Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, who has been residing in Montenegro since his arrest in March 2023, is set to be extradited to the United States to face fraud charges. The High Court in Podgorica has denied a request to extradite Kwon to South Korea. This decision comes after Kwon’s legal team appealed, claiming that the final authority to decide on his extradition lies with Montenegro’s justice minister, a claim that the high court rejected. The timing of Kwon’s travel to the United States is still uncertain.
In the meantime, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has asked a federal judge to impose additional travel restrictions on former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao. The office has requested that Zhao remain within the continental U.S. until his sentencing hearing on April 30 and provide three days’ notice of any travel plans to allow the government to raise objections. Prosecutors have also requested that CZ surrender his Canadian passport and all other current and expired passports and travel documents to his legal team.
Another former crypto CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, made a return to the courtroom to address potential conflicts of interest involving his lawyers. Bankman-Fried has waived his right to conflict-free legal representation with lawyers Marc Mukasey and Torrey Young. This courtroom appearance in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York marks one of the first times Bankman-Fried has been seen outside of jail since being convicted of seven felony charges in November 2023.
Turkey has released an English translation of its report evaluating the first phase of its Central Bank Digital Turkish Lira Research and Development (R&D) Project. The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey carried out its first trial transactions with the digital lira in 2022 as part of the project’s first phase. The digital lira is designed as an intermediated retail CBDC, with separate studies conducted on wholesale payments. The Turkish CBDC aims to offer a high level of interoperability and complementarity.
Over 300 experts from around the world in the fields of technology, artificial intelligence (AI), digital ethics, and child safety have come together to sign an open letter calling for immediate action from governments to address the issue of deepfakes. Titled “Disrupting the Deepfake Supply Chain,” the letter urges governments, policymakers, and political leaders to impose obligations in the supply chain to combat the spread of deepfakes. The letter suggests criminalizing deepfake child pornography, imposing penalties on those who knowingly create or facilitate the spread of harmful deepfakes, and implementing requirements for software developers and distributors to prevent the creation of harmful deepfakes.
Despite recent spot Bitcoin ETF approvals by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the European Central Bank (ECB) remains unconvinced and reiterates its anti-Bitcoin stance. In a blog post, ECB executives Ulrich Bindseil and Jürgen Schaaf argue against the notion that the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. confirms the safety of BTC investments and validates its success. They maintain that the fair value of Bitcoin is still zero and cite their previous arguments that Bitcoin has failed to fulfill its original promise as a global decentralized digital currency. According to them, Bitcoin is not a suitable investment as it lacks cash flow, dividends, productive use, social benefit, or subjective appreciation based on exceptional features.