"Funding Secured," Elon Musk's Tweet that Will Never Die

Elon Musk Faces Investors in Court Over Tweet to Take Tesla Private

Investors who filed suit over Elon Musk’s 2018 tweet stating that he was considering taking Tesla Inc. private are facing a crucial test in court.

A federal judge in San Francisco will hear arguments Tuesday over whether Musk was intentionally deceitful when he unveiled the proposal to his millions of Twitter followers and said “funding secured.”

The class-action suit is one of several legal issues facing the world’s richest person, who is currently under a court-ordered deadline to complete his $44 billion purchase of Twitter Inc. by Friday or face a trial in Delaware.

SEC Should Absorb PCAOB Functions, Says Commissioner Peirce

Securities and Exchange Commission member Hester Peirce in a speech said that it may serve the public better if the PCAOB were eliminated and its functions incorporated into the commission—an idea which had been debated from time to time in the past but never became a reality.

In Peirce’s view, the current construct is flawed. The PCAOB develops standards that auditors of public company financial statements must follow. The board also has audit inspection and enforcement authorities. But because auditors function as gatekeepers of financial reporting in capital markets, the PCAOB’s functions are carried out under the auspices of the SEC. This audit regulatory framework was established by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Andreessen Horowitz Went All In on Crypto at the Worst Possible Time

As cryptocurrency prices soared last year, no investor bet more on the sector than Andreessen Horowitz.

The storied venture-capital firm had developed a reputation as Silicon Valley’s greatest crypto bull, thanks largely to a 50-year-old partner named Chris Dixon who was one of the earliest evangelists for how the blockchain technology powering cryptocurrencies could change business. His unit was one of the most-active crypto investors last year, and in May announced a $4.5 billion crypto fund, the largest ever for such investments.

The timing wasn’t good.

Prices for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have plunged this year in the midst of a broad market downturn, erasing billions of dollars in paper gains for Andreessen’s funds. Consumer demand has vanished for some of the firm’s most-prized crypto startups, while others are facing increased scrutiny from regulators.

Bitcoin Ponzi Operator Ordered Imprisoned for Civil Contempt

A Texas man who owes the SEC more than $40 million after admitting to the first bitcoin Ponzi scheme will be arrested and imprisoned for civil contempt unless he quickly provides overdue documents and payments.

Trendon Shavers has disregarded several court orders, Judge Amos L. Mazzant said Monday for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

“Shavers’s flagrant disregard for the Court’s orders on multiple occasions leads to only one conclusion: Shavers will only comply with the Court’s orders if he is incarcerated,” Mazzant said.

SEC’s Yuga Labs Probe Won’t Be Final Word on If NFTs Are Securities

Since then, the world has seen NFTs endorsed by artists, wielded by large corporations, and inevitably, targeted by regulators. The arguably most famous NFTs—the apes—had managed to avoid regulatory attention until last week when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened a probe into Yuga Labs, the owner of not only the aforementioned Bored Ape Yacht Club, but of a significant share of the NFT market.

To be sure, the question the SEC is raising with its probe has been brewing for some time: Are NFTs securities?

For many attorneys and experts in the digital assets space, the SEC’s investigation comes as no surprise. They pointed to signs leading up to this moment, from questions about fractionalizing NFTs and sharing ownership over them to trading them like stocks. Regardless of what the SEC finds in the Yuga Labs probe, many believe the final word on NFTs is far from near, because the digital asset market is complicated, and NFT creators are unlikely to give in without a fight.

UK Police Has Crypto Experts Stationed Nationwide

The U.K. National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has stationed crypto tactical advisors in police departments nationwide to help investigate and seize digital assets tied to crime, an official said.

“There are officers now in every force in every regional organized crime unit, trained and equipped to do that,” Andrew Gould, staff officer for NPCC’s cryptocurrency portfolio said while speaking at a hearing for the new Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency bill on Tuesday.

Crypto-friendly Rishi Sunak to Become UK Prime Minister

During his time as finance minister under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Sunak announced he wanted to turn the U.K. into a crypto hub. He helped usher in the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which, if passed into law, could give local regulators broad power over the crypto industry – starting with bringing asset-pegged crypto like stablecoins into the scope of payments regulations. Under his leadership, the country’s coin producer, the Royal Mint, was tasked with creating a non-fungible token (NFT) collection, which has yet to come to fruition.