👁️ Sullivan and Cromwell "Furthered FTX's Misconduct"

News of the week in Brief

A few houskeeping notes: First, this week’s news installment is very condensed as I get ready for ETHDenver. It’s hard for me not to comment at length on things, but this time I’m making an exception. Also, expect off-schedule updates as I navigate the next few days of the conference.

Second, many thanks to Alexzuttre.eth and Awbvious, the new owners of two of my Rare Sam courtroom sketches. You can read about the process of making the Sams here, an you can still make offers on the remaining sketches at Opensea.

Victims Sue Sullivan and Cromwell for Aiding FTX Fraud.

A civil lawsuit claims the firm ignored obvious red flags, proactively aided fraud, then sought to profit from the bankruptcy process.

You can read the full 75 page suit here. On a brief read-through, the suit frankly seems a bit hand-wavy. For instance, it alleges S&C’s involvement as counsel to Emergent implicates it in the use of that vehicle to “round trip” customer funds, but does not seem to cite specific evidence of S&C’s awareness of those transactions.

A Bitcoin Victory Lap

Bitcoin this week topped $57,000 in a tremendous runup fueled by ETF inflows. As I predicted back in early December, we’re in up-only mode for a while yet, and it’s getting increasingly silly.

Elon Musk’s Boring Tunnel is Full of Toxic Sludge

Probably the first time I personally realized Elon Musk was more P.T. Barnum than Nikola Tesla was with the advent of the Hyperloop concept, which I covered extensively for Fortune back in the day. His Las Vegas tunnel, where Teslas driven by human beings go one direction, is the only real remnant of that concept, after the shuttering of Hyperloop One.

Well, turns out even safely building a tunnel that cars drive through is beyond Elon’s capabilities. Workers report having to trudge through toxic waste to build the thing, among other major safety violations.

Su Zhu and Kyle Davies Keep Getting Away With It

The former Three Arrows boys were back in the news, first with a new New York profile from my former Fortune colleague and amazing reporter Jen Wieczener. Davies is still literally on the run from the law, evading a prison sentence.

They’re also apparently continuing their run of completely shameless fraud. With their supposed debt claims exchange OPNX now closed after miserable failure, they have a supposed new project called OX.Fun. I have no idea what that is, but they’re apparently lying about who is backing them, which is a nice touch. That said, Foresight Ventures does admit to having engaged with these two clowns in some business capacity, which shows a disqualifying lack of judgment regardless of the details.

That’s all for this morning! I told you it would be quick.