Last week DB Investing trumpeted a “strategic partnership” with KYC vendor Sumsub. In reality, adding an off-the-shelf AML tool is hardly headline material; hundreds of brokers do it every day. The publicity blast looked less like real news and more like image-laundering for a man whose broker stable has ping-ponged across regulators, shells and continents for nearly two decades.
Elizabeth Holmes, once celebrated as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, is now serving an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors in her blood-testing startup, Theranos. In May 2025, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dealt her what may be the final legal blow, denying her bid to have her 2022 conviction reheard.
DeFi offers high yields—but it also carries high risk. The lack of centralized oversight means the responsibility for due diligence shifts to the user. In this sixth part of the FinTelegram DeFi Series, we present a practical risk assessment framework to help investors, analysts, and regulators evaluate decentralized finance protocols beyond hype and token prices.
Over the past year, financial influencers (“FinFluencers”) have become increasingly prominent on social media, particularly on TikTok and X (formerly Twitter). These platforms have evolved in their content dynamics, user engagement, and regulatory environment, making them central to the dissemination of financial advice and market sentiment. This report analyzes the roles, reach, and key trends of finfluencers on TikTok and X
A Financial Times video interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman unexpectedly turned into a viral marketing miracle for a small olive oil brand called Graza. Altman was seen cooking with Graza’s “Drizzle” olive oil—meant for finishing, not cooking—sparking an online debate and catapulting the brand into global awareness. It’s a case study in how digitally native consumer brands can hijack moments.
In a remote interview with Tucker Carlson on March 5, 2025, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the convicted FTX founder, reframed his $10 billion fraud as a mere liquidity crisis, denying criminal intent while playing chess with Sean 'Diddy' Combs in prison. As he hints at GOP leanings and a potential pardon, SBF’s narrative sparks debate: a bid for redemption or a refusal to face the fallout?
The topic of Ukraine or Ukrainian individuals selling U.S. and Western arms supplies on the black market has been a subject of both documented incidents and widespread speculation, often amplified by rumors and disinformation. The US media personality Tucker Carlson is one of the main sources in the respective headlines. Here’s a breakdown of known information and rumors:
Haliey Welch's role in launching the $HAWK token has drawn widespread scrutiny. Accusations of deliberate market manipulation, a swift valuation collapse, and potential legal ramifications put Welch’s reputation—and her future as a trusted influencer—on shaky ground. This debacle underscores the risks of unregulated meme coins and the responsibility influencers bear when engaging with financial products.
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act has cleared the Senate’s final procedural hurdles and is racing toward a floor vote that could deliver America’s first federal crypto statute. The bill would yank stablecoins out of the regulatory gray zone, impose 1-for-1 reserve rules, and force public officials to reveal their own holdings—moving the market from “Wild West” to compliance grid.
The U.S. FinCEN’s 2023 move to label all “convertible virtual-currency mixing” as a primary money-laundering concern, the 2024 DOJ indictment of Samourai Wallet’s founders, and the EU’s new AML Rulebook banning anonymity-enhancing features by 2027 have pushed CoinJoin from grey zone to regulatory bull’s-eye. The upshot: Bitcoin’s most popular privacy workflow is on a collision course with compliance desks worldwide, forcing investors, service providers, and whistle-blowers to reassess risk.