An early Bitcoin investor has been convicted for his crimes, making it the landmark case by the United States Department of Justice in the cryptocurrency industry that led to prosecution, leading this week's edition of Crypto Watch. There are now concerns regarding the recent onboarding of the Chinese crypto mogul, Justin Sun, to President-elect Donald J. Trump's World Liberty Financial.
On the other hand, learn more about the top cryptocurrencies in the market and how they changed over the past weeks, looking at the trends and their performance as this new trading week begins.
Early BTC Investor Faces Jail Time in Landmark Case
The early Bitcoin investor, Frank Richard Ahlgren III, is now facing two years in prison after being handed down his conviction by the Justice Department for his tax evasion case which is solely on the crypto industry. It was revealed by the prosecutors that Ahlgren III failed to declare the cryptocurrency earnings he got after selling the many BTCs he owned since he started investing early in the game.
Ahlgren III indeed was fortunate to get Bitcoin back when it was only 0.5 percent of its current valuation now which plays around $100,000, particularly as in 2015, he bought 1,366 BTCs from Coinbase and sold it for $3.7 million from 2017 to 2019, valued at $5,807.93.
However, the DOJ said that despite it being a cryptocurrency, US citizens still need to declare their crypto capital gains that are subject to filing it on one's tax return which Ahlgren III refused to do. Now, not only is he facing two years in prison and a one-year supervised release, but also $1.1 million in restitution.
Justin Sun, Trump's WLFI Partnership Draws Fears
After a string of controversial activities in the crypto world, Justin Sun has most recently aligned himself with Donald Trump and his World Liberty Financial where he purchased $30 million worth of WLFI tickets to help the ailing platform. Because of this, it earned him a spot at the table but it is already drawing concerns and fears that his affiliation brings an unsightly event in the future.
Reuters reported that experts and specialists claimed that this newfound relationship with Sun is flagging "ethics and conflicts of interest" against the President-elect with his connections to Sun. It is known that back in 2023, Sun's TRON crypto was linked to the fundraising group for the terrorists, Hamas, in its attack against Israel.
Not only is Sun one of its prized investors, but a recent announcement from WLFI brought the Chinese executive along as one of its advisors to the platform.
Top Coin Prices in the Market Now
Another week, another climb for the top cryptocurrency in the world, particularly as Bitcoin saw a new massive performance where it proved that not only can it stay on the $100,000 threshold, but also rally to a new all-time high above $106,000.
That being said, BTC and Ethereum are the only two coins that saw an increase in their valuation and weekly performance, as the other top cryptos on the list like Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, BNB, and more saw slight dips in their value.
- Bitcoin (BTC) - Price: $104,484.35 | 6.19 percent increase over the past seven days
- Ethereum (ETH) - Price: $3,94.43 | 1.97 percent increase over the past seven days
- Tether (USDT) - Price: $0.9995 | 0.04 percent decrease over the past seven days
- XRP (XRP) - Price: $2.38 | 0.31 percent decrease over the past seven days
- Solana (SOL) - Price: $216.93 | 4.39 percent decrease over the past seven days
