Wisconsin Invests in Bitcoin ETFs, Tornado Cash Developer Sentenced, and Coinbase Suffers Outage
Summary:
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) has disclosed a significant investment in Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). In other events, Alexey Pertsev, developer of Tornado Cash, has been sentenced to over five years in prison for money laundering by a Dutch court. Meanwhile, U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase experienced a major system-wide outage, affecting both desktop and mobile users. Despite the disruption, Coinbase reassured users that their funds were secure.
Wisconsin's state government has uncovered a hefty investment in Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The developer behind Tornado Cash is facing over five years in prison, as ruled by a Dutch court. In addition, a "system-wide outage" was reported by Coinbase earlier in the day.
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) has revealed a sizable Bitcoin investment through spot ETFs, as per a May 14 statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The governmental body acquired around $100 million of the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and $64 million of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). Further, the report indicates that the Wisconsin Retirement System might be exposed to digital assets.
Though significant, the Bitcoin ETFs investment represents a minute portion of SWIB’s total of $156 billion in managed assets. A Bloomberg ETF analyst pointed out that this investment reflects the growing popularity of spot Bitcoin funds that are expanding quicker than standard ETFs.
Alexey Pertsev, who developed the crypto mixing protocol Tornado Cash, has been found guilty of money laundering, implying serious consequences for developers of open-source codes. On May 14, Dutch judges at 's-Hertogenbosch court charged Pertsev with money laundering, sentencing him to five years and four months in jail for supposedly rinsing $1.2 billion in unlawful assets through the platform.
Despite Tornado Cash being a non-custodial crypto mixing protocol, Pertsev had been indicted previously for potentially having knowledge of the illegal origins of some transactions on his platform. There is no current evidence that Pertsev actively assisted any criminal activity, other than contributing the open-source code to the cryptocurrency mixing protocol.
The U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced a "system-wide outage", making the platform inaccessible to users via desktop or mobile. At 4.15am UTC on May 14, Coinbase defined the issue as a "major outage", causing a "503 Service Unavailable" error message to appear on their website. Coinbase's official X stated they were examining the problem and working on a resolution, affirming customers' funds remained secure.
In late February, Coinbase, alongside other exchanges, experienced temporary disruption due to an abrupt surge in cryptocurrency trading during a Bitcoin sudden price drop, which reduced the asset's price almost 10% before it rapidly rose again. Although such outages can be infuriating for users, critics on Crypto X often interpret these scenarios as encouraging for the crypto community, as they indicate increased traffic periods, generally seen as beneficial for the sector.
Published At
5/14/2024 9:31:21 PM
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