SF News Saturday Links: Ukrainian President Appears to Be Ambushed In Oval Office, Russian Reporter Removed For Live-Streaming Trump and Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy end discussions in a heated clash; a crypto trader dies by suicide after losing his last $500 in a crypto scam; and one vindictive person has been painting their own red curbs and leaving official-looking notes on their neighbors' cars.
Business & Tech Trump Launches Meme Coin Ahead of Inauguration In Likely Pump-and-Dump Scheme This weekend, President Donald Trump and his family launched their own Trump-branded cryptocurrency, just days ahead of his inauguration.
Arts & Entertainment Local Crypto Mogul Buys That Banana Taped to a Wall for $6.2 Million If you need more evidence that the billionaires are not being taxed enough, SF cryptocurrency mogul Justin Sun just paid $6.2 million for an art piece that is merely a banana duct taped to a wall, and says he is going to eat the banana live on the internet.
Business & Tech Shocker: California Leads the Nation in Cryptocurrency Fraud, According to FBI More than 20% of all cryptocurrency fraud happened right here in California last year, and the FBI San Francisco Field Office was kept busy, dealing with a staggering $260 million in crypto scams in 2023 alone.
Business & Tech Sigh, Someone’s Trying to Do This NFT-Only Club and Workspace Thing Again, Calling It a ‘Crypto Sanctuary’ Despite the collapse of the so-called “NFT restaurant” that was supposed to come to Salesforce Transit Center, and the broader flame-out of the NFT and Web3 boondoggles, someone still thinks that an NFT-only members club in SoMa can appeal beyond a shrinking subset of crypto bros.
SF News CFO of Shen Yun-Affiliated Media Outlet Arrested for $67 Million Money-Laundering Scheme Just days after Trump was found guilty, the CFO of the far-right newspaper Epoch Times was arrested and charged in a $67 million money-laundering crypto scam. The Epoch Times, of course, promotes and helps fund the ubiquitously advertised propaganda musical Shen Yun.
Business & Tech Disgraced FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years Fallen crypto mogul and Bay Area native Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday morning to 25 years in federal prison and ordered to forfeit $11 billion.
SF Politics New Crypto Bro PAC Spending Millions on Ads to Defeat Katie Porter in California Senate Race Whatever remaining cryptocurrency moguls who are not looking at prison time have coalesced around a common enemy in Senate candidate Katie Porter, as money from Ron Conway and Andreessen Horowitz just bought $2 million worth of attack ads against her.
SF News Former SF Man Gets Four Years In Prison, $5 Million Fine In Crypto Fraud Scheme A one-time San Francisco man was just sentenced to four years in prison for a cryptocurrency scheme that promised “10% returns every 30 business days,” but actually made no money whatsoever, and now he’s headed to prison for four years.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Crypto Mogul Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty on Seven Counts of Fraud Japantown’s Geary Street pedestrian overpass has been gussied up, the Capp Street bar Uptown is closing permanently, and disgraced FTX crypto baron Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all counts in his fraud trial.
SF News Day Around the Bay: SF Crypto Exchange Coinbase Sued By Feds For Acting As Unregistered Broker Gavin Newsom lashed out at a school board president who slandered Harvey Milk, we’re getting new accounts of what went on in Breed’s Tenderloin Center, and major crypto exchange Coinbase is facing a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit.
SF News Disgraced Crypto Mogul Sam Bankman-Fried Stuck At Parents’ Place on House Arrest, But Mulling Book, Movie Deals The downfallen crypto founder is stuck under house arrest in his parents’ house in Palo Alto, now a “heavily guarded fortress” with a $10,000-a-week security detail, but one person who’s been able to get into the house is 'Moneyball' author Michael Lewis.
Bay Area Sports Now Someone’s Suing Steph Curry and the Warriors Over Promotions of Bankrupt Crypto Fund FTX Did you lose money in the collapse of cryptocurrency firm FTX? Maybe you can get some of it back by suing Steph Curry and the Warriors, because there’s a class action lawsuit against them and other sports stars like Tom Brady who endorsed the now-worthless digital currency exchange.
Business & Tech SEC Launches Probe Into Those ‘Bored Ape’ NFTs and the Company That Makes Them While the crypto bros lose their shirts over those monkey jpegs that they dreamed were worth $300,000, the Securities and Exchange Commission is opening an investigation into those NFTs’ creator, Yuga Labs.
SF News Vague New Retail Concept Involving Crytpo Bros and Merchandise Chosen By Committee Heads to Hayes Valley Something very odd is coming to Hayes Valley, which at least a few investors think could be some futuristic retail concept that's more of a co-op community than a traditional store.
Business & Tech CEO of Once-SF-Based Crypto Exchange Kraken Wants Employees to Know That If They Want to Debate Pronouns They're Welcome to Quit Jesse Powell, the CEO of Kraken, which is second only to Coinbase in the world of crypto exchanges, may be exhibiting some of the stress of the moment as crypto prices plummet.
Business & Tech Bill Gates Disses Crypto, NFTs as 'Greater Fool' Follies at UC Berkeley Event Billionaire Bill Gates, serving as a counterpoint to fellow billionaire and noted crypto enthusiast Elon Musk, had some choice words Tuesday for the currently tanking cryptocurrency and NFT universe.
Business & Tech Two SF Crypto Bros Charged for Fraud Over ‘Auto Trader Bot’ Whose Results They Were Just Faking by Hand A pair of blockchain founder types claimed their crypto bot was producing “jaw dropping,” “eye-popping,” and “insane” profits. An SEC charging document says they “fabricated the performance results.”
Arts & Entertainment San Francisco 4/20 Billboard Promises ‘Get Free NFTs When You Buy Weed’ We have reached Peak 2022 San Francisco, as a fresh, new 4/20 billboard at Mission and Geneva Streets declares “Get Free NFTs when you buy weed.”
Arts & Entertainment Crypto Enthusiasts Promote ‘Bored Ape’ NFTs In Mission District Murals We have entered the phase where Bored Ape NFT promotions sit among the Mission Street murals, at a moment when the NFT collective behind these virtual apes is angling for a $5 billion valuation.
Bay Area Sports 49ers Hit With Ransomware Attack, Team Financial Data Exposed The 49ers would prefer to call it a "network security incident," but team documents are now posted on the dark web, and the hackers may have plenty more breached data to expose if the 49ers don’t pay up.
Business & Tech Crypto Bro War of Words (and Memes) Breaks Out Between Jack Dorsey and Top Silicon Valley VCs There are no good guys, and certainly no women at all, in the latest Silicon Valley high school drama that pits Jack Dorsey and the bigwigs at Andreessen Horowitz arguing over the true meaning of crypto.
Business & Tech Cal Takes a Cryptocurrency Naming Rights Deal for Memorial Stadium The Goldens Bears’ stadium will now be called ‘FTX Field at Memorial Stadium,’ in a crypto deal that is either a trailblazing innovation, or a slush fund for future ransomware attacks.
Business & Tech Facebook's Cryptocurrency Dreams Are Not Dead; Diem Expected to Launch This Year Remember when Facebook started talking about launching its own crypto coin two years ago called Libra and everyone balked and then it kind of went away? Well, it didn't totally go away, it's now called Diem, and the project is still moving forward toward a launch.
SF News Facebook Faces Uphill Battle In Washington For Its Libra Crypto Project It's not looking like it will be an easy road for Facebook in Washington with its launch of Libra, now that they've decided to move into FinTech in a year in which distrust of Facebook is at an all-time high.
