Here are some of the major developments in the world of crypto over the past few days.
Miner equity financing activity is expected to decline in the second quarter of 2024, with investments expected to be less than $500 million by mid-May. Public Bitcoin mining companies have been strengthening their balance sheets in preparation for the recent April halving.
BlocksBridge Consulting analyzed the financial returns of 12 public miners, 10 of which generated a total of $2 billion in gross revenue from equity financing activities, with profitability expected to collapse after the halving. Marathon Digital, CleanSpark, and Riot Platforms led the group of companies that raised capital last quarter, accounting for 73% of the funding secured.
Miners reported mixed financial results for the first three months of 2024 as BTC prices and mining costs climbed. Riot Platforms posted a record net income of $211.8 million, marking a 1,000% increase from the same period last year. Marathon Digital also missed Wall Street analysts' earnings forecasts due to bad weather and equipment failure.
U.S. prosecutors are seeking a fair sentence commensurate with the magnitude of his crimes, but Salameh's lawyers argue he should not serve more than 18 months. US prosecutors have sentenced former FTX executive Ryan Salame, an alleged associate of FTX co-founder Sam SBF Bankman Fried, to five years for crimes that ultimately led to the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. He is seeking seven years in prison.
In court documents seen by Bloomberg, Salameh's lawyers argued that his sentence should be no more than 18 months, but U.S. prosecutors say Salameh will receive a fair sentence commensurate with the severity of his crimes. argued that it should. He said he believes he should be sentenced. Salameh's court ruling on the aiding and abetting charge for SBF's siphoning of $10 billion in user funds is currently scheduled for May 28th.
Other prominent members of the FTX scam, Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang, have not yet been sentenced. Many U.S. lawmakers are supporting legislation that would clarify the role of financial regulators when it comes to digital assets to prevent the next FTX, according to North Carolina Representative Wiley Nickel.
Farcaster community-created token Degen (DEGEN) jumped 17% after the blockchain-based social platform confirmed it raised $150 million in its latest funding round. The Series A round was led by venture firm Paradigm with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Haun, USV, Variant and Standard Crypto. Farcaster founder Dan Romero said in his May 21st X post that this funding will support our Farcaster efforts for many years.
Farcaster is a fledging but quickly growing protocol,” Variant Fund’s co-founder and general partner Jesse Walden wrote in a May 21 statement. Meanwhile, Romero said the increase will help the protocol attract more users. He said there have been 350,000 paid sign-ups on Farcaster since October, a 50-fold increase in network activity.
DEGEN, a Farcaster community-created token and not an official token of the protocol, rocketed 17% on the news and is currently trading at $0.023, according to Cointelegraph. Since then, the token has taken on a life of its own, leading Trociński to launch a meme coin-focused layer 3 blockchain on Base called DEGEN Chain, which uses Degen as its native gas token.