Last week got all jumbled for me with the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I decided to just keep this simple with a snapshot of last week and whatever I had from before the break. Missing detail from over Thanksgiving but that’s Holidays for you. Gonna pick right back up this week and get back into things. Gentle reminder to enjoy the little things in life.
Monday, November 21st
FTX owes more than $3B to its top 50 creditors
FTX exploiter swaps ETH for renBTC, bridges to BTC then moves 195k ETH to several wallets
Digital Currency Group owes over $1.1B to Genesis
Grayscale won’t provide proof of reserves but Coinbase Custody publishes their holdings
JPMorgan registers a cryptocurrency wallet trademark
Celsius customers have until January 3, 2023 to file claims in bankruptcy proceedings
Bitcoin miner Iris Energy unplugged miners in response to a default notice on about $107.8M
SBF lawyers renounce representations citing conflict of interest
Tether conducting a chain swap to move 1B USDT from Solana to Ethereum
Uniswap collects certain on-chain and off-chain data connected to users’ crypto wallets
The Pantera Bitcoin Fund bought $137M worth of bitcoin
Mobile-first blockchain Celo partnership with ConsenSys
John Ray III, the New FTX CEO, is billing $1,300 per hour for his work
Binance Labs made a strategic investment in hardware wallet maker NGRAVE
Tuesday, November 22nd
Genesis faces possible bankruptcy without funding, Binance decided not to bail them out, Genesis lowered target from $1B to $500M, says they have no imminent plans to file bankruptcy
FTX Group has $1.2B in cash, $514M unrestricted cash, owes $3.1B to top 50 creditors; the liquidity gap is about $8B
Avraham Eisenberg in progress trading strategy - borrowed 83M CRV tokens from Aave to short
Curve releases whitepaper and official code for its stablecoin - crvUSD
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev to remain in jail until at least late February
Ark Invest purchased another 176,945 shares ($1.4M) in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) fund
Magic Eden has added support for NFTs on the Polygon network
Grand Theft Auto has followed Minecraft in banning NFTs from its third-party online servers
Wednesday, November 23rd
DCG owes its own Genesis Trading arm $575M due May 2023, has $2.8B in outstanding loans
Eisenberg’s Curve/Aave strategy liquidated. Aave $1.6M bad debt. Unsure if successful on CEX
Shen Bo, founder of FENBUSHI Capital had his wallet hacked for $42M worth of assets
A dormant BTC-e exchange wallet sent 10,000 bitcoin ($165M) to two unidentified recipients
OKX launches Proof of Reserves
Binance CEO denies report firm met with Abu Dhabi investors for crypto recovery fund
Binance’s 29th project on Binance Launchpad - Hooked Protocol
ApeCoin DAO to launch NFT marketplace
Reebok filed 2 trademark applications for NFT related products
New York signed a two-year moratorium on new permits for PoW crypto mining
The World Economic Forum wants to work with Shiba Inu on global policy
DBS, the first Asian bank to use JPMorgan's blockchain fixed income trading network Onyx
FTX bankruptcy case to continue proceedings in Delaware and keep top 50 creditors redacted
Holiday Weekend Recap: 24th-28th(ish)
ConsenSys collects IP addresses and wallet addresses
Binance officially launched the Industry Recovery Initiative with a $1B commitment
Crypto Twitter influencers converged on the Bahamas in search of SBF
WBTC/WETH FUD - WETH is a meme gone too far
BlockFi will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and lay off a large portion of its staff
Fantom blockchain is cash-flow positive, earning more than $10M in annual revenue
Amazon Prime Video working on an 8 episode TV series on SBF and the FTX Saga
1inch new feature to prevent MetaMask users from getting hit by sandwich attack frontrunning
WBTC DAO moved to a new smart contract multisig, replacing signers that are no longer active
Aave temporarily freezes lending for 17 tokens after last week’s massive short left bad debt
Deadmau5’s Pixelynx unveils augmented reality music metaverse NFT scavenger hunt
- Time moves differently in crypto. Crypto is an intricate game filled with various players operating across multiple time frames and with varying agendas. Day in, day out, the pieces are moving all across the board. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. The following is a look at the crypto landscape during the past week covering various sectors. Use these events like clues - let it tell you the larger overarching story of crypto -
Data:
Will resume my normal data musings this week. Btw, I’ve been using Arkham Intelligence for a few weeks now and it’s pretty cool. Definitely could use some features and I hope they expand upon it and make it better. I can think of a few improvements. It’s currently in invite only beta so if you want access then you can use this link. Just found out they’ll be launching a token. Not a fan of when analytics platforms do tokens - like how DappRadar did one - but anyhoo. It’s still a cool resource to try out if you’ve been wanting to.
https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/waitlist?referrer=dGhlb2RlbGFyb3NhLnhAZ21haWwuY29t
Crypto News:
Monday:
The FTX drainer wallet held over 250,000 ETH worth more than $300M, becoming the 27th-biggest ETH holder before dumping a large amount of ETH for renBTC and then bridging to BTC
Barry Silbert's Digital Currency Group owes over $1.1B to Genesis and lack of emergency funding may cause greater impact than FTX
Crypto investment firm Grayscale won't show proof of reserves due to “security concerns.” Crypto firms are under pressure to share information about the health of their reserves after FTX filed for bankruptcy protection. Coinbase Custody issued a statement that the digital assets of each Grayscale product have its own on-chain address, and can be confirmed on the chain, and provided the exact digital assets held in each product. Grayscale holds 635K BTC ~ $10B
JPMorgan officially registers a cryptocurrency wallet trademark
Celsius customers have until January 3, 2023 to file claims in bankruptcy proceedings
Bitcoin miner Iris Energy unplugged a large majority of its miners in response to a default notice on about $107.8M in loans they were securing
Input Output Global, the firm behind the Cardano blockchain, is releasing a new privacy-focused blockchain called Midnight and a token called dust
Man Group, the biggest publicly traded hedge fund firm, is reportedly close to starting a crypto hedge fund despite FTX collapse
The Pantera Bitcoin Fund bought $137M worth of bitcoin. 141 accredited investors participated with a minimum investment of $50,000 each
Bitcoin lender and custodian Unchained Capital plans to lay off about 15% of its employees
Mobile-first blockchain Celo partnership with ConsenSys will allow Celo to make use of Infura infrastructure
Sandwich franchise Subway trials Lightning Network payments
Tuesday:
Genesis faces possible bankruptcy without funding. Binance decided not to bail out Genesis, fearful that its business could create a conflict of interest down the line. Genesis also has lowered target from $1B to $500M and says they have no plans to file bankruptcy imminently
Bitcoin Miners have been selling at the most aggressive rate in almost seven years, with a 400% increase in selling pressure over the last three weeks. Several Bitcoin miners could go out of business if the value does not rise soon
Core Scientific Inc., the largest US publicly-traded Bitcoin mining company in terms of computing power, lost $1.7B in the first 9 months of this year. Substantial doubt that it could keep operations going past November 2023
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev to remain in jail until at least late February
Ark Invest, the investment firm led by Cathie Wood, has purchased another 176,945 shares worth about $1.4M in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) fund
FalconX, the crypto prime broker, resumed use of Silvergate’s payment network after pressing pause on the partnership last week
Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) has partnered with ComTech Gold to enable blockchain-based trading of physical gold bars
Asset managers Apollo Global Management and Hamilton Lane are launching investment vehicles on the blockchain using technology developed by fintech company Figure
Avalanche releases second SDK for building Avalanche Virtual Machines, the Rust SDK
An information-stealing Google Chrome browser extension named 'VenomSoftX' is being deployed by Windows malware to steal cryptocurrency and clipboard contents
Binance Pool launches Cloud Mining service, which allows users who do not have access to mining equipment to earn mining rewards from Binance Pool
UBET Sports is hosting a World Cup event. A prize pool of $2,000 USDT is up for grabs in the UBET Sports Betting Tournament. Nov 20th-Dec 18th
Wednesday:
DCG owes its own Genesis Trading arm $575M due May 2023. Genesis has $2.8B in outstanding loans on balance sheet and hired the investment bank Moelis & Company to explore options including a potential bankruptcy
Avraham Eisenberg’s Curve/Aave trading strategy involving borrowed 40M CRV tokens liquidated leaving Aave with $1.6M of bad debt. Unsure if successful on CEX perps
Shen Bo, founder of FENBUSHI Capital had his wallet with a total of $42M worth of assets stolen just before the FTX hack. The exploit may have resulted from a compromised private key
A dormant crypto wallet attributed to the BTC-e exchange that's been linked to the 2014 Mt. Gox hack, sent a total of 10,000 bitcoin ($165M) to two unidentified recipients
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a two-year moratorium on new permits for PoW cryptocurrency mining operators that rely on carbon-based fuel to power their activities
DCG's Foundry Digital is buying two crypto mining facilities and other assets from Compute North with an option to acquire a third facility that is under development amid possible Genesis bankruptcy
The World Economic Forum, or WEF, wants to work with the meme-based cryptocurrency Shiba Inu on global policy
Economic/Government/Regulatory:
Monday:
The “Razzlekhan” bitcoin laundering case will involve “classified national security information” that can only be accessed by people with security clearance
An Ohio investment manager was arrested for allegedly running a $10M cryptocurrency ponzi scheme. The U.S. CFTC had previously taken legal action against the man
Nexo is being sued by a group of investors in the London High Court who allege that the crypto firm blocked them from withdrawing over $126M worth of crypto
SEC moves to suspend sale of American CryptoFed DAO tokens
Tuesday:
The African Kenya Revenue Authority will tax 8.5% of the country’s population, 4M Kenyans who own cryptocurrencies
The two founders of the now-defunct Bitcoin cloud miner HashFlare have been arrested in Estonia over their alleged involvement in a $575M crypto fraud conspiracy
Wednesday:
DBS, Singapore's largest bank by market cap, has become the first Asian bank to use JPMorgan's blockchain-based fixed income trading network Onyx, joining international heavyweights including Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas
El Salvador’s presidency dispatched a digital-securities bill to lawmakers, taking the nation a step closer to raising $1B via the world’s first sovereign blockchain bond
The Japanese central bank will begin experiments with a proof-of-concept digital yen CBDC early next year
Australia’s financial watchdog sued an Aave and Coinbase-backed fintech company, Block Earner, for unlicensed crypto services
Exchange News:
Monday:
FTX owes more than $3B to its top 50 creditors
FTX called on fellow crypto exchanges for help returning missing funds, pointing out that funds are being transferred to other entities through intermediate wallets
John Ray III, the New FTX CEO, is billing $1,300 per hour for his work
Paul, Weiss, the law firm backing SBF amid bankruptcy, renounced representing the entrepreneur, citing a conflict of interest. The decision to withdraw from representation after SBF’s tweets were found to disrupt the law firm’s reorganization efforts
Crypto exchange Liquid stopped trading on its platform five days after suspending withdrawals
Coinbase has added Benqi (QI) and Kava (KAVA) to its roadmap
Tuesday:
Court documents show that FTX Group has $1.2B in cash, about $514M is unrestricted cash and owes $3.1B to the top 50 creditors; the liquidity gap is about $8B
FTX is responsible for all costs associated with the digital wallet that holds FTX Digital Markets' assets and is being kept under the supervision of The Securities Commission of The Bahamas
Gemini working with Genesis and Digital Currency Group to find a solution that will allow users to redeem their funds from the crypto exchange's Earn product
Huobi launches refreshed brand, unveils post-acquisition global expansion roadmap
FTX Japan is developing a workaround to allow customers to retrieve their funds by December
Binance has been meeting with investors in Abu Dhabi seeking cash for the exchange's crypto recovery fund
CoinMarketCap, a subsidiary of Binance, launched the exchange reserve data function
Coinbase shares fell to a record low under $42 due to the negative impact on user confidence in centralized exchanges
At least 19 properties worth around $121M were reportedly purchased under FTX’s name, Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents and senior-level executives
Investment platform Bitpanda has been granted a crypto trading and custody license in Germany
Wednesday:
The judge overseeing the FTX bankruptcy case agreed to continue bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware and keep the names and addresses of the top 50 creditors - owed approximately $3.1B - redacted for now
OKX launches Proof of Reserves
Binance Pool has officially launched the RavenCoin (RVN) mining service with mining fees set at 1%
Binance CEO denies report firm met with Abu Dhabi investors for crypto recovery fund
DeFi:
Monday:
Tether conducting a chain swap to move 1B USDT from Solana to Ethereum - will reduce the total amount of circulating USDT on Solana, but the overall supply will not change
Funding for DeFi protocol Ren in limbo after Alameda collapse which was funding Ren’s development with $700,000 every quarter
Uniswap published a new privacy policy to provide transparency on the data it collects - stating that the DEX collects certain on-chain and off-chain data connected to users’ crypto wallets
Djed, Cardano's first decentralized stablecoin, will go live on the main network in January and be integrated into 40 apps
Velodrome will be distributing 4M $OP tokens over the next six months to accelerate Optimism's growth
KyberSwap partnered with Lido Finance to enhance wstETH liquidity on Ethereum
Tuesday:
A trader (Avraham Eisenberg) borrowed 70M CRV tokens from Aave and sold the majority of them in an effort to short the token’s price
Curve releases whitepaper and official code for its stablecoin - crvUSD will rely on a algorithm called Lending-Liquidating AMM (LLAMMA)
Uniswap Labs Contracts Bug Bounty - Rewards will be allocated based on the severity of the bug disclosed and evaluated for rewards up to 3,000,000 USDC
Wednesday:
Ethereum developers launched a new devnet to test the unlocking of ether staked with validators
ENS DAO has voted to select the treasury management platform Karpatkey DAO to manage its endowment fund
NFTs/Gaming/Metaverse:
Monday:
NFT marketplace X2Y2 has flipped its decision to make creator royalties optional - was among the first to make creator royalties optional
French luxury fashion brand Givenchy the latest company to offer phygital NFTs — a physical good backed by a digital token
Scotch whisky maker Johnnie Walker has continued its Web3 push by allowing NFT holders to vote on the design of a bottle for a limited-edition drop of its top “blue label” range
Porsche unveils NFT webpage and Twitter
Tuesday:
Magic Eden has added support for NFTs on the Polygon network
Grand Theft Auto has followed Minecraft in banning NFTs from its third-party online servers. MyMetaverse runs games on GTA 5 that integrates NFTs in the form of cars and swords
The Sandbox is kicking off its three-part LAND sale on Thursday in collaboration with popular brands like Tony Hawk, Snoop Dog, and Playboy, among others
Global toy company Mattel has launched its own NFT marketplace on Mattel Creations, the company's direct-to-consumer platform with Hot Wheels collection
Crypto custodian Aegis Trust offers $25M insurance policy for institutional investors’ NFTs
Wednesday:
ApeCoin DAO to launch NFT marketplace for Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Bored Ape Kennel Club and Otherdeed NFTs - will honor creator royalties
Reebok filed 2 applications to trademark its name for: NFT-back media, Virtual footwear, headwear, sports equipment, Retail stores with virtual goods, Online marketplaces for NFT-backed goods
An NFT collector who goes by the pseudonym "Vincent Van Dough" launched a new NFT gallery called Art of This Millennium
The Argentine Football Association’s crypto fan token ARG plummeted as Argentina lost against Saudi Arabia in the FIFA World Cup
Unity is integrating Tezos blockchain in games’ development engine
Fundraises:
Monday:
Binance Labs made a strategic investment in Belgian hardware wallet maker NGRAVE and will lead its upcoming Series A round. Founded in 2018, Ngrave specializes in self-custody and provides a security suite comprising three major elements: connectionless hardware wallet Zero, key backup tool Graphene and the Liquid mobile app
Tuesday:
Foresight Ventures, a crypto fund with $400M in assets under management (AUM), is launching a $10M incubator program called Foresight X
Tokyo-based Web3 and VR gaming studio, Thirdverse, who’s making a blockchain game based on the popular 80s football manga Captain Tsubasa, raised $15M in its latest funding round. MZ Web3 Fund led the round with participation from 8DAO, B Dash Ventures, Double Jump.tokyo, Fenbushi Capital, Flick Shot, Holdem Capital, Kusabi, OKCoinJapan, OKX Ventures and Yield Guild Games
Crypto privacy startup Nucleo raised $4M in seed funding to create a private multi-sig solution for organizations to transact on the Ethereum blockchain through zero-knowledge cryptography. Led by Bain Capital Crypto and 6th Man Ventures with participation from Aztec Network, Aleo, and Espresso Systems
NFT utility platform Tropee, which helps brands easily create user experiences out of their collections, raised a $5.1M seed investment led by European web3 firm Tioga Capital. Crypto founders such as The Sandbox's Sébastien Borget, Exclusible's Thibault Launay, Geometry's Grégoire le Jeune, and Lorens Huculak, founder of the Gem, also participated
DEFYCA raises $1.3M in seed funding to build the next generation of decentralized capital markets led by QBN Capital and Blizzard Fund
Vezgo Closes $750k in oversubscribed pre-seed round to accelerate growth and development of new features for leading crypto data API
Wednesday:
City State Entertainment raised $15M to fund games with massive medieval battles using a new game engine
Onomy Protocol, a Cosmos-based DeFi protocol aiming to converge DeFi and forex markets, raised $10M from Bitfinex, GSR, Ava Labs, CMS Holdings and DWF Labs
Web3 identity builders Carv raised $4M, valuing it at $40M
NFT infrastructure protocol Vinci Protocol raised $2.1M in a seed funding round led by UOB Venture Management, SigNum Capital, and TGE Capital
Insert Stonks raised over $550,000 in a pre-seed round for the development of its Web3 game monetization infrastructure led by FunFair Ventures
Early Stage Projects:
Monday:
Introducing Shuttle: an open-source package to integrate the most popular Cosmos wallets into multi-chain Dapps with just a few lines of code
LayerZero is officially live on Metis Goerli Testnet
Klaymakers22 saw over 23,000 workshop participants and 174 project submissions. 19 projects walked away with over $1M in prizes, sponsor bounty challenges, and grant and incubation opportunities
ACX token status: code complete - token launches on Monday, Nov 28
Tuesday:
Canto live on Synapse - the 18th chain interconnected by Synapse’s cross-chain messaging system and the protocol’s first entry into the Cosmos ecosystem
Spin will have an airdrop for it's early adopters
Introducing SteakHut Liquidity: Avalanche's liquidity layer. A protocol to automate and optimize concentrated liquidity on The Liquidity Book
Skip Protocol live on EVMOS - allows traders to bid for top-of-block execution, redirecting profit from MEV back to the community
The Vertex Public Testnet is live - Vertex is a CLOB, cross-margined DEX protocol built on Arbitrum
LinoSwap is airdropping to NFT users
Coherent is live - building the most comprehensive set of human-readable, opinionated APIs
Wednesday:
Binance’s 29th project on Binance Launchpad - Hooked Protocol (HOOK). Binance Labs, Sequoia Seed Fund, and A&T Capital are its seed investors, hoping to become an X-to-Earn aggregator
Stride distributed 4% of its $STRD governance token via airdrop
The Shockwave Omega mainnet upgrade is scheduled for December 13, bringing a new WASM engine with increased dApp performance for Secret 2.0
Introducing RolodETH, an open-source database of Ethereum addresses with names, tags, and more
Introducing Paddle - a Move Virtual Machine (MVM) rollup for Cosmos
Research/Reads:
Glassnode - Uncertainty Amongst Whales and Old Hands - source
Crypto doesn't have a UX problem - source
Reputation as Credit: Sharing Web3 game assets, permissionlessly - source
VEv2: five strategies for bringing back vote escrow - source
Papr - introduces a new way to construct lending markets - source
NEAR Transparency Report: the State of Staking - source
FTX and Alameda Research lost $3.7B before 2022 - source
Polynya - Sustainability - source
The Merge series (part 3): MEV landscape - source
Expanding Uniswap's Addressable Market - source
Internal rollups and Fractal sidechains - source
Pantera - FTX Underscores The Importance Of DeFi - source
$crvUSD White Paper - source
Takeaways from FTX's First Bankruptcy Hearing - source
The "World Cup effect" in the stock and crypto markets - source
Reckless: The Story Of Cryptocurrency - Chapter 1: The History Of Interest Rates - source
Rollup, Validium, Volition — Where is Your Data Stored? - source
How Zero Knowledge Proofs, Aggregation Layers, and Light Nodes Can Improve Web3 Experience and Structure? - source
Innovating the Fantom Virtual Machine - source
Crypto Yield Sources: Not all Yield is Created Equal - source
Defi 101: Curve Finance - source
Twitter:
Vitalik - Having a safe CEX: proof of solvency and beyond - source
DCG - break down their assets - source
GBTC addresses and balances based on public info and blockchain forensics - source
IF DCG is indeed the entity that owes 1bn to Genesis - we are fucked - source
ZachXBT - debunk the three misconceptions about FTX - source
Daisy Chain of Crypto Leverage - source
Bill Ackman stance on crypto - source
FTX - who gets paid back first, and who isn’t getting any funds back? - source
Everything mapped out about the FTX attack on both the Ethereum and Bitcoin side - source
Avraham Eisenberg Curve/Aave ordeal explained - source
@avi_eisen has a 17M $CRV short position - source
Jason Choi on Avi CRV position - source
Andrew Kang on Curve/Aave - source
Kamikaze on Curve/Aave - source
Letter SBF sent today to FTX employees - source
The state of crypto - source
AAVE addresses what occurred in the CRV pool on the Aave Protocol - source
The aftermath of on-chain CRV short - source
Model for what went down with CRV/Aave - source
FTX 20 tweet version of events, simplified with numbers & data visualization - source
How did Alameda manage to lose billions of dollars of FTX user funds? - source
Curve stablecoin LLAMMA (lending-liquidating amm algorithm) - source
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