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The sky is falling at least on Boeing.

A second whistleblower has died under mysterious circumstances, just two months after another one allegedly shot himself in the head and the attorneys for both men hope their deaths don’t scare away the at least 10 other whistleblowers who want the company to clean up its act.

Joshua Dean, 45, a former quality auditor at Spirit AeroSystems which assembles fuselage sections for Boeing, died Tuesday morning from a fast-growing mystery infection.

Deans death comes less than two months after Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, 62, died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on March 9.

Barnett, who had worked for Boeing for 32 years, was found dead in his Dodge Ram truck holding a silver pistol in his hand in the parking lot of his South Carolina hotel after he failed to show up for the second part of his testimony for a bombshell lawsuit against the company.

At the same time, Boeing said last month that it lost $355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of surviving whistleblowers.

It was announced abruptly in March that Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun would step down by the end of the year in a move widely seen as a reaction to the ongoing safety crises.

Brian Knowles, a Charleston, South Carolina, attorney who represented both Barnett and Dean hope their deaths were not in vain.

“These men were heroes. So are all the whistleblowers. They loved the company and wanted to help the company do better,” Knowles told The Post.

“They didn’t speak out to be aggravating or for fame. They’re raising concerns because people’s lives are at stake.”

Knowles and others inside the Boeing scandals are hesitant to speculate about conspiracy theories swirling around the two whistleblower deaths.

“I knew John Barnett for seven years and never saw anything that would indicate he would take his own life,” Knowles told The Post.

“Then again, I’ve never dealt with someone who did (commit suicide.) So maybe you don’t see the signs. I don’t know.”

Knowles pointed out that the Charleston, SC police are still wrapping up their investigation of Barnett’s death and that it may take some weeks for tests to reveal more about Dean’s passing.

“It’s a stunning loss,” Spirit AeroSystems spokesman Joe Buccino said of Dean. (The company is not to be confused with Spirit Airlines.) “Our focus here has been on his loved ones.”

Buccino insisted that Spirit “encourages” employees to come forth with their concerns and that they are then “cloaked under protection.”

A Boeing spokeswoman declined to answer questions on Barnett but in a statement, said that OSHA had determined Barnett was not retaliated against, and that the company’s own analysis found that the issues he raised “did not affect airplane safety.”

“We are saddened by Mr. Barnetts passing and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends,” the statement said.

“We encourage all employees to speak up when issues arise. Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing.”

It’s news to other Boeing whistleblowers that Boeing and Spirit “encourage” workers to speak out.

Instead, they say, they’ve either been retaliated against or ignored.

Ed Pierson, 61, a former senior manager at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, left Boeing six years ago and created the Foundation for Aviation Safety.

He had tried in vain to get Boeing executives to shut down production of the plane before the two Boeing 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people and led to the planes being grounded.

“It’s an unstable company right now from the top to the bottom,” Pierson told The Post. “Senior corporate leadership is so fixated on not admitting the truth that they can’t admit anything.”

Pierson did not mince words when he testified before Congress last month about what he called the “criminal cover-up” he believes Boeing bosses have led.

“Boeing is an American icon,” Pierson said. “This company is incredibly important to our country, both economically and in terms of national security with its commercial aviation side and it military defense work. But it doesn’t work when you have the wrong people driving the bus.”

Barnett was a quality control engineer who worked for Boeing for more than three decades before he retired in 2017.

He broke his silence two years later to warn that Boeing cut corners to speed its 787 Dreamliners into service and in numerous interviews described how he had complained internally to the company about what he claimed were serious safety flaws.

After his apparent suicide in March, Boeing employees told The Post that Barnett had made “powerful enemies” and one said workers were skeptical that Barnett’s death was suicide.

Dean had raised the alarm in 2022, while working at Spirit AeroSystems, a Wichita, Kansas-based company which manufactures major aircraft parts for Boeing.

He was a quality auditor when he raised concerns about improperly drilled bulkhead holes on parts for the 737 Max.

But, he alleged, flagging the issue with his management had no effect.

Less than a year later he was fired.

I think they were sending out a message to anybody else, Dean later told NPR of his firing. If you are too loud, we will silence you.

Boeing has been dogged by whistleblower testimony and Congressional investigations.

A scathing House report issued in Sept. 2020 found that the two 737 Max crashes were the horrific culmination of repeated and serious failures by the company and air safety regulators.

“Boeing was a Seattle company. Back in the day a typical Boeing CEO was a hyper-midwestern farm boy who saw airplanes as a kid and went off to Seattle to conquer the world,” Craig Jenks, who runs the Airline/Aircraft Projects Inc. consultancy, told The Post.

“Then the finance people started taking over in the 1980s and they moved the corporate headquarters to Chicago and then to DC. It means senior management is never around the factory floor.”

The most headline-grabbing safety lapse was in January, when a fuselage panel blew off a new Alaskan Airlines 737 although late last month, a safety slide fell off a Delta 767 and washed up, with perfect irony, in front of the home of an attorney suing Boeing over safety issues.

In the Alaskan airlines case, a whistleblower told the Seattle Times that the fault lay with Boeing, whose records showed that after the fuselage was delivered by Spirit, a panel had been removed at Boeing’s Renton factory and re-installed minus four crucial bolts.

In the air, the panel flew off fortunately, at a low enough altitude that the plane did not depressurize.

It is …very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the quality culture at certain portions of the business,” the whistleblower told the Seattle Times.

A number of Boeing employees have alleged to the New York Times that the manufacturer has allowed mechanics to sign off on their own work, cutting out a layer of safety assurance.

“Profit has overtaken the historically famous pride of Boeing,” Peter Lake, an aviation expert who has investigated a number of plane crashes over the years, told The Post.

“It’s all corporate greed now. It’s become a standing joke that when there’s any malfunction in an airplane people say it’s Boeing.

“Soutwest Airlines had an engine failure recently and people ignorantly blamed Boeing. That shows what a cloud the company is under.

“Who knows if they’ll be able to pull themselves out of this disaster?”

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IMX surges 15% after Immutable says SEC ended probe

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IMX surges 15% after Immutable says SEC ended probe

IMX surges 15% after Immutable says SEC ended probe

The token tied to the crypto gaming giant Immutable surged 15% in the hours after it announced that the US Securities and Exchange Commission closed its investigation into the firm and would take no further action.

The Immutable (IMX) token rose around 15% on March 25 to reach just under $0.74 shortly after the firm announced that the SEC shut its inquiry without any breach of violations, which Immutable said closed “the loop on the Wells notice issued by the SEC last year.” 

IMX matched crypto market downtrend

It is the highest price that IMX has reached since March 3, before a broader market decline — driven by prolonged uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and US interest rates — pushed it down to $0.46 on March 11.

At the time of publication, IMX had retraced back to $0.67, according to CoinMarketCap. A move back toward $0.70 would wipe approximately $449,500 in short positions, according to CoinGlass data.

Cryptocurrencies, Markets

IMX is up 0.34% over the past 30 days. Source: CoinMarketCap

While the token price surged on the positive news, it barely moved when Immutable announced in November it had been issued a Wells notice. However, the broader market was already gaining momentum as Trump’s odds to win the election looked strong in the days before his eventual win on Nov. 5.

Immutable co-founder Robbie Ferguson said in a March 25 X post that the SEC’s dropped investigation was “an enormous win for Web3 gaming.”

“After a year of fighting, this threat to digital ownership rights has finally been put to rest,” Ferguson said.

Related: Crypto influencer Ben ‘Bitboy’ Armstrong arrested in Florida

Among the top gaming crypto tokens by market cap, several have seen an upswing over the past 24 hours. Gala (GALA) is up 2.78%, The Sandbox (SAND) is up 3.78%, FLOKI (FLOKI) is up 1.91%, and Axie Infinity (AXS) is up 1.50%.

IMX hit its all-time high of $9.32 in November 2021 during a major rally in gaming tokens. There’s been speculation about when gaming tokens will experience another significant uptrend, as they’ve historically surged after the broader crypto market moves first.

However, over the past 30 days, the total market cap of gaming tokens has dropped 3.65% to $13.13 billion, while trading volume has taken a bigger hit, falling 33.45% to $1.75 billion.

Magazine: What are native rollups? Full guide to Ethereum’s latest innovation

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

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North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system

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North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system

North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system

North Carolina lawmakers have introduced bills in the House and Senate that could see the state’s treasurer allocate up to 5% of various state retirement funds into cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

The Investment Modernization Act (House Bill 506), introduced by Representative Brenden Jones on March 24, would create an independent investment authority under the state’s Treasury to determine which digital assets could be suitable for inclusion into the state retirement funds.

An identical bill, the State Investment Modernization Act (Senate Bill 709), was introduced into the state’s Senate on March 25.

The bills define a digital asset as a cryptocurrency, stablecoin, non-fungible token (NFT), or any other asset that is electronic in nature that confers economic, proprietary or access rights.

The North Carolina bills don’t set market cap criteria for digital assets, unlike other crypto bills that are working their way into law at the state level.

North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system

Source: Bitcoin Laws

The newly created agency, dubbed the North Carolina Investment Authority, would, however, need to carefully weigh the risk and reward profile of each digital asset and ensure the funds are maintained in a secure custody solution.

Bitcoin legislation tracker Bitcoin Laws noted on X that House Bill 506 wasn’t drafted as a Bitcoin reserve bill as it does not mandate the investment authority to hold Bitcoin (BTC) — or any digital asset — over the long term.

North Carolina wants in on Bitcoin bill race

On March 18, North Carolina senators introduced the Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act (Senate Bill 327), which calls for the treasurer to allocate up to 10% of public funds specifically into Bitcoin.

The bill — introduced by Republicans Todd Johnson, Brad Overcash and Timothy Moffitt — aims to leverage Bitcoin investment as a “financial innovation strategy” to strengthen North Carolina’s economic standing.

Related: GameStop hints at future Bitcoin purchases following board approval

The treasurer would need to ensure that the Bitcoin is stored in a multi-signature cold storage wallet, and the BTC could only be liquidated during a “severe financial crisis,” with approval from two-thirds of North Carolina’s General Assembly.

The bill would also create a Bitcoin Economic Advisory Board to oversee the reserve’s management.

According to Bitcoin Law, 41 Bitcoin reserve bills have been introduced at the state level in 23 states, and 35 of those 41 bills remain live.

Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, both of which will initially use cryptocurrency forfeited in government criminal cases.

Magazine: What are native rollups? Full guide to Ethereum’s latest innovation

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SEC plans 4 more crypto roundtables on trading, custody, tokenization, DeFi

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SEC plans 4 more crypto roundtables on trading, custody, tokenization, DeFi

SEC plans 4 more crypto roundtables on trading, custody, tokenization, DeFi

The US Securities and Exchange Commission will host four more crypto roundtables — focusing on crypto trading, custody, tokenization and decentralized finance (DeFi) — after hosting its first crypto roundtable on March 21.

The series of roundtables, organized by the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, will kick off with a discussion on tailoring regulation for crypto trading on April 11, the SEC said in a March 25 statement.

A roundtable on crypto custody will follow on April 25, with another to discuss tokenization and moving assets onchain on May 12. The fourth roundtable in the series will discuss DeFi on June 6.

SEC plans 4 more crypto roundtables on trading, custody, tokenization, DeFi

A series of four crypto roundtable discussions are scheduled from April through to June. Source: SEC

“The Crypto Task Force roundtables are an opportunity for us to hear a lively discussion among experts about what the regulatory issues are and what the Commission can do to solve them,” said SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, the task force lead.

The specific agenda and speakers for each roundtable have yet to be disclosed, but all are open for the public to watch online or to attend at the SEC’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

SEC softens on crypto with new leadership

The agency’s Crypto Task Force was launched on Jan. 21 by acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda. It’s tasked with establishing a workable crypto framework for the agency to use. 

The task force held its first roundtable on March 21 with a discussion titled “How We Got Here and How We Get Out — Defining Security Status.”

The SEC will also be hosting a roundtable about AI’s role in the financial industry on March 27, according to a March 25 release. 

The roundtable will discuss the risks, benefits, and governance of AI in the financial industry, with Uyeda, Peirce and fellow SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw slated to speak.

Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto forged under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

The regulator has dismissed a growing number of enforcement actions against crypto firms it launched under Gensler.

Related: Bitnomial drops SEC lawsuit ahead of XRP futures launch in the US

Uyeda, who took the reins after Gensler resigned on Jan. 20, flagged plans on March 17 to scrap a rule proposed under the Biden administration that would tighten crypto custody standards for investment advisers.

Uyeda also said in a March 10 speech that he had asked SEC staff for options to abandon part of proposed changes that would expand regulation of alternative trading systems to include crypto firms, requiring them to register as exchanges. 

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered 

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