First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Vapid; Toncoin Leads Weekly Gains

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Bitcoin traded down slightly on Friday after showing resilience earlier in the week. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value was trading around $26,500 and did not witness notable gains over the week. Toncoin (TON) was the top performer over the week, up almost 10%. Toncoin is the native cryptocurrency of The Open Network, which was developed by the team behind messaging app Telegram. Toncoin was followed by Chainlink’s LINK token, which is up 6% for the week, with most gains happening on Monday following a flurry of announcements on new partnerships with traditional financial institutions.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has sued former employees of Salameda, a Hong Kong-incorporated entity affiliated with FTX that it says was controlled by the firm's ex-CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, to recover about $157.3 million, according to a court filing late Thursday. The filing alleges Michael Burgess, Matthew Burgess, their mother Lesley Burgess, Kevin Nguyen, Darren Wong and two companies owned or controlled several firms that had accounts registered at FTX.com and FTX US, and fraudulently withdrew assets in the days leading up to FTX's bankruptcy.

Binance, Binance.US and Changpeng Zhao filed to dismiss a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit Thursday, claiming the regulator hadn't "plausibly alleged" various securities-related violations, and that it was seeking to encompass digital assets under its authority despite Congress not explicitly spelling that out in legislation. The SEC sued Binance, Zhao and Binance.US in June, alleging they illegally listed unregistered securities in the form of several cryptocurrencies for trading and investment by U.S. investors. The suit immediately kicked off a legal fight over just who could access Binance.US customer funds. In Thursday's filings, attorneys for Binance and Binance.US said the regulator was overreaching by alleging violations of securities law.

- Omkar Godbole