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Embattled Crypto Exchange FTX Lent Billions in Customer Assets To Fund Alameda Research: Report

Embattled Crypto Exchange FTX Lent Billions in Customer Assets To Fund Alameda Research: Report

A new report claims that troubled crypto exchange platform FTX lent billions of dollars worth of its customers’ assets to fund its quantitative trading branch. According to The Wall Street Journal, FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried told investors that Alameda Research owes FTX about $10 billion worth of customer funds. The source says that […]

The post Embattled Crypto Exchange FTX Lent Billions in Customer Assets To Fund Alameda Research: Report appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain

Report: FTX CEO Told Staff Crypto Exchange ‘Effectively Paused’ Withdrawals

Report: FTX CEO Told Staff Crypto Exchange ‘Effectively Paused’ WithdrawalsAccording to a report shared by an FTX staff member, prior to Binance announcing it would acquire the exchange, CEO Sam Bankman-Fried explained that in 72 hours FTX saw roughly $6 billion in withdrawals. Furthermore, the staff member’s account notes that withdrawals on the exchange FTX.com were “effectively paused.” Report Claims FTX CEO Said Exchange […]

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain

Report: Saudi Government Privately Mocks Joe Biden’s Mental Acuity, Crown Prince Denies US President’s Oil Requests

Report: Saudi Government Privately Mocks Joe Biden’s Mental Acuity, Crown Prince Denies US President’s Oil RequestsAccording to a recent report, members of the Saudi government and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman have been privately mocking U.S. president Joe Biden by questioning his keenness of thought and mental acuity. The report follows Biden’s recent trip to the region in July, when the U.S. president pressed the Saudis for more oil production, […]

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain

WSJ: Terraform Labs claims case against Do Kwon is ‘highly politicized’

A spokesperson for the company behind Terra said it believes prosecutors heeled to public pressure and expanded the definition of a security after its associated cryptocurrencies collapsed.

Terraform Labs, the company behind the development of the Terra (LUNA) blockchain said South Korea’s case against its co-founder Do Kwon has become political, alleging prosecutors expanded the definition of a security in response to public pressure.

“We believe that this case has become highly politicized, and that the actions of the Korean prosecutors demonstrate unfairness and a failure to uphold basic rights guaranteed under Korean law,” a Terraform Labs spokesman said to The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 28.

South Korean prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Kwon on Sept. 14 for violations of the countries capital markets laws, but Terraform Labs laid out a defense arguing Terra (now known as Terra Luna Classic (LUNC)) isn’t legally a security, meaning it isn’t covered by capital markets laws.

The spokesman alleged prosecutors of expanding the definition of a security due to intense public pressure from the collapse of Terra and its connected algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST), now known as TerraClassicUSD (USTC).

“We believe, as do most in industry, that Luna Classic is not, and has never been, a security, despite any changes in interpretation that Korean financial officials may have recently adopted.”

The argument by Terraform Labs’ stems from the unclear regulatory status of cryptocurrencies and the companies who create and issue them.

Currently, capital market and electronic securities' systems in the country don’t include a legal definition of non-standardized securities issued through a blockchain.

Related: South Korea's financial watchdog wants to 'quickly' review crypto legislation

The country is moving to regulate the space with its financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) preparing guidelines for security tokens by the end of 2022.

A leaked government report in May further revealed South Korea’s plans to roll out a crypto framework by 2024.

Kwon’s whereabouts remain unknown and Terraform Labs did not comment on his location citing physical security risks, but Kwon says he’s not making an effort to hide even after a notice was sent to global authorities by Interpol.

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain

0.3% fall in assets “could render Tether technically insolvent” — WSJ

Wall Street Journal's Jean Eaglesham and Vicky Ge Huang suggested that such a “thin cushion of equity” could cause mayhem in the market if Tether’s liabilities were to outweigh its assets.

An article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has claimed that Tether’s balance sheet is in a position that even a 0.3% drop in value of its reserve assets could “render Tether technically insolvent.”

In an Aug. 27 report, WSJ journalists Jean Eaglesham and Vicky Ge Huang focused on the cloudy nature of Tether’s USDT reserves and its long-awaited audit that has been in the works since 2017.

Eaglesham and Huang suggested that such a “thin cushion of equity” could cause mayhem in the market, if Tether’s liabilities were to outweigh its assets:

“A 0.3% fall in assets could render Tether technically insolvent — a development that skeptics warn could reduce investor confidence and spur an increase in redemptions.”

At the time of writing, Tether has $67.74 billion worth of assets and $67.54 billion worth of liabilities, marking a difference of just $191 million as per Tether’s website.

Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino has however, played down the severity of Tether’s tight margins, telling the publication that he expects its capital to “grow significantly over the next few months," adding: 

“I don’t think we are the systemic risk in [the crypto] system."

Ardoino also pointed out that the firm has had no issues redeeming customer funds, and managed to redeem $7 billion worth in just 24 hours during a recent crypto market crash.

Tether’s website currently states that 79.62% of its reserves are backed by cash, cash equivalents, other short-term deposits, and commercial paper. The remainder consists of 8.36% worth of other investments including unspecified digital tokens, 6.77% in secured loans, and 5.25% in corporate bonds, funds, and precious metals.

Ardoino however declined to comment on what Tether’s roughly $5.6 billion worth of other investments are made of, according to the report.

The nature of Tether’s reserves has been a long-running and key narrative in the crypto space given the market dominance of its stablecoin and the firm’s dealings with regulators in over alleged misrepresentations of Tether’s backing in the past.

As part of an $18.5 million settlement with the Office of the New York Attorney General in February 2021, Tether is legally required to publish quarterly reports breaking down the specific composition of its cash and non-cash reserves.

Related: Waves-backed stablecoin USDN breaks peg again amid protocol upgrade

Ardonio also told the WSJ that will soon switch to monthly reports as part of the company’s push to provide greater transparency.

Earlier this month, Tether signed on major accounting firm BDO Italia to aid its reporting transparency targets by conducting independent attestations. However, there is still yet to be a full audit into the firm that would dig further into Tether’s financials and provide the full scope of its operations.

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain

Celsius Stories Littered With ‘People Familiar With the Matter’ Sources, Report Claims Lender Struggles With Arguments Over Bankruptcy

Celsius Stories Littered With ‘People Familiar With the Matter’ Sources, Report Claims Lender Struggles With Arguments Over BankruptcyThe embattled crypto lending platform Celsius has kept withdrawals and transfers frozen since June 12 and told the Celsius Network community that the “process will take time.” Since then, Celsius users are wondering why they are still receiving weekly rewards, and reportedly the company’s management has been arguing with its lawyers over whether or not […]

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain

Report: Goldman Sachs Looks to Buy Distressed Assets From Celsius, Crypto Lender Seeks Restructuring Advice

Report: Goldman Sachs Looks to Buy Distressed Assets From Celsius, Crypto Lender Seeks Restructuring AdviceAfter the crypto lending platform Celsius halted operations on June 12, at 10:10 p.m. (ET), two days later the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) quoted “people familiar with the matter” who said Celsius was hiring restructuring lawyers. At the time, the WSJ said Celsius was looking to hire the bankruptcy and restructuring law firm Akin Gump […]

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain

WSJ says ‘the NFT market is collapsing’ but the data says otherwise

An article by the WSJ suggesting the non-fungible token (NFT) market is “collapsing” doesn’t show the full picture as contrasting analysis reveal a consolidation is instead taking place.

An article in the Wall Street Journal has claimed sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are “flatlining” — in the same week that the top five collections alone accounted for more than $1 billion in primary and secondary sales.

The article cited data from NFT market analysis platform Nonfungible suggesting the number of NFT sales has fallen by 92% since an all-time high in September 2021. Wallets active in the Ethereum (ETH) NFT market were also said to have declined by 88% since a high in November 2021.

“The NFT market is collapsing,” the article concluded.

Red line shows number of sales with volume on left y-axis, white shows active market wallets, volume on right y-axis. Source: Nonfungible

However, onchain data from Dune Analytics’ dashboard suggest that the NFT market is still robust, with information showing that NFT users and transactions are much higher than what’s reported by Nonfungible.

Dune Analytics total active NFT users
Dune Analytics NFT transactions per day

Analytics also show that volume per day in USD on Ethereum NFTs over the week is some of the highest seen since February with popular marketplace OpenSea seeing nearly $550 million in volume on May 1 alone.

Dune Analytics. Source.

Analysis from Tom Schmidt, partner at venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital shows a similar story when focused on OpenSea transactions and USD volume.

Sub-sectors within the NFT market are emerging and while some areas of the oversaturated market are in a downturn, others are seeing major gains.

Nansen’s analytics platform which indexes NFT collections by type show that “Blue Chip” NFTs — established and highly prized brands such as the Bored and Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Azuki tokens — are far outperforming art or gaming tokens.

The Nansen Blue Chip-10 Index tracking the top 10 NFT projects is up 81% year to date (YTD), while comparatively the indexes tracking the top art and gaming NFT collections are respectively down 39% and 49% YTD.

This phenomenon of NFT market capital consolidating into the top collections was pointed out in an analysis by NFTstatistics.eth who shared a chart in late April showing the top 5 collections are driving the Ethereum NFT market.

“There’s clearly a trend right now that five or six of the most successful projects are sharply outperforming while the rest are flat to down,” pseudonymous NFT market analyzer NFTstatistics.eth told Cointelegraph.

Related: OpenSea top-10 NFT projects soar as new liquidity enters the market

The data from Nonfungible shows a spike on May 1 with the number of sales and active wallets that day hitting numbers not seen in their data from November 8 2021 directly correlating with the record-breaking (and Ethereum breaking) Otherside metaverse land sale by Yuga Labs again contradicting the claim that NFT sales are “flatlining.”

It’s not clear why the Nonfungible data the WSJ relied on is misaligned with Dune’s data, however it could be due to the inclusion of sales volume from P2E gameAxie Infinity by Nonfungible.

Volume for the popular play-to-earn hit an all-time high of over $40 million on November 4 2021 before a gradual decline to its current levels of around $500,000 according to CryptoSlam data.

But the collapse in popularity of a P2E game as NFTstatistics.eth says “is an extremely different message from ‘NFTs are collapsing.’”

While the current debate focuses on Ethereum NFTs, Solana is fast becoming a popular blockchain for this type of asset and is the second-largest blockchain behind Ethereum for NFT sales volume.

Last week, the Solana NFT project Okay Bears topped OpenSea’s 24-hour sales tracker for the first time, and holds fourth place behind the Mutant Ape Yacht Club in 7 day sales volume on CryptoSlam with over $47 million worth transacted.

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain

Fast-Food Chain Shake Shack Trials Bitcoin Rewards for Customers Using Cash App

Fast-Food Chain Shake Shack Trials Bitcoin Rewards for Customers Using Cash AppThe American fast-food restaurant chain Shake Shack is giving bitcoin rewards to customers leveraging Cash App’s debit card payment rail, Cash Card. According to Shake Shack, participants will get 15% of their purchase back in the form of bitcoin, and the crypto promotion will last until mid-March. Shake Shack Experiments With Bitcoin Trial to Lure […]

Tron Founder Justin Sun Accumulates Over $559,000,000 in Ethereum (ETH) Amid Crypto Correction: Lookonchain