😱 Is Huobi Going Under?

In today's edition: 🎯 3AC founders' $30 million bid, 😡 MakerDAO blocks VPNs, 🔍 Curve's $1.85 million bounty, and more!

August 07, 2023

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What’s Poppin’?

by Samyuktha Sriram

Executives from Huobi have denied reports that executives from the crypto exchange are the subject of an investigation.

The proposed capital injection would fund partial creditor recoveries and leave OPNX with a 75% stake in the troubled crypto lender.

Virtual Private Network users appear to be barred from accessing the DAI lending market just as an 8% enhanced savings rate for the stablecoin took effect.

The DeFi protocol opened the bounty to the public after the deadline for the hacker to return stolen funds passed.

On the Pod…

While it’s now mostly contained, the Curve crisis has exposed some of the systemic risks in the world of DeFi. Sam Kazemian, founder of Frax Finance, joins the show to discuss what DeFi needs to do to get better – and what builders should learn from a novel attack that was ultimately about much more than $50 million in drained funds.

Show highlights:

  • how the Curve exploit occurred and why this hack is different

  • how the attack triggered a crisis in major lending platforms like Aave, Fraxlend, and Abracadabra

  • what Curve founder Michael Egorov’s solution was to the potential liquidation of his several loans

  • whether this situation proves that DeFi is not as good as promised

Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️

  • 🚔 Kenyan police raided Worldcoin's Nairobi warehouse, following the suspension of the project's operations in the country due to regulatory concerns.

  • 📉 Digital Currency Group is under investigation by New York's Attorney General regarding its financial ties with subsidiary Genesis Global Capital.

  • 🎓 The New York Times and Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe oppose the gag order on FTX owner Sam Bankman-Fried, emphasizing First Amendment rights and public interest.

  • ⚖️ A federal judge will hold a hearing on Aug. 11 to consider revoking Sam Bankman-Fried's bail, amid allegations of witness tampering prior to his October trial.

  • ⚖️ A class action lawsuit against Tether and Bitfinex was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York due to insufficient allegations of harm.

  • 📑 Global X refiled its spot-bitcoin ETF application, partnering with Coinbase for surveillance-sharing to offer investors protected bitcoin exposure.

  • 🔄 Coinbase referenced the Ripple Labs case in its motion to dismiss the SEC lawsuit, arguing that the SEC's attempt to label "a simple asset sale as a security" is an overreach.

  • 📈 Coinbase's Layer 2 saw over $100 million in bridged assets, with plans to expand mainnet access and introduce an Ethereum bridge.

  • 🐦 Elon Musk confirmed that X (previously Twitter) will not introduce its own cryptocurrency, cautioning against fake tokens using related names.

  • 🔒 Nearly 100 crypto funds closed in 2023, underperforming bitcoin's gains.

The $$$ Corner…

  • 🌐 Crypto investor HashKey plans to raise $100 million for a new digital assets fund, following Hong Kong's rise as a global crypto hub due to its digital asset regulatory framework.

What Do You Meme?

Learn 🤓

Learn what atomic swaps are, how they work, and how they enable decentralized cross-chain crypto asset trading.

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up .1%, trading at $29,034

  • ETH is up.1%, trading at $1,831

  • BTC dominance: 46.8%

  • Crypto market cap: $1.21 trillion

*All data as of today, 7:40 am ET

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