SBF Says He’s Not a Fraud 🗣️

In today's edition: SBF pleads not guilty, vulnerabilities in Uniswap, Su Zhu's accusations against DCG, and more!

January 04, 2023

On the Pod…

Lucas Nuzzi, head of R&D at CoinMetrics, and Larry Cermak, VP of research at The Block, discuss the current state of the crypto market, including potential contagion effects, challenges faced by VC companies, mining industry issues, stablecoins, DeFi and NFT activity, and the potential dangers of Binance's dominance in the industry.

What’s Poppin’?

Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to all fraud and conspiracy charges before a U.S. District Judge on Tuesday.

Uniswap patched a re-entrancy vulnerability in a newly launched smart contract after a blockchain security firm disclosed the bug.

Three Arrows Capital’s Su Zhu fired a string of accusations at DCG on Tuesday, saying the firm conspired to bring down LUNA and his own hedge fund.

Bankrupt crypto miner Core Scientific powered down the crypto rigs of its largest client, Celsius Mining.

In Other News…✍️✍️✍️

  • The Southern District of New York created an FTX Task Force to trace and recover lost funds belonging to customers of the collapsed exchange.

  • U.S. banking regulators issued a warning to banks about risks of getting involved in crypto-related business, reminding them of their obligations.

  • Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG) announced that it will exchange $17.9 million of convertible debt for $23.1 million of convertible preferred stock.

  • Nike's RTFKT COO, Nikhil Gopalani, lost his NFT collection in a phishing attack.

  • Magic Eden, the largest NFT marketplace on Solana, displayed incorrect images, including adult content, for some NFTs due to a compromised third-party image cacher. 

  • DNP3, the founder of NFT collection Goobers, admitted to gambling away user funds, blaming a gambling addiction.

  • Iranian courts ordered the return of thousands of seized crypto mining rigs to their owners. The Iranian government had previously banned mining and seized related equipment to address power shortages in the country.

  • Julian Sawyer, former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp and co-founder of UK lender Starling Bank, was appointed CEO of crypto asset-service provider Zodia Custody.

  • The Grayscale Ethereum Trust traded at a discount of almost -60%, its lowest ever.

  • After a failed crowdfunding campaign, EmpireDAO, a web3 project that hoped to become the "WeWork of web3”, is shutting down due to market conditions.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • Indonesia plans to launch a national crypto exchange as part of its financial sector reforms. The Financial Services Authority will take over the supervision of cryptocurrencies from the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency in the next two years.

  • Israel's financial regulator proposed amendments to include digital assets in existing financial laws.

What Do You Meme

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up .03%, trading at $16,795

  • ETH is up 2.09%, trading at $1,246

  • BTC dominance: 38.17%

  • Crypto market cap: $847 billion

*All data as of today, 5 am ET

Recommended Reads

  1. Beware the Dangers of Crypto Regulation by Bloomberg’s Tyler Cowen

  2. Michael Cohen on a potential Uniswap V4: 

  3. CryptoJoe’s case to purchase FTX’s intellectual property:

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