Dear reader, here we come again with the Digest, where we pack crypto insights into a mixtape for a weekend road trip.
This was a record week for Bitcoin:
- Bulls found support above $60K
- BTC tested $64 for the first time since 2022
- Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch started offering spot Bitcoin ETF
But since everyone has been talking about Bitcoin and its staggering rise, we brought you what you might have missed:
- Bitcoin Ordinals staged a comeback on Monday with $19.7M in sales, $14M on Wednesday and $25 M on Thursday.
- Sam Bankman-Fried requested a reduction of his 100-year sentence to 6.5 years.
- 1989’s Road House film accused Amazon Studio’s MGM of copyright infringement and replicating voices using generative AI.
- Might be the worst hack of 2024, Serenity Shield’s token lost 99% of its value after MetaMask breach.
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A Not So Good, Not So Bad Week for Crypto
Bitcoin Ordinals Trading Volumes are Surging
Volumes for Ordinals skyrocketed throughout the week with more than $25 million in sales over the last 24-hours. At the start of the month, per-day volumes would cap at $5 – $6 million until this week when sales began surging as we approached the halving event.
According to data from Dune, the highest trading Ordinals volumes are coming from the cross-chain marketplace, Magic Eden — with the most popular collections being RSIC Metaprotocol, Bitcoin Puppets, and NodeMonkes.
Ordinals seem to be staging a comeback after the price of BTC found support above $60,000 and tested a 3-year high of $64,000. Two major narratives driving the price up are the launch of spot exchange-traded funds last month and the approaching Bitcoin halving.
Attorney is Requesting no More than a 6.5-Year Term for SBF
Bankman Fried’s defense attorneys are convinced a first-time, non-violent offender who is 31 years old and committed financial crimes alongside four other culpable individuals is poised for a 100-year sentence.
The attorneys said recommendations by the Presentence Investigation Report (PSR) to jail SBF for 100 years were grotesque, and advised the sentence should be no more than 78 months.
In their argument, the defense said the sentence was not an appropriate method since FTX previously stated it would fully refund customers.
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They also opposed a prior claim that FTX had an $8 billion hole stating that the venture’s bankruptcy estate has a north of $10 billion worth of assets. When all factors are put into consideration including SBF’s charitable works and his commitment to doing good for others, the sentence must not be greater than necessary.
The attorneys also countered allegations that put Sam as a sociopath, manipulator, bully, and liar. They said Sam cares deeply about others, exhibits kindness, and loyalty, he has his heart in the right place.
Original Creators of Road House Accuse Amazon for Copyright Infringement
Amazon Studios is facing accusations of infringing copyrights of the 1989 film Road House in its upcoming reboot of the action movie.
The screenwriter behind the film filed the lawsuit on Tuesday with Los Angeles Central District Court alleging Amazon infringed copyrights and also resorted to generative AI for cloning actor voices while remaking RoadHouse.
As per the filings, MGM Studio which belongs to Amazon rushed to use generative AI to quickly wind up remaking the movie at a time when the film production industry was on a hiatus due to 2023’s Hollywood strikes.
R.Lance Hill, the screenwriter, filed a petition in 2021 with the US Copyright office to reclaim Road House’s rights. At this point, Amazon Studios had rights to the work due to its acquisition of MGM’s entire film library but the rights were set for expiration by November 2023.
According to Hill, Amazon Studios ignored the copyright claims and rushed into production, where they took extreme measures such as cloning actors’ voices using generative AI. The court filings are now seeking to block the film’s release which is set to premiere on the 8th of March at SXSW, and kick off streaming on Prime Video on 21st March.
SERSH, Serenity Shield’s Utility Token Sheds 99% Following Breach
The utility token of Serenity Shield lost 99% of its value following a security breach on the team’s MetaMask Wallet where criminals swapped approximately $5.6 million worth of tokens.
Serenity confirmed the security breach on 27th February post on X where they announced the suspending of all SERSH transactions on the CEX.
The breach occurred at 9:11 am UTC on Tuesday where hackers transfered 6.9 million tokens from the project’s MetaMask holdings.
At the time, a SERSH token was trading for $0.82 but fell to $0.09 within a 5-hour span. As we write this Digest, the token has fallen even further and is currently changing hands for $0.01373.
As we wrap the weekly digest, remember there is so much happening in crypto at any given time. The partying is to remain laser-focused, but flexible at the same time.
And please, don’t forget to always have good intentions, or else no one will start pleading for a jail sentence cut because you rubbed the community the wrong way.
