🥊 Prosecutors Pummel SBF’s Contradictions, Credibility
In today’s edition: Crypto Product Inflows Hit 15-Month High ⛰️, Animoca Brands Announces $50M Partnership With NEOM 📣, Starknet Allots 50M in STRK Tokens for Early Contributors 🎁 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!
Get the easiest KYC for crypto – privacy-safe and fully compliant for 165+ markets with JS/SDK/API integration. Conversion increase guaranteed. Submit your site for an interactive demo!
👨⚖️ Sam Bankman Fried’s Trial Coverage
Sam Enzer, a partner at the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, told Laura that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried did about as well as he could in his testimony Friday but that he was unlikely “to withstand the scrutiny” of what prosecutors have already said will be a robust cross-examination when he takes the stand Monday. Enzer noted that Bankman-Fried’s attempts to explain why he thought his trading shop, Alameda Research, could borrow billions in dollars of FTX customer assets “defies common sense,” and that the company’s own terms of agreement or any other communications offered no justification for this belief. A Thursday hearing without the jury present, in which the defense gave a preview of some arguments it wanted to make, ended up giving the government answers from SBF that it can now use against him. Enzer also said that Bankman-Fried’s contention that his biggest mistake – a failure to implement proper risk management – did not constitute criminal fraud, did not address the core of the government’s case; namely, that he lied about how FTX was handling customer deposits.
SBF Trial, From the Courthouse: SBF's Testimony Under Fire, Contradictions Unearthed
If before lunch, prosecutor Danielle Sassoon murdered SBF via cross-examination, then after lunch, she stabbed the dead body over and over again as she pulled out a seemingly endless stream of times he had made contradictory statements to his testimony. He was evasive & even petulant/insouciant in response.
📚 The Cryptopians - Out in Paperback!
Find out the inside story of the rise of Ethereum in Laura’s book, “The Cryptopians.”
What’s Poppin’?
by Brandy Betz, James Rubin and Samyuktha Sriram
Animoca Brands Receives $50M Through New NEOM Partnership
The blockchain gaming giant and Saudi Arabian investment fund will collaborate on Web3 initiatives.
Bitcoin Optimism Drives Crypto Investment Product Inflows to 15-Month High
New CoinShares data shows that inflows hit the highest weekly level since July 2022, driven by spot bitcoin ETF optimism.
Starknet Allocates 50 Million STRK Tokens to Early Community Members
The Starknet Foundation has started allocating STRK tokens to early contributors to the network, although these tokens won’t trade until early next year.
Etherscan-Based Avalanche Block Explorer SnowTrace to Shut Down
The Etherscan-powered block explorer instance SnowTrace will be discontinued on Nov. 30 after running for two years.
Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️
🗽 Bitcoin remained largely unmoved by the Bank of Japan’s decision to lighten its grip on the “yield curve control” program, remaining above $34,000.
🛑 Crypto exchange Bittrex received court approval to shut down its US operations.
🔭 The Bitcoin Wikipedia page received 13,490 pageviews on Oct. 24, its highest number since mid-2022, according to The Block's Data Dashboard.
📘 The U.S. government published Grayscale’s spot Ethereum ETF application to start a 240-day review process by the end of which the Securities and Exchange Commission must respond.
🔥 During a fireside chat with Paul Tudor Jones, famed investor Stanley Druckenmiller said he doesn’t own Bitcoin but probably should!
🚀 TIA, the token of modular blockchain network Celestia, was changing hands at $3.15 on the decentralized derivatives exchange Helix a day ahead of its tentative listing on Binance, Bybit and Kucoin.
🇦🇪 Web3 digital wallet firm Backpack is all set to launch a crypto exchange in Q1 2024 after securing a license from the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA).
The $$$ Corner…
💲Andreessen Horowitz, which has grown increasingly interested in crypto and AI projects, expects to raise $3.4 billion for its next early and seed-stage venture funds, according to Axios.
💵 Ethereum-based, Web3 CBI platform The Network State Company raised $2.5 million in a funding round that included Tim Draper and Sandeep Nailwal.
💰 Derivative exchange protocol Surf Protocol closed a $3 million funding round led by ABCDE Capital.
What Do You Meme?
Recommended Reads
CoinDesk: On Bitcoin White Paper's 15th Anniversary, Wall Street Threatens to Swallow Its One-Time Challenger
Blockworks: DeFi is facing a ‘full frontal assault’ from regulators
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up 0.1%, trading at $34,412
ETH is down 1.1%, trading at $1,801
BTC dominance: 50.9%
Crypto market cap: $1.32T
*All data as of today, 05:00 am ET
ICYMI: On Unchained Premium 💎
👯♀️ 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.