Dec. 2022 Wrap-up
The Friends of Pooly Monthly Digest
In this post, we'll cover a curated list of the most important news and developments from the previous month, including updates on fundraising efforts, as well as developments in crypto laws and compliance.
News and Headlines
All things FTX
A look inside Sam and Caroline’s grab-bag of crypto
SBF says he will testify in front of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services
FTX Executive Ryan Salame Tipped Off Bahamian Regulators to Possible Fraud
SBF denied bail by Bahamas Magistrate Court judge
The Block CEO Michael McCaffrey resigned after failing to disclose loans from Alameda Research, led by disgraced former FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried.
FTX Will Look to Retrieve Voluntary Payments From Third Parties, Possibly Including SBF's Political Donations
FTX New Management has Located $1 Billion in Assets, $720 million in cash
SEC Calls FTT Exchange Token a Security
Sam Bankman-Fried to be Extradited to the US
Ellison and Wang guilty pleas unsealed as Bankman-Fried granted bail
Acquisition:
Galaxy Digital Holdings, a digital assets and blockchain technology company, has announced its plans to acquire the Helios Bitcoin mining facility from Argo Blockchain.
Binance.US Agrees to Buy Voyager's Assets for $1.02B
Financial News:
Cryptocurrency derivatives exchange and clearinghouse LedgerX is reportedly for sale, with at least 10 companies expressing interest, including Blockchain.com, Gemini, Bitpanda and Kalshi.
Orthogonal Trading has defaulted on $36 million of loans on crypto lending platform Maple Finance after its funds became tied up on bankrupt exchange FTX.
Crypto broker Genesis and its parent company Digital Currency Group owe $900mn to customers of the Winklevoss twins' crypto exchange, Gemini, as the collapse of FTX continues to affect the market. (Cameron Winklevoss sends Barry Silbert with a January 8th deadline for DCG to repay loan and Barry responds)
GameStop will no longer focus on cryptocurrencies and has laid off staff from its digital assets department after incurring $94.7 million in net losses in Q3.
Crypto trading firm Amber Group owes $130 million to troubled crypto lender Vauld's CEO Darshan Bathija, according to a document obtained by The Block.
Bitcoin Miner Core Scientific Files for Bankruptcy, Expects Support From Some Debt Holders
Money Raised:
NFT infrastructure protocol Decent raises $3.5 million from Y Combinator and others
Blocknative raises $15 million to provide global infrastructure to Ethereum
Jack Dorsey Gives Decentralized Social Network Nostr 14 BTC in Funding
Shibuya Raises $6.9M In Seed Funding - @pplpleasr
Hacks:
An unknown group of attackers exploited an oracle issue on the BNB Chain-based staking platform Helio to drain $15 million in liquidity on Friday morning. The attack came hours after the DeFi Ankr was attacked for $5 million, where a former employee inserted malicious code enabling the attacker to mint and sell a large number of tokens, resulting in the loss of $5 million.
North Korean hackers have stolen an estimated $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency and other virtual assets worldwide over the past five years, according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service.
'Third-party incident' impacted Gemini with 5.7 million emails leaked
Raydium, a Solana-based AMM, lost a total of ~$4.4M in fees from its liquidity pools
Lodestar Finance, a Compound fork on Arbitrum, is the latest victim of the mass market manipulation that has affected both people and protocols across our industry.
Legal:
Karl Sebastian Greenwood, co-founder of the fraudulent cryptocurrency OneCoin, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering as part of a scheme that defrauded investors of over $4 billion.
A New York bankruptcy judge has issued subpoenas against the founders of Three Arrows Capital, Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, as liquidators seek to wind down the collapsed crypto fund.
Fir Tree, a hedge fund, is suing Grayscale, the world's largest publicly traded crypto fund, to obtain details about its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) in order to investigate potential mismanagement and conflicts of interest.
Yuga Labs and Moonpay are facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly promoting and selling non fungible tokens (NFTs) with the help of celebrities without disclosing required information.
Celsius Network must return around $44 million worth of crypto back to its customers, according to an order by Chief Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn.
Celebrities Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather Jr. dismissed from EthereumMax class-action lawsuit.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) calls on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the SEC's failure to protect investors from the mismanagement and malfeasance of FTX.
UK-based cryptocurrency lender Nexo has announced that it will phase out its US products and services over the coming months due to regulatory issues.
Supreme Court takes Coinbase appeal over crypto lawsuits
USPTO and US Copyright Office To Conduct a Joint Study on Intellectual Property Law and Policy Issues Related to NFTs
Avraham Eisenberg, the market manipulator behind the $115M Mango Markets case, has been arrested in Puerto Rico.
Sanctions:
NFT marketplace OpenSea is delisting Cuban artists and users to comply with US sanctions.
Privacy and Data
ConsenSys has updated its privacy policy for MetaMask and Infura, clarifying its data collection practices and committing to retaining and deleting user data after seven days.
News organizations seek to unmask anonymous FTX creditors
Laws and Compliance
Regulation:
US Senators Warren, Marshall Introduce Digital Assets Anti-Money Laundering Bill
Brazil's cryptocurrency regulation set to become law at midnight
Brazil Central Bank Planning CBDC Launch in 2024
Bank For International Settlements New Policy Allows Banks to Hold 2% of Reserves in Cryptocurrency
The Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has said that his agency has the necessary authority to enforce securities laws against crypto companies and does not require new powers.
NY Department of Financial Services proposes regulation increasing barriers to entry for crypto companies seeking licenses.
New York financial regulator issues cryptocurrency guidance for banks
The European Commission has proposed that all companies providing crypto services to EU residents must report transactions to tax authorities in order to close tax evasion gaps.
Spain's central bank is seeking proposals from financial institutions and tech providers for a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) project.
Bermuda Digital Bank Jewel Issues ‘Fully-Backed’ Stable coin -
Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) plans to lift the ban on foreign issued stable coins, including Tether and USDC, in 2023.
In case you missed
Ethereum developers target March 2023 for Shanghai hard fork
Microsoft has banned cryptocurrency mining from its online services.
Stripe creates a fiat-to-crypto onramp with a customizable widget that developers can easily integrate into their DEX, NFT platform, wallet, or dApp using only 10 lines of code.
Bridging and cross-chain swaps are available in the Rainbow wallet.
Toys’R’Us are launching their own digital collectibles on Magic Eden.
ETH Global announcing 2023 list of events
Visa Is Exploring Options To Allow Auto Payments Via Ethereum Wallets
EIP-4844 will be included into Ethereum!
PayPal Working With Crypto Wallet MetaMask to Offer Easy Way to Buy Crypto
CoinLedger Introduces the NFT Loss Harvestooor — A dApp that buys illiquid NFTs to help you claim losses and reduce your taxes.
Gnosis chain announces POS activated
Community Wins
Bankless has acquired Earnifi for $150 million, a tool that helps users find and claim airdrops and NTFs.
Friends of Pooly launches Pixel Pooly on Optimism Testnet
Good Reads
Regulating Crypto: Regulatory clarity and level playing field for centralized actors in exchanges, while preserving decentralized crypto innovation. by Brian Armstrong
Talking to the Protocol: An exploration into a new communication layer. By Gaby Goldberg & Sophie Fujiwara
Proof of Reserves: Nic Carter curated a list of all published Proof of Reserves
QUILIBRIUM: A PEER-TO-PEER MPC PLATFORM AS A SERVICE: Quilibrium is a new decentralized network model which leverages techniques that differ from common block chain constructions. By Cassandra Heart
What in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites me: By Vitalik
We welcome your feedback and input on any news topics or issues that are important to you.
If you have any suggestions for articles or stories that you would like to see covered in future newsletters, or if you have any comments or feedback on the content we have shared, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.
Your input is valuable to us and helps us ensure that our newsletters are informative and relevant to our readers.
Thank you for your support!
