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[1/3] Don Cameron stands next to one of his flood capture projects on his Terranova Ranch in Helm, California, U.S., January 25, 2023. Today, California water experts see Cameron as a pioneer. Terra Nova's basins are filled with 1.5 to 3.5 feet of water, Cameron said Wednesday. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on March 10 making it easier for farmers to divert floodwaters onto their lands until June. "We're at the beginning of a lot of momentum for groundwater recharge programs," said Gosselin, of the state groundwater office.

☆ A person suspected to be crypto developer Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro months after the collapse of TerraUSD
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Carla Mozée | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

A person suspected of being Do Kwon, creator of the now-collapsed TerraUSD stablecoin, has been arrested in Montenegro, a country official said Thursday. The country's interior minister said the suspect was arrested at the airport with falsified documents. Authorities have been looking for months for Kwon since the failure of his Singapore-based Terraform Labs ecosystem and the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin wreaked havoc in the crypto market. Police in Montenegro detained a person suspected to be Do Kwon at the Podgorica airport, Montenegro Interior Minister Filip Adzic said on Twitter. South Korea, where Kwon is from, issued an arrest warrant for Kwon in September for for alleged capital markets law violations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued crypto exchange Coinbase a Wells notice, warning the company that it identified potential violations of U.S. securities law. "Based on discussions with the Staff, the Company believes these potential enforcement actions would relate to aspects of the Company's spot market, staking service Coinbase Earn, Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Wallet," Coinbase said in a regulatory filing. A Wells notice is typically one of the final steps before the SEC formally issues charges. Coinbase described the investigation as "cursory," and said the Wells notice provided relatively little information about potential violations. The SEC sent a Wells notice to stablecoin issuer Paxos in February.

☆ Brazil's Americanas faces more debt, asset sales as it restructures
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Sources with knowledge of the situation, however, told Reuters that the company shoulders a higher debt load than previously disclosed. Americanas presented the first draft of a legal recovery plan to a court in Rio de Janeiro state, O Globo newspaper reported. In January, the company entered bankruptcy protection after disclosing accounting "inconsistencies" worth 20 billion reais ($3.78 billion). The company said in early March it had offered a 10 billion reais capital injection to its creditors that will come from top shareholders. Sources close to the matter said the company holds debts of more than 50 billion reais, which exceeds the 42 billion reais previously acknowledged during the bankruptcy proceedings.

☆ Crypto's go-to bank collapsed. What now?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Yesterday, the financial world witnessed a classic run on the bank when Silvergate Capital, the go-to US lender for crypto companies, said it would wind down its operations and voluntarily liquidate. ICYMI: Silvergate was, for most of its existence, a traditional Southern California regional bank. In the same period, the global crypto industry has lost two-thirds of its value, falling from a $3 trillion market cap to $1 trillion. I’ve heard the “don’t blame crypto” argument a thousand times. And it was the same story nearly a year ago, when the Terra/Luna crash last spring wiped out billions overnight — don’t blame crypto; those were toxic algorithmic stablecoins, you can’t trust those.

☆ The SEC has accused fugitive Terraform founder Do Kwon of multibillion-dollar crypto fraud linked to TerraUSD's collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Zahra Tayeb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The SEC has charged fugitive crypto boss Do Kwon and his company Terraform Labs with alleged fraud. The suit is linked to the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD which led to a $60 billion wipeout last year. Terraform was "simply a fraud propped up by a so-called algorithmic 'stablecoin'," the SEC alleges. The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused them of misleading US investors about the stability of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD, or UST, which was meant to be pegged to the US dollar. At the same time, the SEC is also charging Terraform and Kwon over the sale of unregistered securities, the markets regulator said.

☆ Leonardo DiCaprio's Regeneration VC fills $1.6 million funding gap in AI recycling startup Greyparrot after key investor falls short on commitment
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Leonardo DiCaprio's Regeneration VC has plugged a $1.6 million funding gap in Greyparrot. But Una Terra, one of its key backers, was unable the fulfill the entirety of its promised investment. Leonardo DiCaprio-backed fund Regeneration VC has plugged a $1.6. million funding gap in recycling analytics startup Greyparrot after one of its key backers fell short on a promised investment. The founder expects continued growth in waste data, analytics, and reporting as industries are forced to green up.

☆ US SEC charges Terra founder Do Kwon with fraud
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Kwon founded blockchain platform Terraform Labs and was the primary developer of two cryptocurrencies whose demise roiled crypto markets around the world last year. The SEC filing did not say where Kwon was living. According to the SEC’s complaint, Terraform Labs and Kwon misled investors about the stability of UST, and claimed that the firm’s crypto tokens would increase in value. Terraform Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Globally, investors in TerraUSD and Luna lost an estimated $42 billion, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

☆ U.S. SEC charges Terra founder Do Kwon with fraud
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Hannah Lang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Kwon founded blockchain platform Terraform Labs and was the primary developer of two cryptocurrencies whose demise roiled crypto markets around the world last year. TerraUSD, an algorithmic stablecoin supposed to maintain a 1:1 peg to the U.S. dollar, derived its value through another paired token called Luna. Both tokens lost nearly all their value when TerraUSD, also known as UST, slipped below its 1:1 dollar peg in May 2022. Prior to its collapse on May 9, TerraUSD had a market cap of more than $18.5 billion and was the tenth-largest cryptocurrency. Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and David GregorioOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ SEC charges Do Kwon, Terraform with fraud in connection with Terra collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Do Kwon, co-founder and chief executive officer of Terraform Labs, insists that he is not on the run from South Korean authorities. Terraform Labs, the company that Kwon founded, is behind the collapsed cryptocurrencies terraUSD and luna, which combined were worth $60 billion before they crashed. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Terraform Labs and its CEO, Do Kwon, with fraud, alleging that they orchestrated a multibillion dollar "crypto asset securities fraud," the SEC said Thursday. The SEC alleges that Kwon marketed those assets, including those mAsset swaps and Terra, as profit-bearing securities, "repeatedly claiming" the tokens would increase in value. Kwon is wanted in South Korea for his involvement in the collapse of TerraUSD.

☆ Tuesday Morning says it wants to close 265 stores as part of its bankruptcy filing. See if your local store is on the list.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +30 min

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☆ Jerusalem Christians say they feel growing harassment
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Ammar Awad | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Ammar AwadJERUSALEM, Feb 13 (Reuters) - For several weeks, members of the small Christian community in Jerusalem's Old City say they have felt under pressure from what they say is growing harassment and intimidation from violent Jewish ultranationalists. The church stands at the place where Christ is held to have taken the cross after being condemned to death by crucifixion. "In the past two months, I would say, since the beginning of the new government, attacks like this are becoming very, very usual," said Miran Krikorian, a restaurant owner in the Old City. Israeli police say they have stepped up patrols around Christian sites in Jerusalem as churches report abuse by Jews following the swearing-in of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government. The cramped warren of alleyways that makes up the Old City surrounds some of the holiest sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims, and the local communities have long developed ways of living together.

☆ Tesla's bitcoin holdings fell nearly $1.8 billion in value last year, as Elon Musk called crypto a 'sideshow'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The value of Tesla's bitcoin holdings fell nearly $1.8 billion last year, a company filing showed. CEO Elon Musk distanced himself from crypto last year, calling it a "sideshow to the sideshow." But 2022 saw a bloodbath for the vast majority of crypto assets, after a bull rally through most of 2021 where prices peaked. "We're neither here nor there on cryptocurrency," Musk told investors. The value of bitcoin has risen more than 40% through 2023 in a sign of returning bullishness for riskier assets after a dour 2022.

☆ Crypto's core technology has a legitimacy problem. The founder of VC firm Dao5 is seeking to shore up its cred by working with university researchers.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Tekin Salimi, the founder of the VC firm Dao5, sources many of his deals through academic research. Salimi's venture capital firm, Dao5, counts several university professors among its advisors and has backed several startups founded by academics. His budding interest in crypto eventually brought him to Silicon Valley, where he joined the crypto VC firm Polychain Capital in 2018. When he left Polychain to launch Dao5 last year, Salimi sought to build academic research into the firm's deal-sourcing process. Dao5 cut ties with Kwon after the collapse, and he never had any financial involvement in the firm, Salimi said.

☆ Bitcoin and other cryptos slump as the Fed gets ready to raise interest rates again
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Crypto markets are slipping as the two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve kicks off. A blockchain exec broke down how crypto markets are thinking about this week's expected rate hike. Ethereum is flat ahead of the central bank meeting, trading at $1,585. Recent economic data points indicate that high inflation is easing, giving the central bank room to pull back on monetary tightening. "Any movement ahead of the Fed meeting is mere correlation," Jeremy Epstein, CMO of smart contract platform Radix, told Insider.

☆ $100 repair bill sparked Half Moon Bay shooting, prosecutor says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

SAN FRANCISCO — A farmworker charged with killing seven people at two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms reportedly told investigators he was spurred to carry out the shootings after his supervisor demanded he pay $100 to repair a forklift damaged at work. KNTV-TV, the NBC affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area, was first to report the development. Zhao told KNTV-TV in a courthouse interview Thursday that he committed the shootings. He said he has a 40-year-old daughter in China and lived with his wife in Half Moon Bay. The coroner’s office has named six of the victims: Zhishen Liu, 73, of San Francisco; Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50, of Moss Beach, California; Aixiang Zhang, 74, of San Francisco; Qizhong Cheng, 66, of Half Moon Bay; Jingzhi Lu, 64, of Half Moon Bay; and Yetao Bing, 43, whose hometown was unknown.

☆ After a tough year for crypto, here's how to handle losses on your tax return
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Kate Dore | Cfp | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Plus, there's currently no "wash sale rule" for crypto. The rule blocks the tax break if you buy a "substantially identical" asset 30 days before or after the sale. If your crypto losses exceed other investment gains and $3,000 of regular income, you can use the rest in subsequent years, Greene-Lewis said. But it's easy to lose track of carryover losses and miss future opportunities to lower taxes, she warned. If you wind up getting, say, 10% back after claiming a bad debt deduction, that 10% becomes regular income.

☆ Treasury imposes sanctions against Russian paramilitary firm Wagner Group
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Amanda Macias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

A mural praises the Russian Wagner group and its mercenaries fighting in Ukraine on March 30, 2022 in Belgrade, Serbia. The Treasury Department identified the Wagner Group, led by Putin crony Yevgeny Prigozhin, as a "significant transnational criminal organization." Joint Stock Company Terra Tech, a Russian-based technology firm, for providing space and aerial imagery to the Wagner Group. Joint Stock Company Research and Production, a Russian space company supporting Russia's military activities in Ukraine. In addition, State announced steps to impose visa restrictions on 531 members of the Russian military for their role in Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday stepped up sanctions against the Wagner Group, labeling the Russian mercenary company fighting in Ukraine as a transnational criminal organization responsible for widespread human rights abuses. The U.S. Treasury Department, as part of action targeting dozens of people and entities in an effort to degrade Russia's ability to wage the war, said it designated Wagner Group as a "significant transnational criminal organization" on Thursday. It had previously designated Wagner under its Russia and Ukraine sanctions programs. "These images were gathered in order to enable Wagner combat operations in Ukraine," Treasury said. He said the United States assesses Wagner has about 50,000 personnel deployed to Ukraine, including 40,000 convicts recruited from Russian prisons.

☆ Suspect in Half Moon Bay shooting rampage appears in California court
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Jorge Garcia | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/6] A suspect is arrested by law enforcement personnel after a mass shooting at two locations in the coastal northern California city of Half Moon Bay, California, U.S. January 23, 2023 in a still image from video. The hearing was held at the San Mateo County Superior Court in nearby Redwood City, California. The complaint against Zhao also alleged "special circumstances" accusing Zhao of "personally and intentionally" shooting to kill. IMMIGRANT VICTIMSHalf Moon Bay, a community of about 12,000 residents south of San Francisco, is home to both a luxury resort and a low-income farming community. Two days before the Half Moon Bay killings, another gunman 380 miles to the south opened fire at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a club frequented mostly by older patrons of Asian descent in Monterey Park.

☆ DCG-owned crypto exchange Luno axes 35% of staff, citing market turbulence
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A worsening macroeconomic climate and the collapse of industry giants like FTX and Terra have weighed on bitcoin's price this year. Cryptocurrency exchange Luno is the latest company in the industry to make layoffs, setting out to cut 35% of its global workforce. "2022 has been an incredibly tough year for the broader tech industry and in particular the crypto market," the company said in a statement shared with CNBC Wednesday. "Luno unfortunately hasn't been immune to this turbulence, which has affected our overall growth and revenue numbers." A Luno spokesperson told CNBC the layoff measure would have "minimal or no impact on key operating, and compliance teams."

☆ D.C. appeals court expedites oral arguments in Grayscale lawsuit against SEC
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The SEC on Wednesday rejected Grayscale's application for a spot bitcoin ETF, citing a failure by the investment manager to answer questions about concerns around market manipulation. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has scheduled a date to hear oral arguments in Grayscale's lawsuit contesting the Securities and Exchange Commission's decision to deny the conversion of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to an exchange-traded fund. Grayscale initiated its lawsuit against the SEC in June 2022 after the agency rejected its application to turn its bitcoin trust, better known by its ticker GBTC, into an ETF. The company decided to pursue the ETF, which would be backed by bitcoin rather than bitcoin derivatives, after the SEC approved ProShares' futures-based bitcoin ETF in October 2021. Still, crypto investors are longing to see the SEC approve a U.S. spot bitcoin ETF – and no longer just as a way to open the crypto market to more institutional investment.

☆ The founders of Web3 startup QuickNode managed to raise $60 million, valuing the company at $800 million — even after the fall of FTX. Here's how they did it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Web3 infrastructure company QuickNode has raised $60 million at an $800 million valuation. That's illustrated by the blockchain infrastructure company QuickNode, which just announced $60 million in Series B funding at an $800 million valuation. That's helped QuickNode quadruple its revenue over the past year, Alex Nabutovsky, QuickNode's CEO and cofounder, told Insider. QuickNode's founders decided it was best to put off raising a Series B and focus on their company's growth. Back then, QuickNode's founders received a term sheet in a matter of days, capped off with a meal at the trendy restaurant Carbone.

☆ Fact Check-Financial disclosures do not show Rep. Lauren Boebert is worth $12 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

There is no public evidence to show that Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has a net worth “of over $12 million” as claimed online. A tweet with over 13,500 retweets reads: “Lauren Boebert has a net worth of over $12 million. In her 2021 financial disclosure report, filed on August 2022 and the latest available, (here), Boebert listed 12 entries of “assets and ‘unearned’ income”. As liabilities for 2021, Boebert reported a home mortgage of “$250,001-$500,000.”Boebert’s financial disclosures for 2020 (here) and 2019 (here) also do not support the claims that her net worth is $12 million. Financial disclosure reports of Rep. Lauren Boebert do not indicate that she is worth $12 million.

☆ Explainer: What Brazil and Argentina's 'currency union' really means
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Marcela Ayres | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

BRASILIA, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Brazil and Argentina sparked some excitement on Sunday over the possibility of a potential "currency union", though the two countries are unlikely to ditch the real or peso any time soon. That sparked off chatter about a European Union-style zonal currency for South America, though officials have since played that down and analysts say a full-on currency union is a distant prospect. Under the plan, the Brazilian real and Argentine peso would continue to exist, with the new tender targeted narrowly at trade. That is key for Argentina, which is grappling with low foreign currency reserves after years of debt crises. In 2019, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro touted plans for a currency union, which also never materialized.

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