Galaxy Digital Reveals Update on Ties to FTX, Partnership Has ‘Exposure of Approximately $76.8 Million’

November 9, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Crypto Hedge Fund Galaxy Digital Reveals $76,800,000 Exposure to FTX Collapse

November 9, 2022 The Daily Hodl

Galaxy Digital discloses $77M exposure to FTX, $48M likely locked in withdrawals

November 9, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Galaxy Digital discloses M exposure to FTX, M likely locked in withdrawals

Coin Telegraph

The exposure amounts represents a small fraction of the firm's $1.5 billion in liquidity.

In its latest quarterly earnings call on Nov. 9, blockchain financial services firm Galaxy Digital disclosed that it had an exposure of $76.8 million consisting of cash and digital assets to troubled cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Of this amount, Galaxy Digital said that $47.5 million are currently in the withdrawal process.

The day prior, FTX announced it had halted all withdrawals after the combination of a consumer bank run and a devastating price decline in its native FTT token, which the exchange uses for collateral, led to a liquidity crisis.

Despite of the current situation, Galaxy Digital said it has $1.5 billion in liquidity, including $1.0 billion in cash and another $235.8 million in stablecoins, to cushion losses. During the quarter ended Sept. 30, the company's partner capital declined by 12% year over year to $1.8 billion, citing the backdrop of a declining cryptocurrency market capitalization.

Galaxy Digital primarily derives its revenue from advisory fees, management fees, lending income, mining income, and changes in the fair value of investments and derivatives. Year over year, the company's revenue declined by 84.9% to $32.7 million in the third quarter. This was due to far lower levels of profit from capital investments compared to the same period last year.

Going forward, the company plans to complete its reorganization and migrate from the Canadian Toronto stock exchange to the U.S-based NASDAQ exchange next year. Effective mid-January 2023, co-president Damian Vanderwilt intends to step down and transition to an advisor and board member. From May 16 to Oct. 24, the firm used some of its cash to repurchase approximately $52 million worth of its shares outstanding.

Moonvember kicks off with sweeping staff layoffs across crypto

November 4, 2022 Coin Telegraph

BitMex

There are still pockets of hope, however, with some companies looking to expand despite the market conditions.

The crypto and tech industry has seen a slew of staff cuts this week against a backdrop of difficult market conditions, though on a positive note, some are bucking the trend.

Crypto companies, including crypto exchanges, venture capital firms and blockchain developers, have been forced to reduce headcount in order to stay nimble amid the bear market. Some, however, have done the opposite, opening up offices in new locations and markets.

It comes a few weeks after multiple high-level executives, such as OpenSea’s former chief financial officer, Kraken’s co-founder Jesse Powell and Ripple Labs’ engineering director, have all made headlines for either exiting or stepping down from their roles in the space.

Stripe cuts around 1,000 staff

Patrick Collison, CEO of payments processor Stripe, said in a Nov. 3 memo that 14% of the firm’s staff — around 1,000 employees — would be laid off, citing “inflation, energy costs, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding” as reasons for the cuts.

Collison added it “overhired for the world we’re in,” saying Stripe was “too optimistic” about short-term e-commerce growth, underestimating the impact of a wider market downturn and that its operating costs grew too quickly.

The memo says the headcount changes will be uneven across Stripe, and it’s unclear what departments will be affected or how it will affect the crypto side of its business. The payments startup released a crypto payouts product in April for Twitter creators.

Dapper Labs cuts 22% of headcount

Flow blockchain developer Dapper Labs made the decision on Nov. 2 to cut 22% of its headcount, impacting roughly 130 employees in a memo by founder and CEO Roham Gharegozlou.

Gharegozlou said the “macroeconomic environment” and the company’s growth from 100 to over 600 employees in less than two years prevented the firm from being “as aligned, nimble, and community-driven as we need to be.”

He said Dapper Labs “streamlined and focused” its product strategy around a “more sustainable cost structure” and looked at the skills it needed for the future when deciding who to lay off.

Digital Currency Group lays off 10% of staff: Report

Web3 conglomerate and venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) let go of around 10% of its workforce, according to a Nov. 1 Bloomberg report that saw 10 employees exit the company bringing its headcount to a total of 66.

The cuts were reportedly part of a restructuring with Mark Murphy, DCG’s chief operating officer, also promoted to president, a spokesperson said DCG “made a series of internal changes” to position the company “for its next phase of growth” that included “streamlining” of departments.

Cointelegraph contacted DCG to confirm the report but did not receive a response.

Galaxy Digital reportedly eyeing 20% workforce drawdown

Galaxy Digital, the crypto firm founded by Michael Novogratz, is also looking at a potential staff cut of around 20% — as much as 75 positions — as per a Nov. 1 Bloomberg report that cited sources familiar with the matter.

The company neither confirmed nor denied the rumors, with a spokesperson only saying the firm is “considering optimal team structure and strategy.” Yahoo Finance data shows shares of Galaxy Digital are down around 76% year to date, alongside a similar drawdown in crypto prices.

Galaxy Digital was contacted by Cointelegraph to verify the report but did not receive a response.

BitMEX makes staff cuts amid strategy pivot

Crypto exchange BitMEX is also making drawdowns across its employees in conjunction with a strategy to pivot away from spot trading and custody services and instead refocus on crypto derivatives.

A BitMEX spokesperson told Cointelegraph on Nov. 1 that an earlier report citing 30% of staff would be cut was “inaccurate and too high,” but with its focus back on derivates trading, an “undesirable consequence” was that “we had to make changes to our workforce.”

Coinbase CPO quits to take a breather

The now former chief product officer for crypto exchange Coinbase, Surojit Chatterjee, in a Nov. 3 LinkedIn post revealed he had left his position at the company saying “it’s time to get off the ride and catch my breath.”

After nearly 3 incredible years as CPO @coinbase, I’m taking a breather & stepping down. Thanks to the entire CB team - I’m looking forward to continuing to serve @brian_armstrong and the exec team as an advisor. I’ve shared some reflections here: https://t.co/y5qM9VaJ36
— surchatt.eth (@surojit) November 2, 2022

Chatterjee’s stint at Coinbase lasted three years but said he’d continue to help the company by serving as an adviser to its CEO Brian Armstrong. He said the personal break comes to spend more family time after his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and his mother unexpectedly passed away.

An Oct. 28 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by Coinbase says with Chatterjee’s departure its product, engineering and design teams “are being reorganized within a product group structure under which the leaders of such groups will assume responsibility for Coinbase’s product offerings.”

OKX opens in the Bahamas — plans to hire 100 locals

Meanwhile, crypto exchange OKX appears to be looking to scoop up staff and said on Nov. 3 it plans to fill 100 job openings.

The open positions will only be available to Bahamian local talent as OKX registered as a digital asset business in The Bahamas, forming a new subsidiary to serve as the company’s regional hub and opening an office in the archipelagic nation’s capital city Nassau.

Paxos adding 130 heads in Singapore

At least 130 new hires based in Singapore will be added over the next three years at blockchain infrastructure firm Paxos, according to a Nov. 2 Bloomberg report, after its local unit received a license to offer digital token payment services.

Paxos Co-founder Rich Teo said up to 180 might be brought in over the three years which would boost its headcount to around 200, a nine-times increase from its current team of 20 in the city-state.

In October, $4.5 trillion asset management firm Fidelity Investments told Cointelegraph it is set to hire another 100 people to bolster the firm’s growing digital assets division.

Fidelity, in a statement to Cointelegraph, said that the firm was in a “unique position” to offer exposure to the “emerging” digital asset sector — as its reasons for pushing for more talent to bolster its Digital Assets arm.

Nifty News: Reddit NFTs surge into OpenSea top 10, judge likens NFTs to ‘luxury’ property and more

October 26, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bored Ape Yacht Club

Reddit's NFT collections have taken some of the top 10 spots on OpenSea and seen millions in sales volume over the past week.

Reddit NFTs among OpenSea’s top 10 collections

Reddit’s Polygon-based nonfungible token (NFT) venture continues to impress with three of its tokenized avatar collections cracking the top 10 projects on OpenSea in terms of sales volume this week.

Looking at the 24-hour sales volume chart, Spooky Season by Reddit user poieeeyee is ranked second with 274 Ether (ETH) ($401,000) worth of sales, behind only Yuga Lab’s Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) at 684 ETH.

The ninth and tenth spots are then taken up by Imagination Station from user Chipperdoodle and The Senses from user Rojom with 121 ETH ($177,400) and 120 ETH ($175,900) worth of sales over the past 24 hours.

Zooming out to the seven-day sales volume chart, Spooky Season is the sole Reddit project cracking the top 10 with its 880 ETH ($1.2 million) worth of sales placing it as sixth at the time of writing.

For anyone unfamiliar with Reddit’s NFT project, it offers a Collectible Avatars Creator Program which enables users to create and sell profile picture (PFP) NFT collections with artwork based on the Reddit mascot logo Snoo.

The move has been a hit so far, with Cointelegraph reporting on Oct. 24 that the number of wallets holding Reddit NFTs had hit around 2.8 million since launch in July.

NFT considered physical property like ‘luxury watches’ in Singapore court

A judge from the High Court of the Republic of Singapore has drawn on existing property laws to grant a motion to refrain a defendant hodler from selling a BAYC NFT, as he likened the asset class to physical property such as luxury watches or fine wine.

The dispute in question involves Plaintiff Janesh Rajkumar, who alleges that defendant chefpierre.eth broke the terms of an NFT loan agreement and foreclosed on the token too early.

According to court documents, via the NFTfi platform, Rajkumar had borrowed crypto assets from chefpierre.eth by putting up his BAYC NFT as collateral, but had set terms in which the asset would not be liquidated without giving “reasonable opportunities to make full repayment of the loan.”

After the NFT was liquidated, chefpierre.eth went on to list the NFT for sale, however, Rajkumar then filed a lawsuit and motioned for the court to bar the sale for the duration of the case.

Explaining his decision to grant the motion, Judge Lee Seiu Kin compared NFTs to physical collector's items, noting that:

“Cars, books, wine and luxury watches … are a few examples of highly sought-after items for collectors, [f]or digital nomads, especially those steeped in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, NFTs have emerged as a highly sought-after collectors’ item.”

Get a teardrop tattoo in the Metaverse, your grandma won’t care

Freshly launched Australian Web3 tech firm Swallow is looking to expand the tattoo sector into the Metaverse.

In a launch announcement this week, the firm outlined that it will allow “metaverse-goers and gamers to customize their avatars and accessories with tattoos and skins from the world’s most exciting tattoo artists.”

A key focus for the firm will be offering tattoo artists ways to expand their presence outside of their shops, bring more exposure to their artwork and designs, and build a digital community.

“Giving people the ability to represent themselves online through wearable art is an important part of their digital experience. Likewise, tattoo artists are looking for ways to expand outside their physical studios and share their designs more broadly,” the announcement reads.

According to Swallow, more than 100 tattoo artists have signed on from the jump, such as popular podcaster Joe Rogan’s go-to artist Aaron Della Vedova. 25 business partnerships have also been penned, including two blockchain-based metaverses in Bloktopia and CrypCade.

Galaxy enters NFT royalties debate saying it’s a ‘core value proposition’

With the recent debate over whether royalties from NFTs are good for the industry or not, in which some projects have opted to move away from the model, asset manager Galaxy has emphasized that the community should be careful about shifting away from what it deems as a “core value proposition of NFTs.”

In a lengthy report, Galaxy highlights data indicating that more than “$1.8 billion worth of royalties have been paid out to creators of Ethereum-based NFT collections” so far, suggesting a “strong contingent of users willing to pay royalties.”

Ultimately, the report notes that it is too early to tell which NFT sales model will be best, as more solutions will likely emerge with different platforms and companies going down different paths.

“Only time will tell if creators continue to reap benefits from secondary sales, or if they will lose out on potential income in favor of a ‘pure’ ownership model.”

Other Nifty News:

After recently enabling NFT purchase support on its app store, Apple has essentially reiterated that its 30% sales commission fee on all in-app purchases will apply to NFTs, as it will not enable apps to direct users to external avenues to purchase the NFTs.

Cointelegraph reported on Oct. 24 that search data from Google Trends shows that the keyword “Web3” has picked up steam and recorded an all-time high in terms of peak popularity in 2022, while global Google searches for “Bitcoin” has reached their lowest point in over a year.

Galaxy Digital