Sam Bankman-Fried asked a federal appeals panel for a new trial in the FTX fraud case, arguing that new witness testimony could weaken the case that led to his 25-year sentence. Former FTX chief CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has asked a federal court for a new trial on fraud charges, arguing that previously unavailable witness testimony could undermine the government’s case that led to his 25-year prison sentence. In a motion filed Feb. 5 in Manhattan federal court, Bankman-Fried challenged his 2023 conviction, though the request is separate from his formal appeal, as Bloomberg reported. Motions for a new trial face a high legal bar and are rarely granted. The filing was submitted to the court by Bankman-Fried’s mother, retired Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, and is now under review. Bloomberg described the effort as a long shot. Read more
State Street argues the US dollar could fall to multi-year lows if the Fed cuts rates more aggressively, a scenario that could shift capital toward Bitcoin and risk assets. Strategists at State Street, one of the world’s largest asset managers, say the US dollar’s worst run in nearly a decade could deepen if the Federal Reserve eases policy more aggressively than markets expect, which is a distinct possibility following a possible leadership change at the central bank. Speaking at a conference in Miami, State Street strategist Lee Ferridge said the dollar could decline by as much as 10% this year if financial conditions loosen further. While he described two rate cuts as a “reasonable base case,” he warned that the risks are skewed toward more reductions. “Three is possible,” Ferridge said. Lower US interest rates tend to reduce the appeal of dollar-denominated assets, especially for foreign investors. As rate differentials narrow, overseas investors are more likely to increase currency hedging, which involv...
The integration allows Ledger users to execute multichain token swaps directly from the Wallet app while retaining hardware-based custody. Ledger, the French digital asset security company known for its hardware wallets, has integrated OKX DEX into its Wallet app, enabling users to execute multichain token swaps directly from a self-custodial environment. According to the company, the integration provides access to OKX DEX’s liquidity aggregation from within the Ledger Wallet app, allowing users to swap tokens with the need to interact with external decentralized exchange interfaces. Ledger said trades are routed using OKX DEX’s proprietary X-Routing technology, which aggregates liquidity across hundreds of decentralized exchanges to identify efficient execution paths. Transactions remain signed on the user’s Ledger device, with private keys never leaving the hardware wallet. Read more
Multiple long-term Bitcoin valuation models suggest that BTC’s drop to $60,000 opened up a rare discounted buying opportunity. Do traders and institutional investors agree? Bitcoin (BTC) is trading below $69,000 on Tuesday, confirming the view that price consolidation is the most likely course over the short term. The sell-off to $60,000 and the subsequent recovery to $72,000 resulted in many BTC price indicators falling into what analysts say is a deep value zone, but will buyers reach the same conclusion? Key takeaways: Bitcoin’s realized price bands have aligned with a long-term accumulation zone that preceded new BTC highs. Read more
The six-month central bank pilot brings together market infrastructure providers, banks and Web3 companies to assess how core UK markets could move onchain. The Bank of England has launched a new industry experimentation initiative to explore how tokenized assets could be settled using synchronized, atomic settlement in British pounds sterling as part of efforts to modernize the UK’s real-time gross settlement (RTGS) infrastructure. The Synchronisation Lab initiative will allow 18 selected companies to test delivery-versus-payment and payment-versus-payment settlement between the BoE’s next-generation RTGS core ledger, known as RT2, and external distributed-ledger platforms, in a non-live environment without using real money, according to a bank statement. The six-month pilot, scheduled to start in spring 2026, is intended to validate the central bank’s design choices for synchronized settlement, assess interoperability between central bank money and tokenized assets, and inform the development of a potential...