Genesis & Maple Finance Woes - The Troubles Keep Coming
Daily Bullets: Monday, December 5th
Genesis owes its creditors at least $1.8B. Now Maple Finance has severed ties with parent Orthogonal Trading for "misrepresentations regarding their financial position."
Is transparency a meme in crypto?
Crypto proponents constantly point to the transparency of the blockchain as one of its golden features, however as the previous year has highlighted, we still seem to have no idea what players in the space are doing or a picture of their real financial health.
We've seen steps in the direction of change, such as exchanges rushing to provide audited proof of reserves, however today we see Maple claim it's parent company was operating while effectively insolvent.
How do things like this stay secret? What other skeletons are yet to come out?
One silver lining, once the dangerous underbrush has been burned away in the crypto space, hopefully the next iterations will learn from these lessons.
Before we get started… Sharing is caring and knowledge is power! Do you find this newsletter helpful? Then be a Chad or Chadette and share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues
Daily Bullets:
Genesis owes its creditors at least $1.8B with $900M to Gemini customers
Maple Finance severed ties with the parent Orthogonal Trading who defaulted on $36M in loans
A court in Seoul denied attempt to have 8 people held during Terraform Labs proceedings
Teneo, overseeing the liquidation of 3AC, has taken control of $35.6M worth of assets
Code extracted from Twitter shows a potential new ‘Twitter Coin’ and “tipping feature”
Nexo will phase out its U.S. products and services due to clashes with regulators
Circle terminated its agreement with SPAC Concord, stepping back on its plan to go public
Launch of Chainlink Staking v0.1 on December 6th
DeFi Kingdoms: Serendale launching on Klaytn on December 7th
Bitcoin miner shows off oldest mined signature from a week after Bitcoin came into existence
Solana Foundation is adding a new incentive program called Tour De Sun ‘22
Bankless acquired Earnifi, a tool that’s helped users claim over $150M in airdrops
Bybit is reducing its workforce as a direct result of the deepening bear market
LedgerX is for sale, with Blockchain.com and Gemini interested in acquiring the firm
1INCH large token unlock coming up on December 30. 14.813% of the total supply
Now for a more expanded and detailed look at the day…
Crypto News:
Teneo, the advisory firm overseeing the liquidation of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, has taken control of some of its assets. About $35.6M worth of fiat currency and 3AC’s Starkware tokens
Crypto brokerage Genesis owes $900M to customers of crypto exchange Gemini and owes its creditors at least $1.8B
Code extracted from Twitter’s Web app shows a potential new ‘Twitter Coin’ and integration for crypto in Twitter’s tipping feature
Former FTX US president Brett Harrison is trying to raise money for a crypto trading software startup for large investors
Circle, the company behind stablecoin USDC, has terminated its agreement with special purpose acquisition company Concord Acquisition Corp, thereby stepping back on its plan to go public
UK-based crypto lender Nexo will phase out its U.S. products and services over the coming months due to clashes with regulators
Mysterious Bitcoin miner shows off oldest signature mined Bitcoin dated Jan. 2009 - just a week after Bitcoin came into existence
Solana Foundation is adding a new incentive program called Tour De Sun ‘22 to encourage the geographic and hardware diversification of the Solana network
Bankless acquired Earnifi, a tool that’s helped users claim over $150M in airdrops
Economic/Government/Regulatory:
A court in Seoul denied the prosecution’s attempt to have eight people involved with Terraform Labs held during the proceedings
The two-year-long battle between the SEC and Ripple is approaching the end, with Ripple filing its final submission in its case against the US regulator on Dec. 2
Regulated crypto bank SEBA Bank and digital asset financial services group HashKey have formed a strategic partnership focused on accelerating the institutional adoption of digital assets in Switzerland and Hong Kong
Malta seeks to remove NFTs from crypto law. The move anticipates new EU legislation by excluding non-fungible assets
Pakistan launches new laws to expedite CBDC launch by 2025
Exchange News:
Trading firm Alameda Research was given outsized borrowing limits compared with other clients of FTX
Bybit is reducing its workforce as a direct result of "the deepening bear market"
Crypto derivatives exchange and clearinghouse LedgerX is for sale, with Blockchain.com and Gemini among those interested in acquiring the firm
KuCoin has engaged Mazars, an international audit, tax and advisory firm, to provide a third-party factual findings report
Australian crypto exchange Swyftx to lay off 35% of staff
Tether will launch Tether Gold (XAU₮) and Euro Tether (EUR₮) on Huobi exchange on December 8th
Coinbase will list Aavegotchi (GHST) and Litentry (LIT) on December 6
DeFi News:
As a result of material misrepresentations regarding their financial position, Maple Finance has severed all ties with the parent entity Orthogonal Trading which defaulted on eight loans totalling $36M - represent about 30% of active loans across the entire protocol
Launch of Chainlink Staking v0.1 on December 6th
DeFi Kingdoms: Serendale launching on Klaytn on December 7th
Uniswap “Fee Switch” Pilot Update & Vote
1INCH large token unlock coming up on December 30. 14.813% of the total supply
Synthetix Atomic Swaps V2 is live. The first two protocols to integrate with SNX Atomic Swaps are 1inch and Curve Finance
Avalanche Foundation $4M incentive program for trading platform GMX
WalletConnect v1.0 Sunset Notice and Migration Schedule
NFT/Gaming/Metaverse News:
Chinese court says NFTs are virtual property protected by law
Opera to add drag-and-drop NFT creation tool to browser in early 2023 created by cloud-based ecosystems company Alteon
Lens Protocol, the blockchain-based social media project from DeFi lender Aave, acquired Sonar, a mobile app whose users pilot NFT-linked avatars through digital worlds
Coca-Cola teamed up with Crypto.com to release a collection of 10,000 FIFA World Cup NFTs. Developed and hosted on Crypto.com's NFT platform by GMUNK, a digital artist who previously worked with Nike, DoorDash and musician Grimes
Reddit Collectible Avatar minting hits all-time high - More than 4.4M have been minted since Reddit launched the collection earlier this year
Coinbase confirmed that production of its Bored Ape Yacht Club-themed “Degen Trilogy” short film series has been paused
Fundraises:
Korean VC firm Daesung Private Equity announces $83M Metaverse Fund
Early Stage Projects:
BNB Grant DAO - Round 2 is live
Waves to launch a DAO governance framework called Power Protocol that will provide the tools to manage new or existing DAOs - will launch with an airdrop of the system’s native token called POWER
Presenting Juno Arbitrum Quest. If you've transacted on the arbitrum L2 before October, you are eligible to earn JCOIN, on Juno
FREQUENCY is the latest Polkadot parachain
Zecrey Legend official public testnet phase 1 is live
Introducing Prism v2 — The Yield-Optimized Layer 1 Blockchain - the first layer-1 blockchain dedicated to the harvesting, trading and utilization of yield
Introducing Aries Swap - users on Aptos can execute complex trading and swapping strategies
The SteakHut Liquidity Whitepaper is now live - The liquidity layer of Avalanche
What’s your take on today’s news? Anything interesting that you have to say about these stories? Did we miss anything that should’ve been included?
Data:
TL;DR: Orthogonal Trading defaulted on $36M of loans on crypto lending protocol Maple Finance. Affects 30% of active loans on the protocol. Maple’s TVL has taken a hard hit since April/May of this year and currently has outstanding loans worth $290,393,820 with a treasury worth $4,720,564. As for the price, MPL saw a local top in September on its USD, BTC and ETH pair.
Price:
What is the Data telling you? See anything that sticks out to you?
Research/Reads:
Vitalik - What in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites me - source
Stages To Comfy and True Decentralization - source
Art Gobblers Deep Dive - source
Reckless – The Story Of Cryptocurrency Interest Rates Chapter 3: The Natural Rate - source
All is Fair in Arb and MEV on Avalanche C-Chain - source
Augmenting Culture: The Emerging Field of Digital Fashion - source
Crypto Twitterverse:
Did we miss anything or is there anything you want to discuss? We’d Love to hear your feedback and engage with the community! Feel free to leave a comment and let us know your thoughts on the Crypto market!
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