Chainalysis beats most Celsius claims, but ‘audit’ lawsuit survives
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BitMEX faces Celsius lawsuit ahead of exchange closure
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The US CFTC has filed a lawsuit against cryptocurrency pool operator Trevor Vernon, alleging a $14.8 million investment fraud.
According to BlockBeats, on July 8th, the US CFTC filed a lawsuit against Trevor Vernon and his company, Argent Capital Management, on Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges that between March 2022 and February 2026, Vernon operated a commodity pool involving stock index futures, options, and crypto assets, raising approximately $14.8 million from at least 60 investors and falsely advertising investment performance, thus committing investment fraud. The CFTC claims that the transactions resulted in losses exceeding $8.6 million for investors. Vernon allegedly concealed these losses and misappropriated approximately $3 million to pay returns to investors, operating in a manner "similar to a Ponzi scheme," and misappropriated $136,000 for private jet travel. The regulator also points out that the transactions involved commodities such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and is requesting the court to prohibit Vernon from continuing related trading and registration activities, recover illegal gains, impose civil penalties, and compensate investors.
A Bitcoin address that had been dormant for nearly 15 years showed unusual activity, sparking a lawsuit in New York concerning the ownership of a "dormant Bitcoin".
According to BlockBeats, on July 6th, a Bitcoin address that had been dormant for nearly 15 years made its first transaction, transferring out 30 BTC, worth approximately $1.88 million at current prices. Galaxy Research's on-chain data shows that address "1KV47" had not made any transactions since receiving 30 BTC in August 2011, until last Saturday when it first transferred funds outwards. This address is one of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses involved in a New York lawsuit. The plaintiff, "Noah Doe," and two Wyoming-registered companies are attempting to claim ownership of the Bitcoin in these long-inactive addresses under New York State lost property law. Sani, founder of the analytics platform Timechain Index, stated that these addresses collectively hold approximately 3.7 million BTC, worth about $234 billion, including addresses widely believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto. Alex Thorn, research director at Galaxy Digital, stated that dormant addresses associated with the lawsuit have seen a significant increase in activity recently. In June, 31 addresses transferred 17,527 BTC, compared to only 5 addresses transferring 4,834 BTC in February. However, the legal community generally considers the lawsuit's grounds weak. Last Friday, a defendant claiming to control one of the addresses, "John Doe 33," filed for dismissal, arguing that Bitcoin addresses are merely data strings and not entities that can be sued. Edwin Mata, CEO and lawyer at tokenization platform Brickken, stated that the mere fact that an address has been inactive for an extended period does not prove that assets have been abandoned. Under property law, establishing abandonment usually requires proof that the owner had a clear intention to relinquish their property rights. Dormant addresses may simply be due to long-term cold storage, lost private keys, or the holder choosing to hold the property long-term, thus insufficient to support the plaintiff's claims.
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