A Fishy First Few Weeks for SBF 🐟
In today’s edition: 🚀 Blast's rapid TVL growth, 🔄 BTC reserves shift, 🌍 Do Kwon's extradition approved, ⚡ $3.1M Bitcoin fee record, and more!
Unlock your application’s full potential with the LayerZero interoperability protocol. Connect to 40+ blockchains. Enable cross-chain contract execution and native asset transfer. Secure by Google Cloud, Polyhedra and more.
VaultCraft by Popcorn is your no-code, DeFi toolkit for building automated, non-custodial yield strategies. Learn more on vaultcraft.io about how you can supercharge your crypto portfolio!
What’s Poppin’?
by Juan Aranovich and Samyuktha Sriram
Sam Bankman-Fried Adapts to Life in Detention, Trades Crypto for Mackerel Economy: WSJ
Once a crypto magnate, Bankman-Fried now navigates the economics of prison life as he awaits sentencing, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Blast Surges to $300M TVL, Rapidly Gaining on Top Ethereum L2s Amid Concerns
Recently launched Ethereum Layer 2 Blast experienced massive TVL growth and could potentially overtake other projects like Base and zkSync.
Bitcoin Flows From Binance to Coinbase: CryptoQuant
On-chain analysts found that Coinbase’s reserves increased by around 12,000 BTC over the same period that Binance’s reserves decreased by 5,000 BTC.
Tiffany Fong has had an unusual route to crypto fame. After losing most of her life savings in the Celsius bankruptcy, she began posting on YouTube about her experiences and eventually received some leaked documents, which she shared with The New York Times and on her channel. The leaks gave her some visibility, and that’s when Sam Bankman-Fried began following her on Twitter.
Fong unexpectedly managed to carve out a relationship with the one-time crypto mogul, and after he was arrested last November, she chatted often and even met with him while he was under house arrest. From there, she became known for posting details of her conversations with Bankman-Fried and documents he shared with her, and went on to attend every day of his trial in person and do videos on them.
On this episode of Unchained, Fong shares why she thinks SBF opened up to her, whether she ever had a romantic relationship with him, her unpleasant encounter with Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother at the trial, why she doesn’t really consider herself a crypto influencer, and what her plans are now that the trial is over.
Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️
🌍 A Montenegro court approved the extradition of Terra founder Do Kwon, with the final decision between South Korea or the U.S. pending after his prison term.
👩💻 KyberSwap offered a 10% bounty, approximately $4.7 million, to the hacker responsible for a $47 million exploit, inviting negotiations for fund return.
⚡ A Bitcoin transfer incurred the largest transaction fee in history at $3.1 million, with Antpool mining the block and receiving an unusually high fee.
🔍 Singapore's central bank announced new rules to discourage crypto speculation among retail customers and ease investment qualifications.
💰 GBTC's discount to net asset value (NAV) dropped below 10% for the first time in two years, amid Ark Invest's sale of GBTC shares.
🛡️ Lido node operator InfStones plans to rotate validator keys for enhanced security following a vulnerability disclosure linked to the Tailon library.
🔮 JPMorgan analysts predict at least $2.7 billion in outflows from GBTC upon its conversion to a spot bitcoin ETF, based on current trading patterns.
The $$$ Corner…
🎮 Singapore-based NFT gaming company Matr1x Fire raised $10 million in a funding round led by Folius Ventures, totaling $20 million in VC funding.
What Do You Meme?
Recommended Reads
Blockchains are a centralising force, but that's OK by polynya
DL News: How Bitcoin exposure ‘reduces risks’ in traditional portfolios
Unchained: What Is Depegging in Crypto and Why Does It Occur?
On Unchained Premium 💎
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up 1%, trading at $37,764
ETH is up 1.6%, trading at $2,097
BTC dominance: 49.23%
Crypto market cap: $1.5T
*All data as of today, 07:00 am ET
👯♀️ Refer Unchained with a friend and earn a Premium subscription
⛓️ Join Unchained Premium to get access to:
🎙️ Behind-the-scenes interviews, in which I talk with crypto experts and entrepreneurs to learn all about the latest developments in the industry.
💬 A subscriber-only Telegram group, where you can talk with the other members of the Unchained community, build a network in crypto, and talk directly with me and the Unchained team!
📰 Transcripts of all the shows, for subscribers only.