CEO Sam Altman’s firing by board of OpenAI shocks tech world

Happy Saturday!

Sam Altman was unexpectedly fired by the board of OpenAI about a year after the company released ChatGPT, a Republican presidential candidate released crypto policy guidelines, and November is becoming a big month for crypto losses. Read on!

Altman sacked by OpenAI board

The OpenAI board abruptly fired CEO and co-founder Sam Altman, Reuters reported, citing a company blog post that added: “Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately.”

Backed financially by Microsoft, OpenAI released ChatGPT last November under the guidance of Altman, who did not respond to requests for comment, the report said. Microsoft learned of Altman’s ouster only minutes before the news went out, Axios reported, citing a person familiar with the situation.

The company blog post added: “Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”

Worldcoin’s WLD token fell as much as 10% following the news of Altman’s dismissal. The cryptocurrency project, which Altman co-founded, was trading below $2 shortly before midday on Saturday in London, according to CoinGecko data.

Ramaswamy shares his crypto policy

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy revealed his crypto policy ideas, called Three Freedoms of Crypto, Banking Dive reported.

His plan begins with protecting developers from prosecution if code they write is later used by bad actors. Ramaswamy, the only GOP candidate to include crypto in his platform, claims writing code is constitutionally protected.

Three charged in crypto laundering

Three men were accused of laundering more than $10 million in crypto and may face maximum prison sentences of 30 years, CoinMarketCap reported, citing a statement from the US Attorney’s Office.

The Department of Justice charged Zhong Shi Gao, Naifeng Xu, and Fei Jiang with conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft.

Strike, Checkout.com enable Bitcoin buying

Crypto app Strike has partnered with payment processing platform Checkout.com to allow users in more than 65 countries to buy Bitcoin directly with their debit cards, Fortune reported.

Strike founder and CEO Jack Mallers said in an interview that the long-term goal is to become the “Bitcoin company for the Earth,” with a central feature of global payments.

November seeing big crypto losses

November has already suffered the fourth-highest monthly losses to crypto hacks and scams this year, about $173 million, Crypto News reported, citing a post on X by security analyst CertiK.

The surge is being driven by a hack of Poloniex of about $33 million and a phishing scheme that resulted in $27 million in losses. October’s total confirmed losses were about $32.2 million.

What we’re reading around the web

Fidelity joins BlackRock, Ark Invest in Ether ETF race — DL News

More Bitcoin ETF Rejections ‘Quite Likely,’ BitGo’s Belshe Says — CoinDesk

Flaw in early Bitcoin wallets shows how much crypto depends on secure code — Fortune