Binance Expands Its Empire 👑

In today's edition: New Pod with Cobie and Chris Burniske, Binance to buy Voyager's assets, Grayscale's plan, BlockFi's request, and more!

December 20, 2022

New Pod Today!

What a year. Cobie, crypto investor and host of UpOnly, and Chris Burniske, partner at Placeholder Ventures, sift through 2022’s rubble for clues as to what lies ahead in 2023. The two bright lights of Crypto Twitter weigh in on SBF’s fraud, how to succeed through the bear market, and what remains promising despite the gloom and doom.

Show highlights:

  • why 2022 is “the hangover of 2021”

  • why this year’s big meltdowns were different and dispiriting

  • why it was actually a year to remind us of why we’re all here

  • how the underlying protocols didn’t skip a beat

  • how to survive the bear market

  • what Chris feels guilty about in the wake of Alameda’s collapse

  • why Cobie hopes SBF spends life in jail

  • whether people will actually use decentralized alternatives – or if banking-like relationships will prevail

  • what Chris sees as the 2023 version of proof-of-stake in 2017

  • why Cobie thinks bitcoin is an area of opportunity over the next few years

  • whether the multichain thesis (“Solunavax”) will ever rise again

  • whether the contagion is over

  • if disgraced figureheads deserve a second chance

  • a lightning round lookback on 2022

What’s Poppin’?

The U.S.-based subsidiary of crypto exchange Binance has agreed to acquire bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital’s assets.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has agreed to be extradited to the U.S. after a confusing morning in a Bahamas court room.

Grayscale, the firm behind the world’s largest Bitcoin Trust, is considering a share buyback option if its plans to convert its flagship fund into an ETF are unsuccessful.

Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi has filed a motion calling for withdrawals to be allowed for all wallet accounts on the platform.

On-chain data shows that five cold wallets associated with defunct crypto exchange QuadrigaCX moved large amounts of Bitcoin for the first time in several years.

In Other News…✍️✍️✍️

  • Modulo Capital, an entity in which Alameda invested $400 million, was a multi-strategy hedge fund formed by three former Jane Street traders and based in the Bahamian condo community in which SBF resided.

  • Auros, a market making firm, filed to declare bankruptcy in the British Virgin Islands, with almost $20 million of its funds being frozen on FTX.

  • Binance revealed plans to take complete ownership of Indonesian exchange Tokocrypto.

  • The U.K. is set to pass the Financial Services and Markets Bill (FSMB) into law, granting more power to regulators over cryptocurrency.

  • The brother of former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stepped down from his advisory role to Binance's subsidiary firm Bitfinity.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • Visa proposed a system known as “account abstraction” which utilizes smart contracts to facilitate automated payments via Ethereum.

  • CME Group and CF Benchmarks unveiled new DeFi reference rates and real-time indices for Aave, Curve, and Synthetix.

The $$$ Corner…

  • Foundation, a Bitcoin wallet maker, closed a $7 million seed round. 

  • Decentralized market-making protocol Arrakis Finance garnered $4 million in a seed funding round.

What Do You Meme

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up .53%, trading at $16,801

  • ETH is up 2.33%, trading at $1,208

  • BTC dominance: 38.55%

  • Crypto market cap: $840 billion

*All data as of today, 5 am ET

Recommended Reads

  1. Crypto’s Onetime Fans Are Calling It Quits After FTX Collapse by WSJ’s Gunjan Banerji.

  2. CNBC’s Ryan Browne on three ways the FTX disaster will reshape crypto.

  3. Ian Wittkopp on the crypto credit bubble:

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