⚖️ I want my restitution!

GM, GM. Let’s start off by addressing the elephant in the room. No, we’re not talking about BTC breaking 30k, we’re talking about the new readers joining us! A little bit about us, we’re Bean Boy and we’re here to give you…..scratch that… we’re not here to talk about us. Let’s see what’s in the pod for today.

How we looking today?

ETH Shanghai is coming…

COINBASE CASHES IN

Another day, another story involving some form of fraud, scam or exploit. It never ends…does it? Late yesterday, popular crypto exchange Coinbase was awarded $470,000 in restitution, after the brother of a former Coinbase employee allegedly profited from an insider trading scheme.

As a result, Nikhil Wahi, brother of former Coinbase manager, Ishan Wahi, has 20 years to pay Coinbase back around $470,000. That doesn’t sound too bad…right? Well, it gets worse. While it’s true that Nikhil Wahi has 20 years to pay back Coinbase, he can’t actually earn money like the rest of us. You see, not only was Nikhil ordered to pay Coinbase back, but he was also sentenced to 10 months in prison for the wire conspiracy fraud charges placed against him.

In the scheme, it is alleged that Nikhil profited around $892,500, but as we know, good times don’t last. Nikhil was ordered to forfeit those funds to the U.S Government, adding insult to injury. Not only has he lost all his profit, but now he’s out $470,000, which he magically has to come up with.

But how did this scheme work? It was quite simply actually. Ishan Wahi, in a position of power, essentially tipped his brother off as to which tokens were set to be listed on Coinbase. As a result, Nikhil was able to front-run the entire market by purchasing large amounts of said token, and selling them soon after the listing announcement. According to U.S authorities, this occurred at least, and Nikhil made over 25 trades related to those occurrences. I doubt this will be the last we hear of these kind of cases.

BY THE NUMBERS

Roll call… who here trusts crypto?

If you don’t, you’re not alone. A new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center (uhhh…who?) revealed that Americans aren’t actually so enamoured by crypto after all. We did our finest investigative journalism and read through the report so you don’t have to. Here’s the important points.

• 40% of Americans who have “heard” about crypto are “not at all confident” or “not very confident” about the safety of trading digital currencies.

• Only 18% are “somewhat confident.”

• Americans over the age of 50 are far more skeptical than their younger counterparts. Well… consider us shocked! (not)

While these numbers may seem alarming, hasn’t this always been the case? The general public aren’t too fond of public, and this is something that hasn’t changed since it started becoming mainstream. It’s also worth noting that possibly the biggest advocate for crypto in the U.S failed us miserably. Yes, we’re looking at you SBF.

Anyway, here’s to you and I. Those who enjoy crypto, and while we might certainly have our doubts from time to time, we know that crypto as a whole has the power to provide a brighter future for all.

REDDIT GOES BACK TO THE WELL

Everybody’s favorite and most reliable platform, Reddit, has officially launched its third-generation NFT collection, much to the delight of…uhh someone? But in all seriousness, this marks a major move for Reddit, who previously released NFT’s on the Polygon network in June 2022, as well as second collection later in the year.

Despite limited success during the first launch, the second launch provided some relative hype, selling out within 24 hours. The hype has only continued too, with Gen-3 selling out even faster. Public blockchain data shows that over 10.6 million (yes…MILLION) Reddit NFT’s have been minted, with a total market cap value of $74.5 million. However, not everyone seems to be in love with Reddit and their love for releasing NFT’s at will.

After all, only time will tell if Reddit venturing into NFT’s is a great move, or just another attempt at integrating web3 without much thought to its longevity and actual use case. We’ll hold our judgement on this one…

PEAS IN THE POD

• Gaming Tech company Razer announced zVentures, a web3 venture fund. I like their keyboards…let’s see how they do in web3.

• Sam Bankman-Fried wants FTX’s insurance payout to help fund his legal defense. When you think he can’t get any worse…

• Terraport Finance has been hacked for over $2 million less than two weeks after launching. Another day, another dollar hack.

HOW YOU BEAN - A READERS CONFESSION

Last night, I woke up at 3am Australian time and went on Reddit. Saw that there were new avatars so decided to buy the most expensive one, priced at $315. This morning I listed it on Open Sea for $1500 and it got sold, easiest 1k I’ve ever made in my life.

To be featured in ‘HOW YOU BEAN’ please email: [email protected]

MEME OF THE DAY

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.