Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

By Ana Alexandre     The operator of now-defunct Bitcoin ( BTC ) exchange BitFunder, Jon Montroll, has received a 14 months prison sentence following federal charges of obstruction of justice and securities fraud , finance and trading industry news outlet FinanceFeeds reported on July 12. The proceedings against Montroll began last year. In July 2018, Montroll pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, admitting that he provided false balance statements to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in an investigation of the fake 6,000 BTC BitFunder hack in 2013. The proceedings against Montroll ended on July 11, 2019, wherein Judge Richard M. Berman of the New York Southern District Court ruled to imprison Montroll for 14 months and determined 3 years of supervised release. Although Montroll’s counsel argued in favour of a probationary sentence, the government made a case for a sentence from 27 to 33 months’ imprisonment. Recentl...

By Max Boddy The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) outlined regulatory compliance issues for cryptocurrency custodians in an announcement on July 8. According to the joint statement, the organizations have yet to discover a set of circumstances in which a crypto custodian could comply with the SEC’s Customer Protection Rule, which is described as follows: “Put simply, the Customer Protection Rule requires broker-dealers to safeguard customer assets and to keep customer assets separate from the firm’s assets, thus increasing the likelihood that customers’ securities and cash can be returned to them in the event of the broker-dealer’s failure.” The report further claims that a crypto custody service may not be able to sufficiently demonstrate that it actually controls the assets it purports to hold. The SEC and FINRA discuss how simply holding a private key, for instance, is not sufficient to demons...

By Daniel Palmer Canada-based messaging app firm Kik has launched a crypto crowdfunding campaign to support a likely court battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). Announced by Kik founder and CEO Ted Livingston and Patrick Gibbs, a partner at law firm Cooley LLP, on the UnChained Podcast Tuesday, the campaign is being launched in the hopes that “a lawsuit would eventually result in a new Howey test for crypto tokens, to determine which ones are a security.” A dedicated website – dubbed Defend Crypto – has already been set up allowing supporters to contribute to the fundraising effort, that its founders say is not only in support of Kik but many crypto firms that face potential action from the U.S. regulator. The site offers donation options in 19 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and XRP, as well as less standard options like augur (REP), DAI and, of course, Kik’s kin (KIN) token. ...

Ian Allison Online payments giant PayPal has made its first-ever investment in a blockchain technology company.  Announced today, PayPal has  joined the extension of a Series A funding round in Cambridge Blockchain, a startup that helps financial institutions and other companies manage sensitive data using shared ledgers. Neither PayPal nor Cambridge Blockchain disclosed the investment amount, but recent filings with the SEC indicate that Cambridge Blockchain has raised a total of $3.5 million in new equity from several investors over the past nine months. That follows the $7 million close of its Series A in May of 2018, and brings the total capital raised to $10.5 million. That first $7 million consisted of $4 million of new capital plus $3 million of converted notes , and came from several investors, including HCM Capital, the VC arm of Foxconn, which manufactures the iPhone for Apple, as well as Digital Currency Group. The subsequent $3....

By Yogita Khatri A commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) believes a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) will ultimately be approved. Robert J. Jackson Jr., in an interview published by government-focused news source Roll Call on Wednesday, said : “Eventually, do I think someone will satisfy the standards that we’ve laid out there? I hope so, yes, and I think so.” A number of bitcoin ETF proposals have filed for SEC approval, but none has yet got the green light. Jay Clayton, chairman of the SEC) has said he doesn’t see a pathway to a cryptocurrency ETF approval until concerns over market manipulation are addressed. The SEC has to date  rejected at least 10 such proposals. Last August, it turned down  seven filings from ProShares, Direxion and GraniteShares. A day later, though, the regulator said it would review the proposals. In July, the SEC for the second time rejected  Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’ proposa...