The Node: UK Judge Freezes Craig Wright's Assets

April 1, 2024

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Welcome to an abbreviated version of The Node! This is Daniel Kuhn here to take you through the latest in crypto news and why it matters. Regular programming returns Tuesday, April 2, 2024.

In today's news: U.K. judge freezes over $7 million in assets held by Craig Wright around the world. The Binance execs being sued by Nigerian authorities are suing back. Solana Foundation mulls whether to censor racist meme coins. And lawyers look to dismiss Tornado Cash dev's U.S. legal battle.

Faketoshi's Assets Frozen

U.K. Judge James Mellor ordered Craig Wright's assets to be frozen to prevent him from moving them offshore and evading costs incurred from losing his legal battle with the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), including about $7.6 million worth of assets held across the world. "Dr Wright has a history of default in relation to orders for the payment of money," Mellor wrote, after seeing evidence the Satoshi Nakamoto pretender may have been trying to protect assets under a Singaporean company. In a March 14 filing, Mellor decided with COPA's argument that Wright had lied about creating Bitcoin.

Execs Sue Back

Two Binance executives imprisoned by Nigerian authorities, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, have sued the country's National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and the Economic Financial Crimes Commission for violating their human rights. After Binance was accused of violating capital controls in late February, Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were detained by the Nigerian government and later charged with four counts of tax evasion. Anjarwalla reportedly escaped custody.

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Motion to Dismiss

Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's legal team filed a motion in a New York court Friday to dismiss allegations he conspired to commit money laundering and violate sanctions. Building the open crypto mixer Tornado Cash is not the same as laundering money, an argument that is "fatally flawed," the motion read. Storm and fellow coder Roman Semenov were indicted last summer, after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash for facilitating over $1 billion in money laundering by entities including North Korea. Alexey Pertsev, arrested in August 2022, stood trial this past week on similar charges in the Netherlands.

Censor Certain Coins?

The Solana Foundation is mulling whether to censor racist tokens that have been cropping up during the network's meme coin rush. During a panel discussion at the BUIDL Asia summit in Seoul, panelists including Solana Foundation's head of strategy Austin Federa thought through whether decentralized exchanges, wallets or nodes, if anything, should filter banned words, and whether there was a legal obligation to filter content.

A message from Phemex

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