FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

Bitget, the derivatives exchange operator, today announced a new $100 million venture capital fund focused on web3. The fund will invest globally, with a focus on Asia.

“We strive to support financial innovation in Asia and believe that our platform can act as a reliable, convenient, and secure link between the worlds of DeFi and CeFi. Our team of analysts has already outlined the criteria for project selection and will adhere to them strictly,” said Gracy Chen, managing director of Bitget, in a statement.

The Seychelles-based exchange operator has been busy lately as it pursues a so-called “go beyond derivatives” strategy. It acquired crypto wallet BitKeep in March after investing an additional $30 million in the startup. It then took a $10 million strategic investment from Dragonfly Capital, the crypto investment firm, on April 4.

A spokesperson for Bitget said the $100 million is an “initial investment” and that the fund is expected to grow over time. It is also “self-funded, leveraging Bitget’s healthy financial status,” they said in response to questions from The Block. They also confirmed that the $100 million has already been allocated to the venture fund. 

Bitget is also hoping to team up with venture capital firms Dragonfly Capital, SevenX Ventures, DAO Maker, ABCDE Capital and Foresight Ventures as potential partners. Its spokesperson said these firms “will share their financial and technological expertise, and provide advisory support.”

© 2023 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.

Liquidations refer to the forced closure of bullish long and bearish short positions in leveraged perpetual futures markets and often exacerbate price moves.

BitGet started its fund as more crypto projects seek non-U.S. jurisdictions.

The new management of FTX, headed by CEO John Ray III, today released its first interim report on control failures at the collapsed crypto exchange. There is a lot to digest.

The 45-page report — published Sunday afternoon by FTX Trading Ltd and its affiliated debtors — describes in painstaking detail FTX’s slapdash record-keeping, near non-existent cybersecurity defenses and its sparse expertise in key areas like finance.

One of the more eye-catching items concerned Alameda Research, the trading firm that allegedly had access to billions of dollars in customer funds stored with FTX. The report states that Alameda “often had difficulty understanding what its positions were, let alone hedging or accounting for them.” Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, now under house arrest and facing a litany of criminal charges, described Alameda in internal communications as “hilariously beyond any threshold of any auditor being able to even get partially through an audit,” according to the report. 

He went on: “Alameda is unauditable. I don’t mean this in the sense of ‘a major accounting firm will have reservations about auditing it’; I mean this in the sense of ‘we are only able to ballpark what its balances are, let alone something like a comprehensive transaction history.’ We sometimes find $50m of assets lying around that we lost track of; such is life.”

If a double decker bus

Other striking items in the report include the claim that most major decision-making was closely controlled by Bankman-Fried and top executives Gary Wang, CTO, and engineering director Nishad Singh — who are both now cooperating with authorities having plead guilty to charges. Such was Wang and Singh’s control over FTX’s architecture that one former executive stated, “if Nishad [Singh] got hit by a bus, the whole company would be done. Same issue with Gary [Wang],” according to today’s report.

The report also claimed that FTX had “no dedicated personnel” in cybersecurity, leaving such matters in the hands of Singh and Wang, who lacked the experience and training to handle the firm’s complex cybersecurity needs.

John Ray III, who took over from Bankman-Fried as CEO of FTX after its collapse, said in a statement accompanying today’s report, “In this report, we provide details on our findings that FTX Group failed to implement appropriate controls in areas that were critical for safeguarding cash and crypto assets. FTX Group was tightly controlled by a small group of individuals who falsely claimed to manage FTX Group responsibly, but in fact showed little interest in instituting oversight or implementing an appropriate control framework.”

© 2023 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.

BTC Edges Up. ALSO: CoinDesk Chief Content Officer ties the recent political and regulatory backlash toward the crypto industry to the alleged misdeeds of disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Will the current climate drive digital asset innovation and leadership away from the U.S.?

A new report from the failed crypto exchange FTX’s current leadership says that former FTX US President Brett Harrison resigned last September partly because of a “protracted disagreement” with CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and members of his inner circle.

Among the positions available: Digital Pound Security Architect and Digital Pound Solutions Architect.

Developers asked users to revoke contracts as a security measure early Sunday.

Decentralized exchange SushiSwap has fallen victim to an exploit, which led to the loss of more than $3.3 million from at least one user, known as 0xSifu on Twitter.

The exploit involves an approve-related bug on the RouterProcessor2 contract — which PeckShield and SushiSwap Head Chef Jared Grey recommend revoking on all chains.

DeFi Llama’s @0xngmi claims only those who swapped on SushiSwap within the last four days should be affected.

The Block Research Analyst Kevin Pang explains that, so far, 190 addresses have approved the problematic contract.

This story is developing and will be updated with more information.

© 2023 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.

Founded in 2015, Paxful became one of the most popular places to buy bitcoin in Africa and other emerging markets, with more than 200 employees. Behind the scenes, staff took paid trips to music festivals, bosses fought, dismissals reportedly occurred on a whim and the smell of cannabis permeated the office.