How Long Will Avi Remain in Jail? ⛓️
In today's edition: 🎤 New pod on Celsius, 💱 Alameda's on-chain activity,🕵️♀️ Silvergate is under scrutiny, ⛏️ Marathon's BTC holdings, and more!
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New Pod Today!
Why the Celsius Examiner Report Shows 'a Complete Disaster in Almost Every Way'
Following the release of Celsius' examiner report, Kadhim Shubber, an investigative reporter at The Financial Times, dives into the controversial business practices of the lender, how the company inflated the CEL token, the use of customers' money, and much more.
Show highlights:
how Celsius used investors’ money to prop up the price of CEL
the reasons why Celsius inflated the CEL token
where the money to pay rewards to investors came from
blatant misstatements from Alex Mashinsky and how his team tried to cover him
how the company leveraged Bitcoin to fill the hole in its balance sheet
who was responsible for Celsius' shady business practices
Celsius' poor investment decisions
whether Mashinsky is at risk of facing criminal charges
What’s Poppin’?
Alameda Received $13M From Bitfinex and Others Overnight
by Samyuktha Sriram
Alameda wallets are active again, but this time, with seemingly legitimate reasons behind a series of transfers made over the last 24 hours.
DOJ’s Fraud Unit Probes Silvergate Over FTX and Alameda
The U.S. Department of Justice’s fraud division is investigating crypto bank Silvergate’s dealings with FTX and Alameda Research, according to a Thursday report from Bloomberg. The inquiry, which is still in its early stages, concerns Silvergate’s hosting of accounts connected to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s entities.
Silvergate’s shares declined more than 20% after news of the probe.
Earlier this week, U.S. Senators pressed the bank for information on the same issue, saying it had been “evasive” in previous responses. The senators alleged that Silvergate’s dealings with FTX had “further introduced crypto market risk into the traditional banking system.”
4 Men Owned Nearly 86% of Tether in 2018: WSJ
An investigation published by the Wall Street Journal has found that a group of four men controlled roughly 86% of Tether Holdings in 2018. Giancarlo Devasini, a former plastic surgeon who is now Bitfinex’s chief financial officer, owned 43% of the company.
Bitfinex and Tether executives, CEO Jean-Louis van Der Velde and General Counsel Stuart Hoegner, each owned around 15% of Tether at the time, according to documents reviewed by WSJ. A businessman called Christopher Harborne, also known as Chakrit Sakunkrit in Thailand, was the fourth major holder, controlling 12% of Tether.
Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex and Tether, described the report as a “clown article” in a tweet posted after its publication.
Mango Markets Exploiter Waives Bail
Mango Markets exploiter Avraham Eisenberg waived his right to bail at his first hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. According to live coverage from Inner City Press’s Matthew Russell Lee, Eisenberg appeared at the hearing in a yellow jumpsuit following his transfer from Puerto Rico where he was arrested last month.
Eisenberg took credit for a $110 million exploit on DeFi protocol Mango Markets, describing his actions as a “highly profitable trading strategy.” He now faces charges from the DOJ related to market manipulation and fraud, and is being sued by Mango Labs for the $47 million worth of stolen funds he did not return to the protocol.
Orion Protocol Exploited for $3M
Crypto trading aggregator Orion Protocol has paused operations after it was exploited for $3 million on Thursday. Blockchain security firm PeckShield notified users of the exploit which was funded by a Binance wallet.
The hacker allegedly manipulated Orion’s trading pools by deploying a fake token which utilized a self-destruct smart contract. A wallet associated with the hacker has started moving funds through coin mixer Tornado Cash in installments of 100 ETH.
Marathon Digital Sells Mined Bitcoin for the First Time
Marathon Digital, one of the largest publicly-traded Bitcoin mining firms, sold 1,500 BTC for the first time ever, according to a Thursday report from CoinDesk. The firm said the sale was a “strategic decision” to cover operating expenses and for general corporate purposes.
The firm produced a record 687 BTC in January, representing a 45% increase from the month prior. It still holds 11,418 BTC in its reserves.
In Other News…✍️✍️✍️
Optimism, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, announced the release of its first major upgrade, Bedrock, to enhance network performance by reducing transaction costs, improving speeds, and making it more compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Bedrock will be released on March 16th.
Shares of Coinbase saw a substantial increase of 17% on Thursday following the news of a class-action lawsuit being dismissed by a federal judge in New York.
Luxor, a Bitcoin mining company, mined the largest ever Bitcoin block to promote an upcoming NFT collection.
Everlend, a DeFi platform for borrowing and lending built on the Solana blockchain, announced that it is closing down and discontinuing future development.
Kang Jong-Hyun, the former chairman of South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb was arrested by authorities on charges of embezzlement and market manipulation.
Core Scientific reached a deal with NYDIG, in which it will transfer 27,403 of its cryptocurrency mining rigs, equivalent to 18% of its total, in exchange for the settling of a $38.6 million debt owed.
Software company MicroStrategy reported a net loss of $249.7 million for Q4 2022, a significant increase from the loss of $90 million in the same quarter of the previous year.
Bittrex, a U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, reduced its workforce by 83 employees, approximately 30% of its total staff.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace, unveiled a set of tools aimed at enabling individuals or brands to create their own NFT projects.
The IMF is working on a paper on monetary policy and regulation approach for crypto assets in consultation with India for the G-20.
The $$$ Corner…
Sumi Network, a provider of web3 infrastructure, raised $3 million in funding at a valuation of $30 million.
Binance took control of the majority share of GOPAX, a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, marking its return to the market after leaving it two years prior.
What Do You Meme
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down 1.74%, trading at $23,436
ETH is down 1.96%, trading at $1,644
BTC dominance: 40.73%
Crypto market cap: $1.11 trillion
*All data as of today, 5 am ET
Recommended Reads
DAO Research Collective on DAO Governance
Patrick McCorry on a deep dive into how Proof of Stake works in Ethereum
tolks on crypto narratives and trends to watch out for in February:
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