of National Whistleblower Day

Over the past decade, the SEC’s whistleblower program has played a critical role in the Division of Enforcement’s ability to effectively detect wrongdoing, protect investors and the marketplace, and bring violators to justice. Since issuing its first award in 2012, the SEC has awarded more than $1.3 billion to 278 individuals. With the help of these whistleblowers, the SEC brought enforcement actions ordering monetary sanctions of approximately $5 billion. Fiscal year 2021, in particular, was a record-breaking year, with the SEC awarding a total of $564 million to 108 whistleblowers.

Twitter on the cheap: Is Elon Musk eyeing a discount?

I know it’s conventional wisdom that he wants to back out of the deal; Twitter, he says, is hiding the football on the number of fake accounts and those annoying bots. But as we’ve reported before, bankers who know him are dubious that he really wants to call it quits.

They say he just wants to pay less after Twitter’s stock price cratered with the rest of the tech sector along with Tesla, which serves as Musk’s deal currency (he owns 175 million shares; you do the math).

Now they say there’s more method to Musk’s Twitter-deal madness, even if he’s still rolling the dice in ways that could end up disastrous for him.

Cryptocurrency winter chills sympathy from DC regulators.

Inflicting billions of dollars in losses is a great way to lose sympathy among politicians.

Time has run out: It’s too late for the crypto industry to get the kind of regulation it’s been pushing for. The crypto winter arrived before any new laws could be written, and has changed the whole tone of the debate in Washington.

Why it matters: Crypto insiders have long dreamed of a world where everything they do is carved out into their own bespoke regulatory regime: one primarily designed to encourage innovation, and that doesn’t try to apply 20th century laws to a 21st century financial system.

That dream has, realistically, died.

The big picture: Regulation, by its nature, tends to concentrate on minimizing harm rather than maximizing capital formation. Right now, the harm caused by crypto is more visible than ever, while any real benefits seem small in comparison — and shrinking fast.

Voyager Digital’s Clash With US Regulators Followed by Broader FDIC Warning

The day after demanding Voyager Digital erase its claims that customers’ funds would get government protections, the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has issued a broader warning to bankers that they need to keep their crypto partners in line.

The agency, which maintains an insurance fund to pay back depositors if their banks fail, doesn’t extend that protection to failing cryptocurrency firms that use those banks, according to an FDIC letter to banks posted Friday.

“FDIC insurance does not protect a nonbank’s customers against the default, insolvency, or bankruptcy of any nonbank entity, including crypto custodians, exchanges, brokers, wallet providers or other entities that appear to mimic banks but are not,” the agency instructed.

The FDIC guidance added that if a bank’s crypto partner “makes misrepresentations about the nature and scope of deposit insurance,” there could be legal risks for that regulated lender.