This makes Lition one of the few public/private blockchains currently supported by a major cloud provider like Microsoft. Microsoft also became the first to bring blockchain to the cloud and continues to remain at the cutting edge of blockchain adoption. Lition, a commercial blockchain, announced on Feb. 18 that Microsoft has officially brought Lition blockchain solution to its Azure cloud marketplace.
Enterprises worldwide to benefit from blockchain adoption
Integrating Lition blockchain into Azure allows Microsoft Azure’s worldwide enterprise clients to develop, test and deploy Lition side chains and applications with a click of a button on its platform, according to the announcement.
Dr. Richard Lohwasser, Lition’s CEO added that:
“Lition is committed to providing an accessible onramp to blockchain for all organizations. We believe that making integration as seamless as possible is vital to bridging the gap to adoption. Azure will be a tremendous asset for our customers..”
Azure cloud dominating the public cloud market
According to the announcement, Azure is the driving force behind Microsoft’s cloud business. The platform currently has the second-largest share of the $229 billion public cloud market, primarily catering to large enterprise clients. Azure’s clients include over 95% of Fortune 500 companies, including Walmart, Coca-Cola, Boeing and Samsung.
Cointelegraph has tried to reach out to Lition’s online marketing manager Benni Woerpel for comment but had not received a response as of press time.
Class Action Complaint Filed Against Patrick Byrne and Overstock.com
A new complaint filed in Utah accuses Overstock.com, former CEO Patrick Byrne and former CFO Greg Iverson of securities fraud.
The complaint
Filed on Friday, Sept. 27, the complaint requests a trial by jury, alleging that Byrne designed Overstock.com’s digital asset-based dividend as a means of punishing short sellers, which other outlets have alleged previously. On the subject, and in language more dramatic than many legal filings, the complaint reads:
“While defendant Byrne had previously, at different times, launched into public tirades over short selling and naked short selling, the tZERO Dividend was his secret plot to finally obtain hegemony over them – and it almost worked.”
Punishing short sellers
In July, Overstock.com began offering a special dividend called “Digital Voting Series A-1 Preferred Stock”, which would trade on the company’s own blockchain platform. However, and unusually, investors would not be able to trade the dividend at all for six months. The complaint explains the mechanism of tampering with Overstock.com’s stock price:
“While shares traded to a Class Period high of $26.89 each on September 13, 2019, they traded to as low as $15.50 by September 18, 2019, three trading days later, after investors learned that the tZERO dividend was designed to be a short squeeze.”
As Cointelegraph reported at the time, Byrne managed to sell his 13% share in Overstock.com for $90 million in the days leading up to Sept. 18.
The complaint claims that Overstock.com, Byrne and Iverson violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act governing antifraud provisions of securities swaps, and that Byrne alone violated Section 20(a) of the same act by virtue of his status as controlling person.
Byrne’s summer
Both Byrne and Iverson resigned from their positions at Overstock.com recently, Byrne on Aug. 22 and Iverson on Sept. 17. Byrne’s resignation was particularly dramatic, with him claiming that it was due to scandal surrounding a relationship with alleged spy Maria Butina and involvement with federal agencies.
News of Byrne’s resignation came as a shock to the crypto community, given his long history of support for Bitcoin and blockchain technologies. Indeed, Friday’s complaint reads that:
“In fact, it was recently reported that, for the last several years, defendant Byrne spent no fewer than 220 days a year on the road, ‘spreading his blockchain gospel, despite the fact that Overstock was hemorrhaging cash.’”
Class Action Accuses Tether and Bitfinex of Market Manipulation
A New York-based legal firm has filed a lawsuit against Tether and Bitfinex, accusing them of cryptocurrency market manipulation.
“Largest bubble in history”
Roche Freedman filed a class-action suit claiming that stablecoin firm Tether and its affiliate crypto exchange Bitfinex have been involved in defrauding investors, manipulating markets and concealing illicit proceeds, the firm’s founding partner Kyle Roche tweeted on Oct. 7.
In the tweet, Roche accused Tether and Bitfinex of creating the “largest bubble in history.”
Filed on Oct. 6, the complaint document states that Bitfinex and Tether primarily accomplished a “sophisticated scheme” involving “part-fraud, part-pump-and-dump, and part-money laundering.”
Suit alleges that backing asset claims were false
In the lawsuit, Roche Freedman argued that Tether’s claim of backing the number of its Tether tokens (USDT) by equal amounts of United States dollars was a lie. Instead, the firm says that Tether “issued extraordinary amounts of unbacked USDT to manipulate cryptocurrency prices.” The document reads:
“Because the market believed the lie that one USDT equaled one U.S. dollar, Bitfinex and Tether had the power to, and did, manipulate the market on an unprecedented scale to profit from boom-and-bust cycles they created.”
Tether and Bitfinex expected the lawsuit
The lawsuit filing comes two days after both Tether and Bitfinex published statements claiming that they had become aware of an unreleased paper “falsely positing that Tether issuances are responsible for manipulating the cryptocurrency market.” Urging that the paper contained “baseless accusations”, Tether and Bitfinex said that they will vigorously defend themselves if lawyers use the source to launch a lawsuit.
