When Coinbase (allegedly) listed bitcoin cash post-fork last year but only (allegedly) allowed withdrawals for a select few investors who were (allegedly) allowed to artificially bump up the price before the rabble were allowed in, was that...insider trading?
Yes, asserts plaintiff Jeffrey Berk, who on November 20 filed an amended lawsuit accusing Coinbase of doing just that. Having failed to successfully sue Coinbase previously—the judge felt Berk had criticized Coinbase for things it could not possibly have done otherwise—Berk has updated his lawsuit, accusing Coinbase of flouting its own listing requirements and deceiving retail investors as to when bitcoin cash would be available, allowing insiders to profit.
If true, this would even further delegitimize Bitcoin Cash. Or what’s left of it.
Audiddle
Coinbase and Circle only went and subjected their USDC stablecoin to a full and frank bloody “audit” by a respected, third-party auditor to prove the $127.5 million they had claimed the currency was backed by actually exists, the feckless cowards.
That’s not how we used to do it. Back in my (and Tether’s) day, it used to be enough just to provide irregular, uncorroborated self-audits that prove basically nothing, as well as semi-professional audits later denied by the unqualified companies that provided them.
Crypto town ain’t what it used to be.
Morning McAfee
In a poll conducted by blockchain research company Clovr, leathery old man John McAfee was found to be the “most influential” figure among crypto folk across both ends of the political spectrum (though not so much among women, perhaps, as McAfee himself writes, he likes to introduce his girlfriend to people as his “bitch”).
McAfee seemed just as bemused by this revelation as the rest of us, writing (mildly erroneously) on Twitter:
He’ll win the presidential election, won’t he.
In other news:
- A blockchain-less blockchain?
- Will the decentralized job economy destroy our souls?
- Tether-splanation
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