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Here are the top three cryptocurrency stories from last week

As the FTX collapse continues to reverberate, knock-on effects are still being felt throughout the industry. Chief among them is DCG’s empire, with concerns that one of its flagship businesses, Genesis, could go bankrupt.

Binance has also reacted in its own way to the FTX meltdown, by setting up a $1 billion fund to help affected businesses.

On a separate note, MetaMask has come under fire for its data collection practices, with many crypto users now worried about their own privacy. MetaMask’s founder downplayed the impact.

Genesis in dire straits

Crypto lending business Genesis is facing possible bankruptcy after it took big hits from Three Arrows Capital and now FTX — all in the wake of the collapse of the cryptocurrency Luna earlier this year. Three Arrows cost it about $1 billion and FTX took it for $175 million.

Its parent company, DCG, which assumed the majority of the liabilities, is trying to sort out the mess. The company, which owns CoinDesk, Grayscale and Luna, has been trying to raise $1 billion to resolve the situation, according to reports. Yet it has been struggling to do so.

Despite this situation, DCG CEO Barry Silbert remained optimistic. He said DCG would emerge from the current environment stronger, citing its experience in previous crypto winters. For its part, Genesis said it has no imminent plans to file for bankruptcy.

Binance flush with cash

While many crypto businesses are struggling with liquidity issues, Binance is determined to prove otherwise. Not only has it started providing more details on its assets — trying to prove that it holds all of its customer assets in the same tokens — but it has also created a $1 billion recovery fund for the industry. 

The fund was announced last week to help mitigate the fallout stemming from FTX’s collapse. It’s expected to last for about six months and has already received more than 150 applications. Binance stressed that it’s not an investment fund.

A number of big names in the crypto industry have signed on to contribute, including GSR, Jump Crypto and Polygon Ventures. Tron DAO and Justin Sun have indicated they would also like to contribute.

Binance provided on-chain evidence of these spare funds. While on-chain analysis showed it came out of the exchange’s own customer wallets, the exchange confirmed that the money was its own.

MetaMask under fire

Crypto wallet MetaMask has come under heavy criticism after its parent company ConsenSys said that the wallet sends a variety of on-chain and off-chain data to its sister company Infura — which is set as default.

Not only does Infura receive the wallet information of all wallets in that one MetaMask account — linking them together — but it also receives IP addresses, which could be used to locate individuals.

“When you use Infura as your default RPC provider in MetaMask, Infura will collect your IP address and your Ethereum wallet address when you send a transaction,” ConsenSys said.

Still, MetaMask Founder Dan Finlay said on Twitter that he understands MetaMask is not using IP addresses even if they are being temporarily stored. “I think we can get this fixed soon,” he said.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: Tim Copeland

Layer by Layer: Tron Takes Advantage of FTX Fiasco

Quick Take

  • In this weekly series, we dive into some of the most interesting data and developments across the Layer 1 blockchain landscape, from DeFi and bridges to network activity and funding
  • The Tron network recently garnered attention from Tron’s unexpected, last-minute deal with FTX to facilitate limited withdrawals in the final days of the exchange
  • Tron’s algorithmic stablecoin USDD has seen heightened volatility amidst market fears of instability at widely trusted crypto institutions
  • At the same time, Tron’s role in the stablecoin ecosystem continues to grow as it becomes the largest source of USDT supply

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Author: Kevin Peng

Bitcoin mining stock report: Friday, November 25

Bitcoin mining stocks tracked by The Block were mostly down on Friday, November 25. 

Bitcoin was trading at about $16,513 at the time of market close.

 

The stocks down the most were Core Scientific (6.64%) and Bit Mining Ltd. (4.69%). Meanwhile, stocks that saw gains included Stronghold Digital Mining (5.8%) and and Cipher Mining (4.76%). 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: Kristin Majcher

Aragon Project adds $20 million in ether to treasury for safety amid FTX collapse

The Aragon Project increased the ether (ETH) holdings in its treasury by over $20 million in an attempt to improve its exposure to more censorship-resistant crypto assets.

Aragon swapped $20.4 million worth of USDC and wrapped bitcoin for ETH, according to its weekly report. . Ether tokens now account for about 42% of the Aragon treasury which is currently worth $153 million. Aragon swapped another $5.2 million worth of wrapped bitcoin for BTC. The project’s treasury rebalancing also included moving $20 million in USDC to the DAI stablecoin. 

Aragon, an Ethereum-based project that offers users the tools for creating and managing DAOs, comprises a non-profit called the Aragon Association and DAO called the Aragon Network DAO.

Aragon treasury including ether holdings

Ether now accounts for 42% of the Aragon treasury. Image: Aragon

The treasury reallocations were made to safeguard the project amid the FTX collapse, which highlighted the failure of centralized crypto infrastructure, Aragon said.

“Moving more of our treasury to ETH, DAI and BTC improve our security and censorship-resistance, by reducing our exposure to assets that are at risk of mismanagement or interference by centralized forces,” Aragon said.

 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: Osato Avan-Nomayo

Argentina’s Ripio sets up shop in Florida in first U.S. move

Ripio, a Buenos Aires-based crypto exchange, is opening in Florida — its first foray into the U.S.

The firm, which has 4.5 million users and is going on a decade in business, has received regulatory approval already to start operations in the state with Ripio Select. The offering is targeted towards companies, institutional investors and high net worth individuals.

Ripio already has more than 600 clients in the region.

“We chose Florida because it is a very interesting crypto hub and we believe our products like Ripio Select have a lot of potential,” CEO and co-founder said Sebastian Serrano in a statement.

Florida, and Miami in particular, have made efforts to attract the crypto industry. Earlier this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation defining and deregulating cryptocurrency starting Jan. 1.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told the Miami Herald in July that he is still focused on making the city a crypto capital, and was converting 100% of his city salary into Bitcoin.

Ripio Select is a premium service for large-scale crypto operations and requires a minimum investment of $5,000.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: Christiana Loureiro

Genesis Global Capital investigated by U.S. regulators: Barron’s

Genesis Global Capital is being investigated by U.S. state securities regulators, Barron’s reported.

It’s part of a “wide-ranging inquiry into the interconnectedness of crypto firms, Genesis’ connection to retail investors, and whether it or other industry participants might have violated securities laws.”

The publication cited Alabama as one of the states that is looking into whether Genesis, among other firms, “enticed residents to invest in crypto-related securities without making the proper registrations.” Calls to the Alabama Securities Commission went unreturned, and the company did not respond to a request for comment.

The lending arm of Digital Currency Group last week temporarily suspended redemptions and new loan originations in the wake of FTX’s collapse and its financial health has been called into question.

Earlier this week, DCG CEO Barry Silbert broke his silence to address what he called the “noise” around the company, saying it would come out of the current environment “stronger” following media reports that Genesis may need to file for bankruptcy protection. The New York Times reported that it had hired investment bank Moelis & Company to explore options.

With reporting assistance from Kristin Majcher.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: Christiana Loureiro

Binance’s Zhao says industry is ‘healthier’ after a ‘nasty’ year

Binance CEO Chanpeng Zhao said the industry is in a “healthier” place after a “nasty” 2022, and he expects better thing in 2023.

“I would expect recovery,” Zhao said at a Binance event in Athens. “So, I think 2022 was a really nasty year, the last six month was like too much has happened. Now the industry is healthier.”

He declined, however, to make any specific predictions. “The trick for us is to monitor the industry and then whatever is trending we try to support it,” Zhao said.

The CEO, who launched a recovery fund for troubled crypto companies in the wake of FTX’s collapse, did not mince words when it came to his former competitor.

“FTX is more like Madoff. It’s lying, it’s ponzi,” Zhao said. “Just because FTX happened, doesn’t mean every other business is bad.” 

Binance earlier today released its proof-of-reserves system, starting with bitcoin, in order to show that the exchange is healthy and solvent. For bitcoin, Binance has provided a snapshot of account balances and the exchange’s bitcoin reserves. It claims it has 582,485 bitcoin in its reserves, while its users have a net balance of 575,742 bitcoin — giving it a margin of 6,743 bitcoin. It also provided a link for Binance users to verify their own bitcoin on the exchange.

Zhao said Binance is in a solid position and focused on growing the market rather than making money.

“We have enough revenue today,” he said. “We do not try to maximize profits. We want to be sustainable.”

He also noted that startup valuations a year ago were astronomical and have since settled back down to reasonable levels.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: Christiana Loureiro

How much bitcoin does El Salvador have? Good luck getting an answer.

El Salvador is apparently buying a bitcoin a day. But we may never know if that’s true.

In fact, since making the cryptocurrency legal tender last year, the country has failed to officially declare any of its holdings and now likely has unrealized paper losses with bitcoin’s price drop of about 71% over the past year.

The public has had to rely on President Nayib Bukele’s word — or more specifically, his tweets — to find out when he’s buying bitcoin, how much and at what price.

The lack of information is an “absolute opacity about the use of public funds” related to bitcoin, said Ruth López, head of anti-corruption and justice for human rights organization Cristosal. The government’s move to make the information confidential not only goes against El Salvador’s constitution but puts the country in violation of international human rights treaties, she said.

“The lack of transparency leaves citizens without knowing the beneficiaries, quantities or reasons for granting the funds,” Cristosal said.

The questions about El Salvador’s bitcoin finances come as the country faces $800 million debt that’s due in January. Meanwhile, the country’s lawmakers are considering legislation aimed at regulating digital asset providers and issuers that will help lead to its long-awaited plan to issue $1 billion in bitcoin-backed bonds using blockchain technology. 

Based on Bukele’s social media posts, El Salvador has purchased 2,381 bitcoins — not counting the one bitcoin every day he announced earlier this month. Beyond that, there is no official or public record of how much El Salvador has spent so far.

Some have made their own DIY attempts to quantify these amounts.

One of the most popular, Nayib Bukele Portfolio Tracker, estimates that the country has spent more than $107 million on bitcoin and would have lost more than $67 million so far based on current prices. The same website had pegged El Salvador’s estimated losses at $18 million in February.

“Unfortunately, there is no official information so that one can really know how much bitcoin the government has bought,” Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (ICEFI) economist Ricardo Castaneda told The Block in a WhatsApp voice message.

Bukele and his finance minister Alejandro Zelaya have downplayed estimated losses in the country’s bitcoin portfolio, arguing that it has not actually lost money because it hasn’t actually sold any bitcoin. Bukele even told followers in June to “stop looking at the graph and enjoy life” as bitcoin prices plunged. That same month, Zelaya said that the country had sold “a part” of its bitcoin to fund its much-hyped veterinary Chivo Pets hospital. 

Request denied

In an effort to get official information, The Block submitted a records request to El Salvador’s development bank, Bandesal, in September through a third party. The document included questions about bitcoin purchases, current balances, wallet addresses, contractors and exchanges it has used to purchase bitcoin.

The government denied the inquiry saying the information was not public because it related to the government trust fund and its funds were “reserved information,” citing an article in Bandesal’s laws that considers information about the bank’s operations and funds to be confidential.

Liduvina Escobar, former commissioner of El Salvador’s Institute for Access to Public Information, told The Block she believes the information should be made public and the constitutional court should nullify this article when it concerns public funds.

“Due to the nature of public interest that the issue deserves, this article suffers from being unconstitutional,” said Escobar, who was removed from her role last year in a move she says was unjustified.

Cristosal, the human rights organization, filed three legal actions this month aimed at increasing transparency about El Salvador’s use of funds toward bitcoin-related endeavors.

That doesn’t seem to have affected Bukele, who has high approval ratings. But in a September poll of more than 1,260 people done by the Central American University in El Salvador, 77% responded that they think the government should not continue spending public funds on bitcoin.

Big plans

Based on the few figures scattered across budgetary documents, El Salvador appears to have earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for bitcoin-related projects.

Salvadoran digital newspaper El Faro reported last year that this figure was $203.3 million, based on three line items — $150 million toward a government trust fund to help facilitate bitcoin adoption, $30 million to fund the $30 in free bitcoin for people who opened Chivo Wallet accounts, and another $23 million toward a program called “criptofriendly” to finance the implementation of the bitcoin law that the government has not mentioned by name since.

More than 4 million authentic Chivo accounts have been created, meaning the government would have had to have spent more than $120 million on the $30 signup bonuses. That’s four times what it reportedly originally allocated.

 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: Kristin Majcher

Wrapped Bitcoin DAO removes FTX, nine others in move to new multisig

WBTC DAO, the community that administers the Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) project, is moving to a new smart contract multisig, replacing signers that are no longer active. The new set of signers will be responsible for signing transactions and making changes to the wrapped token’s contract if necessary.

This migration is taking place according to a pull request on the project’s GitHub, submitted by Kyber Network CEO Victor Tran. Tran stated that Kyber and WBTC custodian BitGo are coordinating the migration to this new multisig.

The new WBTC DAO multisig will have 13 signers with eight needed to achieve quorum on any matter. There were 18 signers in the previous multisig formed over three years ago. At the time, 11 signers were needed to form a consensus on any decision.

The new multisig list contains seven members from the original set, including DeFi lender Compound and Layer 2 exchange Loopring alongside Kyber and BitGo. Oracle protocol Chainlink and DeFi liquidity platform Balancer are among the six new additions to the list. The likes of FTX, Airswap and MakerDAO have been removed as members of the multisig.

wrapped bitcoin de-pegs from bitcoin

WBTC is down 0.86% from its peg to bitcoin. Image: CoinGecko

Tran noted that several of the original signers removed from the list had become inactive or had lost control of their keys. This situation could lead to diminished availability of the multisig if there are not enough signers to achieve a consensus. The signers are responsible for voting on amendments to the WBTC contracts. These amendments can include upgrades or modifications to the WBTC contracts as well as the selection of a new custodian for the token.

The multisig migration is coming at a time when WBTC is experiencing its longest de-pegging from bitcoin. WBTC is a wrapped version of bitcoin that is supposed to maintain 1:1 parity with BTC. WBTC began losing its peg to bitcoin in the wake of the FTX collapse and is currently 0.86% below its BTC peg.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: Osato Avan-Nomayo

What’s next for metaverse post crypto winter? Q&A with CAA’s Joanna Popper

As a kid growing up in Chicago, some of CAA’s Chief Metaverse Officer Joanna Popper’s earliest experiences with digital worlds came from playing arcade classics like Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. Now, after several years working for Wall Street, Hollywood and Silicon Valley players, and a tour of duty on the front lines of virtual reality, she might be the entertainment industry’s most plugged-in metaverse dealmaker.  
 
Early this year, Creative Artists Agency — perhaps Hollywood’s most prolific power broker — tapped Popper to head its push into all things web3 related. 

As a leader at CAA, Popper is tasked with making the top-flight talent agency, which represents stars like Scarlett Johansson, Justin Bieber and Brad Pitt, “metaverse ready.” 

Popper recently talked exclusively with The Block, outlining not only the metaverse’s state of the union, but also her vision for the future and why the current downturn in crypto may just add up to growing pains for a sector some analysts have predicted will be worth trillions of dollars in the future. The following is an edited interview:

The Block: Looking at the current downturn in crypto — the “crypto winter” if you will — what are your thoughts about its wider impact long term? 

JP: Change is the norm. When there is disruption, when there’s a bit of chaos, there’s huge opportunity. If you go back to the late 1990s, early 2000s, there was a narrative that dotcom was over, dotcom becoming dotbomb. And if you took that narrative and made investing decisions based on it, and you decided ‘I’m not going to invest [in internet companies],’ you would have missed out on the biggest growth opportunities of the early 2000s. 

The Block: So you’re bullish the market will turn around? 

JP: After that first crash is when Facebook, YouTube, Google, Instagram, Snapchat, Uber, Lyft, all the dating apps and food-delivery apps — much of what we think of as the dominant business-to-consumer apps — were all founded. On the heels of that crash is where some of the hype and high valuations drained from the market and builders sat down and focused on longer-term strategies and building. I believe we’re in a similar moment today. 

The Block: How then should companies be approaching their web3 strategy? 

JP: A lot of companies are having conversations around being focused on the next quarter, focused on the shorter term versus looking at longer-term growth strategies. As companies want to ride successfully into this next wave they need to think about where we are headed and what their role is in this next wave and adopting strategies that will make them successful in that next wave. I recommend companies get focused on their own metaverse strategies and how they’re going to connect with their communities and build their brand.

The Block: Twitter and Instagram further embracing NFTs, upcoming drops from familiar franchises like Game of Thrones, where is Hollywood in terms of planning for the future of NFTs? 

JP: I see them as digital assets and digital assets will have an important role in the metaverse, in web3. My guess is we’ll probably call them something else in the future. [But] we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of what they will be. We’ve seen them being used to generate intellectual property and then that IP goes on to become the beginning of a world-building adventure, or it gets turned into music, a podcast; it gets turned into a book and a full-blown virtual world or a game. We’ve seen that happen, NFTs are becoming a new generator of IP, which Hollywood has always been excited about, untapped sources. 

The Block: Outside of NFT projects, how keen are CAA clients when it comes to experimenting or investing in metaverse projects? 

JP: The MTV Video Music Awards just awarded their first metaverse performance of the year award, so it’s certainly hit mainstream. There were six nominees and four CAA clients were nominated for performances they’d done across Roblox, Fortnite and Wave. 

Our clients Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Charli XCX and Twenty One Pilots were all nominated for that award. There they jumped in and were able to create metaverse performances with fans in a really interesting, exciting, future-looking way. Fans had the ability to interact and attend those concerts in a way they might not [otherwise] be able to; depending on where they live in the world. 

And then there are also digital merchandise opportunities where fans can take a piece of that concert into their continued exploration of Roblox or Fortnite. A lot of clients, particularly in music, have a strong interest in connecting with fans using these platforms, including both the talent and production companies we work with. 

We also work with the platforms much like we would [television] networks. We’ve worked with Gamefam and Gamefam has built some of the highest-rated Roblox worlds. 

The Block: What are your thoughts on interoperability and possibly a future where platforms like Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft feature digital assets that users can acquire on one platform but then can use on another? 

JP: To me interoperability is a big component of what makes web3, web3, so I expect that is the direction that we are heading. My expectation is we’ll end up in a place where there are some closed ecosystems and a lot of open ecosystems, and we’ll have interoperability among the open ecosystems. Absolutely open ecosystems will become increasingly more important. 

The Block: Forgetting who offers — or might eventually offer — the best virtual reality headset, is VR close to turning a corner and becoming more widely-adopted? 

JP: Headset sales to date are about at the level of Xbox sales so it’s certainly significant at this point, but there is a lot more room to grow before full-on mass adoption. There are companies heavily focused on creating headsets that will drive that mass adoption based on the functionality and ease of use. [VR devices] will eventually look practically the same as glasses that we wear on a regular basis but with a lot more functionality. That’s still years away but along that road we’ll keep seeing more and more people find use cases. 

The Block: You’ve been working in VR for a long time, what type of current use cases stand out? 

JP: I work out every day in VR and my parents do the same. You will continue to see use cases like that which draw in broader audiences as the headsets move more from a luxury to a necessity. 

The Block: What kind of workouts do you do in VR? 

JP: I do Supernatural. It’s in the Oculus. It’s created by Chris Milk who is a music-video director and what’s fun about it is you go into the headset, and you have a coach there who takes you through the workout; all around you it’s always a different environment. During one song you might be on the Great Wall of China, during another in Iguazu Falls, in another the Maldives; so, you have this experience, and you really feel like you are somewhere else, which is fun. And the music is music you know, and you can sing along to; and they have all different genres. You’re moving your body up and down, you’re moving your arms and your legs. 

The Block: So are VR workouts a path to wide adoption then? 

JP: For me, in VR you need to be one of three things to make it worthwhile: You either need to be social, you need to be interactive, or you need to be embodied; and embodied means you need to actually use your body and it has to matter that your body is there, different to watching TV or a film. [Supernatural] has mastered embodiment and the interactivity, and it has a level of social as well with leaderboards where you get to compete with other people. To me, they knocked it out of the park. 

The Block: Do you have a safe room where you do these workouts? 

JP: (Laughing) No, I just do it in my living room. It doesn’t take up that much room. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Author: RT Watson


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