Coinbase and SEC face off at hearing, Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents seek clawback dismissal, and the first trading days for Bitcoin ETFs.
United States District Judge Katherine Polk Failla has heard arguments from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Coinbase on the crypto exchanges motion for dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the regulator in June 2022. The hearing was held for nearly five hours and provided an extensive overview of the key arguments in courts regarding the crypto space, assets and the SEC’s role in regulating the industry. During the hearing, the SEC argued that buyers of tokens are also investing in the network or ecosystem behind it, indicating there is a value proposition behind a token purchase. Coinbases attorneys, however, challenged the argument, claiming that Bitcoin described as a commodity by an SEC attorney during the hearing is also backed by a community and has a network.
The parents of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried are seeking to have FTXs lawsuit against them dismissed, rejecting claims that they knew about the problems at the crypto exchange and knowingly benefitted from misconduct at the firm. According to a court filing, lawyers representing Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried argued that FTXs lawsuit sought to capitalize on the sheer fact that they were the parents of the former FTX CEO. In September 2023, FTX sued Bankman and Fried for allegedly exploiting their influence and access within the FTX empire to enrich themselves.
The newest upgrade to the Ethereum network, codenamed Cancun-Deneb or Dencun, has gone live on the Goerli testnet for the first time, according to a Jan. 17 social media post from Ethereum developer Parithosh Jayanthi. A bug delayed the networks launch for approximately four hours. Once implemented on the mainnet, the Dencun upgrade will significantly lower the cost of transactions on Ethereum layer 2s such as Optimism, Base, Polygon zkEVM and others, developers have claimed. It will also limit self-destruct operations and allow for new bridge and staking pool features.
