Celsius Network and its former CEO are probably not having a good day

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s largest and most necessary crypto tales delivered to your inbox each Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe here.

Welcome again to Chain Response.

Earlier right this moment, the now-bankrupt crypto lending agency Celsius Community and its former CEO and co-founder Alex Mashinsky faced several lawsuits from three separate American entities: The U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC), the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) and the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC).

Bloomberg additionally reported that Mashinsky was arrested and charged with fraud right this moment, an individual aware of the matter stated.

Mashinsky and Celsius’ chief income officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon, have been charged by the U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday for allegedly orchestrating a “scheme to defraud prospects of Celsius Community,” in keeping with a beforehand sealed indictment.

These fits come at a time when the SEC, and U.S. companies basically, are cracking down on the crypto business. Earlier this week, the U.S. authorities accused a cybersecurity professional of hacking a cryptocurrency exchange and stealing round $9 million in cryptocurrency, in what seems to be like a case of an moral hacker turning rogue, then attempting to seem moral once more.

Final month, the SEC sued the 2 largest crypto exchanges, Binance and Coinbase, for separate causes, however each lawsuits alleged the businesses have been violating U.S. securities legal guidelines. And in early June, the U.S. Division of Justice charged two Russian nationals for hacking and inflicting the next collapse of Mt. Gox, as soon as one of many largest and hottest crypto exchanges. Mt. Gox shut down in 2014 after submitting for chapter when the theft was revealed, after which was ordered to liquidate.

These are just some of the costs and fits that come to thoughts. However there have been (and I’m certain will probably be) a lot extra because the U.S. regulators preserve an in depth eye on the crypto business.

The TLDR? Celsius and Mashinsky are in extraordinarily sizzling water. And this could possibly be only the start of a protracted collection of lawsuits and costs for them and the business at giant.

This week in web3

1. Federal court rules Ripple’s XRP token can be treated as a security…sometimes
2. Google Play changes policy toward blockchain-based apps, opening door to tokenized digital assets, NFTs
3. Coinbase Wallet launches messaging feature so users can interact directly on its platform
4. What does Coinbase Wallet’s latest DM feature mean for the ecosystem?
5. Car-sharing revenue could be a first step to mainstream adoption of web3 in the enterprise
6. Web3 games don’t need to highlight blockchain elements to succeed

The most recent pod

For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Maria Shen, a normal accomplice on the funding group at Electrical Capital, an early-stage enterprise agency targeted on crypto, blockchain, fintech and marketplaces.

Earlier than Electrical Capital, Maria was the CTO and co-founder of Bambify, a startup that helped small to medium-sized companies create extra environment friendly provide chains with producers globally. Previous to that, she labored at Microsoft.

In March 2022, the agency introduced that it closed $1 billion for a pair of crypto funds — a $400 million car for making fairness investments in startups and a $600 million fund supposed to speculate straight in crypto tokens. Its web site presently showcases a portfolio with about 75 investments with crypto startups like Magic Eden, ConsenSys and Bitwise, to call just a few.

Extra not too long ago, Electrical Capital put out a report that confirmed the variety of blockchain builders within the U.S. has declined yearly since 2017, dropping to 29% final yr from 40% in 2017. We dove into what that report actually means and the way it will have an effect on the expansion of builders domestically and internationally.

We mentioned what crypto sectors Maria is looking ahead to investments, why she’s betting massive on NFTs and the overall enterprise capital market sentiment.

We additionally talked about:

• U.S. regulatory influence on investments
• The bear market
• Developments she’s following
• Recommendation for founders

Subscribe to Chain Response on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite pod platform to maintain up with the most recent episodes, and please go away us a evaluate in case you like what you hear!

Comply with the cash

1. Music NFT platform Sound.xyz raised $20 million in a Sequence A spherical
2. Ticketing options platform Get Protocol raised $4.5 million in a seed spherical
3. LunarCrush raised $5 million in a Sequence A to assist tailor social media content material
4. AwesomeQA raised $2.8 million to supply automated buyer help options
5. Olympix raised $4.3 million to construct crypto cybersecurity with AI tooling

This record was compiled with data from Messari in addition to TechCrunch’s personal reporting.

What else we’re studying

Wish to department out from the world of web3? Listed here are some articles on TechCrunch that caught our consideration this week:

1. The era of tech layoffs is evolving in an interesting way
2. Feels like you missed the generative AI train? 5 steps for speeding ahead in 90 days
3. Meet the 19-year-old MIT drop-out ‘replacing gunpowder’ for the defense industry

Comply with me on Twitter @Jacqmelinek for breaking crypto information, memes and extra.