It's a Good Week for Crypto Creditors 😎
In today’s edition: 📊 Jupiter's airdrop frenzy, 🚨 Ripple cofounder's XRP hack, 🔍 FTX to repay, not restart, 🔝 Tether's $2.85B Q4 profit, 📈 Ark's Big Ideas 2024 report, and more!
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What’s Poppin’?
by Sam Sriram, Jeanhee Kim, Brandy Betz and Sage Young
Celsius Starts Distributing Over $3 Billion in Crypto and Fiat to Creditors
Crypto lender Celsius emerges from bankruptcy and has started distributing more than $3 billion worth of crypto and fiat to its creditors under its reorganization plan.
Jupiter Traders Claim Whopping 545 Million JUP Tokens in First 8 Hours of Airdrop
Nearly 367,000 addresses have claimed about $340 million worth of decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator Jupiter’s governance token JUP, which means nearly $284 million worth of JUP remains unclaimed.
FTX to Pay Creditors, Abandon Efforts to Restart Exchange
Collapsed crypto exchange FTX intends to pay back creditors in full, but customers and critics do the math and find the repayments will fall short of current market prices in crypto.
Tether Brings in Record $2.85 Billion Profit in Q4 2023
As of the last day of December, stablecoin provider Tether’s total assets, which back the firm’s stablecoins, stood at $97 billion, while its liabilities amounted to nearly $91.6 billion, according to its latest attestation report.
Ripple Cofounder Confirms $112.5 Million XRP Hack
Ripple co-founder and executive chairman Chris Larsen said the stolen XRP tokens were taken from his personal accounts, not Ripple’s accounts.
Bitcoin Price Could Hit $2.3 Million if 19.4% of Global Assets Are Allocated to It: Ark Invest
If 19.4% of all the estimated global investable assets were put in Bitcoin, the price could reach $2.3 million, Ark Invest said in its Big Ideas 2024 report.
Ethereum’s Rollup-Centric Roadmap Is Coming ‘to Fruition’: Alchemy
The number of Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible smart contracts on layer 2 blockchain networks deployed by developers in 2023 increased 303% from the previous year.
Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️
🏦 Germany's DZ Bank announced plans to pilot cryptocurrency trading later this year, aiming to list a variety of cryptocurrencies for customers who to want invest “without advice.”
🔗 Binance faces a lawsuit from families of Hamas victims in Israel, alleging the crypto exchange facilitated transactions for the terrorist group between 2017 and 2023.
💸 India maintained its high taxes on crypto transactions, with a 30% tax on profits and a 1% tax deducted at source on all transactions, as revealed in the interim budget during an election year.
📉 New York Community Bancorp reported a $260 million loss in Q4 2023, causing a 40% plunge in its share price. The bank acquired the assets of the crypto-friendly Signature Bank in 2023.
🔍 UK police confiscated nearly $1.8 billion in bitcoin linked to a Chinese investment fraud, part of an ongoing trial involving money laundering accusations.
👁️🗨️ Worldcoin faces an investigation in Hong Kong over data privacy issues related to their iris scanning activities for cryptocurrency distribution.
🚫 The SEC maintains its 'gag order' rule, rejecting a petition for change, thereby continuing to bar defendants from claiming innocence post-settlement.
🏠 A judge authorized the sale of FTX's Bahamas properties, including Sam Bankman-Fried's $40 million penthouse, as part of the exchange's bankruptcy proceedings.
What Do You Meme?
Recommended Reads
DL News: Solana stablecoin volume just hit a record $144bn. Or did it?
Unchained: What Are Proof of Attendance Protocols?
Forbes: ‘Satoshi Nakamoto Is Rolling Over In His Grave’ As Traders Watch Fed
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down .7%, trading at $42,182
ETH is down 1.2%, trading at $2,264
BTC dominance: 48.79%
Crypto market cap: $1.7T
*All data as of today, 06:26 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
Chris Dixon, founder and managing partner of a16z crypto, believes the internet’s early ideals of democratization and community ownership have been subverted by the consolidation of power into just a few small companies such as Facebook and Google. He’s written a new book called Read Write Own in which he writes about this phenomenon, and argues that blockchain technology can help reverse the trend by providing an environment in which developers and entrepreneurs can once again build direct relationships with their audiences.
Dixon joins Unchained to discuss criticisms of crypto venture capital firms, how he feels now about a16z’s previous investment in Facebook, how crypto has become overly politicized in the US, why Facebook’s Libra project was ultimately shut down, the significant promise of restaking and EigenLayer in particular, and why he believes that creator royalties are essential for the NFT market.
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