Block, Coinbase report earnings as original Bitfinex hacker is revealed in courtroom drama

Friday at last!

Block and Coinbase reported earnings, while the original Bitfinex hacker was revealed in a dramatic courtroom plea, and the US Department of Justice argued in a filing that disgraced crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried should be incarcerated until he goes on trial. Read on!

Here are some stories we’re looking at right now.

Dorsey’s Block increases Q2 revenue

Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block reported an increase in second-quarter net revenue to $5.53 billion, up from $4.4 billion in the year-earlier period, amid a difficult economic landscape, Reuters said. Gross profit rose 27% to $1.87 billion.

Almost half of its net revenue, $2.4 billion, came from Bitcoin, the company said. Its mobile app for buying and selling Bitcoin, Cash App, had revenue of $1.16 billion, a 39% increase over the year-earlier quarter, Decrypt reported.

Coinbase Q2 revenue beats estimates

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported a second-quarter loss of $97 million on $708 million revenue, which was down from $808 million in the year-earlier period, but still beat analysts’ estimates, Decrypt said.

Coinbase executives said they expect to win a lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which sued it in June, alleging that it had traded some crypto assets that were securities without registering them, Reuters reported.

Bitfinex hacker revealed in courtroom

Ilya Lichtenstein and wife Heather Morgan pleaded guilty to a $4.5 billion bitcoin-laundering plot to sell cryptocurrency stolen in the 2016 Bitfinex hack, to which Lichtenstein admitted, CNBC reported.

Lichtenstein’s admission of the original hack came as part of a plea agreement, as he and Morgan were charged with money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the United States, Cointelegraph said.

DOJ argues for SBF’s incarceration

Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) should be “detained pending trial,” the US Department of Justice said in a filing, CoinDesk reported.

SBF’s lawyers have not denied that he shared former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison’s diary with the New York Times, the DOJ argued, which went beyond making a “fair comment.” SBF “took covert steps intended to improperly discredit a trial witness and taint the jury pool,” the DOJ filing said.

Figure drops bank charter application

Figure Technologies withdrew its application for a US bank charter, CoinDesk said.

“Figure has made the decision to withdraw our banking charter application as we focus the organization on other areas of growth with a broad set of established bank partners,” the company said in a statement.

What we’re reading around the web

Asia’s Crypto Regulatory Clarity Contrasts With Disarray in US — Bloomberg

Developers seize on cheap Ethereum to drive 12-fold surge in new smart contracts — DL News

Monthly NFT sales fell for fifth consecutive month to $495M in July — TechCrunch