🤯 U.S. prosecutors investigating Sam Bankman-Fried over alleged manipulation of TerraUSD and Luna

🤯 U.S. prosecutors investigating Sam Bankman-Fried over alleged manipulation of TerraUSD and Luna 💰  Mazars' comprehensive audit proves Binance's funds are SAFU 👮 Celsius ordered to return over $44m of crypto assets by the bankruptcy court

Good morning, frens. It's Friday and we've got only a few more hours to get through 'til the weekend. Let's try to power through this day with a smile on our face and, if all else fails, a few memes.

Here's what we've got for you today:

🤯 U.S. prosecutors investigating Sam Bankman-Fried over alleged manipulation of TerraUSD and Luna 

💰  Mazars' comprehensive audit proves Binance's funds are SAFU 

👮 Celsius ordered to return over $44m of crypto assets by the bankruptcy court

U.S. prosecutors investigating Sam Bankman-Fried over alleged manipulation of TerraUSD and Luna

Looks like someone is finally getting their comeuppance! U.S. prosecutors are now probing into whether FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried manipulated the prices of TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies earlier this year to benefit his businesses.

UST and Luna have both been on a wild ride in the crypto world, with both initially rising before collapsing in May of 2022, half of a year before FTX and its related entities filed for bankruptcy. It's been revealed that FTX had lent its sister trading firm, Alameda Research, billions in client funds, and now that's the subject of scrutiny.

The investigation is still young, but many are watching SBF and his companies to see if they willingly took part in any illegal activities. Alas, it looks like Sam's days as a cryptocurrency kingpin are done - or maybe he'll only get a slap on the wrist? That seems more likely considering his connections, but only time will tell.

The crypto community reacted with surprise, hope and some humor to the news of the investigation. It's finally time for justice to be served!

Mazars' comprehensive audit proves Binance's funds are SAFU

Binance's audit report, complete with its deep dive into the blockchain and complex calculations, was a success. Auditors meticulously compared asset balances from wallet addresses - we're talking BNB Chain, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain - to an Accounting Ledger provided by the company and made sure it all added up correctly.

The auditors broke out their spy gear and instructed Binance's management to move funds from one wallet address to another - all while making sure they owned the private key. It was a nail-biting operation, with the Mazars auditors verifying each and every transaction on Etherscan and BSCScan, carefully marking each address as belonging to Binance. This way, they tracked the movement of funds between wallets, and confirmed that all numbers were in order.

Finally, after a deep dive into the blockchain and a series of complex calculations, Mazars used their proprietary Merkle Tree generator to calculate the Merkle Root Hash - the 'cryptographically secure fingerprint' for verifying an exchange's asset balance at a snapshot in time. Now Binance customers can enter the Merkle root hash on Mazars' website to find their unique Merkle leaf and verify that their balances are accurate.

Now those people that were worried about Binance's security can rest assured - the auditors have done their job. Binance's funds are SAFU and the world isn't ending... at least not yet.

Celsius ordered to return over $44m of crypto assets by the bankruptcy court

Some justice after all! Celsius Network is being ordered to return a whopping $44 million worth of crypto back to customers, even if it didn't enter Celsius's interest-bearing accounts.

Chief Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn issued the order, which is great news for those who had their money frozen.  It seems like justice has been served and that users will get back what's rightfully theirs!

The company was hoping to claim ownership of some of the funds it moved into custody accounts back in the summer, but thankfully Judge Glenn saw things differently. He ruled that Celsius doesn't have to return crypto if the transfers were less than $7,500. This decision led to about $11 million in assets being returned to customers from the bankruptcy proceedings. Not all of the customers are going to be completely satisfied by this, but at least it's something. We can only hope that this decision serves as a lesson for crypto companies in the future.  

No one should ever have to worry about their money being taken away from them, no matter where they store it. Let's cross our fingers that this case will help set a better precedent in the industry.