Hoooooo baby this Prometheum story gets even better.
So they started in 2017 when they filled their Reg A+ and aimed to raise $50M.
But how did these random lawyers supposedly get approval from the SEC and FINRA?
2/23
Look no further than their team, including Rosemarie Fanelli, who worked for the NYSE and then FINRA
3/23
John Tornatore from CBOE
4/23
Or CCO Joseph Zangri from - yup, the SEC
5/23
-Around since 2017
-Did a Reg A+ filing to issue a token in 2017.
-Have not launched their product since 2017.
-Have a bunch of former SEC and FINRA staff
-Suddenly appear at a hearing parroting political talking points favoring the SEC.
6/23
They've scrubbed their social media from prior to 2019 which is when they got their current domain on the .com - the previous .info site is still on wayback machine.
On that site they said their genesis block would be 2019...
7/23
If you search year by year through Google, you'll notice lots of noise about them in 2017 and 2018.
Then nothing for a while, until the end of 2020 early 2021 where they claim to be SEC regulated and raise $15M
8/23
That means it got its approval under Jay Clayton and not the current administration.
It leaned on this commission statement of allowing broker-dealers to hold custody digital assets.
9/23
But even to date, it acknowledges it can't clear or settle transactions and therefore, even though it is registered it cannot operate.
This is from a Bloomberg piece on them:
10/23
Then they go silent again for a few years.
Until suddenly, in late '21 to early '22 they hire former FINRA and SEC staff (still with no clear product)
After which they suddenly get the approvals they've wanted.
Still with no operation.
11/23
Now layer this all on with the fact:
-Their fundraise was with Wanxiang a purported CCP affiliate.
-They raised $48M without a product.
-Hired former SEC and FINRA people
-Pay $1.5M to Network 1 Financial Securities
12/23
Who is Network 1 Financial?
A shady broker with a Chinese affiliated firm and a horrible compliance track record of more than 20 regulatory or civil actions against them.
But it gets better - that broker was the one behind the Ice Tea company that pivoted to a blockchain project in 2017 as a scam.
As well as another offering that was a blockchain pivot that the SEC charged for fraud. (h/t @collins_belton)
14/23
In 2022 again, mostly quiet, until they announce they've "launched their ATS"
They claim that their ATS supports digital asset securities including:
"Flow, Filecoin, The Graph, Compound and Celo"
Of course, since none of these are securities they can't have...
15/23
So they claim this ATS has existed for well over a year and that it is integrated with "Anchorage Digital Bank" (hey @Anchorage - any comment?)
But no one has heard of it, and it is supposedly now clearing regular crypto assets via an ATS?
16/23
But that statement where they claimed to be offering those tokens was in 22.
The Bloomberg article from earlier where they said they don't have an offering, can't clear and settle and *hope* to list assets in the future...was from May 2023...
17/23
So if they launched their ATS in 2022, why, in 2023 are they talking about intent to launch and their hands being tied?
Why are they suddenly showing up as a Congressional Witness?
18/23
Why are the tokens they listed in '22 (Filecoin, Flow, et al) many of the same tokens that the SEC has now first listed in their actions against Coinbase and Binance?
19/23
There are three possible answers:
1) These are plants who are being given a sweet regulatory deal in exchange for engaging in the way the SEC wanted to (just like Gary was working on with SBF)
20/23
2) These guys are using their SEC and FINRA connections to push an agenda to get certain assets deemed securities and for them to be the only approved player to capture the market.
21/23
3) These guys are grifters who raised a ton of money from sketchy sources and for years have been twisting worst and progress to continue to ride the grift.
22/23
I don't know which one it is, but something is rotten here.
With all the efforts Coinbase, Kraken and other reputable firms have put into putting their best foot forward - it is impossible to believe this sketchy agency got the green light.
23/23
Even a cursory glance shows that this is not someone you should greenlight, especially not as the first in the space.
Plants, patsies, or opportunists - its unclear, but the fact Gensler is letting them run around with SEC approval is a red flag.
After writing this all out - I feel as if Elizabeth Warren is about to personally kick down my front door, drag me off to some blacksite where they keep the aliens, and waterboard me for unearthing her plants or something...
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More evidence of Trump's stroke - he *STRUGGLES* to hold things in his right hand!
A follower of mine who is a healthcare professional familiar with stroke assessment pointed out that Trump may be demonstrating motor weakness in his right hand - let's review:
Early on in Trump's first term, he used pens to sign executive orders, while using his infamous sharpie on informal documents.
But late term he switched to the larger easier to hold sharpie exclusively.
3/12
Being right handed, we often see him pick up the EO booklets with his right hand resting the weight, and his left hand with fingers barely gripping the booklet at all.
I'm filing a FOIA request with the Department of Defense, over the White House pharmacy records.
Trump's own medical records suggest his doctors are lying about his medications and his stroke history, that likely began when he was rushed to Walter Reed in 2019:
In November of 2019, Trump made a sudden and unscheduled trip to Walter Reed.
At the time, the Press Secretary said it was for his "routine annual exam" despite it not being on any schedules.
3/28
We also later learned in the book Trump vs The United States, that during that visit Pence was put on standby in case the President needed to be anesthetized - which is not a part of the President's annual physical.
They’ll keep his schedule light, and after this past week of recovery and staged photo ops, convince people juuust enough that Trump is fine, because journalists failed to ask hard questions for the last week.
3/5
So we’ll move forward not knowing the full extent of any cognitive damage as they’ll continue to play interference.
As you get closer to highs, drawn down volatility increases.
Sundays are a time when hunters paint the tape up until about 2, squeezing off side, and then puke a large spot into the illiquid market to rinse longs.
3/9
You get these drops a few times a week when you get into frothy markets, they’ll range from 2% - 5% wicks on the majors.
Today the DoJ was supposed to send the full Epstein files to Congress.
They didn't.
Instead they released hundreds of redacted pages from Ghislaine Maxwell's filled with lies and more questions.
Here's just the first part as I slog through these documents:
2/23
Right off the bat we're told that there was existing conversation prior to going on the record.
While that's not uncommon, it's worth remembering that Todd Blanche is also Trump's former *personal* lawyer and DoJ Deputy, and its *very* odd to have him doing this interview
3/23
Maxwell claims she met Epstein in 1991, after the death of her father.
The problem is Epstein's business partner Hoffenberg says Robert Maxwell introduced Ghislaine Maxwell to Epstein in the 1980s.