Three biggest crypto stories to look out for this week

It could be a bad week for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried if he loses access to his encrypted messaging apps, while it could be a good week for Bored Ape holders enjoying the new Yuga Labs video game.

Alongside those, a rift is opening in the Secret Network community that may lead to big changes in the way its Secret Foundation works.

Shutting off SBF’s comms

One of the ongoing developments in the collapse of FTX is now focused on former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s ability to speak to potential witnesses — which U.S. prosecutors want to shut down.

Prosecutors claimed that Bankman-Fried spoke with a current witness, suggesting they could “vet things with each other.” He also messaged Ryne Miller, the current general counsel of FTX US, who officials contend may be a trial witness.

Bankman-Fried’s current bond imposes no limitations in terms of contacting prospective witnesses. As such, the former CEO spoke with other current and former FTX employees through email and via Signal, according to court documents.

Prosecutors are angling for a ruling to stop him from speaking to current and prospective witnesses via encrypted messaging apps.

Secret drama out in the open

A bit of a community rift has opened in the Secret community, with Secret Labs making accusations against the Secret Foundation and its founder Tor Bair. Both companies are focused on supporting the privacy-focused Secret Network.

The main one is that Bair cashed out some secret tokens to the tune of a couple of million dollars in late 2021, a claim that Bair readily acknowledged as accurate. He said that this information had been previously disclosed to Secret Labs. He noted that the tokens had finished vesting and that employee compensation was not publicly disclosed.

Another claim was that the Secret Foundation had lost $250,000 in a mishandled OTC trade. On this part, Bair had previously disclosed this issue in December on the same governance forum, although he said the amount was around $200,000. This disclosure did come more than a year after incident.

Both entities have acknowledged there need to be changes in the way the foundation works, we may see changes along those lines in the weeks to come.

The race for high scores

Bored Ape holders are filled with excitement this week as Yuga Labs’ newly launched game has taken off.

Called Dookey Dash, gamers fly down sewage pipes avoiding obstacles. To play the game you need a Sewer Pass, which is an NFT that can be bought on secondary marketplaces including OpenSea. They are available to claim for Bored Ape and Mutant Ape holders.

So far, the game has been played more than 4 million times and trading of the NFTs has reached $40 million in volume.

The key thing gamers are competing for is a high score. On Feb. 8, each high score will become permanently bound to each Sewer Pass NFT. Some traders are speculating that there will be prizes handed out to the highest-ranked passes. With this in mind, gamers are doing everything they can to get an edge as next week we will see this competition build toward a conclusion.