U. Today presents you with the top three news stories over the past day.
The crypto community exploded with a great deal of chatter as the first jail photo of Sam Bankman-Fried, a.k.a. SBF, emerged on social media. The photo was posted on X platform by Tiffany Fong, a journalist who specializes in covering crypto crime; according to her comment, the shot depicting Bankman-Fried among five other inmates was taken at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Dec. 17, 2023. As a reminder, SBF founded Alameda Research and the FTX crypto exchange, being ranked the 41st richest person in America by Forbes at the peak of his success in 2022. However, in November 2023, Bankman-Fried was convicted on multiple criminal charges, including securities fraud and money laundering. He is now facing the prospect of a maximum sentence that could span over a century.
Yesterday, Feb. 20, Binance made a new announcement on its blog. According to the announcement, the crypto exchange will perform scheduled system maintenance for Binance Auto-Invest on Feb. 23 at 5:00 p.m. (UTC) that will take about an hour. The goal of the update is to improve overall system performance and stability. Binance assured its customers that during this period, the creation of new plans for Auto-Invest will not be impacted. Users were warned about the possibility of delay for scheduled cryptocurrency purchases via existing Auto-Invest plans during system maintenance; however, once the maintenance is complete, these purchases will be automatically executed, where applicable. Binance’s Auto-Invest feature allows users to automate cryptocurrency investments and expand their crypto holdings. The feature supports more than 200 cryptocurrency assets, including XRP, SHIB and ADA.
In a recent X post, Ripple CTO David Schwartz addressed XRP enthusiasts’ concerns regarding the company’s management of XRP and explained the mechanism behind the potential burning of Ripple’s XRP escrows. According to Schwartz, Ripple can achieve the effect of burning escrows by “blackholing” the associated accounts. He explained that Ripple could unilaterally enact measures to prevent XRP from these escrows entering circulation by effectively rendering the associated accounts inaccessible. Schwartz’s explanation sheds light on Ripple’s approach to managing its XRP reserves and addresses concerns regarding the company’s influence over the cryptocurrency. As reported by U. Today, the XRP community has recently expressed its frustration with Ripple’s significant involvement with the token and its monthly release of XRP from escrow accounts. Some enthusiasts even stated that Ripple’s actions are affecting the market environment and potentially devaluing the cryptocurrency.