Crypto Town: Who Gets Paid First, and What the Records Show

"Those settlements are expected to include penalties as well as bars on serving in executive positions ."

"Court approval remains a necessary step, so the terms are not yet fully finalized in a judicial sense."

"The court will decide how much money the promoters will have to pay."

"As part of its enforcement push, the SEC is seeking permanent injunctions, disgorgement of allegedly ill-gotten gains, civil penalties, and officer-and-director bars for certain defendants ."

"They ask for permanent injunctions, the return of ill-gotten earnings with prejudgment interest, civil fines, and bans on serving as officers or directors."

"According to the SEC, Russell Armand, Maxwell Hernandez, Manpreet Singh Kohli, Nam Tran, and Vy Pham hired ZM Quant and Gotbit to manipulate trading volumes."

"alongside a parallel United States Securities and Exchange Commission action that outlined “market-manipulation‑as‑a‑service” offerings by Gotbit and related actors."

"The GOTBIT indictment charged Antoine Tsao, Ian Sofronov and Nemanja Popov with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud."

"The DOJ said the cases, which center on Gotbit, Vortex, Antier and Contrarian over conduct dating back to 2018, involve schemes to inflate token prices and volumes through coordinated trading"

"According to the indictment as summarized by the source, GOTBIT allegedly sold wash trading services to token projects."

"Prosecutors did not prove that individual investors bought the tokens because they were misled by those claims."

"it defies logic that a drafter of a smart contract, a computer code, could be held liable under the Exchange Act for a third-party user's misuse of the platform."

"Prosecutors also failed to provide enough evidence to support charges that Kim manipulated token prices or diverted proceeds from POD sales."

"However, the Second Circuit directed the lower court to consider Plaintiffs’ state-law claims."

"The court further held that creating a marketplace on which many users could interact legitimately did not constitute “substantial assistance” in facilitating the scams, even if some users acted fraudulently."

"Leitlinien zu den Aufsichtspraktiken der zuständigen Behörden zur Vorbeugung und Aufdeckung von Marktmissbrauch gemäß der Verordnung über Märkte für Kryptowerte ( MiCA )"

"6. Vorschriften zur Bekämpfung von Marktmissbrauch (gelten seit 30. Dezember 2024)"

"Bitte beachten Sie, dass für sonstige Token, deren Zulassung zum Handel beantragt wurde, bereits ab dem Zeitpunkt der Beantragung die Regelungen zur Verhinderung und dem Verbot von Marktmissbrauch (Artikel 86 ff MiCAR) gelten."

"Das Ziel: MiCAR soll den Schutz der Anlegerinnen und Anleger erhöhen, Geldwäsche und Terrorismusfinanzierung verhindern, zur Funktionsfähigkeit der Märkte beitragen und die Finanzstabilität wahren."

"Sie vermitteln oder führen beruflich Geschäfte mit Kryptowerten aus? Sie haben Hinweise, dass bei einem Auftrag oder einem Geschäft Marktmissbrauch begangen wurde, begangen wird oder wahrscheinlich begangen wird? Dann sind Sie verpflichtet, jeden begründeten Verdacht unverzüglich der Bafin über das MVP -Portal zu melden."

"In the end, 76% of all the accounts analyzed were marked as Sybils."

"Airdrop squatters are creating fake accounts on platforms for the sole purpose of farming airdrop tokens, thus taking away share from loyal users."

"amass a large portion of the airdropped tokens, leaving less for genuine users who might be more interested in using and supporting the project long-term."

"A Sybil often creates multiple accounts, operates each account to utilize dedicated DApps, and expects airdrop qualifications of all the accounts."

"Banteg also identified an estimated 701,544 addresses that were allegedly linked to repeat or renamed GitHub accounts controlled by airdrop farmers."

"It seems that Sybils increase the popularity of DApps by bringing more activities, but these activities are from factitious users whose presence degenerates normal users’ rewards."

"Despite such revelation, the airdrop farmers’ addresses were included in the Starknet airdrop anyway."

"DApp projects often set up prerequisites for airdrop qualification, such that users need to complete some basic activities within DApps before being qualified for an airdrop."

"Sybils tend to create multiple accounts and manipulate each account’s activities for airdrop qualification, aiming at obtaining more issued tokens."

"around 70% of pump announcements occur between 15:00 and 17:00 UTC"

"They are restricted from trading of a crypto-asset(s) on Robinhood or another platform, from the time Robinhood publicly announces a new listing or delisting of such crypto-asset(s) up to twenty-four (24) hours after such broad public announcement."

"those who have been identified as Coin Aware Individuals (as defined below) are subject to even more restrictive requirements due to their exposure to MNPI during the listing/delisting process."

"You should refrain from trading until the market has had an opportunity to absorb and evaluate the information, which this Policy defines as one full regular trading session (in the case of securities) and 24 hours (in the case of crypto-assets) after the information was broadly disseminated."

"So long as a stablecoin’s pegged price is not in doubt, listings and delistings of the stablecoin are unlikely to be material with respect to the stablecoin"

"Furthermore, some smart contracts can be controlled by "admin keys" or "super users" with special privileges. These users can make changes to protocol parameters or, in certain cases, access assets held within a protocol."

"These users may have the ability to unilaterally make changes to the smart contract, enable or disable features on the smart contract, change how the smart contract receives external inputs and data or transmits Digital Assets, and make other changes to the smart contract."

"Theyfoundthattheliquiditywithdrawalscollectivelyhave generated$240millioninprofits."

"If an attacker gains access to these privileges or a super user acts maliciously, customers may experience a total loss of their assets' value."

"There may be opportunities for bad actors to perpetrate fraudulent schemes and engage in illicit activities and other misconduct, such as exit scams and rug pulls (orchestrated by developers and/or influencers who promote a smart contract or application and, ultimately, escape with the money at an agreed time), or Ponzi or similar fraud schemes."

"Lastly,Everemovesalltheliquidityfromtheliquidity"

"todraintokenvaluefromtheliquiditypool"

"such governance tokens can be concentrated in the hands of a small group of core community members, who would be able to make similar changes unilaterally to the smart contract."

"Other smart contracts, such as bridges between blockchain networks and DeFi protocols have also been manipulated, exploited or used in ways that were not intended or envisioned by their creators such that attackers syphoned over $3.8 billion worth of digital assets from smart contracts in 2022."

"enabledeveloperstoretainlarge"

"in July 2017, a vulnerability in a smart contract for a multi-signature wallet software developed by Parity led to a reportedly $30 million theft of ether, and in November 2017, a new vulnerability in Parity’s wallet software reportedly led to roughly $160 million worth of ether being indefinitely frozen in an account."

"in March 2020, a design flaw in the MakerDAO smart contract caused forced liquidations of crypto assets at significantly discounted prices, resulting in millions of dollars of losses to users who had deposited crypto assets into the smart contract."

"Scope of Paid Partnerships — Applies to any post created in exchange for compensation or incentive from a third party, including direct payments, affiliate commissions, revenue-sharing, referral codes, discount codes, ambassador arrangements, gifted products, or experiences."

"Compensation, whether paid in fiat, tokens, or affiliate commissions, triggers disclosure responsibilities."

"While users may continue to discuss digital assets organically, any arrangement involving compensation, affiliate incentives, or commercial endorsement falls within the scope of the restriction."

"Crypto influencers and projects heavily reliant on X for promotion may see reduced organic reach if labeling is perceived as less authentic; expect temporary sentiment dips for non-compliant accounts or tokens."

"CoinGecko data for Hawk (HAWK) as of 2026-10-22: price $0.00003618, market cap $1,953,635, all-time high $0.00090156 on 2025-01-16, all-time low $0.00000892 on 2024-09-04, 1-year change -56.0%."

"the FDV premium and a 12-week dilution rate predict cross-sectional returns with Newey–West t-statistics of −3.13 and −2.79"

"we find that the size of sell orders significantly correlates with negative future token returns, while buy size positively correlates with future token returns."

"8,658,685 restricted AVAX tokens from six counterparties, with a fair value of $106.5 million, pursuant to a combination of the Contribution Agreement, the TSA, and separate subscription or contribution agreements with each investor."

"Pursuant to the terms hereof, Anchorage agrees to enforce (whether through itself or an affiliate) the Lock-Up Schedule, which shall require Anchorage (or such affiliate) to restrict withdrawals and transfers of applicable Native Tokens"

"portfolio sorts yield annualized long–short spreads of 25– 32%"

"we find a mean reassessment of token value following short sales of up to 0.79% within just one follow-up trade (buy orders up to 0.50%)."

"These restrictions are implemented through a combination of paper-lock provisions (contractual restrictions enforced through the terms of the applicable agreements) and P-chain lock provisions (protocol- enforced restrictions embedded at the Avalanche blockchain level)."

"Anchorage’s total liability for all claims arising from or related to the Lock-Up Support Services shall not exceed, in the aggregate, twenty five thousand dollars ($25,000)."

"The premium is absent in the top-five blue-chip tokens and in mature coins but concentrated in the first year of trading"

"In the case of sell orders, a high proportion of the abnormal return is already realized before the event, which indicates informed trading in the form of arbitrage or frontrunning via Miner Extractable Value (MEV)."

"The lockup schedules vary by investor, with restriction periods ranging from approximately 7 months to approximately 56 months. Each tranche is subject to a staged unlock schedule under which tokens become freely transferable in periodic monthly increments over the restriction period."

"at least fifteen (15) days prior to the date Locked Tokens are deposited in the applicable Lockup Clients’ custody accounts."

"pointing to limited investor attention to publicly disclosed vesting schedules rather than mechanical price pressure."

"Tokens unlock over 48 equal monthly increments beginning September 2026 and concluding August 2030."

"observe that 70% of pre-event volume transacts within one hour of the pump announcement"

"we compute conservative lower bounds on insider profits under both a single-point liquidation at 70% of peak and a tranche-based strategy (selling 20% at 50%, 30% at 60%, and 50% at 80% of peak), yielding median returns above 100% and upper-quartile returns exceeding 2000%"

"The Kardashian order found she was paid approximately $250,000 to promote EthereumMax without disclosing that payment, resulting in disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and a civil penalty."

"four of the scheme’s top promoters – Martin Zizi, Frantz Ciceron, Ricardo Roy, Sr., and James Corbett – will pay millions in disgorgement for the benefit of victims, and have been permanently banned from participating in the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries."

"The Petions falsely marketed NovaTech as a registered hedge fund broker, misrepresented that NovaTech was licensed to trade cryptocurrency in the U.S., advertised high profits from trading of approximately two to four percent per week, promoted recruitment bonuses, and promised that investors could withdraw their funds and profits at any time."

"In June 2024, Attorney General James sued cryptocurrency trading company NovaTechFx (NovaTech) and cryptocurrency mining company AWS Mining Pty Ltd. (AWS Mining) for targeting immigrant communities, particularly Haitian New Yorkers, in prayer groups and through social media and WhatsApp group chats"

"Valuation anchoring and volatility depend on governance primitives such as effective circulating supply and regime-dependent speculative depth."

"indicating that supply expansion events are negatively associated with ETH prices."

"insider allocation Pearson r = 0.09, p = 0.55, N = 50"

"Whileacliffprohibitstheinitialtokenissuance"

"smart contracts embedded in the fabric of the Ember Tokens will require that any exchange listing Ember Tokens be recognized by the smart contract as a registered exchange or as an SEC registered ATS."

"Notwithstanding the foregoing, and subject to the conditions below, the person may transfer Lock-up Securities without the prior written consent of the Representative in connection with (a) transactions relating to Lock-up Securities acquired in open market transactions after the completion of the Offering"

"provided that in the case of any transfer of any Lock-up Securities pursuant to the foregoing clauses (b), (c) or (d), (i) any such transfer shall not involve a disposition for value, (ii) each transferee shall sign and deliver to the Representative a lock-up agreement"

"The person also agrees and consents to the entry of stop transfer instructions with the Company"

"We believe that the value of Ember Tokens will primarily be a function"