So Much Is Going On! šŸ˜±

In today's edition: Genesisā€™ Interim CEO's updates, DOJ seizes FTX assets, Celsius wins rights to customer deposits, SEC objects to Binance US's deal, and much more!

January 05, 2023

On the Podā€¦

Donā€™t miss my conversation with Lucas Nuzzi, head of R&D at CoinMetrics, and Larry Cermak, VP of research at The Block!

Whatā€™s Poppinā€™?

Genesisā€™ Interim CEO Derar Islim said its lending business needs ā€œadditional timeā€ to deliver a solution amid pressure from Gemini and its own impacted clients.

The U.S. Department of Justice has seized $450 million worth of Robinhood shares as part of the ongoing criminal case against Sam Bankman-Fried.

Celsius has been granted ownership over 600,000 user accounts by a bankruptcy judge on Wednesday.

Wallets tied to Sam Bankman-Fried have moved millions across the blockchain, raising suspicions of industry watchers.

The U.S. SEC has questioned how Binance.US can afford a billion-dollar purchase of Voyager Digitalā€™s assets.

On Unchained Premium: Can Bitcoin and Ethereum Coexist? šŸ¤”

Now live on Unchained Premium, a conversation with Matt Luongo and Maclane Wilkison, cofounders of Threshold, about tBTC and bridging from the Bitcoin network to Ethereum. They discuss problems with centralized Bitcoin bridges, Bitcoin maximalism, the intersection between Ethereum and Bitcoin, and more.

In Other Newsā€¦āœļøāœļøāœļø

  • During the recent market downturn, Silvergate Bank was forced to sell assets at a loss in order to meet $8.1 billion in withdrawal requests. The bank also laid off 40% of its staff. 

  • Avraham Eisenberg, accused of exploiting Mango Markets, has been ordered to be detained pending trial by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. 

  • Daniel Friedberg, former FTX lawyer, provided information to U.S. prosecutors, the FBI, the SDNY court, and the SEC about the activities of FTX and its sister trading firm, Alameda Research. 

  • As part of a settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services, Coinbase agreed to pay a $50 million penalty and invest an additional $50 million to improve its compliance programs.

  • W3BCLOUD, a joint venture between AMD and ConsenSys, will continue with its plans to go public through a merger with Social Leverage Acquisition Corp (SLAC) despite investors redeeming 95% of shares in the deal.

  • The United Kingdom is forming a National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) Crypto Cell to proactively investigate cryptocurrency crime.

  • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed charges against eight individuals and businesses for their alleged involvement in a scheme related to blockchain technology company CoinDeal.

  • Solana's top NFT marketplace Magic Eden updated its verification layers for NFT collections after it displayed incorrect images.

  • An anonymous DeFi user lost $3.4 million in GMX tokens due to a phishing attack, which was not related to any security issues on the GMX platform.

The $$$ Cornerā€¦

  • Animoca Brands reduced the target size of its new web3 and metaverse investment fund by 50% to $1 billion.

  • The inflow of funds into crypto asset funds stood at $433 million in the past year, the worst performance since 2018.

What Do You Meme

šŸ“ˆ Your Market Update šŸ“‰

  • BTC is up .02%, trading at $16,784

  • ETH is up .27%, trading at $1,246

  • BTC dominance: 38.23%

  • Crypto market cap: $845 billion

*All data as of today, 5 am ET

Recommended Reads

  1. Securities lawyer James Murphy on Sam Bankman Friedā€™s ā€˜Wealthy Co-Conspiratorsā€™

  2. Olimpio on ā€œre-stakingā€ solution EigenLayer:

  3. MakerDAO on its real-world assets: 

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