Here are some of the major developments from the world of crypto over the past few days
One of the three people implicated in Coinbase’s insider trading incident has a default judgment issued against them by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The defendant, Sameer Ramani, was served sentence on May 26, 2023, according to the SEC, and Ramani hasn’t submitted any pleadings or any defences to the SEC’s complaint or amended complaint.
The SEC has now filed a request on October 19, 2023. It said, “Therefore, the SEC respectfully requests that the Clerk of Court enter default against Defendant Ramani.”
The SEC had stated in its initial filing on July 21, 2022 that “Ramani is currently believed to be in India.”
In its initial complaint, the SEC had accused one Ishan Wahi, a former manager in Coinbase’s Assets and Investing Products group, of repeatedly providing his brother Nikhil and close friend Ramani with material, confidential information regarding the timing and content of Coinbase’s “listing announcements.” The SEC claimed that Nikhil and Ramani made unlawful profits of at least $1.1 million by trading ahead of many listing announcements.
In late May 2023, the Wahi brothers and the SEC had come to an agreement after Ishan Wahi entered a guilty plea to two charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud in February this year.
Worldcoin has announced some changes to the terms of its WLD loans to market makers in addition to ditching USDC for its native token.
As early as next month, Worldcoin plans to phase out USD Coin and start compensating its Orb Operators—those who are paid for scanning people’s eyes—with its native Worldcoin (WLD) currency.
Worldcoin announced on October 22, 2023 that Orb operators will no longer be compensated in USDC as of November 2023. Orb Operators, or “independent ecosystem participants” have to scan people’s iris in exchange for WLD tokens.
Incidentally, most jurisdictions will be impacted by the change.
Following the project’s formal debut on July 24, 2023, Worldcoin had indicated that the decision to pay orb operators only in WLD was a part of a “transitional phase”. The Worldcoin Foundation initiated a trial programmed on October 10, 2023, whereby a limited number of operators will receive payment in WLD tokens. In November 2023, the Worldcoin Foundation expects that the transition process will be completed such that all operators will receive WLD going forward.
Non-fungible token marketplace Magic Eden has suspended the BRC-20 trading on Ordinals due to community concerns about the possibility of double-spending.
In a post on October 22, 2023, Magic Eden said: “We have temporarily paused BRC-20 trading to best protect users until full ord consensus across all BRC-20. All other trading is still active on Magic Eden.”
Users had started voicing worries about the possibility of double spending on October 22. According to Sanj, the creator of Ordinal Fomojis, the problem arises from the fact that various marketplaces use various versions of Ordinals software. At the moment, several marketplaces use various Ord versions that index various inscription numbers.