🍎 Apple and Netflix Among FTX Creditors ⁉️
In today's edition: 💸 US authorities seize more money from SBF, 💼 another lawsuit against Avi Eisenberg, 🥷 Robinhood's Twitter is hacked, 😱 BTC may become legal tender in one state, and more!
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On the Pod…
The Chopping Block: Will Genesis Creditors Be Made Whole?
What’s Poppin’?
SBF Gave $400M to Obscure Crypto Fund
by Samyuktha Sriram
Another revelation in the FTX saga has market participants asking more questions – What is Modulo Capital, and why did Bankman-Fried send the little-known crypto firm $400 million?
Prosecutors Seize SBF’s $50M Deposited in Rural Bank
U.S. prosecutors seized just under $50 million worth of deposits made by Sam Bankman-Fried into a Farmington State Bank account, according to a court filing last week. The rural bank hails from a Washington town with under 146 residents and had just three employees.
Alameda Research invested $11.5 million in Farmington in March 2022, after which it changed its name to “Moonstone Bank,” the New York Times reported in November.
“The fact that an offshore hedge fund that was basically a crypto firm was buying a stake in a tiny bank for multiples of its stated book value should have raised massive red flags for the F.D.I.C., state regulators and the Federal Reserve,” said Camden Fine, the former head of the Independent Community Bankers of America, to the NYT.
Mango Markets Sues Exploiter For $47M
Mango Labs, the entity behind DeFi protocol Mango Markets, is suing its exploiter Avraham Eisenberg for $47 million in damages plus interest, as per a Jan. 25 court filing with the Southern District of New York.
Mango Labs asked the court to rescind an agreement between MangoDAO and Eisenberg after the attack, where the Mango team said it would not pursue legal action against him in exchange for him returning a portion of the stolen funds.
Eisenberg was arrested last month in Puerto Rico and faces charges from the FBI, CFTC and SEC related to fraud and market manipulation.
Robinhood Hackers Promote BNB Token Scam
Hackers breached the social media accounts of popular retail brokerage Robinhood on Wednesday to promote a token scam on the Binance Smart Chain through PancakeSwap. A Twitter post from Robinhood’s official account lured unsuspecting users to deposit their funds into a scam wallet under the pretense of an official $RBH token.
According to data shared by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, the scammers’ wallet made around $8,200. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the exchange was aware of the scam and its security team had locked the account in question.
Robinhood said that the source of unauthorized posts on its Twitter, Instagram and Facebook profiles likely took place through a third-party vendor.
Arizona Senator Wants to Make Bitcoin Legal Tender
Senator Wendy Rogers has proposed a new set of bills to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender in the state of Arizona. The proposed legislation would allow both individuals and businesses to pay taxes, debt and other transactions with Bitcoin.
The bills are co-sponsored by Republicans Jeff Weninger and J.D. Mesnard and could pass successfully with uniform backing from Republican representatives that hold 16 of Arizona’s 30 state seats. A similar bill proposed by Rogers in 2022 did not pass to the second session.
Lido Proposes Withdrawal Feature for Staked ETH
Ethereum liquid staking service Lido has proposed a design for implementing staked ETH withdrawals on the platform. The Shanghai Upgrade, set to take place between March and April, will provide validators with the ability to unstake ETH held on the deposit contract.
Lido described the withdrawal feature design as a “complex task” given the asynchronous nature of the process. Its proposed plan involves a Turbo mode to unstake requests quickly and a Bunker mode as an emergency plan which will be activated under mass slashing conditions.
SushiSwap to Deploy Perpetual DEX on Sei Network
SushiSwap plans to launch a decentralized perpetual futures exchange on the Sei Network, the protocol’s “head chef” Jared Grey disclosed in a Miami conference reported by The Block. Grey described the move as a new play for the Sushi ecosystem as it branches out to other non-Ethereum based ecosystems.
Sei is a Layer 1 Cosmos blockchain specializing in decentralized trading applications. Grey said that Sushi is working hand-in-hand with Sei to determine what developer resources need to be allocated.
In Other News…✍️✍️✍️
According to court filings, FTX owes money to a wide range of companies and organizations, including Apple, Netflix, and the Wall Street Journal.
Binance stablecoin BUSD has lost over $2 billion in market capitalization in the past 30 days.
Kristin Johnson, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is calling for new rules on cryptocurrency and for Congress to give the agency more power.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren called for stricter regulation on the crypto industry. Warren argued that the solution starts with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has a “long history” of fighting similar battles.
In a Reddit post, Roger Ver, the CEO of Bitcoin.com, stated that he has enough money to pay the $21 million debt he owes to Genesis, but he does not feel obligated to do so.
dYdX delayed the release of 150 million tokens ($282 million) to investors from February 3 to December 1, according to a note sent to them.
South Korean authorities are reportedly attempting to detain Kang Jong-Hyun, the owner of Bithumb cryptocurrency exchange.
Digital Currency Group's crypto exchange, Luno, laid off 35% of its workforce.
Kevin Rose, the founder of Proof, lost $1 million in NFTs after his wallet was compromised.
According to its latest earnings report, Tesla sold none of their $218 million worth of BTC in Q4 2022.
The $$$ Corner…
Layer 1 blockchain Injective launched a $150 million fund to support the development of its ecosystem.
What Do You Meme
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up 1.71%, trading at $23,015
ETH is up 3.98%, trading at $1,609
BTC dominance: 41.21%
Crypto market cap: $1.08 trillion
*All data as of today, 5 am ET
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