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After FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of seven charges related to wire fraud and money laundering in 2023, the US recently decided not to proceed with a second trial over additional charges in 2024.

During the second trial, Bankman-Fried could have been convicted on additional charges of conspiracy to bribe foreign officials, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, and substantive securities fraud and commodities fraud.

However, in a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, US attorney Damian Williams wrote that the "strong public interest" in a prompt resolution of the FTX scandal outweighed the benefits of holding a second trial—especially since "much of the evidence that would be offered in a second trial was already offered in the first trial."

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Looking back, 2023 will likely be remembered as the year of the fallen crypto bro.

While celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Matt Damon last year faced public backlash after shilling for cryptocurrency, this year's top headlines traced the downfalls of two of the most successful and influential crypto bros of all time: FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (often referred to as SBF) and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (commonly known as CZ).

At 28 years old, Bankman-Fried made Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2021, but within two short years, his recently updated Forbes profile notes that the man who was once "one of the richest people in crypto" in "a stunning fall from grace" now has a real-time net worth of $0.

Enlarge / Founder and CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as "CZ," in May 10, 2022, in Rome, Italy. (credit: Antonio Masiello / Contributor | Getty Images Europe )

Now that a federal court has approved a settlement with Binance, the world largest cryptocurrency exchange is hoping to move past a money-laundering scandal that forced its founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao, to resign and overnight drained more than $1 billion in assets from its platform.

Under the settlement, Binance will "disgorge $1.35 billion of ill-gotten transaction fees and pay a $1.35 billion penalty" to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency announced in a press release.

Additionally, Zhao will personally pay a $150 million civil monetary penalty. According to a plea agreement with the US Department of Justice—which ordered Binance to pay a "historic" penalty of $4.3 billion —Zhao's previously ordered $50 million fine can be credited under certain terms against the amount that Zhao owes the CFTC.

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One attraction of Binance, as the company grew from its 2017 founding into the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, was the firm's freewheeling flouting of rules. As it amassed well over 100 million crypto-trading users globally, it openly told the United States government that, as an offshore operation, it didn't have to comply with the country's financial regulations and money-laundering laws.

Then, late last month, those years of brushing off US regulators caught up with the company in the form of one the most punitive money-laundering criminal settlements in the history of the US Justice Department. The crackdown doesn't just mean a chastened Binance will have to change its practices going forward. It means that when the company is sentenced in a matter of months, it will be forced to open its past books to regulators, too. What was once a haven for anarchic crypto commerce is about to be transformed into the opposite: perhaps the most fed-friendly business in the cryptocurrency industry, retroactively offering more than a half-decade of users' transaction records to US regulators and law enforcement.

When the Department of Justice announced on November 21 that Binance's executives had agreed to plead guilty to criminal money-laundering charges, much of the attention on that settlement focused on founder Changpeng Zhao giving up his CEO role and on the company's record-breaking $4.3 billion fine. But Binance's settlement agreements with the DOJ and the US Treasury Department also stipulate a strict new regime of data-sharing with law enforcement and regulators. The company has agreed to comply with regulators' "requests for information"—a term that carries none of the evidence or suspicion requirements necessary for obtaining a warrant or even a subpoena—to the point of producing any "information, testimony, document, record, or other tangible evidence."

Enlarge / Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao leaves the US District Court on November 21, 2023 in Seattle. (credit: David Ryder / Stringer | Getty Images North America )

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has resigned as CEO of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange after agreeing to plead guilty to money laundering violations, the US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday.

The DOJ's settlement concludes a three-year investigation into Binance that found "willful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform," Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen wrote in a statement. According to the plea agreement , Zhao will pay a $50 million fine, and Binance—which also pled guilty to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and violating sanctions against Iran, Cuba, and Syria—will pay a $4.3 billion fine.

"Today’s historic penalties and monitorship to ensure compliance with US law and regulations mark a milestone for the virtual currency industry," Yellen said. "Any institution, wherever located, that wants to reap the benefits of the US financial system must also play by the rules that keep us all safe from terrorists, foreign adversaries, and crime or face the consequences."

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Police were called to dismantle a secret cryptomining rig winding throughout the floors and ventilation ducts of a Polish court in September, according to Polish news channel TVN24 .

Several secured computers were discovered, potentially stealing thousands of Polish Zlotys worth of energy per month (the equivalent of roughly $250 per 1,000 Zlotys.) It's currently unknown how long the rig was running because the illegal operation went undetected, partly because the computers used were connected to the Internet through their own modems rather than through the court's network.

While no one has been charged yet with any crimes, the court seemingly has suspects. Within two weeks of finding the rig, the court terminated a contract with a company responsible for IT maintenance in the building, TVN24 reported. Before the contract ended, the company fired two employees that it said were responsible for maintenance in the parts of the building where the cryptomine was hidden.

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On Friday, Sam Bankman-Fried began his first day testifying before a jury with a loss. The FTX co-founder had intended to explain exactly how much he relied on lawyers to steer his decision-making amid the cryptocurrency exchange's rise and collapse, but US District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that particular part of his proposed testimony could not be heard by the jury, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Bankman-Fried had testified on Thursday that his in-house legal team oversaw paperwork for "hundreds of millions of dollars in personal loans to himself and other founders of the platform," CNBC reported . He told the court that having his legal team's blessing was something that he "took comfort in."

“That evidence would in my judgment be confusing and prejudicial,” Kaplan said, dealing what many outlets considered a serious blow to Bankman-Fried's defense.

Enlarge / Sam Bankman-Fried’s former flatmates (from top) Caroline Ellison, NIshad Singh and Gary Wang have given evidence against him (credit: FT montage/Bloomberg/AP)

Early last summer, Adam Yedidia took Sam Bankman-Fried to one side after a game of paddle tennis. In the shadow of a hut in the grounds of the Bahamian penthouse they and others shared, he asked the crypto tycoon: “Are we OK?”

Yedidia told a New York court this month that he was worried FTX, the crypto exchange that Bankman-Fried had co-founded and at that time led, was in financial trouble. He recounted his old friend’s reply: “We were bulletproof last year, but we’re not bulletproof this year.”

FTX collapsed a few months later, sending shockwaves through the cryptocurrency industry. US prosecutors hope this chat, which they have taken to calling the “bulletproof conversation,” will help to show Bankman-Fried knew about, and concealed, an $8 billion cash shortfall for months at least before it was exposed.

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Reddit's Community Points, a blockchain-based rewards system for quality posts, comments, and other contributions in a subset of subreddits, is going the way of many similar tokens launched during the crypto boom times: away.

As of November 8, coins like the "MOON" that r/CryptoCurrency used for tips, premium features, and even voting shares will be removed from users' Vaults. Noticing this, the value of most Reddit-based coins took a nearly straight drop on Tuesday after Reddit's announcements . MOON was trading just over $0.20 at 1 pm Eastern, shortly before the announcement in its subreddit. Shortly before 3 pm, MOON had dropped just below $0.02, a loss of more than 85 percent, with fellow Reddit currencies BRICK (r/FortNiteBR) and DONUT (r/EthTrader) seeing similarly precipitous plunges .

MOON's price, as seen on TradingView, during the day when Reddit announced its sunsetting of Community Points, such as MOON. (credit: TradingView)

While most people likely never noticed the loss of their Community Points, some who actively acquired them, or even bought more on the blockchain, are reporting losses of thousands of dollars. Conspiratorial claims of Reddit having "rugged" the currencies—pulling money from the system before a sudden shutdown— floated on social media .