CoinMarketCap, Jan 5: 'See You in Court' — Logan Paul Fires Warning Shot at YouTuber Coffeezilla

The U.S. Justice Department has seized 56 million Robinhood shares that Sam Bankman-Fried purchased last May — in a sign that the fight for control of FTX's assets is escalating. Prosecutors do not believe the stock, worth $456 million, is the property of the bankruptcy estate. The question of who exactly owns these shares — a 7.6% stake in the trading app — has been especially murky. Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi has laid claim to the shares, which were used as collateral for a $600 million loan it made to Alameda Research. Bahamian liquidators also made a move to take control of the stock, as well as the new leadership of the FTX Group.

Influencer Logan Paul has announced that he's threatening to sue a YouTuber for defamation. Coffeezilla had claimed that Paul's NFT project, CryptoZoo, was a "scam" — and recently released a three-part investigation into the as-yet-unreleased play-to-earn game. It's meant to allow players to buy eggs, hatch them into animals, and cross-breed them into hybrids that yield tokens. Coffeezilla's videos highlighted the potential criminal past of some of those involved in the embattled project — including an alleged violent felon and conman. In a new video, Paul said that he is the one who has been fooled — and had trusted a team to vet and manage talent involved in CryptoZoo.

If you are one of the roughly 600,000 people who entrusted $4.2 billion to an interest-bearing account with Celsius Network, the bad news is that a bankruptcy judge just said it doesn't belong to you. Specifically, it belongs to Celsius — and has from the moment you opened a high-yield Earn account offering as much as 18% on your crypto. The worse news is, that means you'll be last in line when the court divvies up what's left after former CEO Alex Mashinsky's bad investment decisions. In the short term, the judge's ruling means that Celsius management can sell $18 million worth of stablecoins to cover the costs of remaining in Chapter 11 past March, when it has said the company will run out of money.

Coinbase has announced a $100 million settlement with New York financial regulators over widespread shortcomings in its compliance systems — revealed by its tremendous growth during the bull market of 2020 and 2021. It comes after "significant deficiencies" were detected in the exchange's Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering controls — with a deep backlog of transactions going unmonitored. Half of this settlement money is going to be used to beef up infrastructure. Coinbase's chief legal officer Paul Grewal described the resolution as "a critical step in our commitment to continuous improvement" — and claimed the company's investment in compliance outpaces rivals.

The Blockchain Association's director of government affairs has warned "the crypto industry is in the crosshairs of Washington after the FTX fallout." Ron Hammond says things are looking bad for the sector — and "it can't be stated enough how much damage SBF did to the industry's reputation." He fears that many politicians will now equate FTX with the entire industry, and believes the scale of the disaster may help push comprehensive legislation through Congress. That might not happen any time soon. The Republicans currently control the House of Representatives and are struggling to elect a new speaker, while the Democrats continue to hold the Senate. On the bright side, he does believe the crypto sector is making its voice heard.