Silicon Valley Financial institution down, USDC depegged, FTX billed $34M in Jan

High Tales This Week

Silicon Valley Financial institution shut down by California regulator, holding over $5 billion for outstanding crypto VCs

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was shut down by California’s financial watchdog on March 10 after announcing a significant sale of assets and stocks aimed at raising additional capital. The California watchdog appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as the receiver to protect insured deposits. However, the FDIC only insures up to $250,000 per depositor, per institution and per ownership category. The bank held over $5 billion in funds from major venture capital firms. Silicon Valley Bank is one of the top 20 largest banks in the United States, providing banking services to crypto-friendly venture companies, such as Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

SBF’s lawyers signal need to push back October criminal trial

Lawyers representing FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried have flagged that it may be necessary to delay his criminal trial, since the defense is still waiting for a “substantial portion” of evidence and more charges have been brought against Bankman-Fried in late February. Meanwhile, law firms, investment banks and consulting companies working with FTX on its bankruptcy case billed the crypto exchange a combined $34.18 million in January, court documents revealed. FTX’s chief restructuring officer and new CEO, John J. Ray III, also received a hefty pay package, charging $1,300 an hour, amounting to a total of $305,000 in February.

United States crypto miners could be subject to a 30% tax on electricity costs under a budget proposal by President Joe Biden aimed to “reduce mining activity.” According to the White House, any firm using resources — whether they be owned or rented — would be liable for a 30% taxation of the electricity cost used to mine digital assets. Another point affecting the crypto industry in the budget proposal includes ending tax-loss harvesting and nearly doubling tax rates on capital gains for some investors to 39.6% on long-term investments, up from the current 20% tax rate.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $19,920, Ether (ETH) at $0,000 and XRP at $0.35. The overall market cap is at $928.9 billion, based on CoinMarketCap.

Among the many largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the highest three altcoin gainers of the week are Kava (KAVA) at 12.40%, Bone ShibaSwap (BONE) at 1.22% and UNUS SED LEO (LEO) at 1.05%.

The highest three altcoin losers of the week are Stacks (STX) at -31.05%, Mina (MINA) at -29.40% and SingularityNET (AGIX) at -29.14%.

For more information on crypto costs, be sure to learn Cointelegraph’s market evaluation.

Most Memorable Quotations

“This business has grown leaps and bounds, particularly for being as younger as it’s, and I’m nonetheless assured that we’re within the technique of constructing a greater, extra equitable monetary system in the USA and globally.”

Charlie Shrem, general partner at Druid Ventures

Bitcoin battles $20K as dealer calls financial institution chaos ‘2008 over again’

Bitcoin fell to its lowest worth since mid-January on March 10 as cryptocurrency markets panicked over a possible banking disaster, knowledge from Cointelegraph Markets Professional and TradingView exhibits.

The BTC/USD pair noticed the vast majority of its losses throughout yesterday’s Wall Road buying and selling as danger belongings in every single place suffered setbacks courtesy of the market’s chilly toes on the again of main restructuring at Silicon Valley Financial institution (SVB) — the USA’ sixteenth largest industrial lender.

“Will in all probability wick into 18-19k earlier than that is over- but it surely’s only a retest,” pseudonymous dealer Credible Crypto wrote on Twitter.

Uncertainty stays within the air because the aftermath of the meltdown at SVB is way from over — crypto stablecoins particularly are feeling the warmth. USD Coin depegged from the U.S. greenback on March 11, buying and selling at $0.93 an hour after disclosing it had $3.3 billion held SVB, triggering a domino impact on different stablecoins.

FUD of the Week 

ETH-to-gate-io-recovers-funds-days-after” goal=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”/>ETH-to-gate-io-recovers-funds-days-after” goal=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”/>Hedera confirms exploit on mainnet led to theft of service tokens

The team behind distributed ledger Hedera confirmed that a smart contract exploit on the Hedera mainnet led to the theft of several liquidity pool tokens. The attacker targeted liquidity pool tokens on decentralized exchanges that derived its code from Uniswap V2 on Ethereum, which was ported over to be used on the Hedera Token Service. The suspicious exercise was detected when the attacker tried to maneuver the stolen tokens throughout the hashport bridge. Hedera didn’t affirm the quantity of tokens that have been stolen.

Tether strikes at WSJ over ‘stale allegations’ of faked paperwork for financial institution accounts

The company behind stablecoin Tether has rebuffed reports claiming it had ties to entities that faked documents and used shell companies for access to the banking system. Based on leaked documents and emails, The Wall Street Journal reported that entities tied to Tether and its sister crypto exchange, Bitfinex, faked sales invoices and transactions in order to open bank accounts. Tether called the findings of the report “stale allegations from long ago” and “wholly inaccurate and misleading.” A “proud” partner of law enforcement, the firm claims to routinely and voluntarily assist authorities in the U.S. and abroad.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin after she was able to buy and sell crypto on the exchange, which is not registered in New York. James alleges that KuCoin violated securities law when it “sold, offered to sell, purchased and offered to purchase cryptocurrencies that are commodities and securities” to New Yorkers. The action is one of the first times a regulator claimed in court that ETH is a safety.

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Cointelegraph Journal writers and reporters contributed to this text.