Instagram Influencer Jay Manzini Pleads Guilty for Draining $2.5M in BTC From Fans

 The popular Instagram influencer Jebara Igbara, also known as “Jay Manzini,” pleaded guilty to money laundering, wire fraud, and wire fraud conspiracy. He used the social media platform to promote various schemes to investors but, in fact, defrauded them with $8 million.

In addition, Igbara told his followers he wanted to buy a huge amount of bitcoin and that authorized exchanges would not allow him to accumulate such a stash. He urged Instagram users to send him BTC, assuring he will pay premium prices for those transactions. Needless to say, he pocketed approximately $2.5 million worth of the primary cryptocurrency from the lured individuals.

Prison Time for the Criminal

The US Department of Justice announced that the so-called Instagram influencer “Jay Manzini” will face up to 20 years in federal prison for his offenses.

He admitted using his fame on the social media platform to popularize investment products to his followers, mainly part of the New York Muslim community. The scams resulted in at least $8 million drained from conned individuals.

“With today’s plea, the defendant has admitted leveraging his Instagram popularity to prey upon innocent investors and steal at least $8 million of their hard-earned money. Together with our agency partners, this Office is committed to bringing scammers to justice,” the statement reads.

Additionally, “Jay Manzini” ran a multi-million bitcoin Ponzi scheme. He posted ads on his Instagram stories, maintaining he wanted to buy such large amounts of BTC that prominent trading venues like Binance and Coinbase would not allow him.

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Jay Manzini, Source: NY Post

He promised to pay above-market prices for the bitcoin his fans sent to his personal wallet and provided fabricated pictures of wire transfers. However, he never sent those funds and ended up stealing the people’s assets:

“All the victims, in this case, were promised something that was too good to be true. The victims of the bitcoin advance fee scheme were guaranteed above the current market value for their bitcoin.

This multi-million dollar case is a reminder for anyone thinking of investing: Be skeptical of any investments with larger-than-life promises, because if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” IRS-CI Special Agent-in-Charge Fattorusso warned.

The Punishment Might not be That Tough

Despite running a multi-million scam, pleading guilty could result in a reduced prison sentence for “Jay Manzini.”

The Florida resident Joshua David Nicholas, who stole $100 million worth of crypto from investors, admitted his crime in September and is expected to stay behind bars for up to five years.

On the other hand, Da Corte, Gonzalez, and Meza, who stole $4 million in digital currencies from banks and exchanges, have not pleaded guilty and might spend up to 30 years in jail.

Visa, CryptoCom Partner to Launch New NFT Collection Ahead of FIFA World Cup

 This comes just months after the popular crypto exchange said it had become a sponsor of the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

Leading global payment processor Visa has launched a new non-fungible token (NFTs) solution dubbed “Visa Masters of Movement,” designed to engage football fans in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

Visa has been the official payment partner of the International Federation of Associations of Football (FIFA) since 2007. The payments giant described its new product as the “first of its kind” hybrid experience that features a pre-event NFT auction and immersive activation for football lovers in the FIFA World Cup scheduled to begin later this month. 

“As FIFA World Cup 2022™ approaches, we want to celebrate football, art, and technology through the lens of what makes the FIFA World Cup™ so special – wildly impassioned fans, legendary athletes, and, for a few short weeks, the ability to bring the world together in a uniquely connected way,” Andrea Fairchild, senior vice president at Visa, said in a press release shared with CryptoPotato.

Visa Launches NFT Collection for Football Lovers 

The Visa Masters of Movement features unique digital artworks, avatars, and other collectibles curated from FIFA World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup competitions. 

The NFTs are inspired by iconic goals scored by five popular football stars – Jared Borgetti, Tim Cahill, Carli Lloyd, Michael Owen, and Maxi Rodriguez – minted into NFTs for fans across the globe. 

The digital artworks are available on Visa’s crypto exchange partner platform CryptoCom. Interested fans who wish to participate in the auction can start bidding today through November 8. The collection will officially debut later this month at the upcoming FIFA Fan Festival in Doha, Qatar beginning November 19 to December 18. 

Instagram to support Polygon-powered NFT marketplace

 

Standard Chartered invests in JPMorgan-founded blockchain tech platform Partior

International banking group Standard Chartered has invested in Partior and will be a founding shareholder in the blockchain-based technology provider. Partior is an independent company that arose from the Monetary Authority of Singapore-backed Project Ubin collaboration. It was founded by JPMorgan, DBS and Temasek in 2021.

The aim of Partior is to leverage the programmable, immutable and traceable characteristics of blockchain technology and smart contracts for the benefit of digital clearing and settlement. Standard Chartered will be Partior's first euro settlement bank, according to an announcement. The investment is also being made to further Standard Chartered's push into the blockchain space, which it sees as providing an opportunity to build "a more transparent, efficient and secure infrastructure for global value movement.".

Crypto Prices Bullish Once More - What’s Fueling the Recovery?

 Prices of major cryptocurrencies are again looking bullish, as traders eye hope that inflation has peaked, and attention shifts to the next US interest rate announcement.

The bullish price action in bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH) and other major coins today came despite a more hawkish tone than expected from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell during his press conference on Wednesday this week:

“It is very premature to be thinking about pausing. People when they hear ‘lags’ think about a pause. It is very premature, in my view, to think about or be talking about pausing our rate hikes. We have a ways to go,” Powell said at the time.

That compared to the written Fed statement, which was interpreted by most observers as being more dovish than before, leaving traders somewhat confused about the Fed’s messaging.

Among other things, the statement said the Fed “will take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy,” as well as “the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation” when it decides on its next step.

The Fed’s next interest rate announcement is expected on December 14.

And while the comments from Powell were enough to send bitcoin and the broader crypto market lower on Wednesday, things started to return to cautious optimism again on Thursday and Friday, when bitcoin posted gains.

Bitcoin daily chart. Source: TradingView

In addition to the Fed statement, crypto markets are also supported by a sense that the worst could be over for inflation. That, in turn, is believed to be necessary for the Fed to pause its rate hikes, and eventually start cutting again.

As is widely known by know, bitcoin and crypto in general tends to follow stocks and their ‘risk-on’ and ‘risk-off’ sentiment. Unsurprisingly, a pause in rate hikes would therefore be considered very bullish for the crypto market.

The strong link between the Fed’s actions and crypto prices have also been pointed to by several heavyweight investors in the space, including Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz. Speaking at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami in April this year, Novogratz made it clear that “once the Fed pauses, I think bitcoin is going to the moon.”

Asked at the same conference how high bitcoin will ever go, Novogratz replied “a million dollars.”

“I pray that the dollar stays strong and bitcoin doesn’t go to infinity. If bitcoin goes to infinity, it would mean all stability is gone in the West," Novogratz also told the audience.

As of 14:00 UTC on Friday, bitcoin had traded as high as $20,888 for the day, before falling slightly to a current price of $20,755. The coin was up 2.5% for the past 24 hours and 2.1% for the past 7 days.

CBDC: Indian Central Bank Begins Digital Rupee Pilot

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, has started a pilot program of its digital currency today, in cooperation with nine banks. It also released a Concept Note on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for India.

Bloomberg reported that “several lots of bonds were traded,” citing data from Clearing Corporation of India Ltd. (CCIL), which showed “7.38% 2027 debt and 7.26% 2032 bonds were among the first to change hands using the new form of currency.”

Per the press release, the pilot for the wholesale segment (e₹-W) starts today, saying:

“The use case for this pilot is settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities. Use of e₹-W is expected to make the inter-bank market more efficient. Settlement in central bank money would reduce transaction costs by pre-empting the need for settlement guarantee infrastructure or for collateral to mitigate settlement risk.”

The banks included in the pilot are the State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank Ltd., Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank, and the Indian unit of HSBC Holdings Plc.

According to a circular quoted by The Hindu,

“Going forward, other wholesale transactions, and cross-border payments will be the focus of future pilots, based on the learnings from this pilot.”

The first pilot for the retail segment (e₹-R) is planned for lunch within a month in select locations and will involve closed user groups comprising customers and merchants, said the RBI press release.

Earlier, in a concept note, the RBI said that the e-rupee would provide the users the same experience of dealing in digital currency, but "without any risks associated with private cryptocurrencies."

Two versions of CBDC

According to the concept note published by the RBI on October 7 this year, as cited by The Economic Times, this CBDC can be defined as the legal tender issued by the RBI, the same as a sovereign currency and exchangeable one-on-one with the fiat currency.

The bank has proposed two versions of the Digital Rupee: 

general purpose or retail CBDC, to be used primarily for retail transactions by everybody, including the private sector, non-financial consumers, and businesses; 

the wholesale CBDC, meant for interbank transfers and similar wholesale transactions.

As to how the Digital Rupee would be different from currently available "digital money," the bank stated that,

“A CBDC would differ from existing digital money available to the public because a CBDC would be a liability of the Reserve Bank, and not of a commercial bank.”

Concept note on CBDC

The RBI on Monday also released a Concept Note on CBDC for India, aiming to raise awareness both about this type of currency and about the planned features of the Digital Rupee, reported The Hindu.

The note, said the report, “explains the objectives, choices, benefits, and risks of issuing a CBDC in India,” and “seeks to explain Reserve Bank’s approach towards [the] introduction of the CBDC.”

The Concept Note discusses technology and design choices, possible uses of the Digital Rupee, and issuance mechanisms, among other key elements. Further, it analyses privacy issues and examines the effects of the CBDC introduction on the banking system, monetary policy, and financial stability.

The Economic Times quoted Gangesh Varma, Senior Associate at Saraf & Partners, as saying that,

“There will be significant investments in adapting or building infrastructure for CBDC, and the concept note is not keen to introduce incentives, so we can expect a few more policy dilemmas down the road.”

Varma, however, noted that India is neither alone in the CBDC journey, nor is it lagging behind other countries.

Speaking of which, on Monday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) released a report that discusses the potential uses of a purpose-bound digital Singapore dollar (SGD) and the required supporting infrastructure. This, said the press release, marked the successful completion of Phase 1 of Project Orchid. 

It added that,

"The report includes the design considerations for implementing a programmable digital SGD for potential use cases. Future research areas will focus on improving the user experience, strengthening security and privacy capabilities, and increasing accessibility to the broad population."

Project Orchid is an industry effort launched by the MAS in November 2021 to develop the technology infrastructure and technical competencies needed to issue a retail CBDC, and to explore use cases for a programmable digital Singapore dollar (DSGD). 

Singapore pilots tokenized fiat with smart contract capabilities

🇸🇬 Singapore pilots tokenized fiat with smart contract capabilities

Singapore-based financial services group DBS is partnering with Open Government Products, a tech team within the Singapore government, to launch a live pilot for the issuance of purpose-bound money-based vouchers.Notably, the vouchers are issued using tokenized Singapore dollars on a blockchain, according to an email from DBS.

The pilot is part of Project Orchid, led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which aims to enable a programmable digital Singapore dollar. DBS will issue digital Singapore dollars, while Open Government Products will enable smart contract capabilities. The goal of this effort is to allow retail shopfronts to benefit from instant settlements, payments and collections through customer usage of the vouchers — purportedly increasing cash flow and saving time on administrative backend tasks.

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