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Bitcoin and ether held onto two-month highs overnight as the global crypto market cap reached its highest point since the collapse of FTX. 

Bitcoin was trading at $18,877 at 8:30 a.m. EST, up 3.6% over the past 24 hours, according to TradingView data. 

BTCUSD chart by TradingView

Ether continues to trade above $1,400, little changed since yesterday’s inflation report. Binance’s BNB added 1% in that time, while Ripple’s XRP and Cardano’s ADA tacked on 1.9% and 3.3%, respectively. 

The recent rally buoyed the global crypto market cap as it reached $946 billion from $851 billion last week, the highest level since Nov. 9. according to The Block data.

Crypto stocks and structured products

Coinbase fell 3.7% at 8:40 a.m. EST in pre-market trading, according to Nasdaq data. Shares in the exchange are up over 30% this week following the announcement of additional job cuts. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has purchased over $7 million worth of COIN this week. 

Silvergate jumped 3.5% in the early session, trading above $14. The crypto-friendly bank will release its fourth-quarter earnings next week. The La Jolla-based firm already shared preliminary financial results last week and said it was cutting 40% of its workforce.

MicroStrategy was lower in pre-market trading. Block dropped 2% to trade around $70.

Shares in GBTC also hit a two-month high this week as they rose past $10 yesterday. The fund’s discount to net asset value (NAV) widened to 39.7%, according to The Block data.

© 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.

A collection of news media giants requested that the court handling fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal case reveal who, other than his parents, signed his $250 million bail bond.

The media outlets on the petition include Associated Press, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, CNBC, Reuters, Insider, Wall Street Journal’s publisher Dow Jones, and the Washington Post’s publisher.

Lawyers from litigation law firm Davis Wright Tremaine argued it is in the public interest to reveal the signatories since Bankman-Fried “stands accused of perpetrating one of the largest financial frauds in history.” They cited common law and the first amendment to public right of the information.

The counsel for the news group said it is willing to be heard at a hearing to make their case. 

Representatives for Sam Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

SBF’s safety concerns

Bankman-Fried had asked for two unknown co-signers on his bail to remain anonymous for concerns over their safety. His parents, who had signed the quarter-billion bond, were targeted for harassment and media scrutiny according to the court filing of the anonymity request. 

There would be a “serious cause for concern that the two additional sureties would face similar intrusions on their privacy as well as threats and harassment if their names appear unredacted on their bonds or their identities are otherwise publicly disclosed,” lawyers Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell of law firm Cohen & Gresser LLP wrote on Jan. 3. 

Bankman-Fried is awaiting trial scheduled for October for criminal charges, following the collapse of his crypto exchange FTX in November.

He was released from detainment in December thanks to the $250 million bond, which was secured with his parents’ signature and equity in their family home, along with another two anonymous co-signers. 

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions. 

© 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.

DeFi lender LendHub lost $6 million of crypto assets in an attack, the team reported on Friday.

LendHub stated that the attack occurred on Jan. 12. The DeFi lender added that it has contacted blockchain security firms and crypto exchanges to assist with tracking the stolen crypto. 

The hacker has reportedly begun to move some of the funds via sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash. So, far the attacker has routed 1,100 ether ($1.5 million), according to Wu Blockchain.

LendHub touts itself as the “safest decentralized lending platform” for cross-chain lending. It’s built on the Huobi-developed Heco blockchain.

LendHub stated that it will conduct a full investigation into the incident.

© 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.

Crypto lender Nexo has seen withdrawals worth more than $158 million in the last 24 hours after Bulgarian authorities raided its offices.

Nexo had 133,263 BTC (around $2.5 billion) in customer liabilities on Thursday at 2 a.m. ET and on Friday that number was 124,939 BTC ($2.37 billion) at the same time of day, reflecting withdrawals of 8,324 BTC ($158 million), according to real-time attestation provided by Nexo’s auditor Armanino on its website.

Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev declined to comment on the withdrawal numbers when contacted by The Block, but said that “all systems are up and running and everything is being processed in real-time as always.”

He added: “Activity is orders of magnitude smaller that post-Celsius and post-FTX.”

It was not clear if the attested numbers included only Nexo customers’ bitcoin holdings or all their crypto holdings converted into bitcoin. Trenchev did not comment on it, but said that Nexo’s partnership with Armanino was still on, although the latter reportedly announced exiting the crypto space last month.

Bulgaria raid

Nexo’s withdrawals came after Bulgarian prosecutors began an investigation on Thursday into alleged illegal activities conducted by Nexo. “In Sofia, active steps are being carried out as part of a pre-trial investigation aimed at neutralizing an illegal criminal activity of crypto lender Nexo,” said Siyka Mileva, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors’ office, according to a Reuters report.

Commenting on the raid, Nexo said in a statement on Thursday that Bulgaria is “the most corrupt country in the EU. They are making AML and tax-related inquiries about a Bulgarian entity of the group that is not customer facing but only has back office functions — payroll, customer support, compliance.”

Earlier Friday, Larry Cermak, vice president of The Block Research, analyzed Nexo’s EVM addresses from his database and found that the firm had $378 million in total holdings in 19 wallets, out of which $264 million was its own native nexo token.

“Only $114 million in non-nexo holdings on all EVM addresses combined. Would be very careful,” Cermak said.

Commenting on the analysis, Trenchev said: “This is not an exhaustive list of EVM, non-EVM and exchange accounts. It doesn’t make sense to keep large quantities of assets in hot wallets on chain sitting idle. Please refer to this thread as how our exchange aggregation and liquidations require assets to be on exchanges.”

© 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.

Société Générale, a French multinational investment bank and financial services company, minted $7 million as a loan of dai stablecoin from its issuer MakerDAO.

Société Générale was approved to start a MakerDAO vault last year after a unanimous vote from MakerDAO’s community members. After several months, for the first time it has withdrawn $7 million in stablecoin, MakerDAO confirmed to The Block.

The specific vault has a debt ceiling of $30 million, which means that Société Générale can borrow up to this amount of dai from Maker, according to official data aggregated by MakerBurn.

The firm used home loan bonds worth $40 million as collateral to borrow from a lending vault on Maker — serving as an example of how traditional finance players can leverage decentralized finance to create new avenues for borrowing. 

Dai was founded in 2017 as a decentralized stablecoin backed with ether (ETH), the native token of the Ethereum blockchain. In November 2019, MakerDAO migrated to a new system, allowing multiple on-chain crypto collaterals to back dai.

In the last year, MakerDAO has pivoted to a strategy of diversifying its balance sheet and treasury holdings into real-world assets (RWAs), thus varying the collateral backing each dai and reducing reliance on crypto assets alone.

In July 2022, MakerDAO approved and issued a 100 million dai stablecoin loan to U.S.-based Huntingdon Valley Bank, using its loan assets as collateral. MakerDAO has also been gradually investing $500 million into short-term U.S. Treasury bonds and investment-grade corporate bonds.

While the use of real world assets has broadened the scope of dai and diversified its backing, it has also subjected the project to the same regulatory and legal risks to which traditional financial products are exposed.

© 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.

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest loaded up on more Coinbase shares Thursday, continuing this week’s spending spree as the stock rallies. 

Ark added 52,813 Coinbase shares to its Ark Innovation ETG, according to its latest trade filing. Shares in the crypto exchange closed up 8.6% to $47.44 Thursday. Based on the price at close, Ark’s most recent purchase cost around $2.5 million — bringing the total spent on Coinbase shares this week to just over $7 million. 

COIN chart by TradingView

On Tuesday, Coinbase revealed plans to cut 950 staff or about 20% of its total headcount. Following an initial dip in pre-market, shares popped shortly after the open and were up more than 7% by midday. Analysts at Needham called the cuts “necessary” and maintained a buy rating on Coinbase.

Ark Invest appears to be picking up where it left off in December, as the fund added Coinbase shares throughout the month. Wood’s fund has long been an admirer of the crypto exchange. Ark Invest bought $246 million worth of Coinbase stock on its direct listing debut. 

© 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.

Collapse crypto exchange FTX got the judicial green light to begin selling parts of its business, the next step in raising money to repay its more than one million creditors.

LedgerX, Embed and FTX’s European and Japanese operations can begin auction processes in the coming days, Judge John Dorsey ruled on Thursday. 

More than 100 offers of interest have already come in, the team overseeing the wind up of FTX told the bankruptcy court earlier this month. The U.S. Trustee, a division of the Department of Justice, earlier objected to any sale process given investigations into FTX are ongoing. The Trustee will be able to review the sale process and file objections, Thursday’s ruling said.

A lawyer for FTX told the court on Wednesday that the firm had so far found around $5 billion in cash, liquid assets and crypto tokens. Any unit sales will add to that pot. It is yet not clear exactly how much money is owed to creditors. Speaking at the same hearing, FTX attorney Andy Dietderich said the exchange’s incomplete financial records meant his team was recreating claim values for every customer.

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.

© 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.

Crypto.com, the Singapore-based crypto wallet and payments firm, is laying off 20% of its global workforce. 

The company announced the news in a blog post published today. Kris Marszalek, the firm’s CEO, said in a statement that the decision was made to focus on “prudent financial management” and “to position the company for long-term success.” Crypto.com had already laid off 260 employees in July 2022. 

The news comes during a week in which Coinbase and Blockchain.com, two more giants of the crypto sector, also announced layoffs. Coinbase said on Jan. 10 that it would lay off around 950 staff, while Blockchain.com said it would shed around 110 employees. 

Crypto.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

© 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.

The head of Singapore-based Spartan Group’s $100 million venture studio has quietly left after less than a year in the role. It remains unclear what motivated the departure.

Shaun Heng, who was appointed to head of Spartan Labs in March 2022, parted ways with the business, said Kelvin Koh, co-founder and managing partner at Spartan Group, who added that Adrian Lai, previously Spartan Labs’ creative and design lead, is now heading up the venture studio.

Heng’s departure was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter, who added that he left in December. Heng did not respond to a request for comment.

Spartan Labs was set up by crypto investment and advisory firm Spartan Group last year to “co-build with the most successful web3 projects and teams,” its website says.

The same sources who said that Heng had left Spartan Labs claimed the studio hasn’t been funding any new initiatives. Spartan Labs has yet to roll out a project, but Koh said it will launch its first this month and added that a few more are “in early stages,” without providing more details.

Spartan Labs initially aimed to develop and launch six or seven projects a year, and to arm them with access to advice, talent, customers and capital, according to a blog post published by Heng at the time of his appointment. The studio began with $100 million in dedicated capital. Heng joined Spartan Labs from data provider CoinMarketCap, where he was vice president of growth and operations.

In addition to the venture studio, Spartan Group manages three separate investment funds: A liquid token fund, a $110 million DeFi vehicle launched in June 2021, and a $200 million metaverse and gaming venture fund that it unveiled in March last year.

A tough market

Like all crypto investors, Spartan Group spent last year navigating torrid market conditions.

The company’s $91 million Global Blockchain Opportunities Fund — its liquid token fund — was down 54% as of October 2022, according to a document obtained by The Block that was distributed to investors. At the time, the fund had delivered a net return since inception of 490%, according to the document.

Spartan Group’s $110 million DeFi venture fund held up better, according to a separate third-quarter report sent to investors and obtained by The Block. Launched in June 2021, the DeFi fund valued its assets at $143 million as of Sept. 30. Its year-to-date return at that time stood at 4.5%, compared with an inception-to-date return of 42.8%, the note said.

It should be noted that the Spartan Group’s return calculation for the DeFi fund factors in unrealized gains in the form of locked tokens and tokens that are not yet available to the public. Koh said that is standard for early-stage investments.

The DeFi fund deployed $7 million across seven investments in the third quarter, bringing the total number of projects it had backed to 108. As of Sept. 30, less than half of those projects had floated their tokens on crypto exchanges — in line with a broader market trend.

© 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.

Wyre secured a new source of funding, allowing it to drop its recently introduced 90% customer withdrawal cap, the company said on Twitter today.

“We’re excited to share that today we received financing from a strategic partner that allows us to continue our normal course of operations,” Wyre tweeted, adding that it would “resume accepting deposits and lift the 90% withdrawal limit effective immediately.”

Wyre earlier this week said it would limit customer withdrawals in an attempt to continue operating despite financial headwinds and to better position the firm against any potential industry instability.

The company laid off 75 employees earlier this month as news circulated that the firm may shutter.  Wyre denied those rumors, and said it was still operating.

Wyre did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment.

© 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.