Is DCG Dumping on You?
Daily Bullets: Monday, December 19th
Justice is coming for fraudsters in the crypto space and this seems relevant amongst the SBF ongoing case. OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood pleaded guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering in connection to the OneCoin scam, a crypto company accused of being a Ponzi scheme. Still out there somewhere in hiding is the "Cryptoqueen,” a nickname for Ruja Ignatova, the founder of OneCoin. Ignatova is accused of defrauding investors out of billions of dollars and is currently a fugitive from justice last seen in 2017 and on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Justice is coming.
Voyager digital is now set to have its assets bought by Binance.US, after previously being rescued by FTX earlier in the year in the aftermath of the Terra Luna/3AC collapse. This is interesting because the question arises of why Binance is interested in their assets? Access to their customers or other proprietary tech? Certainly not out of the kindness of their heart. FTX must’ve been thinking along the same lines earlier in the year. This comes during a time when Binance is undergoing its own FUD round.
Last but most certainly not least is the ongoing speculation around Genesis and DCG. On Friday we saw heavy selling of DCG portfolio tokens, particularly Filecoin. Dutch cryptocurrency exchange, Bitvavo can’t access $297M held at Genesis Global Capital controlled by DCG. Was this a forced selling event of some kind? We’ve spent almost a month now wondering if bankruptcy was incoming or what type of rescue attempts they would pull. This action raises further questions.
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Daily Bullets:
Binance.US to buy the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital for $1.022B
Grayscale is exploring options to return a portion of capital of its flagship GBTC product
SBF will no longer contest his extradition to the United States
OneCoin co-founder pleaded guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering
Big Four accounting firms unwilling to conduct proof-of-reserves audit for crypto companies
Riot Games seeks to end sponsorship with FTX due to reputational harm and damage
Ren Protocol may get shut down with $15M of value still stuck on the protocol
U.S. court denied a motion in favor of BAYC NFT creators in lawsuit accusing artist of copying Bored Ape NFTs
Drift, a Solana perpetual swaps trading protocol that collapsing during Terra, is relaunching
Yuga Labs bringing in former president and COO of Activision Blizzard as CEO
Data:
TL;DR: Argentina won the World Cup over the weekend and if you thought that was reason for its fan token to pump, then you’d be wrong. Price dumped on the win. This highlights a trend we’ve seen all year long. Sell the news/event.
On news of Binance.US acquiring Voyager, we can use Arkham Intelligence for an overview of their wallets. Despite Binance having won the war over FTX, Binance.US subsidiary is still slowly bleeding funds held on the platform. Compare that with Binance International which hasn’t suffered as hard but has still been dipping slightly downwards recently. Compare that again with Voyager which isn't too far off its November 2021 bull market top in regards to assets held on the platform. Voyager has like twice the assets held on the platform as Binance.US? Questioning this data - there may be wallets missing being tracked here.
Binance.US
Binance:
Voyager:
Now for a more expanded and detailed look at the day for those who like detail and sources…
Crypto News:
Binance.US has agreed to buy the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital for $1.022B
Speculation continues over Genesis and its parent company Digital Currency Group since many tokens related to DCG were hit particularly hard last week
Grayscale Investments is exploring options to return a portion of capital of its flagship GBTC product with an offer for up to 20% of outstanding GBTC shares, which are currently trading at a 49% discount to net asset value, if the SEC refuses to approve its spot bitcoin ETF
The “Big Four” accounting firms, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, are currently unwilling to conduct a proof-of-reserves audit for a private crypto company
The Twitter account of one of Bitcoin’s greatest historical figures, Hal Finney, came back to life after over a decade of inactivity by his wife to avoid his account being purged by Twitter
Riot Games seeks to end sponsorship with FTX due to reputational harm and damage, citing violation of the morality clause
Fireblocks received the Cryptocurrency Security Standard (CCSS), a first-of-its-kind certification that was built as a security standard for crypto wallets and custody
New filing for a S&P 500 and Bitcoin ETF, which will invest 75% of the assets in S&P 500 stocks and 25% in bitcoin futures
Economic/Government/Regulatory:
SBF is expected to tell a court in the Bahamas he will no longer contest extradition to the United States
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova associate and OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood pleaded guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering in connection to the OneCoin scam
The Group of Central Bank Governors and Head of Supervision (GHOS) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has endorsed a global prudential standard for banks’ exposure to crypto assets in 2025
U.S. District Court of Central California denied a motion in favor of Bored Ape NFT creators in their lawsuit accusing artist of copying Bored Ape NFTs
Kazakhstan’s central bank recommended making a CBDC available as early as 2023 with a phased expansion of functionality and introduction into commercial operation until the end of 2025
Nigeria set to pass bill recognizing Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as Nigeria's eNaira has only managed to obtain a 0.5% adoption rate, a little more than a year after its launch in October 2021
Exchange News:
Dutch cryptocurrency exchange, Bitvavo can’t access $297M held at Genesis Global Capital controlled by DCG
Indonesian exchange Tokocrypto has been officially acquired by Binance, and about 58% of its employees have been laid off
Former BitMEX CEO Alexander Hoeptner sued the cryptocurrency derivatives platform for $3.4M for breach of contract and wrongful termination
Binance Futures will list USDⓈ-M BTC and ETH Quarterly 0331 Contracts
Huobi to delist BHD, CNNS, CHAT, COL, FAIR, GTC, HOT, HPT, LET, MTN, MONFTER, RIFI, TOPC, UGAS, XMX and YCC
DeFi News:
Ren Protocol may get shut down in the next few days or weeks, with $15M of value in the protocol that’s at risk of getting stuck when the network stops. Due to being acquired by Alameda in February
Curve adds a multiBTC/WBTC/sBTC pool, and launched a proposal vote for adding liquidity incentives to the pool. multiBTC is a Bitcoin asset cross-chained from Bitcoin to Ethereum through Multichain
Drift, a Solana-based perpetual swaps trading protocol that handled billions of dollars in volume during the 2021-2022 bull run before collapsing during the Terra crash, is going live with its revamped second version
Detailed Post-Mortem and Next Steps on recent Raydium Liquidity Pool exploit
NFT/Gaming/Metaverse News:
Yuga Labs bringing in a Daniel Alegre, former president and COO of Activision Blizzard as CEO, with current CEO Nicole Muniz moving into a role as partner and strategic advisor
Famed tennis tournament Australian Open teaming up with NounsDAO, OnCyber and Vayner Sports Pass ahead of its second ArtBall NFT release
Notorious B.I.G. was resurrected for a performance in the metaverse, transporting thousands of attendees to a virtual recreation of 1990s Brooklyn
Manchester United Football Club has launched its first collection of NFTs on the Tezos blockchain
WEMIX PLAY, the blockchain gaming platform by Wemade, is releasing an expanded GameFi service to promote the growth of the ecosystem - recently delisted by South Korean exchanges
Wemade unveils WeKonomy, a new comprehensive blockchain project that offers various services including DeFi, NFT, and metaverse
Futureverse merges 8 Web3 companies to create an open metaverse ecosystem
Fundraises:
Foundation Devices, a developer of Bitcoin-centric tools that include a hardware wallet, has raised $7M in a seed round led by Polychain Capital
Fiat-to-crypto platform Utorg raised $5M in a seed round led by Dragonfly. TA Ventures and Hypra fund also participated
Pine Protocol, a pioneer of the emerging NFT-fi space through NFT lending and financing, raised $3M from investors co-led by Amber Group and Sparkle Ventures
Early Stage Projects:
Zeta Markets relaunch - exclusively with Perps trading on $BTC, $ETH & $SOL. Options back Soon
Launch of Intmax testnet V1
Supernova second testnet
The First Smart Contract Wallet on Scroll - UniPass Wallet
Research/Reads:
The outcome of SBF's prosecution could determine how the IRS treats your FTX losses - source
23 Blockchain Predictions for 2023 - source
Andre Cronje: The rise and fall of a DeFi god - source
Federal Reserve - Financial Stability Report - November 2022 - source
Reckless – The Story Of Cryptocurrency Interest Rates - Chapter 5: Everything Bubble - source
2023 Will Be the Year of Dapps - source
The Wallet Segment: a Shining Star in the Crypto Winter-The Status Quo, Challenges and Opportunities - source
Three questions brands should ask before choosing a blockchain - source
NFT Wash Trading on Ethereum - source
Diary of an over obsessed ultrasound.money user - source
Reversing The EVM: Raw Calldata - source
Why Aptos? - source
2022 Harmony Technical Review - source
Have you seen our institutional-quality research?
Crypto Twitterverse:
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