The Daily: SEC and Binance, BitClout founder sued for fraud, Hamster Kombat whitepaper and more

SEC intends to amend Binance complaint on whether certain tokens are securities

• Al-Naji allegedly raised more than $257 million through "unregistered offers and sales" of the native token BTCLT while misleading investors about the "decentralized nature of the project."
• The SEC accused Al-Naji of deceiving investors by claiming their funds would not be used to reimburse himself or BitClout employees, contradicting his actual expenditures.
• In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York also announced wire fraud charges against Al-Naji on Tuesday. 

Hamster Kombat allocates 60% of token airdrop to players in new whitepaper

• The remainder will be reserved for "providing market liquidity, ecosystem partnerships and grants, rewarding squads, and other items," according to the whitepaper.
• The Hamster Kombat team claims it will be the "largest airdrop in crypto history" and is "actively working on making the airdrop happen," originally supposed to occur this month.
• The game also claims to have 300 million users and is already a "profitable business" without the need for venture capital backing or to sell team token allocations to "pay the bills."
• Hamster Kombat's founders were inspired by the success of another Telegram-based game, Notcoin, and plan to build a broader Hamster ecosystem beyond the current game.

Compound reaches truce with crypto whale Humpy and The Golden Boys

• The conflict arose when Proposal 289, led by Humpy, intended to allocate $24 million from Compound's treasury to a yield-bearing protocol led by The Golden Boys.
• The proposal faced widespread criticism and allegations of manipulation as a small group influenced the vote by buying large amounts of COMP tokens.
• Under the resolution, the proposal has been withdrawn, mitigating the governance risks it posed, and a new staking product offered in its place to align with the interests of all parties involved.
• The new staking product, endorsed by Humpy and other delegates, proposes distributing 30% of fresh token reserves annually to staked COMP holders, requiring a governance vote for deployment.

Mining hardware is a $20 billion opportunity amid Trump's push to 'make bitcoin' in the US

• The launch of new mining chips by U.S. companies like Jack Dorsey's Block and Auradine presents an opportunity to diversify the supply chain and reduce the dominance of China-based companies like Bitmain, the analysts said.
• Bernstein sees this as a tailwind, particularly for large-scale U.S. public Bitcoin miners, with the "potential to improve fleet efficiency, drive lower capex (from lower chip pricing) and spare power capacity for AI/HPC opportunities."

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