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15 investors have commenced legal action against Binance France and Binance Holdings Limited in France on 14 December, accusing the companies of misleading commercial practices and fraudulent concealment. The investors alleged that Binance had begun advertising and distributing crypto services before getting the license from the country’s financial market regulator. They also complained that they have lost over 2.4 million euros as a result of the TerraUSD (UST) collapse, while Binance was advertising the token as United States dollar-backed. Binance France denied any promotional communications conducted in the country during the alleged period.

Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison has confessed that she and FTX’s founder Bankman-Fried have approved the materially misleading financial statements for Alameda lenders in the plea hearing held in the Southern District of New York. According to the court’s transcript, the former Alameda’s CEO said she had knowledge of FTX’s arrangement to allow Alameda to have unlimited borrowing facility without being required to post collateral, without having to pay interest on negative balances and without being subject to margin calls or FTX.com’s liquidation protocols. She also added that she understood such arrangement was used to misappropriate clients’ funds to finance loans to Alameda. According to the plea deal, she will be spared of all major charges.

Decentralized exchange Uniswap has announced a new partnership with fintech company Moonpay on 20 December to enable its users to buy cryptocurrency on its web app by debit cards, credit cards and bank transfers. The bank transfer option is available within most U.S. states, Brazil, the United Kingdom and the Single Euro Payments Area. The exchange said it would initially support DAI, ETH, MATIC, USDC, USDT, WBTC, and WETH, though their availability depend on the users’ region. The crypto can be sent to any wallet on Ethereum mainnet, Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum.

The FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried has reportedly agreed to waive his right to contest the extradition in the hearing in the Bahamas Supreme Court scheduled on 21 December. He is expected to be extradited to the US and charged with eight counts of financial crimes. The FTX’s founder is alleged to commit conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers and lenders, securities fraud, commodities fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the US and violate the campaign finance law.

The South Korean court has reportedly ordered to freeze 120 billion won ($92 million) in assets of former and incumbent CEOs of Kernel Labs, which is a blockchain consultancy firm affiliated with Terraform Labs. The firm’s CEO Kim Hyun-joong is alleged to have the largest portion of the illegal proceeds from Terra and the estimated amount is at least 79 billion won ($61 million). It has come after the seizure of 140 billion won ($108 million) from Terra co-founder Shin Hyun-Seong in November.

Three democratic committees, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) have reportedly promised to return over $1 million of the FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s political donations to the victims of the company’s misappropriation of clients’ funds on 16 December. The decision has come after the FTX founder was being charged with eight counts of financial crimes.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has reportedly considered withdrawing the application to contest extradition to the US in the Bahamas’ court. He is alleged to commit conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers and lenders, securities fraud, commodities fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the campaign finance law. His bail application was denied on 13 December and he is currently detained in Fox Hill Prison, which is the only prison in the Bahamas. It is believed that the FTX founder could be sentenced to up to 115 years in prison if he is convicted.

The Nigerian government will reportedly pass the Investments and Securities Act 2007 (Amendment) Bill to recognize cryptocurrency and other digital funds as capital for investment. The law has come 2 years after the prohibition of all crypto activity in the country. Nigerian House of Representatives Committee on Capital Markets Chairman Babangida Ibrahim said such amendment was to keep the country up to date with global practices. He further clarified that the law was not about lifting the ban but a secondary review of the scope of the country’s Central Bank’s power. The regulatory roles of the country’s Central Bank and Securities Exchange Commission on matters regarding digital currencies will also be set out in the Bill.

The Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has reportedly received a Payment Institution License (EMI) from Banco Central do Brasil, the central bank of Brazil. The exchange CEO Kris Marszalek welcomed the decision, saying that Brazil and the entire LATAM market is an important region in pursuing the exchange’s vision of cryptocurrency in every wallet. The exchange has actively established its foothold in different countries over the past few months and has obtained approval from countries such as France, the United Kingdom and South Korea.

Binance.US has introduced a new feature called Pay that allows users to instantly settle payments by nearly 150 supported cryptocurrencies. It has come 22 months after the feature has first been introduced to users outside the US by the global exchange. The exchange said that all Pay transactions feature zero gas and zero transaction fees. However, the new feature is only available on mobile now and the company said a web version would be introduced in the future.

Microsoft has reportedly banned crypto mining from its online services. Its acceptable use policy has been updated on 1 December, which states that crypto mining is prohibited without prior approval of the company. Microsoft said it made the change to protect its user and mitigate the risk of disrupting or impairing services in the Microsoft Cloud. However, the company did not rule out the possibility of permitting crypto mining for Testing and Research for security detections. Other cloud computing providers like Google and Oracle also have a policy of restricting crypto mining without companies’ prior approval.

Hervé Maurey, a member of the French Senate’s finance commission has proposed an amendment to the existing regulation that allows crypto companies to operate without a full license until 2026 to the French Parliament. If the amendment is passed, those crypto companies will need to apply for a license from the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) from October 2023. Maurey said the collapse of FTX led to the consideration of tighter crypto regulation in the country. The amendment was adopted by the Senate on 13 December and will be deliberated in Parliament in January 2023.