Coindesk

Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto lender Celsius Network, faces the prospect of spending the next two decades behind bars if the U.S. Department of Justice's sentencing memo request is granted.In the memo filed late Monday, the DOJ urged the court to impose a 20-year prison sentence, calling the crimes a “deliberate, calculated” fraud that caused nearly $7 billion in customer losses and left thousands financially devastated.Mashinsky, who pleaded guilty in December to misrepresenting the safety of customer deposits and manipulating Celsius's CEL token, “refuses to accept responsibility” for his crimes and continues to shift blame to regulators, market conditions and even his victims, prosecutors said.“Mashinsky’s crimes were not the product of negligence, naivete, or bad...

Bitcoin-friendly Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will no longer be a Member of Parliament after losing his seat in an election which saw Mark Carney's Liberal Party secure enough seats to form at least a minority government.Data from Elections Canada, reported by the CBC, shows Poilievre lost his Ottawa-area seat to Liberal Brunce Fanjoy on Monday night after a 5-week election cycle triggered by Carney, the current Prime Minister, last month. Overall, the Liberal party took approximately 162 seats as of 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time, which is enough to form a minority government. This is fewer than recent polls forecast, which projected that a Carney-led Liberal party would hit majority government territory — 172 seats — given the threats U.S. President...

Bitcoin (BTC) fell early in the U.S. trading session, but mostly held firm as poor macroeconomic news rolled in.The top cryptocurrency late in the day was trading just below $95,000, up 0.5% over the past 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization excluding memecoins, exchange coins and stablecoins — was roughly flat over the same time frame.Crypto stocks like Coinbase (COIN), Strategy (MSTR) and the miners were losing modest ground after big gains last week. Notable exceptions included Janover (JNVR) and DeFi Technologies (DFTF), ahead 24% and 6.5%, respectively even as SOL — the token which both companies are aggressively accumulating — fell about 3% during the U.S. day.Meanwhile, gold...

Marco Santori, the former chief legal officer at Kraken, has joined Pantera Capital as a general partner on the investment team.Santori, who stepped down from Kraken in January of 2025, will focus on expanding Pantera’s crypto portfolio, while acting as a resource for portfolio companies on regulatory compliance and strategic growth, according to a blogpost.He will also continue his role in engaging with policymakers to advocate for clear, innovation-friendly regulations in the U.S. and globally, Pantera said.The advancement of clear crypto regulations in the U.S. makes it an area of focus for firms readying themselves.Sartori, who testified before the U.S. Congress on the subject of crypto regulation, is recognized for developing the “SAFT” (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) framework, a...

Tether’s gold-backed stablecoin, Tether Gold (XAUT), reached a $770 million market capitalization as of April 28, according to the company's first attestation under El Salvador’s financial regulations. "While central banks are stacking up hundreds of tons of gold, XAUt is set to become the standard tokenized gold product for the people and institutions," Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino posted on X. The token is backed 1:1 by 246,523.33 ounces — over 7.7 tons — of physical gold stored in a dedicated Swiss vault, said Tether.Each XAUT token represents one troy ounce of LBMA-certified gold. Tether said it applies strict controls, including gold bar verification and periodic audits, to maintain trust in the token’s backing. The attestation comes at a time when...