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Cryptocurrency Archive

Archives for September 2023

The FTX trial is bigger than Sam Bankman-Fried

‘Is he going to throw the entire industry under the bus?’

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Wait, Tether is lending again?

Controversial stablecoin Tether is making loans to its customers. Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine walks through why that’s kind of weird:

If you are in charge of Tether and someone shows up at your office to pitch you on a clever investment that will get you a higher return with only a little risk, you should put your fingers in your ears and scream “NO” and kick them out of your office. You can make billions of dollars of pure profit taking no risk!

Anyway, the implications are even weirder: Tether might be propping up crypto prices.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
“We are eating your market share like a birthday cake and you can do nothing.”

There’s another Twitter spat going on, this time between market-makers DWF Labs, GSR and Wintermute. Worth keeping an eye on, because at least once when there was this kind of Twitter trash-talking — between FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance’s Changpeng “CZ” ZhaoFTX melted down.

And they call themselves... the future of finance!

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
How to be 5 percent wrong about NFTs.

This Rolling Stone article sourcing some kind of report claiming 95 percent of NFTs are worthless almost feels like the sunshine of reality peeking into the world of crypto mania.

The only problem? Even people who sell NFTs have long said almost all of them will be worthless (usually, the person who says this implies their own NFTs are in the special 5 percent), and the article still includes NFT promoters’ claims the tokens might be useful for concert tickets or games.

It also doesn’t mention Rolling Stone hyping BAYC with a limited edition issue in 2021, followed by a second collaboration just last year.

A Rolling Stone Shop page advertising the “Rolling Stone x Bored Ape Yacht Club Limited-Edition Zine” which is now sold out.
“Sold out.”
Image: Rolling Stone
Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Venmo your PayPals and PayPal your Venmos.

PayPal is rolling out the ability to buy PayPal USD, its US-dollar-backed stablecoin cryptocurrency, to “select users” today, with a full rollout coming later.

PayPal’s release says users can transfer PYUSD between Venmo and PayPal wallets for free, but warns that other compatible wallets will be subject to blockchain fees.

That ups the number of cryptocurrencies Venmo users can buy through the app from four to five.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
That’s good, right?

The head of legal and the chief risk officer at Binance.US are leaving, The Wall Street Journal reports. The CEO of Binance.US quit earlier this week.

Just remembering the time that FTX’s legal and compliance team quit, no reason.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Were you curious about Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents?

How involved were SBF’s powerful parents?

Legal filings suggest Bankman and Fried were crucial to their son’s transfiguration from schlubby startup nerd to hyperconnected crypto mogul. The couple profited tremendously from FTX, netting $26 million in cash and real estate in 2022 alone. They were regular fixtures at the company’s offices, offered words of encouragement to employees and were included in internal company communications. Their reputations and connections were essential to FTX’s success.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Bankrupt FTX can sell and invest its holdings to pay back investors.

FTX has said its holdings are worth $3.4 billion.

FTX revealed earlier this week that it holds $1.16 billion of solana (SOL) – approximately 16% of the token’s outstanding supply – and about $560 million in bitcoin (BTC). The rest of its holdings consist of lesser known illiquid tokens.

Good luck out there, folks!

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
OneCoin co-founder sentenced to 20 years for his multibillion-dollar “Bitcoin killer” fraud.

Sebastian Greenwood was the co-founder of a fraudulent cryptocurrency that pulled in $4 billion from investors between 2014 and 2016. Now U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos has sentenced him to 20 years in prison, and he was ordered to pay $300 million in forfeiture.

Through the MLM structure, OneCoin members received commissions for recruiting others to purchase cryptocurrency packages. As the top MLM distributor of OneCoin, GREENWOOD earned 5% of monthly OneCoin sales from anywhere in the world, which totaled more than $200 million from the fourth quarter of 2014 through the fourth quarter of 2016 alone and exceeded approximately $300 million in total.

Meanwhile, his partner, Ruja Ignatova, aka the “Cryptoqueen” we wrote about last year when she was added to the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List, remains at large, with a $100,000 reward for information leading to her arrest.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Quick crypto notes.

The price of Bitcoin dropped below $25,000, as people believe the FTX bankruptcy may sell off significant holdings of “altcoins” from the failed exchange. (CoinDesk)

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s Twitter / X account was hacked and sent out a malicious link that stole $691k in crypto.

And someone paid a $500,000 fee to send $1,865 worth of Bitcoin. (Web3 is Going just Great)