From Vikings Co-Owner to Jailbird: Is this Fowler’s Worst Trade Yet? 🏈

Hey amigos, it's Charles, your unofficial guide to all things crypto, dropping into your inbox like Bitcoin's price on a wild day. Grab your popcorn and brace yourselves - we're about to dive into a sea of scams, securities, and some seriously spicy drama. You're gonna want to sit down for this one!

Crypto scam mastermind convicted: Former Vikings co-owner sentenced to 75 months in prison

Alright, let's kick things off with some crazy news from the world of crypto. Reggie Fowler, the former co-owner of the Minnesota Vikings, is now suiting up for some serious prison time - 75 months, to be exact. The Manhattan federal court found him guilty of orchestrating a $700 million cryptocurrency scam.

Fowler played a risky game. He hoodwinked the Alliance of American Football (AAF), a now-defunct professional football league, by falsely claiming he could back them with millions of dollars from real estate investments and government contracts. Not shady enough for you? Hold up, there's more. Fowler was charged with bank fraud and money laundering, processing millions of dollars in unregulated transactions for crypto exchanges, which he was using as his own personal shadow banks.

So Fowler, who once tried to buy the Minnesota Vikings in 2005, is now trading the luxury box for the prison box. I guess you could say karma has tackled him to the ground. He thought he was above the law, but as it turns out, the law had a different game plan. Talk about a plot twist! (Read more: here)

The DOJ's Crypto Witch Hunt Nabs Mt. Gox Hackers

As we pivot from one crypto scandal to another, let's talk about a case that has sent shockwaves through the crypto community. The US Department of Justice is showing they mean business, officially charging two Russian nationals for the infamous Mt. Gox hack back in 2011. Yeah, you heard that right. This hack led to the collapse of a crypto giant and billions of dollars in losses.

The DOJ suspects Alexey Bilyuchenko, 43, and Aleksandr Verner, 29, as the culprits, accusing them of swindling over 647,000 BTC and then cleaning these funds through an unnamed New York-based bitcoin brokerage service and various overseas bank accounts. It's a mind-boggling heist straight out of a movie! Bilyuchenko also faces charges of working with Alexander Vinnik to establish the notorious BTC-e exchange. I tell you, the twists and turns in the crypto world never cease to amaze! (Read more: here)

SEC's Crypto Crackdown Leads to a Price Drop

But wait, there's more. The SEC is stepping up to the plate this week, cracking down on Coinbase, one of the biggest crypto exchanges out there. The SEC believes more than a dozen coins traded on Coinbase are actually securities. The aftermath? Crypto prices for Solana, Cardano, and Polygon networks took a nosedive, dropping between 6% to 9%.

And the SEC isn't just stopping at Coinbase. They're on a mission to uncover any crypto users who think they can evade taxes. Listen up, crypto traders: the SEC is dead serious about enforcing their rules and they're not scared of taking on the big fish like Coinbase and Binance. The lesson here? Don't play games with the law! (Read more: here)

Gate.io Threatens Legal Action Against Bankruptcy Rumor Spreaders

To wrap up our whirlwind tour of crypto news, we have Gate.io, a crypto exchange that's throwing down the gauntlet. The company is raging against rumors that they are on the verge of bankruptcy and has threatened to take legal action against anyone spreading these baseless claims.

The gossip stemmed from tech issues with the cross-chain protocol Multichain, which experienced an outage on May 24 and raised eyebrows with the sudden disappearance of its CEO. But the rumors about Gate.io's financial stability are unfounded. The exchange has been going strong since 2013 and its native token GT is currently trading at around $4.29.

In reaction to the Multichain chaos, other crypto exchanges like Binance have suspended deposits for 10 tokens related to the network. In the meantime, the Multichain protocol is back online and its native token MULTI is trading at around $4.25. Bottom line: Gate.io is furious about the rumors and they're not going to take it lying down. (Read more: here)