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Celsius Co-Founders Leon, Goldstein to Pay FTC Over $6M

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Celsius Co-Founders Leon, Goldstein to Pay FTC Over $6M

Celsius co-founders Shlomi Daniel Leon and Hanoch “Nuke” Goldstein have been ordered to pay over $6 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges alleging they misrepresented the safety of the Celsius platform before the company collapsed. 

Goldstein, Celsius’ former chief technology officer, was ordered to pay $2.014 million under an order signed Monday by US District Judge Denise Cote. Leon, the firm’s former chief strategy officer, was ordered to pay $4.1 million under a separate order entered on June 29. 

The settlements extend the fallout from the 2022 collapse of Celsius beyond its former CEO Alex Mashinsky. The crypto lending platform, which held $25 billion in assets at its peak, owed its users $4.7 billion when it filed for bankruptcy in July 2022. 

The order also bars Leon from marketing or selling products or services that can be used to deposit, exchange, invest or withdraw assets, the FTC said in a statement Monday. 

“Similarly, Goldstein has agreed to a ban on marketing or selling retail products or services that can be used to buy, sell, deposit, withdraw, distribute or trade cryptocurrency.”

Related: Celsius’ Mashinsky gets permanent trading ban in CFTC settlement

FTC allegations against Celsius co-founders 

The FTC alleged that Celsius falsely told customers it held sufficient reserves to meet withdrawal demands, maintained a $750 million insurance policy covering customer deposits and did not issue unsecured loans. 

“The FTC, however, alleged that the promises were false and that its top executives continued to claim that customers’ deposits were safe days before the company filed for bankruptcy,” it said. 

Mashinsky settles FTC case for $10 million

In April, Mashinsky agreed to an FTC settlement that permanently bars him from promoting asset-related products and required him to pay $10 million as part of a broader, partially suspended $4.72 billion judgment. 

The $2.014 million and $4.1 million payments from Goldstein and Leon, respectively, will also be credited against the $4.72 billion judgment. The judgments reflect the consumer harm alleged by the FTC. 

Separately, Mashinsky was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2025 after pleading guilty to commodities and securities fraud charges, with prosecutors saying he misled Celsius customers about the company’s profitability, investment risks and the safety of customer funds. 

Magazine: Binance & OKX users face $1900 fines in Vietnam, Coinbase in China? Asia Express

Moonshot AI IPO push follows Kimi, Alibaba AI releases that shook bitcoin

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Moonshot AI IPO push follows Kimi, Alibaba AI releases that shook bitcoin

K3 forms the bedrock of why the listing looks different than it would have a month ago. The open-weight model outscored every rival – except Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 – on certain parameters, and topped a widely watched coding benchmark outright, triggering a semiconductor selloff on Friday that dragged crypto down with it.

Moonshot is not moving alone, however. China’s Alibaba said Sunday its Qwen3.8 model is going open-weight, a 2.4 trillion-parameter system the company claims trails only Fable 5 among frontier models. A preview version, Qwen3.8-Max, is already live across Alibaba’s developer tools.

Open weights let anyone run a model without paying its maker, which pressures the pricing power of American providers that charge by the token.

A parameter is one of the internal dials a model adjusts during training to get better at predicting text. Modern models have billions or trillions of them, and the count is the rough, imperfect shorthand the industry uses for raw size.

Bitcoin has traded as a proxy for the AI capital cycle all month, and its miners have rebuilt themselves into AI data-center landlords whose leases depend on demand for compute holding up.

The next read comes this week, when Alphabet, Tesla and Intel report earnings that will show whether AI capital spending is still climbing, and whether the miners betting on it keep their footing.

White House Crypto Adviser Stays on as CLARITY Nears Senate Vote

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White House Crypto Adviser Stays on as CLARITY Nears Senate Vote

The White House’s top crypto adviser Patrick Witt said he will no longer take a leave of absence at the end of the month for military training, allowing him to remain at the White House to help advance the CLARITY Act in the Senate.

“Last week, it was reported that I was set to leave for mandatory training as part of my service in the Georgia Army National Guard, right before Clarity hits the Senate floor,” Witt said in an X post on Monday. 

“While I remain committed to fulfilling my service obligation, I am grateful to report that my training has been deferred, and that I will be able to see this effort through to the end,” he added. 

Source: Patrick Witt

The CLARITY Act, which would create the first comprehensive US regulatory framework for the crypto market, faces a make-or-break deadline to pass the Senate before the Aug. 8 recess. Witt is the White House’s lead negotiator on the legislation. 

Witt, who has served as the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets since August, had been expected to report for Judge Advocate General (JAG) training with the Georgia Army National Guard on July 27. The training will qualify him to serve as a legal officer in the Guard. 

Related: Democrats added certain consumer protection rules to CLARITY: Coinbase exec

According to a report from Crypto In America on Tuesday, Witt had already deferred his mandatory military training in April to remain at the White House to work on CLARITY Act negotiations, which stretched on longer than expected. This is the second time Witt has deferred his training.

Harry Jung to leave White House Crypto Council

Witt staying at the White House comes as Harry Jung, the Deputy Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, announced he will leave his post. 

“In two weeks, I will leave government service with immense gratitude,” said Jung in a post to X on Monday. “These past two years transformed America’s position on crypto. I’m proud of all we accomplished.” 

Jung was originally slated to take over Witt’s responsibilities in the crypto council while he was on military leave, according to Crypto In America. 

Magazine: Peter Brandt predicts the exact day Bitcoin’s bear market will be over

Bitcoin rises to one-month high of $65,700 before pulling back with stocks

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Bitcoin rises to one-month high of $65,700 before pulling back with stocks

Up more than 1% at its best levels on Monday, the Nasdaq steadily lost ground throughout the afternoon hours, closing roughly unchanged for the day.

The S&P 500 fell 0.15%, and the DJIA dropped 0.6%.

The rally began early in the morning as oil dipped by about $3 per barrel to below $80 on a report that Iran was seeking to renew ceasefire talks.

That report failed to have legs, though, with WTI crude rising back to about one-month highs of $82.50.

Alongside, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield gained five basis points to 4.59%, with short-term rate traders ratcheting up July Fed rate hike odds to 16% and September rate hike odds to 63%, according to CME FedWatch.

The risk selloff dented bitcoin’s tepid rally to a new one-month high of $65,700, the price falling back to $65,000 as stocks closed for the day.

Bitcoin Holds $65K Amid Tech Sell-Off. Cautious Bulls Eye $70K Rally.

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Bitcoin Holds $65K Amid Tech Sell-Off. Cautious Bulls Eye $70K Rally.

Key takeaways:

  • Bitcoin futures and options show whales still prefer hedging downside risks as socio-economic risks mount.
  • Rising Treasury yields and declines in AI stocks fuel risk aversion, yet BTC’s strength signals continued decoupling.

Bitcoin (BTC) showed relative strength over the past week, despite failing to break above $65,500. More importantly, the cryptocurrency has decoupled from traditional markets as investors took profits in memory-chip makers amid fears of excessive valuations in the artificial intelligence sector. Still, judging by Bitcoin’s derivative metrics, top traders are not particularly confident about a rally toward $70,000.

Bitcoin perpetual futures annualized funding rate. Source: Laevitas

The Bitcoin perpetual futures annualized funding rate stood at a neutral 8% mark on Monday, flat from one week prior. Excessive demand for bullish leverage drives the indicator above the 12% level, which last occurred on July 10. It is unclear if Bitcoin traders’ lack of optimism is somewhat related to contagion fears from the sell-off in tech stocks or the war in Iran.

Nasdaq-100 futures (left) vs. Bitcoin/USD (right). Source: TradingView

The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 Index dropped below 28,800 on Friday for the first time in five weeks, while Bitcoin displayed strength over the weekend and eventually broke above $65,000 on Monday. Strategy announced a successful raise of $263 million in cash by selling common stock during the prior week, easing concerns of potential Bitcoin sell pressure.

Investors became extremely anxious about Strategy’s $1.76 billion annual dividend payout to its preferred perpetual equity shareholders, in addition to the $2.6 billion of convertible debt maturing in 2028 and 2029. By raising cash reserves to a comfortable $3.22 billion, the company hopes to eliminate the uncertainty caused by unrealized Bitcoin losses held in its balance sheet.

Bitcoin 30-day options delta skew (put-call) at Deribit. Source: Laevitas

The Bitcoin 30-day options delta skew stood at 13% on Monday, meaning puts (sell) traded at a premium relative to calls (buy). Under neutral conditions, the indicator should range from -6% to +6%. Despite the modest improvement from the prior week’s 19% delta skew, whales and market makers remain reluctant to hold downside price exposure.

Bitcoin’s resilience amid AI stocks weakness and increased risk aversion

The sell-off in AI-related stocks has also caused investors to act more risk-averse. The sharp declines in the shares of IBM, SanDisk, Oracle, ARM, SpaceX and Intel coincided with a rally in 5-year US Treasury yields. Traders demanded higher returns to hold government bonds, indicating they anticipate further expansionary monetary measures due to the ongoing fiscal debt issue.

Gold/USD (left) vs. US 5-year Treasury yield (right): Source: TradingView

The US 5-year Treasury yield surged to 4.33% on Monday, up from 4.22% two weeks prior. Curiously, gold prices have been in a downtrend since mid-May, suggesting that no asset class has been immune to the deteriorating global economic growth outlook and ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

On Monday, US President Trump vowed to retaliate against Iran for a missile strike that killed US soldiers in Jordan, putting risk assets on high alert. Bitcoin’s jump to $65,500 strengthens the case for further decoupling from traditional finance markets amid signs of monetary base expansion. Despite a lack of bullishness in BTC derivatives markets, a rally toward $70,000 could be ignited by weak corporate earnings, especially in the AI sector.

Democrats Added Certain Consumer Protection Rules to CLARITY: Coinbase Exec

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Democrats Added Certain Consumer Protection Rules to CLARITY: Coinbase Exec

As lawmakers in the US Senate are likely to vote soon on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, representatives from advocacy organizations and companies are providing details of closed-door negotiations over the bill, which is expected to be the most comprehensive piece of legislation affecting the crypto industry.

In a Monday CNBC interview, Coinbase vice chair Ryan VanGrack said while the final negotiations over text of the CLARITY Act were taking place in the Senate, Democratic lawmakers had added additional protections for customers to give what he called “more teeth” to the legislation. He did not explicitly mention any progress on adding ethics provisions to the bill, which many Democrats said will be necessary for their votes. 

“[A]t the end of the day, this is about customer protections,” said VanGrack. “The status quo lacks this infrastructure, lacks these protections, and the Democrats used this opportunity, wisely, to make sure that customers were first and foremost in [this bill].”

Notably, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong may have contributed to a delay for a markup of an earlier version of the bill in the Senate Banking Committee, when he announced in January that the exchange could not support the legislation as written. Several Coinbase executives have since come out publicly in favor of the Senate passing the bill, including chief legal officer Paul Grewal. 

Related: Ethics remain sticking point as crypto market structure bill goes to markup

Under the Biden administration, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Coinbase for allegedly operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker and clearing agency. The case was dropped shortly after US President Donald Trump took office, with the agency headed by his pick for acting SEC chair, Mark Uyeda.

CLARITY has Trump’s support, but ethics could leave bill in limbo

Last week, following the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, Trump said on social media that members of the Senate should pass the CLARITY Act “in honor of” the South Carolina lawmaker, who he claimed had been “a big supporter” of the bill.

Republican lawmakers reportedly met with Trump on Thursday to discuss the bill amid Democrats’ concerns about the president’s ties to the crypto industry. In June, the president disclosed $1.4 billion in earnings related to his memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP), his family crypto company World Liberty Financial and other digital asset investments.

Senate Democrats also reportedly held a closed-door meeting on Wednesday to assess their positions on the CLARITY Act. As of Monday, lawmakers had not released the final text of the bill or scheduled a floor vote.

Magazine: Will the crypto lobby’s $189M campaign get CLARITY over the line?

Metaplanet’s Bitcoin Japan Announces Plan To Scoop Up Coins Despite Market Downturn

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Metaplanet’s Bitcoin Japan Announces Plan To Scoop Up Coins Despite Market Downturn

Bitcoin Japan, a subsidiary of Asia’s answer to Strategy, Metaplanet, has announced it entered into a financing agreement to start buying the leading cryptocurrency for its treasury. 

The Tokyo-based, publicly-listed company said Thursday that it had approved a convertible bond deal with EVO Fund to raise 9.66 billion yen ($59.5 million). The deal will see the company spend over 662 million yen — or over $4 million — on its first Bitcoin transaction. 

Bitcoin Japan works on Bitcoin-related media, data platforms and events to promote the understanding of the leading cryptocurrency in Japan and “contribute to the development of its ecosystem globally,” according to its website. 

Its parent company, Metaplanet, is a publicly-traded company following in the footsteps of Nasdaq-listed Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — by buying and holding Bitcoin on its balance sheet. It first started buying the asset in 2024. 

Metaplanet is one of the biggest Bitcoin treasuries in the world, with 43,000 digital coins worth over $2.8 billion in its coffers. Its stock is currently down over 50% year-to-date.