Bullish Options, Banned Coins, Accused Marketplaces and 20 Crypto Jokes

This week in crypto, we found out that options markets were more bullish on bitcoin than ethereum, the bitcoin golden cross was confirmed, the bitcoin addresses with non-zero balance hit a new record high, and 90% of BNY Mellon’s institutional clients were interested in digital assets. Following a devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, crypto companies rushed to help the fundraising efforts, and Binance said it would airdrop $100 worth of BNB to its Turkish users. Speaking of Binance, it shocked the cryptoverse when it temporarily suspended USD withdrawals and deposits for international customers.

In CBDC and regulation news, electricity-free digital yuan payment adoption was on the rise in China, the Bank of England and the Treasury started exploring the possibility of launching a state-backed ‘digital pound’, and 5,000 merchants and 50,000 users were participating in India’s CBDC pilot project. As South Korea took a major step towards bringing crypto into the mainstream by introducing new guidelines on security tokens, the Brazilian government was set to grant the prosecutors, courts, and police new powers to confiscate crypto, and Dubai’s virtual asset authority prohibited the use of privacy coins. US senator Elizabeth Warren joined the effort by lawmakers to learn more about the energy use of crypto mining, while illegal crypto miners were blamed for major power blackouts in Abkhazia, after which the police in there confiscated 396 crypto mining rigs in just 48 hours.

In legal and legal-adjacent news, OpenSea was accused of theft, negligence, and extortion, a former Coinbase employee pleaded guilty to insider trading, Genesis reached an agreement with creditors that would involve a sale of its crypto lending and trading arm, Kraken got into hot water with the US SEC over alleged securities violation, Brian Armstrong hit back at rumors of an incoming US crypto staking ban, South Korean officials traveled to Serbia in a bid to locate Do Kwon, a South Korean CEO got jailed for five years for “misappropriating” $2.4m worth of ETH from a partner company, a bogus crypto bank CEO was handed a 10-year jail term, and the Brazilian company behind a suspected $193M crypto pyramid scheme declared bankruptcy. Meanwhile, potential buyers were showing interest in the embattled Hodlnaut, and bidders were given more time to register their interest in FTX Japan. Speaking of FTX, it racked up $19.6m in legal and financial advisor fees in just 51 days, prosecutors in the Sam Bankman-Fried case resolved a dispute over the bail conditions, and the new FTX management requested political figures and other recipients of donations by FTX executives to return the funds by the end of the month.

In miscellaneous and other news, there will be no crypto advertisements during the Super Bowl this year, former Bitcoin dev Gavin Andresen regrets that he once supported Craig Wright, and luxury rehab centers are now offering treatments for crypto addiction.