GM. Daily Squeeze reporting – we’re the fruit salad of blockchain news, mixing the ripest stories for a balanced crypto diet.
👩‍⚖️ Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison received a 2-year sentence in the FTX case, significantly less than Sam Bankman-Fried, due to her cooperation and perceived vulnerability.
🍊 News drops: lawmakers throw shade at Gary Gensler, the WazirX hacker has laundered nearly all of the funds they stole, the Bank of New York Mellon plans to launch crypto custody services + more
🍍 Market flavour today
Fear and Greed Index is chilling at 59, keeping us in that neutral sweet spot but with a hint of optimism in the air. The market’s still riding those familiar waves we’ve been talking about, with the derivatives scene seemingly calling a lot of the shots, instead of spot trading.
Here’s a fun fact: Bitcoin’s bounced back over 20% from its September slump. But don’t get too excited – the 30-day view shows minimal change, indicating a period of consolidation. We’re also seeing some interesting developments in the broader crypto landscape: U.S. financial advisors are increasingly including crypto in their personal portfolios, while big money’s been quietly flowing in from China through under-the-table deals.
As always – stay informed, manage your risk, and remember – in crypto, anything can happen. đź”®
đź“– One more FTX chapter closed
Do you like horror books? If so, you’ve probably read The FTX Saga. In today’s book club, we’re flipping to one specific chapter featuring a key character: Caroline Ellison.
Ellison was previously the CEO of Alameda Research, a hedge fund closely connected to the FTX crypto exchange, run by none other than Sam Bankman-Fried, aka SBF.
You’ve probably read the first half of this chapter everywhere already, so we won’t get too deep into it. In short: bad decisions were made, investors lost billions, both companies went bankrupt, and the whole industry was damaged. Casual Friday.
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Naturally, the people at the top were gonna have to face consequences. In Ellison’s case, she’ll pay $11B for fraud and money laundering and serve 2 years in a minimum-security prison. Compared to SBF’s 25-year sentence, 2 years sounds like a short retreat to find yourself away from society. And let’s not forget, she could’ve faced up to 110 years.
So, why the lighter sentence? There are a few reasons. First, Judge Lewis Kaplan views Ellison as a player in SBF’s game. That is especially knowing she wasn’t only his business partner—she was also his girlfriend at the time. So, you know, emotions were involved, crazy, stupid love, blah blah blah. Doesn’t mean she couldn’t make the decision to, idk, not steal, but she was vulnerable and exploited.
Beyond that, Ellison was super cooperative with authorities, her testimonies were always consistent, and the information she provided was incredibly helpful in prosecuting SBF. The judge even said, “I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison.” Snitches get stitches, but snitches also get 10x less time in prison. And good for her.
Starting in November, when her sentence starts, she’ll have plenty of time to reflect on this chapter. And who knows? Maybe the next one’s a redemption arc.
đź“° News drops
🗣️ OpenAI has finally launched the “Advanced Voice” feature for ChatGPT-4o. The AI model now has 5 extra voices and can speak in 50 languages.
🗯️ Several lawmakers turned yesterday’s congressional hearing into a nightmare for SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Rep. Tom Emmer called him the most destructive SEC leader ever, slamming him for his vague interpretation of “crypto asset securities”—a term Gensler himself came up with.
đź’° The WazirX hacker has laundered pretty much all the $230M in crypto they stole. These funds account for nearly half of the crypto exchange’s total reserves.
🏦 The world’s largest custodian bank, Bank of New York Mellon, plans to launch custody services for Bitcoin and Ether held by ETP clients. That is after the SEC conducted a review, enabling the company to avoid treating the assets as a balance sheet liability.
🤔 Sky (previously Maker) is rethinking its decision to remove Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) as collateral for its lending platform. This comes after it was clarified that Justin Sun, despite initial concerns, won’t have as big of an influence on WBTC as expected.
🤖 Google has rolled out stable versions of its Gemini 1.5 API models, offering better performance and lower app development costs. The new Gemini 1.5 Pro and Flash models show big improvements in code generation, math, reasoning, and video analysis.
🏷️ Stand With Crypto, a group that ranks US politicians on their crypto support based on public statements, initially labeled Kamala Harris as “Supports Crypto.” However, after facing heavy backlash, they removed that label—now, her profile says there’s “not enough information” to determine her stance.
