CoinMarketCap News, August 23: Elon Musk's Case Against Twitter Gets a Big Boost

Twitter's former head of security has become a whistleblower — and he's making damning allegations about the social network. Peiter "Mudge" Zatko claims major security problems are putting the personal information of users at risk — and the site has been failing to reliably delete data when people close accounts. In allegations that could strengthen Elon Musk's case against the company, he claims Twitter bosses are unable to fully gauge how many bots are on the platform. Zatko is now set to be subpoenaed by the Tesla CEO's lawyers. All these claims may alarm Crypto Twitter, not least because many of them take their anonymity on this social network seriously. Twitter says Zatko was fired for "ineffective leadership and poor performance," and his claims are a "false narrative" that's "riddled with inconsistencies."

A Bitcoiner has received $1.2 million in donations ahead of a legal showdown with Craig Wright. Hodlonaut had written tweets that questioned whether Dr. Wright is actually Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's inventor. During next month's eight-day trial in Norway, Hodlonaut is seeking a declaratory judgment that their tweets were lawful, covered by truth and freedom of speech, and that they are not liable to pay damages to Wright. It's now emerged Hodlonaut has received 47 BTC — worth $1 million — from an anonymous donor. Speculation is rife on Crypto Twitter that Michael Saylor was behind this contribution. Dr. Wright has vowed to continue taking legal action until "baseless and harmful attacks" designed to belittle his reputation stop.

OpenSea's former product manager is calling for the insider trading charges against him to be dismissed. Nate Chastain is accused of buying NFTs before they appeared on the marketplace's homepage — and later selling them for two to five times profit. But now, the 31-year-old's legal team claim "ill-founded applications of criminal law" are being used to set a precedent in the digital assets space. They also argue that NFTs "are neither securities nor commodities" — and because of this, insider trading was impossible to achieve. Chastain's lawyers go on to insist that OpenSea was not deprived as a result of his alleged actions — primarily because the platform "collected its standard fees in connection with each relevant NFT that was bought and sold."

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have all handed permanent bans to Andrew Tate. The crypto trader and influencer has come under fire for violent videos where he appeared to endorse hitting women. Footage of the former kickboxer has spread like wildfire online in recent months, with students of his self-proclaimed "Hustler's University" encouraged to spread clips online. A spokesperson for the former kickboxer told Bloomberg: "Banning Andrew Tate from these platforms might seem the answer, but it isn't that simple. Removing Tate's voice doesn’t allow for a kinder hate-free society." Some in the crypto space will disapprove of these bans — and argue greater decentralization is needed because censorship is unacceptable.

Telegram's founder has hinted that the messaging app may start selling exclusive usernames as non-fungible tokens. "Catchy" handles including @storm and @royal — as well as all four-letter usernames — could be made available first. It means early Telegram users could be sitting on a gold mine. CEO Pavel Durov said: "Let's see if we can add a little bit of Web 3.0 to Telegram in the coming weeks." Web3 usernames have become big business — with Ethereum Name Service selling off two million wallet addresses since launch. But inevitably, the astronomical prices being paid could fuel fears that a new bubble is forming in the industry — and it could leave personalized addresses out of reach for many normal consumers.