Techmeme
December 12, 2022, 11:05 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Bahamas AG Ryan Pinder and US SDNY Attorney Damian Williams confirm Bahamas police arrested Sam Bankman-Fried, who is under indictment and could be extradited  —  - The cofounder and former CEO of bankrupt crypto trading firm FTX was arrested in the Bahamas after the U.S. attorney …
More: New York Times, Decrypt, CoinDesk, VICE, Axios, Decrypt, The Block, Gizmodo, Reuters, Forbes, Washington Post, Insider, PYMNTS.com, Australian Financial Review, BuzzFeed News, NPR, Blockworks, TechCrunch, Insider, Los Angeles Times, The Hill, NBC News, Engadget, ABC News, BBC, CNN, Crypto Daily, CNET, The Information, The Block, The Verge, @steventdennis@journa.host, The Daily Hodl, @caseynewton@mastodon.social, Forkast, Crypto Coin Show Insider …, Deadline, Newser, New York Post, Watcher Guru, Bitcoin Magazine, Rolling Stone, SHERLOC Exposes, Fortune, Livemint, Politico, New York Magazine, Financial Times, Crowdfund Insider, Sky News, New York Post, Bloomberg, Cointelegraph, Bitcoin News, Mashable, The Daily Beast, Kotaku, and Semafor
U.S. House Committee on Financial Services:
FTX CEO John Ray's testimony to the US House: FTX and Alameda commingled customer assets, insiders were paid $1B+, FTX US was not run independently, and more  —  Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, distinguished members of the Committee: thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.
Reuters:
Sources: US prosecutors are split on charging Binance and its executives over money laundering and sanctions violations and have discussed potential plea deals  —  Splits between U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors are delaying the conclusion of a long-running criminal investigation …
Laura Forman / Wall Street Journal:
Similarweb: desktop visits to Twitter's ad manager fell ~74% YoY in Oct. and 85% in Nov., the largest drop since Musk's takeover; the trend continues in Dec.  —  Elon Musk is leading with narrative at Twitter.  Don't lose sight of the dollars and sense.  —  Elon Musk's Unconventional Management Style: Former Employees Share Stories
Platformer:
Sources: on December 11, Twitter briefly blocked traffic from ~30 mobile carriers, mainly in the Asia-Pacific region, in an attempt to rid Twitter of spam  —  PLUS: Why it's time to start leaving Twitter behind  —  On Sunday, Elon Musk tweeted a vague warning: “the bots are in for a surprise tomorrow.”
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Jonathan Weil / Wall Street Journal:
Mazars' Binance “proof of reserve” report covers only some assets and liabilities and doesn't vouch for the numbers or assess internal reporting controls  —  Crypto exchange has begun releasing data to shore up confidence following collapse of FTX  —  Crypto's Crash Has Been Swift but Largely Self-Contained.
André Beganski / Decrypt:
Bloomberg:
Sources: the Netherlands and Japan agree in principle to join the US in tightening chipmaking exports to China and limit its ability to obtain advanced chips  —  Japan and the Netherlands have agreed in principle to join the US in tightening controls over the export of advanced chipmaking machinery to China …
Jordan Middler / Video Games Chronicle:
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says Sony opposes the Activision Blizzard deal to “protect its dominance on the console” and to grow by “making Xbox smaller”  —  In the latest war of words over its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft's Gaming CEO …
Bloomberg:
Microsoft acquires a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange, valued at ~£1.6B, as part of a 10-year deal in which LSEG plans to spend $2.8B+ on cloud services  —  Microsoft Corp. agreed to buy a 4% stake in London Stock Exchange Group Plc in a $2.8 billion cloud-computing deal that pushes big tech further into financial markets.

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