It’s another weekend to chill and read the HODLFM’s digest. You know we always sum up the most interesting stories from the week to make sure you don’t miss anything. 

And this past week… in my opinion, wasn’t so bubbly… but still had some worthy highlights.

Here are the main stories that caught our attention:

  • California bans AI in elections
  • South Korea leads global crypto market
  • FTX auditor Prager Metis pays $1.95M SEC settlement

Before chopping this news into bits, here are the top gainers and losers of the week.

Top 3 Gainers (7-Day Performance)

  • Sui (SUI): Sui started the week at $1.0079 and has now reached $1.57. This represents a significant increase of 55.77% over the course of the week. Sui's impressive growth has made it the top gainer among the three cryptocurrencies.
  • Celestia (TIA): Celestia began the week trading at $4.1138 and has since climbed to $5.99. This translates to a substantial gain of 45.61% during the week. While not as dramatic as Sui's increase, Celestia's growth is still remarkable.
  • Bittensor (TAO): Bittensor showed a strong performance, starting the week at $287.63 and rising to $410. This represents a 42.54% increase over the seven-day period. Despite having the highest starting price, Bittensor managed to achieve a significant percentage gain.

Top 3 Losers (7-Day Performance)

  • Helium (HNT): Helium has experienced the largest decrease, with a 9.27% drop over the past week. Its current price is $6.94, with a 24-hour trading volume of $19,592,113.
  • POL (ex-MATIC): POL, formerly known as MATIC, has seen the second-largest decrease, with a 7.88% drop. It's currently priced at $0.4016, and its 24-hour trading volume is $65,006,008.
  • Polygon (MATIC): Polygon ranks third in losses, with a 7.60% decrease. Its current price is also $0.4016, and it has a 24-hour trading volume of $38,930,204.

California wants to fight AI deepfakes in election, passes a couple of laws

Sometime in July, Elon Musk helped spread an artificial intelligence deepfake of Kamala Harris, calling herself “incompetent.” While many people found it funny, the Governor of California, Gavin Newson, didn’t. 

As you can see in his tweet, dude made it his life's work to make election-themed deepfakes illegal. And in just over 5 weeks after making the declaration, Gavin has finally delivered on his promise. Last week, he signed three bills aimed at combating election-related deepfakes. 

The most significant of these, AB 2839, takes effect immediately and bans the knowing distribution of "materially deceptive" AI-generated content related to elections for 120 days before and 60 days after an election.

But Newsom didn't stop there. He also signed two other laws set to kick in next year. One law mandates the labeling of political ads using AI, while another mandates social media platforms with over a million California users to remove deceptive election content within 72 hours of a report.

Unsurprisingly, these new laws have ruffled some feathers. Elon Musk and some other free speech advocates called the new California law unconstitutional. Elon himself shared the AI-manipulated video of Kamala Harris on X again.

South Korea’s market is on fire, thanks to Premium Index.

South Korea’s crypto market is enjoying increased growth, according to recent research from Chainalysis. The main driver, based on what they found, is the Korean Premium Index’s rise.

But what is the Premium Index? This chart measures the price difference for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether between South Korean exchanges and global markets. Basically, it's showing us how much more South Koreans are willing to shell out to get crypto compared to the rest of the world.

As you can see on CryptoQuant chart, things are getting really wild.

Now, it's not just your average crypto bros driving this trend. The big institutional players are jumping in, moving massive volumes, and cranking up that premium even further. They're basically playing a high-stakes game of arbitrage, buying low on global exchanges and selling high on South Korean platforms.

And boy, are these guys making bank. Employees at Dunamu (the crew behind Upbit exchange) are raking in an average of 133.73 million won a year (that's about $99,500). For comparison, the average employee at major banks is only pulling in around 116 million won ($86,700). 

FTX's Ex-Auditor Prager Metis Coughs Up $1.95M in SEC's Crypto Cleanup

You know those movies where the lead actor tells the crime boss they’ll hunt down their entire family and everyone related to them?

Well, that’s what the SEC is currently doing with every company remotely related to FTX. The latest victim is Prager Metic, the accounting firm that once gave FTX's US arm a clean bill of health. The SEC has them coughing up $1.95 million to settle charges of negligence.

Apparently, these number-crunchers were asleep at the wheel when auditing FTX US back in 2021. The SEC claims they failed to follow proper auditing standards, basically rubber-stamping FTX's books without doing their homework.

Turns out, Prager Metis wasn’t even qualified to offer crypto audits in the first place.  Seems they were a bit too eager to cash in on the crypto market without actually knowing what they were doing.

As part of their settlement, Prager Metis has agreed to a cease-and-desist order and promised to play nice with the rules from now on. They're also banned from taking on any new crypto clients for a while. Guess that's what happens when you try to audit what you can't understand.

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Catch up on this week’s crypto trends, top gainers, UAE’s crypto…
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