CoinMarketCap News, Feb 23: Sam Bankman-Fried's Bail is Hanging in the Balance

Sam Bankman-Fried has offered to pay for a tech expert as a court reviews his bail conditions. FTX's disgraced co-founder has landed himself in hot water with the judge after using an encrypted messaging app to contact a former colleague. It then emerged he had used a VPN which conceals online activities — apparently to watch the Super Bowl. This latest development comes days after the judge hinted he was prepared to put SBF behind bars until his trial begins in October. Both the prosecution and the defense have been asked to work together to come up with tighter bail conditions concerning his internet use to prevent such incidents in the future. Fears have been raised that he could engage in witness tampering or moving crypto.

Dapper Labs has failed in its attempt to get a class action lawsuit against NBA Top Shot thrown out of court. The lawsuit claims the NFT collection — which features video clips of basketball stars called Moments — were unregistered securities. But the company disagrees, and says they are better compared to old-fashioned trading cards. Unfortunately, a judge has said that it is plausible that these NFTs are securities — and ruled that the case should go ahead. Dapper Labs told CoinMarketCap that the judge's decision doesn't amount to a final ruling, adding: "Courts have repeatedly found that consumer goods — including art and collectibles like basketball cards — are not securities under federal law."

For the second time in a week, the Bank for International Settlements is attacking crypto. The association representing central bankers is now arguing that crypto has lost the battle to replace cash after a punishing bear market and a slew of high-profile bankruptcies. Speaking to Bloomberg, BIS general manager Agustín Carstens declared: "A technology doesn't make for trusted money." Of course, many in the crypto space would argue this assessment is well off the mark — and that Bitcoin in particular has made great progress since 2009. Fiat currencies haven't exactly had a successful couple of years either, with rampant money printing during the coronavirus pandemic leading to red-hot levels of inflation.

Coinbase has revealed that it fell victim to a successful but relatively minor phishing attack. An employee was asked to respond to a fake text message with a link asking them to log into their work account. This allowed a malicious actor to get their username and password — and they later pretended to be from IT in an attempt to access Coinbase's internal systems. The exchange says strict internal controls prevented the attacker from stealing any funds or customer information. But it's a warning that employees need to be vigilant for phishing attacks, as the consequences can be disastrous. Last year's hack of the Ronin Bridge was also caused by a social engineering attack — and that led to crypto worth $625 million being stolen.

Blur recently overtook OpenSea to become the world's biggest NFT marketplace in a shocking turn of events. And now, Blur's co-founder has decided to reveal his true identity — self-doxxing himself online. Tieshun Roquerre has created several crypto companies in the past after dropping out of MIT — including Namebase. He previously went by the pseudonym Pacman. The 24-year-old said that it was time to share his identity publicly because Blur's community has grown rapidly, meaning he doesn't have as much capacity for one-to-one calls. Blur has stolen OpenSea's thunder by offering zero commission fees and making royalties for creators optional. OpenSea has now had to slash its own fees in an attempt to remain competitive.