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šŸ’„CPI Release Week Starts with Momentous Upheaval: Bahamian Authorities Take SBF Into Custody as Crypto Miner Argo Flashes More Signs of Financial StrainšŸ’„
December 13, 2022
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The November CPI data is one of the key macro-events lined up to potentially define the course of the crypto market and dictate the Wall Street tempo alongside the Fed meeting decision. In a separate development this crypto-week, Bitcoin mining firm Argo Blockchain disclosed growing distress on Monday as it scrambles to explore options to remain operational. The former head of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, who resigned last month as the main corporate entity and its US subsidiary (FTX US) filed for bankruptcy, was placed in custody late on Monday.

Here are the specifics you need to know:

Market braces for the last CPI report of the year and FOMC rate decision

The November consumer price index (CPI) data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is due later today. While the likelihood of the report delivering more surprises is slim, the data is expected to influence the market pace on a macro level slightly. Projections are that the report will bear a moderating, albeit benign, inflation print with a prediction of a 7.3% year-over-year figure from the previous 7.7% figure on an annualized basis.

Later this week, the Federal Reserve will hold a two-day meeting to review efforts to deflate the labor market and ease price pressures. Economists contend that the Fed is still boxed in as its attempts to find a compromise between recession and persistent inflation.

ā€œAvoiding pain is not an option here. That’s just not on the menu […] What is on the menu is, ā€˜Do we want a little bit of pain very quickly? Or do we potentially wait and then deal with more pain down the road?ā€™ā€ Jefferies’ managing director Aneta Markowska toldĀ Fortune.

In the digital assets market, Bitcoin has seen strong buying interest above $17,100 as bulls seek to solidify a $16,920 support level. Ethereum price has slowed at $1,260 as traders anticipate the CPI data to spur mild volatility.

The majority of other top tokens are trading slightly in the green, with a few like ApeCoin (APE) and Trust Wallet token (TWT), which have corrected 7%and 18%, respectively, in the last 24 hours. Toncoin (TON), Bitcoin SV (BSV), andĀ DashĀ (DASH) have racked up decent gains during this period, with the latter up nearly 10% at writing.

To learn more, visit ourĀ Investing in Open NetworkĀ guide.

Failed FTX exchange CEO Sam Bankman-fried arrested

On Monday evening Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, confirmed the apprehension of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. His arrest was carried out by Royal Bahamas Police Force officers at the request of the US government, according to a MondayĀ reportĀ from the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Legal Affairs. The former crypto billionaire has been staying in the Bahamas and recently appeared in an interview for BBC,Ā promising to start a new venture to repay FTX usersĀ who lost their funds.

ā€œEarlier [today], Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the US Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.ā€Ā Williams said in a statement.

Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, Latrae Rahming, noted that the former crypto billionaire would remain in custody as specified by the Bahamas Extradition Act. SBF was set to appear remotely before Congress on Dec. 13, but the House Financial Services Committee chair Maxine WatersĀ communicatedĀ that the virtual congressional testimony wouldn’t be possible in light of his arrest.

Ā ā€œThe public has been waiting eagerly to get these answers under oath before Congress, and the timing of this arrest denies the public this opportunity.ā€Ā Waters questioned the timing of the arrest.

SEC to separately charges SBF for violations of securities laws

The former FTX boss was also requested to attend a separate hearing on Dec. 14 with the Senate Committee on Banking, but his attendance remains in question as he didn’t respond to the request before the deadline. A joint Dec. 12 announcement from US Senators Sherrod Brown and Pat Toomey revealed that his lawyers reportedly gave a blind to a subpoena compelling his appearance. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission said late on Monday that it is preparing to file other charges against him different from the ones aligned with the arrest. Quoting a tweet from Office the US Attorney SDNY, SEC director Gurbir GrewalĀ saidĀ that the commission has ā€˜authorized separate charge’ which will be filed publicly today.

MakerDAO to progress with its ā€˜most important deployments’ this year

In addition to parameter changes to its Starknet bridge and the ecosystem’s open market committee, MakerDAO, the decentralized autonomous organization behind Maker, has long-term plans to improve its infrastructure and products. The DAO is set to execute eight governance proposals that the community voted on on Dec. 11. TheĀ proposalsĀ include a compensation package for recognized delegates who have been granted power by other Maker (MKR) token holders to vote on their behalf.

Up to 20 maker delegates will receive a cumulative 103,230 DAI ($103,230) after the execution of the proposal bundle. The compensation is a reward for these delegates who regularly participate in DAO governance issues on behalf of those members not wishing to take part in the same. Other governance actions in the proposal awaiting execution include bumping the DAI savings rate up from 0.01% to 1%, removing the renBTC-A vault, and offboarding its renBTC token as collateral. The bundle also features two additions to the Maker protocol: onboarding multiple BlockTower credit vaults and adoption of Gnosis DAO (GNO) token as collateral.

To learn more, visit ourĀ Investing in MakerĀ guide.

Argo signals it is on a path leading to Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Elsewhere, reports around mining firm Argo Blockchain in the past week have shown a dire financial situation. The mining firm mistakenly revealed insufficient funds to stay afloat through the next month in ā€œinadvertently published materialsā€ last Friday. In an Oct. 31 statement, Argo reported that it was at risk of becoming cash flow negative within a vague ā€œnear termā€ timeline it sees no capital injection. The company previously disclosed in its JuneĀ operational updateĀ that it sold 637 Bitcoin for roughly $15.6 million to repay a debt to Galaxy Digital, which facilitated BTC-backed loans.

The miner’s records show that it secured loans totaling $20 million and $25 million as part of these crypto-backed loan agreements in 2021. The firm shared in a MondayĀ statementĀ an update that it is advanced stages of selling its assets and looking for an equipment financing arrangement to avoid sinking into bankruptcy. Argo’s latest operational update shows that it mined 198 Bitcoin or Bitcoin Equivalents last month and held 126 BTC (116 Bitcoin equivalents) at the end of November. Argo’s potential filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy would see it join several otherĀ mining entities like Compute North have followed this courseĀ amid a multi-year bearish cycle.

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Custom AI assistants that print money in your sleep? šŸ”œ

The future of Crypto x AI is about to go crazy.

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Notice of Objection to the Internal Revenue Service’s Authority and Jurisdiction

Title: ā€œObjection to Foreign Administrative Encroachment by the IRS and Its Commercial Beneficiariesā€

Jurisdictional Challenge, Demand for Proof of Lawful Delegation, and Formal Notice of Foreign Agent Conflict

Jurisdictional Objection and Constitutional Challenge

To Whom It May Concern:

This Notice is a formal and lawful Objection to the Assumed Authority of the entity known as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It is issued under rights secured by the U.S. Constitution, including but not limited to the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments, and in accordance with the Administrative Procedures Act (5 U.S.C. § 551 et seq.), Federal Register Act (44 U.S.C. § 1505), and the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. § 3501 et seq.).

The undersigned demands immediate production of proof of lawful jurisdiction, including the statutory enactment in the Statutes at Large that creates the Internal Revenue Service as ...

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āš”ļøANTHROPIC TO ACQUIRE COINGECKO

Anthropic is set to acquire CoinGecko and roll out Claude Crypto, an AI-powered personal portfolio manager aimed at helping crypto investors track, manage, and make data-driven decisions.

āœļø New Pyth Pro user: @BitMEX

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Stellar CEO Reveals Where Real Opportunity Lies in Crypto Market: Details

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Real opportunity defined

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XDC Network's acquisition of Contour Network

XDC Network's acquisition of Contour Network marks a silent shift to connect the digital trade infrastructure to real-time, tokenized settlement rails.

In a world where cross-border payments still take days and trap trillions in idle liquidity, integrating Contour’s trade workflows with XDC Network Blockchains' ISO 20022 financial messaging standard to bridge TradFi and Web3 in Trade Finance.

The Current State of Cross-Border Trade Settlements

Cross-border payments remain one of the most inefficient parts of global finance. For decades, companies have inter-dependency with banks and their correspondent banks across the world, forcing them to maintain trillions of dollars in pre-funded nostro and vostro balances — the capital that sits idle while transactions crawl across borders.

Traditional settlement is slow, often 1–5 days, and often with ~2-3% in FX and conversion fees. For every hour a corporation can’t access its own cash increases the cost of financing, tightens liquidity that could be used for other purposes, which in turn slows economic activity.

Before SWIFT, payments were fully manual. Intermediary banks maintained ledgers, and reconciliation across multiple institutions limited speed and volume.

SWIFT reshaped global payments by introducing a secure, standardized messaging infrastructure through ISO 20022 - which quickly became the language of money for 11,000+ institutions in 200 countries.

But SWIFT only fixed the messaging — not the movement. Actual value still moves through slow, capital-intensive correspondent chains.

Regulated and Compliant Stablecoin such as USDC (Circle) solves the part SWIFT never could: instant, on-chain settlement.

Stablecoin Settlement revamping Trade and Tokenization

Stablecoin such as USDC is a digital token pegged to the US Dollar, still the most widely used currency for trade, enabling the movement of funds instantly 24*7 globally - transparently, instantly, and without the need for any intermediaries and the need to lock in trillions of dollars of idle cash.

Tokenized settlement replaces multi-day reconciliation with on-chain finality, reducing:

  • Dependency on intermediaries
  • Operational friction
  • Trillions locked in idle liquidity

For corporates trapped in long working capital cycles, this is transformative.

Digital dollars like USDC make the process simple:

Fiat → Stablecoin → On-Chain Transfer → Fiat

This hybrid model is already widely used across remittances, payouts, and treasury flows.

But one critical piece of global commerce is still lagging:

šŸ‘‰ Trade finance.

The Missing link is still Trade Finance Infrastructure.

While payments innovation has raced ahead, trade finance infrastructure hasn’t kept up. Document flows, letters of credit, and supply-chain financing remain siloed, paper-heavy, and operationally outdated.

This is exactly where the next breakthrough will happen - and why the recent XDC Network acquisition of Contour is a silent revolution.

It transforms to a new era of trade-driven liquidity through an end-to-end digital trade from shipping docs to payment confirmation – one infrastructure that powers all.

The breakthrough won’t come from payments alone — it will come from connecting trade finance to real-time settlement rails.

The XDC + Contour Shift: A Silent Revolution

  • Contour already connects global banks and corporates through digital LCs and digitized trade workflows.
  • XDC Blockchain brings a settlement layer built for speed, tokenization, and institutional-grade interoperability and ISO 20022 messaging compatibility

Contour’s digital letter of credit workflows will be integrated with XDC’s blockchain network to streamline trade documentation and settlement.

Together, they form the first end-to-end digital trade finance network linking:

Documentation → Validation → Settlement all under a single infrastructure.

XDC Ventures (XVC.TECH) is launching a Stable-Coin Lab to work with financial institutions on regulated stablecoin pilots for trade to deepen institutional trade-finance integration through launch of pilots with banks and corporates for regulated stable-coin issuance and settlement.

The Bottom Line

Payments alone won’t transform Global Trade Finance — Trade finance + Tokenized Settlement will.

This is the shift happening underway XDC Network's acquisition of Contour is the quiet catalyst.

Learn how trade finance is being revolutionised:

https://www.reuters.com/press-releases/xdc-ventures-acquires-contour-network-launches-stablecoin-lab-trade-finance-2025-10-22/

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