🇦🇷📈🇧🇷📉 ARGENTINA OVERTAKES BRAZIL IN CRYPTO INFLOWS

Argentina just grabbed the crown from Brazil with a mind-blowing $91 billion in crypto inflows from July 2023 to June 2024, according to Chainalysis.

Folks are diving into stablecoins to escape inflation, with 61.8% of transactions in stablecoins—way ahead of Brazil and the global average.

Tether’s shifting focus to Argentina too.

https://x.com/roundtablespace/status/1844357387261521994

https://es.cointelegraph.com/news/argentina-leads-latin-america-crypto-inflows

@FelipeChannel

🦅🚨👮‍♀️ SEC Charges Three So-Called Market Makers and Nine Individuals in Crackdown on Manipulation of Crypto Assets Offered and Sold as Securities

The Securities and Exchange Commission today (Oct. 9, 2024) announced fraud charges against three companies purporting to be market makers and nine individuals for engaging in schemes to manipulate the markets for various crypto assets being offered and sold as securities to retail investors. As alleged, the schemes were intended to induce investor victims to purchase the crypto assets by creating the false appearance of an active trading market for them.

According to the SEC’s complaints, crypto asset promoters Russell Armand, Maxwell Hernandez, Manpreet Singh Kohli, Nam Tran, and Vy Pham (Promoters) hired so-called market makers ZM Quant and Gotbit to provide market-manipulation-as-a-service, which included generating artificial trading volume or manipulating the price of crypto assets that the Promoters offered and sold as securities to retail investors in unregistered transactions. The SEC also alleged that ZM Quant and a third so-called market maker, CLS Global, undertook similar schemes to manipulate the market of a crypto asset offered and sold as a security that was created at the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of its parallel investigation into potential market manipulation in the crypto asset industry.

https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-166

@FelipeChannel

🦅🚨👮‍♀️ Eighteen Individuals and Entities Charged in International Operation Targeting Widespread Fraud and Manipulation in the Cryptocurrency Markets

First-ever criminal charges against financial services firms for market manipulation and “wash trading” in the cryptocurrency industry

Eighteen individuals and entities have been charged for widespread fraud and manipulation in the cryptocurrency markets. Charges were unsealed in Boston against the leaders of four cryptocurrency companies, four cryptocurrency financial services firms (known as “market makers”) and employees at those firms.

Four defendants have pleaded guilty, another defendant has agreed to plead guilty, and authorities apprehended three other defendants in Texas, the United Kingdom and Portugal this week. More than $25 million in cryptocurrency has been seized and multiple trading bots responsible for millions of dollars’ worth of wash trades for approximately 60 different cryptocurrencies have been deactivated.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/eighteen-individuals-and-entities-charged-international-operation-targeting-widespread

@FelipeChannel

💻 Fidelity Data Breach Exposes Data of Over 77,000 Customers

An attacker snuck in by creating two new user accounts. Fidelity assures customers their investments aren’t affected.

In August, a threat actor compromised the data of 77,099 Fidelity Investments customers in Maine, the financial firm said in a breach notification letter to thousands of customers on Oct. 9.

The attacker didn’t access funds in Fidelity investment accounts. However, the hacker obtained personal information — including Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses — and created two new customer accounts. In response, Fidelity shut down the attacker’s access and offered affected customers a credit monitoring and identity restoration service.

“We take this incident and the security of your information very seriously,” the Fidelity Investments Private Office wrote in a sample notice drafted for Maine residents. “As noted above, upon detecting this activity, we promptly took steps to terminate the activity and address this incident.”

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/fidelity-data-breach-oct/

@FelipeChannel

🇸🇻🪖📹 — In a militaristic tone, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, pays tribute to his military forces by posting a video showing his recent speech honoring the victims of the helicopter crash in the country. Recently, Bukele demonstrated that the greatest salvation and defense of the population against crime lies in courage and military values, in addition to exalting God as the ultimate will for the defense of the common good.

Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) on 𝕏 🖇

🇸🇦📞🇺🇸 — 📰 Reuters: Stop Israel from bombing Iran's oil sites, Gulf states urge US

➡️ Gulf states are lobbying Washington to stop Israel from attacking Iran's oil sites because they are concerned their own oil facilities could come under fire from Tehran's proxies if the conflict escalates, three Gulf sources told Reuters.

➡️ Israel has promised Iran will pay for its missile attack last week while Tehran has said any retaliation would be met with vast destruction, raising fears of a wider war in the region that could suck in the United States.

➡️ The moves by the Gulf states come after a diplomatic push by non-Arab Shi'ite Iran to persuade its Sunni Gulf neighbours to use their influence with Washington amid rising concerns Israel could target Iran's oil production facilities.

🔗 Link

🇸🇦📞🇺🇸 — Reuters regarding the Israeli-Iranian tensions:

➡️ As part of their attempts to avoid being caught in the crossfire, Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are also refusing to let Israel fly over their airspace for any attack on Iran and have conveyed this to Washington, the three sources close to government circles said.

🔗 Link

🇮🇷❌🇮🇱🇸🇦 — Reuters regarding the Israeli-Iranian tensions:

➡️ During meetings this week, Iran warned Saudi Arabia it could not guarantee the safety of the Gulf kingdom's oil facilities if Israel were given any assistance in carrying out an attack, a senior Iranian official and an Iranian diplomat told Reuters.

📝 Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst close to the Saudi royal court, said:

"The Iranians have stated: 'If the Gulf states open up their airspace to Israel, that would be an act of war'."

🔗 Link