Here are some of the major developments from the world of crypto over the past few days
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is seeking legal and monetary sanctions against billionaire Elon Musk over his failure to appear for a scheduled testimony on September 19, 2024 in connection with a suit relating to his $44 billion purchase of the social media platform, Twitter, in 2022.
SEC also intends to file sanctions against Musk, ordering him to “show cause [for] why he should not be held in civil contempt” for allegedly violating the original terms of the agreement, which was set in May 2024 order, and had established the September 19 date for the testimony.
Attorneys for Musk termed the SEC’s move as “drastic” and said that they were critical of the government regulator.
Musk’s legal counsel further stressed that the SEC had already accepted a request to reschedule the meeting for October 3, 2024, in Los Angeles, California, and argued that the court’s intervention was unnecessary.
The US SEC has given Nasdaq the go-ahead to list and trade shares of options for BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
In a notice on September 20, 2024, the SEC approved options trading for the iShares Bitcoin Trust under the ticker symbol IBIT on Nasdaq. According to Nasdaq, they will allow trading for options on the Bitcoin ETF “in the same manner” as other ETF options, subject to the same rules.
“Options on IBIT will be physically settled with American-style exercise. The exchange stated that options on IBIT will be subject to the exchange’s respective initial and continued listing standards. The exchange’s initial listing standards require, among other things, that the security underlying a listed option be ‘characterized by a substantial number of outstanding shares that are widely held and actively traded’,” the SEC said in a notice.
Cryptocurrency exchange BingX has announced the resumption of withdrawal services following a hack earlier. It has, however, added that resumption for certain digital assets will start on September 21, 2024.
BingX said in an announcement that withdrawals for Tether’s US dollar Stablecoin
USDT, Circle’s US dollar Stablecoin USDC, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron and Solana will resume first followed by withdrawal services for other tokens and digital assets over the next two weeks.
It said it has notified customers that deposit services would likewise resume in the next several weeks, and that withdrawal requests submitted before the disruption of withdrawal services have been cancelled and must be resubmitted.
Vivien Lin, the chief product officer at BingX told Cointelegraph that monetary losses from the hack were mitigated due to most client funds being isolated by cold storage.