"He Lied on Twitter, He Lied on Podcasts, He Lied on TV Interviews"

Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Is Blasted by US as Con Artist

“Trevor Milton is a con man.”

With those words, the US launched its closing statement in Milton’s trial on Thursday, as the government sealed its case against the Nikola Corp. founder it claims defrauded investors with breathless hype about the electric truck maker.

“He lied on Twitter, he lied on podcasts, he lied on TV interviews, he lied to Peter Hicks directly,” Assistant US Attorney Jordan Estes told the federal jury in Manhattan, referring to a real estate investor who accepted millions of dollars in Nikola stock options as partial payment for a ranch. “Lie after lie after lie. His lies may have been on social media, but make no mistake, this was an old-fashioned fraud.”

Coinbase just launched a think tank. Meet the SEC veteran leading it

It was a quirky dig at the SEC.

“I’ve decided not to set any curfew for my teenager. I’ll just ground her if she comes home later than I’d like. Regulation by enforcement,” Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal wrote on LinkedIn last week, referencing what his company feels is the SEC’s heavy-handed approach to crypto.

Hermine Wong, director of the newly launched Coinbase Institute, acknowledged the off-the-wall post was “cheeky.” But she also said it was indicative of Coinbase’s growing annoyance with the regulator.

“You’re going to see frustration sometimes when there aren’t public and transparent and open engagements,” Wong told Protocol. “Everyone’s trying to be like, ‘Where can we have a really public transparent engagement on these issues?’ That’s not happening.”

That quest for stronger public engagement on crypto was largely why the company launched the Coinbase Institute in May. The idea actually came from Wong, who spent about a decade as a federal government lawyer, including six years at the SEC.

US Democrat Senator John Hickenlooper Criticizes Gary Gensler’s Approach to Crypto at SECU.S. Senator John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) has become one of the first Democratic senators to publicly criticize the slow approach to crypto taken by Gary Gensler, chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Hickenlooper said the current lack of a coordinated regulatory framework leads “uneven enforcement” and hinders clear understanding of investor protection in a letter to Gensler first published by Punchbowl News.

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Hickenlooper called for the SEC to take action in clarifying which digital assets are securities, how they should be issued and listed as such, determine what disclosures are necessary to inform investors, establish a registration regime for trading platforms and set rules for how trading and custody should be carried out.

Popular Bitcoin Astrologer’s Star Falls on Twitter Following $30K in Celsius Payments

Maren Altman, a popular bitcoin and ether-focused astrologist, is suddenly a fallen star among some Twitter critics. A newly surfaced court document shows she received $30,000 in marketing payments from the crypto lender Celsius Network in the months before it declared bankruptcy.

Altman’s Twitter critics say she received the money to create favorable content about Celsius while the company was suffering cash flow issues, and they criticized her for being less than forthcoming about the payments.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Altman, who offers investing predictions based partly on her astrological interpretations to a vast social media audience that includes more than 237,000 Twitter followers, acknowledged that Celsius paid her but called the Twitter accusations “a witch hunt.” She said she has spoken with an attorney about possible legal action, such as suing for defamation.

Speech by SEC Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga: Raising the Bar on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

AMAC, in its report, also cited an eye-opening 2017 statistic from the Government Accountability Office – the auditing arm of Congress: less than 1 percent of global assets under management, then $70 trillion, was managed by women- and minority-owned asset management firms.

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To help move the needle on that 1 percent diversity statistic, we must do more. I strongly believe the Commission must consider whether AMAC’s four recommendations can be fully implemented, at the Commission level. If that isn’t possible, I believe it is our responsibility to the public to explain why.

Beyond AMAC’s recommendations, the Commission just released its Spring 2022 rulemaking agenda. That agenda includes planned rules relating to enhanced board diversity and human capital management disclosures. These rules, if proposed, represent an opportunity for investors to benefit from more meaningful, standardized and transparent diversity-related disclosures that would help them make more informed investment decisions.

Twitter Seeks Documents Related to Federal Investigation of Elon Musk

Twitter Inc.’s lawyers tried again last week to learn what Elon Musk had told federal authorities who were investigating his attempt to take the social media company private.

Attorneys for Twitter wrote to a Delaware judge on Oct. 6 saying they needed documents about the probes, according to a letter unsealed in court Thursday. Musk had by that point reversed himself on walking away from the $44 billion takeover, but he and the social media company were still adversaries in court — and their fight had not yet been officially put on hold.

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The letter referenced communications between Musk and the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Jamie Dimon Again Slams Crypto, Calls Blockchain ‘Real’

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon surprised no one as he held the stage at an Institute for International Finance (IIF) event, again calling crypto tokens “decentralized Ponzis” even as he praised aspects of blockchain technology.

There’s plenty of illicit activity in crypto, said the man whose bank has been fined many billions of dollars for its own violations of statutes.

Blockchain, on other hand, at least has certain “real” aspects, Dimon allowed, noting JPMorgan’s Onyx platform for wholesale payments transactions.

Crypto Broker NYDIG Lays Off One-Third of Staff to Narrow Focus

NYDIG, the bitcoin trading and banking firm, laid off about a third of its workforce last month, people familiar with the matter said.

Company executives informed employees affected by the job cuts, which numbered around 110, on Sept. 22, the people said. Employees were told the firm was seeking to trim expenses and narrow its focus to more-promising businesses, the people said.

The cutbacks came less than two weeks before NYDIG announced publicly that it had replaced its top two executives. On Oct. 3, NYDIG said that Chief Executive Robert Gutmann and President Yan Zhao had stepped down from their roles. The executives, who will remain with NYDIG parent Stone Ridge Holdings Group, were replaced by Tejas Shah, formerly head of institutional finance, and Nate Conrad, global head of payments, respectively.