Noah Coin(NOAH)

Binance is “working as collaboratively as we can” with the Nigerian government to secure the release of its jailed financial crimes investigations chief, Tigran Gambaryan, the exchange’s chief compliance officer Noah Perlman said Wednesday.

The race to decide which EVM chain offers the best DeFi experience is heating up. EOS Network Ventures (ENV) has just announced a major investment into decentralized finance in the hopes of bringing the EOS EVM chain up to speed

His planned exit follows that of the deputy CEO Noah Sharp in June.

Starbucks’ Web3 loyalty program Odyssey has announced a collaboration with the Aku non-fungible token (NFT) collection. The collaboration will see the next Starbucks Odyssey Journey feature a stamp “designed by Aku” and a donation to a non-profit. The Starbucks-Aku Collaboration Starbucks has collaborated with the Aku NFT collection for its next digital collectible Stamp, available on its dedicated Discord channel. The Aku NFT collection was created by former Major League Baseball player Micah Johnson and focuses on empowering young kids to dream big and pursue their dreams. The collection has attracted interest from several high-profile celebrities, with NFTs from the collection having been purchased by Pusha T, Trevor Noah, and Tyra Banks. Micah Johnson thanked Starbucks for their support, tweeting on his official Twitter handle, “I’m extremely grateful to @Starbucks for supporting our mission to not just be a character that represents good but a character that actually does good.” The New Journey Starbucks plans to launch the new Journey on the 17th of July. The new Journey, called “Aku Adventure,” will allow Odyssey members to “embark on a new mission with Aku.” A post on the Discord channel states that the new Stamp has been “designed by Aku,” and the Journey will be available exclusively to Odyssey members until the 13th of August, 2023. Additionally, as part of the launch, Starbucks has also announced that it would be donating $100,000 to Blessings in a Backpack, a non-profit dedicated to addressing food insecurity among children. The Odyssey Program Starbucks had launched its highly anticipated Odyssey program in December 2022, combining customer loyalty rewards with NFTs and other gamified elements. The Web3 extension of the hugely popular Starbucks Rewards Program was opened to a select group of waitlist members which included customers and existing employees. Those joining the program could engage in interactive “Journeys” and earn “Journey Stamps,” which came in the form of Polygon-based NFTs. Users could also collect Odyssey Points and gain access to new benefits and experiences in the future. At the time of launch, the company had released a statement which said, “Starbucks Odyssey is an experience surrounded by a digital community where members can come together, interact, and share their love of coffee. Starbucks is using meaningful elements of Web3 technology to reward members in innovative ways.” The company has been rolling out limited-edition NFTs to the members of the invitation-only Odyssey loyalty program for a considerable amount of time. Back in March, the company announced the release of “The Siren Collection,” which offered 2000 Stamps, each priced at $100. The Siren Collection saw staggering demand, with collectors complaining of a wave of technical glitches and long wait times. More recently, Starbucks launched the “Starbucks First Store Collection.” The collection consisted of 5000 stamps, each priced at $99. This launch had a far smoother launch than the Siren Collection. CMO Bradley Brewer stated that Starbucks wanted to invest in blockchain for a considerable amount of time but was waiting for a concrete way of using the technology to help expand its business and loyalty program. According to Brewer, the company wanted to make NFTs the gateway to the digital community but obscured the exact nature of the technology to bring more users to the Web3 platform. “It happens to be built on blockchain and web3 technologies, but the customer — to be honest — may very well not even know that what they’re doing is interacting with blockchain technology. It’s just the enabler.” Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

A former Coinbase employee has been sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of insider trading. The sentencing was carried out by US District Judge Loretta Preska, who sentenced Wahi in the Manhattan Federal Court. The Insider Trading Case Ishan Wahi was arrested in 2022 and charged with insider trading after it was discovered that he was providing his brother and another individual, Sameer Rahmani, with insider information about upcoming listings on Coinbase. According to authorities probing the case, Wahi’s brother and the unnamed individual made over $1 million between June 2021 and April 2022, thanks to information given by Wahi. During the hearing, Judge Preska stated that Wahi’s scheme involved “massive abuse of Coinbase’s trust.” The judge added that Wahi and the co-defendant’s attempts to cover up their actions showed they knew they were wrong in carrying on with the scheme. The brother, Nikhil Wahi, earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of wire fraud conspiracy and was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Meanwhile, Ramani has evaded the authorities thus far. Wahi Expresses Remorse At the hearing, Ishan Wahi expressed regret and remorse over his actions and their impact on friends and family, several of whom were in attendance in court. Wahi stated during the hearing that he had made a huge mistake, one that would follow him for the rest of his life. Noah Solowiejczyk, the assistant US Attorney, contended that Wahi’s actions were not a one-off mistake and instead were a stream of tips to his brother spanning over ten months. Wahi also asked the court to give him a sentence no longer than his brothers and cited examples of other insider trading cases that resulted in little or no prison time for the people involved. However, prosecutors called for Wahi to be jailed for over three years to deter other individuals from misusing corporate information. Currently, prosecutors are able to charge fraud in cases where deception was utilized to seek financial gain, regardless of the type of asset involved. This allows the United States Justice Department more leeway to go after any crypto-related fraud than its civil counterpart, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is limited to monitoring the securities markets. In several of its lawsuits, the Securities and Exchange Commission, including one filed against the Wahi brothers, stated that most digital assets are securities. Court papers have shown that the SEC and Ishan Wahi had reached a settlement, while Nikhil Wahi is in talks to reach a settlement. Second Crypto-Related Insider Trading Case This is the second case related to cryptocurrency insider trading brought by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The first case resulted in a guilty verdict and involved the former head of product at OpenSea, one of the most prominent non-fungible token (NFT) platforms. The guilty verdict was reached on the 3rd of May when Nate Chastain was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering. Chastain used insider knowledge to determine which NFTs were about to be listed on the OpenSea platform, making significant profits in the process. While Chastain has not been sentenced as yet, he faces a maximum prison sentence of 40 years. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.