SEC: Financial Detectives or Financial Archeologists?

Confounding that the SEC has ignored ‪Celsius

Confounding that the SEC has ignored ‪Celsius. Since 2021, I've been posting incessantly about the need for an SEC /DOJ investigation. Celsius even targets retirees, historically the most vulnerable of all SEC investor constituencies. The red flags were flying at full staff and on every flagpole.***

How could the SEC sit back and let it all happen? I just don’t get it. Now it may be too late. Wake up SEC. Ignore Big Crypto. Ignore your former colleagues. Freeze assets. Name names. Stop the bleeding – before there’s no more blood left to flow.Jim Chanos said recently, "I've always joked that short sellers and journalists are financial detectives, and the regulators and law enforcement are financial archeologists. They'll tell you with great clarity what happened 10 years after the fact." Sadly, Chanos may be right.

Coinbase says it will cut 18 percent of its work force.

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is cutting 18 percent of its work force amid depressed markets and concerns of a looming recession.

The company’s chief executive, Brian Armstrong, informed employees of the layoffs in a note Tuesday morning, saying that the company had “over-hired” its staff during a crypto boom. The company will let go of about 1,100 people, reducing its work force to 5,000.

Celsius Network Leads Crypto Markets Into Another Free Fall

The offer seemed too good to pass up: Deposit your cryptocurrency, and receive a yield as high as 18 percent.

That was the promise of Celsius Network, an experimental cryptocurrency bank with more than one million customers that emerged as a leader in the murky world of decentralized finance, or DeFi. Last year, DeFi exploded into a $100 billion industry, attracting both venture capital firms and regular investors with the prospect of lightning-fast gains. Celsius was managing more than $20 billion in assets.

But on Sunday night, as cryptocurrency prices slid, Celsius became the latest crypto venture to spiral into a crisis, announcing that it was freezing withdrawals “due to extreme market conditions.”

SEC Charges Former Employee of Online Gambling Company with Insider Trading

The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal district court in Philadelphia, alleges that, while employed at Penn Interactive, which provides online and mobile gambling experiences for Penn National, Roda was given confidential information about Penn National’s interest in acquiring Score Media along with admonitions not to trade on that information. In breach of his duties, Roda purchased 500 out-of-the-money call options on Score Media in the weeks and days leading up to the announcement of the acquisition. Additionally, Roda tipped his longtime friend, Andrew Larkin, also charged by the SEC, who then purchased 375 Score Media shares. According to the SEC’s complaint, Score Media’s stock price increased nearly 80 percent after Penn National and Score Media publicly announced their deal, following which Roda and Larkin sold their holdings for unlawful profits of $560,762 and $5,602, respectively.

Schwab Subsidiaries Misled Robo-Adviser Clients about Absence of Hidden Fees

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged three Charles Schwab investment adviser subsidiaries for not disclosing that they were allocating client funds in a manner that their own internal analyses showed would be less profitable for their clients under most market conditions. The subsidiaries agreed to pay $187 million to harmed clients to settle the charges.