CoinMarketCap News, Feb 24: Sam Bankman-Fried Now Faces 12 Charges. Could More Follow?

Prosecutors have unveiled four new criminal charges against Sam Bankman-Fried — taking the total to 12. The latest allegations surround bank fraud and focus on his donations to Democrats and Republicans. SBF is accused of routinely using assets that belonged to FTX customers as interest-free capital — exposing them to massive, undisclosed risks. It's claimed his contributions were designed to ensure that politicians passed laws that were favorable to his company. Bankman-Fried's spokesman has refused to comment on the new charges — but given what's happened in the past, it's likely we'll eventually end up hearing from the man himself. Even before these latest charges, the 30-year-old was facing 100 years in prison if convicted.

Coinbase has unveiled plans to launch a new Layer 2 network on the Ethereum blockchain. The exchange hopes the platform, called Base, will attract one billion new users into the crypto economy. It aims to offer a low-cost and developer-friendly way of launching decentralized apps. Coinbase has insisted that it has no plans to issue a new token to accompany the L2 network. Base will aim to deliver cheaper Ethereum transactions — and has a goal of making on-chain the next online. But Coinbase's share price didn't really react to this major announcement, suggesting that investors on Wall Street don't know what to make of this news. The company will end up facing a lot of competition from rival Layer 2s, including Bitcoin's Lightning Network.

Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather and Paul Pierce are once again trying to get a class action lawsuit about Ethereum Max thrown out of court. The celebrities are being sued by aggrieved investors after they endorsed the altcoin on social media — with critics likening the cryptocurrency to a pump-and-dump scheme. A judge had initially thrown out the lawsuit back in December because investors couldn't prove they had seen their endorsements on Instagram and Twitter — but they were given the chance to resubmit it. Kardashian has already paid a $1.26 million fine for endorsing Ethereum Max — and is banned from promoting crypto for three years. Paul Pierce has also reached a $1.4 million settlement with the SEC.

Spotify is allowing a small number of bands to offer specially curated playlists that can be accessed using NFTs. Kingship — a "supergroup" that consists of three Bored Apes and a Mutant Ape — is taking part in the trial. Fans with Android phones who live in Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. can get involved. In a tweet, Kingship said tunes from Queen, Missy Elliott, Snoop Dogg and Led Zeppelin are included in their playlist. This will inevitably mean that fans will need to splash out on a non-fungible token to access the list of songs. But technically speaking, there's nothing to stop someone from creating a rival playlist that can be accessed for free.

A crypto investment firm with ties to a pair of U.K. parliamentary groups appears to have vanished — and investors now fear they'll lose tens of thousands of pounds as a result. Phoenix Community Capital's alleged rug pull has the potential to leave British politicians embarrassed. Reports in The Guardian suggest the company may have used Westminster connections to give it a sheen of respectability. All-party parliamentary groups are relatively informal, and tend to be run and funded by lobbyists. Phoenix's co-founder, Luke Sullivan, claims the news outlet has made a number of factual errors in its report — but failed to offer a further comment. The U.K. has unveiled plans to become a "global cryptoasset hub" in recent months.