Alameda Research files $90M ‘aggressive’ lawsuit against Waves founder
Alameda Research filed a lawsuit against Aleksandr Ivanov, founder of Waves, as part of its ongoing legal strategy to recover crypto assets.
The trading arm of the bankrupt FTX exchange is aiming to recoup at least $90 million of digital assets from Waves, according to a Nov. 11 court filing.
In March 2022, Alameda Research deposited $80 million worth of USDt (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) to the Waves-based decentralized liquidity protocol, Vires.Finance.
The court filing alleges that Ivanov artificially inflated the value of Waves (WAVES) tokens. According to the complaint:
“Ivanov secretly orchestrated a series of transactions that inflated artificially the value of WAVES, while at the same time siphoning funds from Vires. As the fraudulent scheme began to be uncovered, WAVES lost substantial market capitalization—losing over 95% of its value—and Vires users were saddled with $530 million in losses.”
Alameda Research, court filing. Source: US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware
FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022, causing over $8.9 billion in losses for its users and investors. The period after the collapse of the FTX exchange and its 130 subsidiaries was one of the darkest times in crypto history.
Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Dec. 12, 2022, after United States prosecutors filed criminal charges against him. He was extradited to the US in January 2023. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison on March 28.
Related: History of Crypto: The future of crypto exchanges, regulatory battles, and governance
FTX and Alameda’s “aggressive legal strategy” highlights financial issues
Alameda’s recent lawsuit is part of a wider effort to recoup funds from multiple entities.
Alameda and the FTX estate have sued over 20 entities this year as part of an “aggressive legal strategy” that underscores their financial challenges, according to blockchain expert and author Anndy Lian.
He told Cointelegraph:
“In my view, the allegations against Ivanov point to possible misconduct, such as inflating the WAVES token’s value and misdirecting funds. If these claims are validated, they underscore the ongoing challenges of transparency and accountability within the crypto industry.”
For stakeholders, these legal actions are vital for potentially reclaiming lost assets,” Lian added, noting that the FTX case may set a precedent for future crypto regulations.
Related: Republican Senate majority signals more ‘pro-crypto Congress’
Post-FTX crypto industry needs education before regulation — Former Biden adviser
The crypto industry needs to prioritize education, not just regulation, to avoid the next FTX-like meltdown, according to Moe Vela, former senior adviser to US President Joe Biden and senior adviser to Unicoin.
Financial education, especially regarding risk management, should be the fundamental concern of the crypto industry, Vela told Cointelegraph in an exclusive interview:
“Education is the fundamental key to empowerment. […] We will not have equality in any form until we have economic parity. We’re not going to have economic parity until we teach people to be, instead of unsophisticated at anything, sophisticated, and that comes through education.”
Moe Vela Interview for Cointelegraph
The senior adviser’s comments came a week after FTX’s new amended proposal was released on May 7. The proposal promised “billions in compensation” for the users and creditors of the bankrupt exchange who had been unable to access their funds since November 2022.
Magazine: Microsoft set to vote on Bitcoin, Peter Todd hiding, and more: Hodler’s Digest, Oct. 20–26
The crypto community is missing the opportunity to reimagine rather than transpose rulemaking for financial services. More technologists must join the regulatory conversation.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
Read more on grooming gangs:
What we do and don’t know from the data
A timeline of the scandal
Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
Gemini is set to receive approval from Malta, while Coinbase is expected to get the green light from Luxembourg, according to Reuters.
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