FTX updates
Frank Chaparro from The Block in a 2-hour interview with SBF
[My usual disclaimer: I haven’t wasted my time listening. But from what I’m reading, this is the best interview so far.]
Spreadsheet of Alameda Venture investments is exposed by the Financial Times. $5.3b total, sorted in descending order of amount invested
SBF will appear before a congressional committee to testify about FTX this Tuesday
SBF hired Mark Cohen to represent him. He previously represented Ghislaine Maxwell in a sex trafficking case
Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda, has hired Stephanie Avakian to represent her. Avakian was formerly SEC enforcement division chief
Contagion updates
GTBC discount to NAV at all time low of 47%
Nexo lending platform is leaving the US
3AC founders receive subpoena to provide more information
Amber Group troubles:
Ending $25m yearly sponsorship with Chelsea
Struggling to raise of $100m
Owes Darshan Bathija, CEO of Vauld, around $130m
Will leave Europe and the US
Proof of Reserves
Mazars releases a report claiming that Binance has 101% collateralization ratio of key assets including BTC and ETH
No real visibility into the nature of the backing. See here
Crypto.com also releases Proof of Reserves powered by Mazars. Many in the industry are criticizing the process, after Mazars clarified that it was just an “Agreed-Upon Procedures engagement”
NFT news
250k Reddit Collectible Avatars (NFTs) were minted on Saturday Dec 3. Total minted stands at 4.4m now, all done on Polygon
AAVE purchased Sonar, a mobile social gaming app, with intentions to integrate it to Lens
The famous gaming company Atari has set up AtariPrints.com to help you print your Atari NFTs
Immutable NFTs are now available on Nifty Gateway
Gamestop is slowing their NFT plans after a big round of layoffs
Magic Eden just hired their first Chief Gaming Officer, Chris Akhavan, formerly from Forte (that raised $725m in 2021)
Blur is offering some traders a 50% refund after Keung lost 70 ETH. He tried to bid 0.70 ETH for an Art Gobbler, but due to a poor UI, bid 70 ETH, which was well above the floor. See Keung’s tweet thread and Blur’s response
DeFi Kingdoms game Serendale moved from Harmony to Klaytn
Coca-cola and Crypto.com partnered to release 10,000 World Cup NFTs. You need to sign up for an NFT account on crypto.com in order to purchase. (I couldn’t work out what blockchain was used)
DeFi news
Orthogonal Trading defaulted on eight loans totaling $36m to Maple Finance (30% of active loans there). Orthogonal lost money on FTX. The Maple token is down 40% on the week
SushiSwap proposes to send 100% of xSUSHI revenue to the treasury, and not to stakers, claiming that they are running out of funds
Chainlink token staking is live. Staking is initially open to node operators and will be used to secure price feeds
Hashflow partnered with Wormhole to expand cross-chain transfers
The Nomad bridge is restarting, and offering partial refunds, after being exploited for over $190 million dollars. They’ve controversially asked for users to undergo KYC to claim funds
Tranchess will go live with ETH liquid staking. They have $45m TVL on BNB. Apparently Vitalik was promoting ZK tech to them to combat centralization concerns
Osmosis DEX on Cosmos has launched a stablecoin swap protocol. They have $180m TVL across pools
renBTC v1 will shut down due to lack of funds, and user assets may be irrecoverable
Ampleforth has released an inflation-resistant token. I have to admit, I am quite confused by how it works… You can read their explanation here
Bancor DAO is looking to deploy an arbitrage bot to retrieve $26m in protocol losses from impermanent loss protection
Lodestar Finance, a lending protocol on Arbitrum, was exploited for $6.5m
Other news
Ethereum Shanghai upgrade should go live in March 2023, and support withdrawals of staked ETH from the Beacon Chain. EIP-4844 is planned for the following fork, in Q3 of 2023
Mike McCaffrey, former CEO of The Block, resigned after not disclosing loans from Alameda Research that he claimed came from his family. He received $43m in three loans, with the final one being used to purchase real estate
Ledger released new device called Stax, designed by iPod inventor Tony Fadell
Bank of England has put out a tender for a CBDC Proof of Concept. It’s a 5-month contract with a 200k pound budget
Circle canceled going public via SPAC
Coinbase has waived fees for users converting USDT to USDC, claiming in a blog post that “stability and trust are of the utmost importance to customers”
Gnosis Chain moved to Proof of Stake
Nouns DAO is trying to approve a 100 ETH grant to Zach XBT
If you remember, the SEC has approved futures-based Bitcoin ETFs, but not spot-backed ETFs. Grayscale sued the SEC for the inconsistency. The SEC responded last week with a 73 page document defending their decision
Consensys planning to store IP addresses for only seven days, after community backlash to its latest privacy changes
ConstitutionDAO2 is trying to raise money to buy the constitution. This time they are partnering with Aztec to implement privacy preserving tech
Funding news
Panoptic has raised $4.5m to build a dex for perpetual options. Investors include Uniswap Labs Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Jane Street. They’re trying to do options with an AMM model, and plan to release something in Q1
Perennial raised $12 million in seed funding for their derivatives protocol. The round was co-led by Polychain Capital and Variant
pplpleasr raised $6.9m from a16z for Shibuya, an NFT-based decentralized video platform
Forum3 raised $10 million in seed funding after powering Starbucks' NFT loyalty program
The Mirror raised $2.3 million in pre-seed funding from Founders Fund. They “streamline the creation of 3D multiplayer games set in virtual worlds”
Blockstream is struggling for funding, and will raise at a “significant downround” to its $3.2b valuation. They primarily provide mining infrastructure. Co-founder is Bitcoin OG Adam Back