Fairwin: The $125 million Ponzi scheme eating Ethereum

Fairwin, a gambling platform, has been running one of the biggest contracts on the entire Ethereum network. In the last 30 days, the platform has spent more than 51 percent of all gas, the fuel that powers Ethereum, according to ETH Gas Station. That’s almost double the funds spent by the stablecoin network Tether, which has used 28 percent of gas supplies. The problem is, it's a scam. 

 Over the past few weeks, white hat hackers have revealed vulnerabilities in the Fairwin contract on Ethereum that put millions of dollars of customer funds at risk. According to analysis by Ethereum developer Philippe Castonguay, Fairwin received a total of 687,598 ETH, or around $125,000,000. But as of Monday this week, all the funds have been drained from the contract. 

Block.one settles charges with SEC over $4 billion EOS ICO

Block.one, the company behind the EOS cryptocurrency, today settled charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by agreeing to pay a $24 million fine over its unregistered ICO.

In 2017, Block.one raised the equivalent of $4 billion through the ICO that launched EOS.

You do the math.

As usual, the object of the SEC’s enforcement action has settled with the Commission without admitting or denying the charges. What’s unusual, however, is the relatively light penalty that the SEC has opted to levy against Block.one.

No disgorgement. No rescission (forcing Block.one to refund the many billion dollars-worth of tokens it sold). No nothing—other than a civil penalty that amounts to nearly one half of 1 percent of what the company raised in its ICO.

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• Crypto escrow firm chief charged with fraud. 

Top exchanges form Crypto Rating Council to tackle SEC

What you need to know

Crypto exchange Coinbase today announced the launch of the Crypto Rating Council, an organization created to help traders comply with U.S. federal securities laws. The founding members of the Council alongside Coinbase are Anchorage, Bittrex, Circle, DRW Cumberland, Genesis, Grayscale Investments and Kraken. 

Why it's important

Whether tokens constitute securities under U.S. laws significantly impacts “registration, licensing, and operating obligations for financial services firms that offer crypto services like exchange, investment management, or trading,” reads the announcement. 

Binance blocks Tron's token

It seems Tron’s BitTorrent token (BTT) has failed to live up to the hype.

Just a few months after its launch, and following a record-setting IEO in January, Binance has delisted the option to trade BitTorrent tokens against Bitcoin.

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume announced that it will remove the BTT trading pair, along with 29 others, from its platform as a way to "to improve liquidity and user trading experience."

Read more here.