On the Pod…

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Robert Leshner, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news. Show topics:

  • highlights of Sam Bankman-Fried's interview with the New York Times

  • whether SBF knew what was going on in his companies, and how that impacts potential prosecution

  • why Genesis and DCG are in financial trouble 

  • whether Genesis will file for bankruptcy or go through a restructuring process

  • revelations from BlockFi's bankruptcy filing

  • new info on why FTX bailed out BlockFi last summer

  • what is going on with Binance’s recovery fund 

  • how Avi Eisenberg tried to pull off an attack on Aave 

  • how the banking industry works and whether Changpeng Zhao is the closest thing to a central bank in crypto

  • how DeFi responds in a crisis, and how it contrasts with CeFi’s recent implosions

What’s Poppin’?

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said he is willing to testify before Congress, but he may not be ready before the next hearing on December 13.

Cryptocurrency lending platform Genesis owes $1.8 billion worth of funds to users, with $900 million owed to Gemini Earn users.

The Curve Finance community is voting on a new proposal to create a new Bitcoin base pool on the DeFi platform.

In Other News…✍️✍️✍️

  • Between August 2021 and April 2022, Alameda Research invested $1.15 billion into crypto miner Genesis Digital Assets.

  • Regulators across countries are clashing with FTX in a bid to make sure that their citizens get their money back.

  • Brett Harrison, former president of FTX US, is trying to raise $6 million for a new crypto startup.

  • The Seoul Southern District Court dismissed the prosecutors' warrants for the arrest of Daniel Shin, cofounder of Terraform Labs, and other company executives.

  • The liquidators for bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) seized $35.6 million of the firm’s cash.

  • A record number of digital collectibles were minted on Reddit on Saturday.

  • Crypto exchange Bybit will reduce its workforce due to the bear market. 

  • Coinbase halted the production of a film trilogy related to the popular NFT collection BAYC.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • Yahoo might start offering retail crypto trading on Yahoo Finance.

The $$$ Corner…

  • Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital won the bid to acquire GK8, the self-custody crypto firm previously owned by Celsius. 

  • Ngrave, a crypto hardware wallet maker, is looking to raise $15 million in Series A funding at a $60 million pre-money valuation.

What Do You Meme

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 1.9%, trading at $17,310

  • ETH is up 3.34%, trading at $1,294

  • BTC dominance: 36.89%

  • Crypto market cap: $902 billion

*All data as of today, 5 am ET

Recommended Reads

  1. cryptohoem on using stablecoins to predict market movements 

  2. Bloomberg’s interview with Sam Bankman-Fried:

  3. WSJ’s article on Sam Bankman-Fried saying he cannot explain what happened to the billions of dollars of customer funds sent to Alameda:

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