Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_6182fd13a6e6a" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The company has raised $63 million in total, including a previous Series A round of $13 million in 2018, Shane Molidor, global head of business development at AscendEX told Blockworks</li>
 <li>AscendEx’s platform provides cross-collateralized staking products </li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Cryptocurrency financial platform AscendEX closed a $50 million Series B round led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC.



Other participants include Jump Capital, Alameda Research, Uncorrelated Ventures, Eterna Capital, Acheron Trading, Nothing Research and Palm Drive Capital.



Overall, the company has raised $63 million in total, including a previous Series A round of $13 million in 2018, Shane Molidor, global head of business development at AscendEX told Blockworks.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img loading="lazy" width="379" height="313" src="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AscendEX.jpg" alt="Shane Molidor, global head of business development at AscendEX" class="wp-image-10400" srcset="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AscendEX.jpg 379w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AscendEX-300x248.jpg 300w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AscendEX-311x257.jpg 311w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AscendEX-316x261.jpg 316w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AscendEX-265x219.jpg 265w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AscendEX-80x66.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 379px) 100vw, 379px" /><figcaption>Shane Molidor, global head of business development at AscendEX</figcaption></figure></div>



AscendEX’s platform provides cross-collateralized staking products so users can generate yield while trading on leverage, and maximize their trading and earning potential. The company launched a little over three years ago under the name BitMax, but rebranded to AscendEX in the second quarter of 2021, Molidor said.



“That rebrand signaled a paradigm shift for us,” Molidor said. “We’re seeking to ascend, evolve and become more than just an exchange and I think alongside that rebrand we started embracing the platform as more than an exchange, and emphasizing our earning products that bridge CeFi to DeFi,” he added.&nbsp;



Today, AscendEX has hit over $200 million in average daily trade volume and operates as a validator and yield farming portal for over 60 token projects, according to the press release. The funds will be used to enter new markets globally and further product innovation, it said.&nbsp;



The company is a registered trading platform in Singapore, so it has a strong presence in Asia-Pacific countries for its retail demographic, Molidor noted. AscendEX is not available in the US, but has a strong institutional presence in Western and Eastern Europe, he added.&nbsp;



“We’re talking about penetrating new demographics in crypto-centric places like the Middle East, Africa, Latin America — areas where it’s being identified as more than a speculative instrument and a cornerstone of everyday life,” he said.&nbsp;



In general, there has been immense growth in the ecosystem, Molidor said. “Users want to be able to do more with their assets. When you park your bitcoin on a platform you want to earn on that platform,” he said.



Funding for blockchain in the third quarter is at record heights, according to a recent <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/blockchain-trends-q3-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">research report</a> from CB Insights.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" width="1024" height="518" src="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-1024x518.png" alt="" class="wp-image-10403" srcset="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-1024x518.png 1024w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-300x152.png 300w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-768x389.png 768w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-1536x778.png 1536w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-428x217.png 428w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-470x238.png 470w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-389x197.png 389w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM-80x40.png 80w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-03-at-4.39.38-PM.png 1924w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure></div>



This week alone saw major funding rounds for companies in the metaverse, NFT and GameFi space, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/the-sandbox-raises-93m-in-round-led-by-softbank/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">including</a> a $98 million round for The Sandbox led by SoftBank.

Singapore’s AscendEX Raises $50M Round Led by Polychain Capital, Hack VC

Sebastian Sinclair

Several top law firms are reportedly banking millions in legal fees over bankruptcy proceedings instigated by former crypto lending giants earlier this year.



Kirkland &amp; Ellis, White &amp; Case and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart &amp; Sullivan are charging as much as $2,130 per hour to represent parties involved in Voyager Digital’s and Celsius Network’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases. The three law firms are ranked by American Lawyer, which first <a href="https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2022/11/30/am-law-50-law-firms-charging-seven-figure-legal-fees-in-crypto-bankruptcies/?slreturn=20221030185659" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> the news, as among the top 50 by revenue.&nbsp;



Several other US-headquartered firms are also involved in both cases, which have global implications.&nbsp;



Kirkland has billed Voyager $6.5 million in compensation and expense reimbursements, while also charging Celsius $7.1 million, according to The American Lawyer.&nbsp;



The steep fees provide a glimpse into just how much attorneys stand to make from the restructuring of now-defunct crypto companies, including Voyager and Celsius, which both filed for bankruptcy in July.&nbsp;



Sam Bankman-Fried’s former FTX empire is also seeking bankruptcy protection. And, with considerably more money at stake, those proceedings could up the ante further on legal fees.&nbsp;



In all instances, millions of dollars of customers&#8217; digital assets have been frozen on the platforms while proceedings play out.



<h3>Voyager fees start in the hundreds, eclipse $1,000 per hour</h3>



Kirkland, for instance, <a href="https://cases.stretto.com/public/x193/11753/PLEADINGS/1175307212280000000104.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">is charging Voyager</a> between $1,135 and $1,995 an hour for partners, as well as $650 and $1,245 for associates.



Kirkland generally increases its hourly rate twice a year, depending how a case progresses.



Quinn Emanuel, also representing Voyager, has <a href="https://cases.stretto.com/public/x193/11753/PLEADINGS/1175307212280000000104.pdf">already billed</a> $2.5 million to the defunct company.&nbsp;



Kirkland is acting as Voyager’s general counsel, while Quinn Emanuel has a more-defined responsibility as part of its so-called special committee. The committee’s primary role is to investigate Voyager’s historical transactions, public reports and regulatory issues.



Quinn Emanuel is raking in $1,246 to $1,917 an hour for its partners. Associates are charging $747 to $1,183, and paralegals clock in between $432 and $603.&nbsp;



Quinn Emanuel is also advising FTX’s sister trading firm, the insolvent Alameda Research — which was dragged down by the exchange’s collapse.&nbsp;



Chicago-based McDermott Will &amp; Emer, meanwhile, is laying claim to $2.3 million in legal fees and is expecting an additional $63,000 of expenses.



<h3>Celsius’ fees mount, too</h3>



The three law firms assisting Celsius have likewise racked up millions of dollars in fees and expenses.



Kirkland &amp; Ellis is general counsel, while Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &amp; Feld and Latham &amp; Watkins are advising debtors in complementary capacities.&nbsp;



So far, Kirkland has billed Celsius $7.1 million, Akin Gump $1.4 million and Latham and Watkins $1.7 million.&nbsp;



New York-based law firm White &amp; Case, meanwhile, says it is owed $5.9 million for representing unsecured creditors of the former crypto lending giant Celsius from July 29 to Sept. 30.



Representatives for all of the law firms did not immediately return requests for comment.

Crypto Bankruptcies Have No Winners: Except Their Lawyers

Casey Wagner

In a highly anticipated and wide-ranging interview, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried claimed he was both unaware of and not intentionally committing fraud — and largely dismissed his prospects for criminal or civil prosecution.&nbsp;



“I didn’t knowingly commingle funds,” Bankman-Fried said. “I wasn’t trying to commingle funds,” he added moments later.&nbsp;



Bankman-Fried appeared virtually from an undisclosed location at the New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday. Though he has lived in the Bahamas since FTX moved its headquarters there in 2021, Bankman-Fried’s current whereabouts are unclear.&nbsp;



Bankman-Fried confirmed he did, at one point, live with “one or two” members from the Alameda Research team, although he maintained the companies operated separately enough that he was not aware of margin positions and liquidity levels. Alameda, also founded by Bankman-Fried, is a now-insolvent crypto market maker.&nbsp;



Bankman-Fried said he was “frankly surprised at how big Alameda’s position was” in FTX’s native token, FTT, and that he was not worried about customer losses or potential insolvency until Nov. 2, when details of the trading firm’s balance sheet was published by CoinDesk.&nbsp;



“I substantially underestimated the scale of the crash and the speed of it,” he said of FTT’s collapse.&nbsp;



By Nov. 6, the founder said he was aware that customer funds were likely to be impacted and FTX would not likely be able to make customers whole. This was “the day the tweet about FTT” came out, Bankman-Fried said, referring to rival exchange Binance’s Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao’s <a href="https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1589374530413215744?s=20&amp;t=wB7_kTDethngT8h2w91TNA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">viral announcement</a> his company would be liquidating their FTT. 



This timeline contradicts a now-deleted tweet from Bankman-Fried on Nov. 7 where he promised users client assets were not improperly invested elsewhere — a direct violation of the exchange’s terms of service.&nbsp;



As for FTX US, the exchange’s American subsidiary, Bankman-Fried said user funds should be safe.&nbsp;



​​FTX US is “totally solvent,” he said. “I’m confused why FTX US is not processing customer withdrawals right now.”



Bankman-Fried said he agreed to the interview against his lawyers’ recommendation, but he felt an obligation to speak, he said.&nbsp;



“Obviously, I don&#8217;t, I don&#8217;t personally think that I have, you know… I think the real answer is that&#8217;s not what I&#8217;m focusing on,” Bankman-Fried said about the likelihood of criminal charges being brought against him. “I’ve had a bad month.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Asked if he would be able to travel to the US — where he would potentially come face-to-face with securities regulators — Bankman-Fried said, “to my knowledge, I could.”



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Bankman-Fried ‘Substantially Underestimated’ Size, Speed of FTX Collapse

Macauley Peterson

The collapse of FTX has put crypto market participants on edge.&nbsp;



You see it in the embrace of unsubstantiated, doomsday Twitter chatter, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/weth-fud-is-a-joke" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">no matter how fanciful</a>. And you see it in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoins-correlation-with-stocks-bonds-hits-3-month-low" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">decoupling of crypto markets</a> from tech equities.



The entire industry, essentially, has been called into question — from the prospect of Ethereum developers delaying withdrawals of staked ether to Coinbase’s safe storage of bitcoins <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/the-grayscale-dilemma-a-record-discount-and-a-golden-goose" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">backing Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust</a> (GBTC).



In the tumultuous last few weeks, wrapped bitcoin on Ethereum (WBTC) fell uncomfortably below par, but finally returned to a healthy valuation on the spot market toward the end of the stock trading session in New York. The deviation started in earnest on Nov. 11 — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cryptos-erase-gains-ftx-token-slips-further-on-bankruptcy-news" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the day FTX declared bankruptcy</a> — and reached a Nov. 25 nadir of around 0.985 BTC, on the Binance exchange, according to data from TradingView.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Pd3KNivKba52YYMqNgqUFq6WX7fC2x6tegWOEKsPfWEAt_8g_b3cV46FwbaxDHBg23ihvE010JZBFzNDBgyLvqazUBw2NqhEpRQ9GpAOKN4W8t5RrYN5fnH1HzRJ4QdwsZUs5h3rOTN41aJ6QG5zeQ7RKbrJibk7-M7napbRbHfZ0SO_y9Ob_YtzfHqmdw" alt=""/><figcaption>WBTC:BTC pair on Binance, daily timeframe; Source: TradingVideo</figcaption></figure></div>


Euler Finance’s CEO Michael Bentley told Blockworks the incident can be lumped in with general nervousness about lending and borrowing markets.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“There were some unfortunate circumstances, and frankly it made me a little nervous when I first started reading about some of the issues as well,” Bentley said.</blockquote>



He referenced the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, which may have slowed the pace of WBTC redemptions for underlying BTC, as partly to blame.



Market data provider Kaiko called the slide a “crisis of confidence.”



“Investors panicked after charts circulating on Twitter showed that Alameda Research is by far the top WBTC merchant by the number of tokens minted, having created more than 100,000 WBTC. This sparked fears that WBTC is not fully backed,” Kaiko <a href="https://marketing.kaiko.com/wrapped-assets-under-scrutiny" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote</a> in its newsletter on Monday.



But such panic, like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/weth-fud-is-a-joke" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the misread of wrapped ether</a>, which Bentley said “spread like wildfire, despite being a joke,” betrays a basic misunderstanding of how WBTC works.



For WBTC to be minted on Ethereum, BitGo takes custody of an equivalent amount of BTC. So, Alameda’s insolvency has no relevance; any WBTC they hold either required them to send BTC to BitGo first, or was bought off the spot market. Either way, BitGo has the bitcoins and can redeem them for any circulating WBTC in the market when needed. Chen Fang, BitGo’s chief operating officer, sought to allay investor fears via a tweet that did, indeed, mark the bottom of the crisis.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">BitGo is just the custodian — all end user minting/burning must go through one of the merchants in the WBTC network or trade it at an exchange If folks capitulates to fake news, the market makers win — every WBTC is 1:1 backed, verifiable on chain&mdash; 🍟 Chen Fang (@chenbfang) <a href="https://twitter.com/chenbfang/status/1596225826995179520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 25, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



There was another “unfortunate circumstance,” as Bentley put it.



“It seems also that they have this multisig that helps participate in the redemption process…it appears that a couple of people on this multisig either lost access or needed to have their access removed,” he said. “And they decided to make this change at a time when everyone was nervous.”



Victor Tran, CEO of Kyber Network and a member of the multi-signature custodial setup, <a href="https://twitter.com/vutran54/status/1596162341196136448" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a> he saw no evidence of delayed redemptions but was coordinating the <a href="https://github.com/WrappedBTC/DAO/pull/12">amendment to the multisig keys</a> with BitGo. The group was reduced from 18 to 13, with the number of signatories required to approve transactions dropping from 11 to 8. Notably, one of those removed was the key held by FTX-owned Blockfolio.



The confusion around what was happening led the normal arbitrage market behavior — which normally would restore the peg in such cases — to stall.



“The market’s very inefficient right now, everyone’s very, very nervous; liquidity’s thin in a lot of places,” Bentley said.



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Unusual Wobble in Wrapped Bitcoin Showed Trader Fear

David Canellis

European central bankers, on brand as ever, have shared a tersely worded cope-memo decrying bitcoin and its dastardly ways — and inadvertently made the case for never regulating it.



The essay doubles as a no-coiner bingo card of sorts. It’s a string of silly misnomers and half-truths: “Bitcoin is rarely used for legal transactions” and “the market valuation of Bitcoin is therefore based purely on speculation.”



But within the ECB’s <a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2022/html/ecb.blog221130~5301eecd19.en.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">musings</a>, first published in German finance press Handelsblatt, there are a few points that actually ring true.



Director general Ulrich Bindseil and adviser Jürgen Schaaf rattled off an oft-cited criticism that says Bitcoin generates as much e-waste as the Netherlands (a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/17/waste-from-one-bitcoin-transaction-like-binning-two-iphones" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statistic</a> based on <a href="https://datadrivenlab.org/climate/blockchain-energy-consumption-debunking-the-misperceptions-of-bitcoins-and-blockchains-climate-impact/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hotly</a> <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/no-bitcoin-is-likely-not-going-to-consume-all-the-worlds-energy-in-2020.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">debated</a> modeling from former Dutch central bank collaborator Alex de Vries).&nbsp;



Dovetailing with that tidbit, the pair rightly point out that depreciation of mining hardware (described as an inefficiency of the system) is not a flaw, but a feature. “It is one of the peculiarities to guarantee the integrity of the completely decentralized system.”



That’s entirely true. Capitalistic game theory dictates the bitcoin industry relentlessly develop faster and more energy-efficient mining rigs. Miners want to spend the same amount of energy for more bitcoin, so they’ll invent new mining rigs that will generate more hash rate with less energy.



Miners that can’t afford them (or can’t access credit) will inevitably fall to the wayside, prioritizing efficiency across the board above all else.&nbsp;



In fact, the value proposition of the network relies heavily on its claim to decentralization; a bitcoin miner monopoly could very well render the network less valuable than if it were shared more equally — especially if they wield more than 51% of the hash rate.



This makes bitcoin mining as much a team game as it is a solo sport.&nbsp;



The freedom to develop, invest and accumulate bitcoin mining rigs directly inspires decentralization. Chinese chipset maker Bitmain was once a powerhouse of bitcoin mining, and some might argue a deeply centralizing factor, <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitmain-nears-51-network-hash-rate-why-matters-and-why-it-doesnt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">controlling almost</a> 51% of Bitcoin hash rate in 2018.



But <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/01/26/bitmain-co-founder-exits-resolving-years-long-power-struggle-as-mining-firm-preps-ipo/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">infighting</a>, restrictive regulations at home, and an untenable position in Bitcoin Cash has all but scrubbed Bitmain — which bases its entire business on the “inefficiency” of the Bitcoin system — from the mining map, with an array of bitcoin mining companies and pools taking its place.



The authors follow up that righteous Bitcoin factoid with another: Bitcoin should not be regulated as a form of payment or investment.&nbsp;



Schaaf and Bindseil actually justify never regulating Bitcoin by claiming it “appears neither suitable as a payment system nor as a form of investment. But fewer words from a central banker have rung as soundly as Bitcoin “should be treated as neither in regulatory terms.”



Yes. That’s an excellent Bitcoin mantra: Do away with government-powered, Sauron-style surveillance of the Bitcoin network. And while you’re at it, scrap the tax regulations.



The Internal Revenue Service considers BTC an asset just like property, which renders every transaction a taxable event. This obviously renders some crypto-folks’ quests to pay for coffee and burgers with bitcoin a <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-tax-reporting-nightmare-2023" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pain in the ass</a>.&nbsp;



Let’s hope the ECB’s wise suggestion of keeping big government out of little bitcoin catches on.



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Yes! The European Central Bank Gets This Right About Bitcoin!

Jack Kubinec

DeFi protocols have seen their usage swell as investors flee centralized crypto exchanges.&nbsp;



The top ten decentralized exchanges by on-chain value have all seen their trading volumes <a href="https://messari.io/protocol-explorer/decentralized-exchange" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">jump by over 30%</a> this month. And a Kaiko research note found DEX tokens saw their prices the least affected by FTX’s fall, even as bitcoin and other layer-1s test new lows.



For some, it looks like DeFi is ready for its big break, as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hey-daos-are-venture-capitalists-your-friends" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">venture capitalists descend</a> on DAOs and centralized crypto faces deep reputational damage. But others urge caution. Will Harborne, CEO of rhino.fi, noted the boost in DeFi usage comes at the cost of crypto usage in general.



“We&#8217;ve had our most active volumes and number of users in the last few weeks, basically because people are withdrawing from centralized changes and topping up their accounts, but we&#8217;ve also had some of our lowest numbers of new users,” Harborne said.&nbsp;



Harborne sees DeFi seeing major sustained growth in a two to three year window. This sentiment is common in crypto’s post-FTX reality — that DeFi is the inevitable destination once crypto grows out of its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-behaving-like-teenager" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">adolescence</a>.



<h3>The struggle for credibility</h3>



“After the events of 2022, decentralized protocols will likely enjoy a bump in credibility, while centralized players getting too creative with their books will feel more regulatory heat — and will probably take a dent or two in terms of user confidence” Max Thake, co-founder of peaq, said in an emailed statement.



The term DeFi typically refers to two kinds of protocols: DEXs and lending platforms. DEXs, such as Uniswap or Curve, let users trade crypto with automated market makers that match buyers with sellers using smart contracts. Lending platforms, like Aave or Compound, let users lend and borrow crypto while either paying or receiving interest. Assets are mixed together in liquidity pools, and an algorithm automatically liquidates accounts if their collateral falls below a certain level. Many DeFi protocols are governed by DAOs.



The common thread is that computer code, instead of people, governs DeFi, so protocols can’t do things like secretly <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-run-by-inexperienced-unsophisticated-traders-court-hears" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">lend out customer deposits</a>.



“DeFi is the answer,” Harborne said. “People will be able to fully onboard into DeFi and only use DeFi and avoid these things.”



Still, DeFi isn’t a silver bullet to crypto’s woes. While DeFi customers don’t need to worry about nefarious executives, they do risk falling victim to a hack, which has looted more than $300 billion from DeFi coffers this year. And, liquidity isn’t guaranteed — Aave <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-tightens-risk-controls" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">froze some assets</a> this week after a vulnerability in one of its lending markets was exploited, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/aave-curve-bad-debt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">leaving the protocol</a> with $1.7 million in bad debt.



DeFi protocols seem less prone to wholesale collapse in the mold of Mt. Gox or FTX. Even Terra, which got as close to bankruptcy as any in DeFi, relaunched and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/terra-dao-platform-opens" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">is still kicking</a>. But JPMorgan, which executed its first DeFi trade earlier this month, doesn’t think DeFi can claim the mantle from centralized exchanges.



“DeFi protocols rely heavily on centralized exchanges to be able to function,” the bank wrote in a crypto report last week, before giving a laundry list of concerns about DeFi: Centralized exchanges boast quicker price discovery, protocols have lost billions to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/october-already-record-month-for-hacks-and-exploits" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hacks</a> this year, cascading automated liquidations could create systemic risks, and the overcollateralization common in DeFi is inefficient.



Crypto investors fleeing to lending protocols won’t find much yield, either. Aave and Compound, the two preeminent lending pools, both list yield under 3%. US Treasury yields currently sit <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates-bonds/government-bonds/us" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">north of 3.5%</a>.



Representatives for Aave and Compound did not return requests for comment.



Harborne said yield is a measure of capital’s perceived value, and percentages should increase as DeFi does more to prove its usefulness. And as for the rest of DeFi’s issues?



“DeFi isn&#8217;t quite yet ready to onboard everyone,” Harborne said. “[But] all these things can and are and will be solved.”



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Is DeFi Ready for Prime Time?

Ornella Hernandez

Animoca Brands, blockchain gaming giant and venture capital company, plans to raise between $1 billion and $2 billion as part of a new metaverse-focused fund called Animoca Capital, Nikkei Asia reported.



The fund is looking to invest in mid- to late-stage metaverse businesses, according to Yat Sui, Animoca’s co-founder and executive chairman. It will focus on digital property rights for NFTs and land in the metaverse, and function as a “good entry point” for investors to access Web3 companies.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HongKong?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HongKong</a>-based <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/blockchain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#blockchain</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gaming?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#gaming</a> group <a href="https://twitter.com/animocabrands?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AnimocaBrands</a> plans to launch a fund of up to $2 billion to invest in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/metaverse?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#metaverse</a> businesses, according to company co-founder and Executive Chairman <a href="https://twitter.com/ysiu?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ysiu</a>. Read the full story: <a href="https://t.co/92Y3uYzrym">https://t.co/92Y3uYzrym</a>&mdash; Animoca Brands (@animocabrands) <a href="https://twitter.com/animocabrands/status/1597865721320865792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 30, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Animoca Brands has grown to become the largest blockchain investment unit in Asia by being an early investor in projects such as OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, Star Atlas and Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis.



However, Animoca itself has various backers, such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/singapores-temasek-aims-100m-at-metaverse-giant-animoca" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Temasek</a> and True Global Ventures, who now want to directly invest in later stage companies with less risk and not just be exposed to Animoca’s portfolio companies — hence the new Animoca Capital structure.



“The fund will be focused on equity optimization,” Sui told Nikkei Asia when describing the need for a separate investment vehicle. “As a fund, you optimize for return. So it&#8217;s different.”&nbsp;



Its first investment in a startup is expected to happen next year, and there will be no geographical restrictions when assessing startups, he added.



Animoca did not immediately respond to Blockworks’ request for a comment.



Animoca Brands has over 340 investments and dozens of subsidiaries in the Web3 space, including The Sandbox. Its portfolio investment and digital asset reserves combined were valued at approximately $5.7 billion as of June 2022, according to a <a href="https://www.animocabrands.com/glimpsing-the-future-through-the-lens-of-days-past" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">letter</a> from the chair.  



Animoca has been “building an open Web3 and facilitating an open metaverse” and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/the-sandbox-parent-animoca-brands-raises-359m-to-build-out-open-metaverse" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raised $358 million fundraising in January</a> and completed another <a href="https://www.animocabrands.com/animoca-brands-raises-usd110million-in-funding-round-led-by-temasek-boyu-capital-ggv-capital" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$110 million raise in September</a> to do so.



It has also partnered with Yuga Labs on the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/web3-watch-yuga-labs-takes-voyagers-to-the-otherside-while-minecraft-bans-nfts">Others</a><a href="https://blockworks.co/news/web3-watch-yuga-labs-takes-voyagers-to-the-otherside-while-minecraft-bans-nfts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">i</a><a href="https://blockworks.co/news/web3-watch-yuga-labs-takes-voyagers-to-the-otherside-while-minecraft-bans-nfts">de project</a>, the metaverse game of Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club. And most recently has <a href="https://www.animocabrands.com/faze-clan-enters-the-metaverse-in-partnership-with-the-sandbox-to-bring-faze-world-to-life" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> a partnership with esports company FaZe Clan to co-produce events and games in The Sandbox.



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Animoca’s New $2B Investment Fund Focuses on the Metaverse

Inflation is far from over, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday, but a rate-hike slowdown is still on the table for December. Regardless, according to the central bank head, rates will keep rising and remain high “for some time.”&nbsp;



&#8220;It will take substantially more evidence to give comfort that inflation is actually declining,” Powell said during an appearance at the Brookings Institute in Washington. “By any standard, inflation remains much too high.&#8221;



Markets immediately rallied on the news. The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes both gained about 1% and 1.5% in the moments following Powell’s speech, respectively. Crypto also jumped into the green, with bitcoin and ether rising 3% and 5.3%, respectively.&nbsp;



“We need to raise interest rates to a level that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2%,” Powell <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/events/federal-reserve-chair-jerome-powell-the-economic-outlook-and-the-labor-market/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>. “There&#8217;s considerable uncertainty about what rate will be sufficient.”



Stable prices can only be achieved through supply and demand management, Powell said — adding that reaching the central bank’s inflation target is likely going to require more-tempered growth. Waning of pandemic-era easy monetary policy, raising housing prices and global unrest have also contributed to the economy’s sluggish pace, Powell added.&nbsp;



The speech comes weeks after the Fed’s last rate-setting meeting on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cryptos-stocks-rally-on-fourth-straight-0-75-interest-rate-increase" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nov. 2</a> when the central bank opted to raise interest rates by 0.75% for the fourth straight time. The US central bank cited slowing consumer spending and production levels.



In June, when the central bank opted to raise rates 75 basis points for the first time this cycle, Powell called the move “<a href="https://blockworks.co/powell-calls-feds-0-75-rate-increase-unusually-large-warns-of-slowing-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unusually large</a>.”  But if current conditions persist, higher increases could become the norm, he later warned.



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Powell Slightly Hawkish Ahead of December Meeting

Bessie Liu

Binance has acquired a highly regulated crypto exchange in Sakura Exchange BitCoin (SEBC) for an undisclosed amount as it, once again, makes moves to enter the Japanese market.



Japan’s financial regulators have previously <a href="https://www.fsa.go.jp/policy/virtual_currency02/Binance2_keikokushilyo.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">warned consumers</a> that Binance is not registered to do business in the country, stating that the exchange has been conducting unauthorized transactions locally.



In a blog post <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/blog/ecosystem/binance-acquires-jfsa-registered-sakura-exchange-bitcoin-committed-to-enter-japan-under-regulatory-compliance-1479109563632749072" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announcing</a> the acquisition, the top exchange by global trade volume said, “by offering Japanese-regulated services through SEBC, Binance aims to support a responsible global environment for cryptocurrencies.”



SEBC’s website shows trade for only 11 cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ether and ripple against the yen. Binance Japan’s General Manager Takeshi Chino said the company will be “actively work[ing] with regulators to develop our combined exchange in a compliant way for local users.”



“Japan is a big market for digital assets, and it’s pretty clear that Binance sees this as an opportunity to tap into this market,” Brent Xu, CEO and co-founder of Umee, a Web3 bond-market platform, told Blockworks.



Although, this isn’t the only reason for Binance to move into the Japanese market, Xu said. Its acquisition of SEBC comes at a time where regulators worldwide have been wary of cryptocurrency exchanges following the collapse of Binance’s rival FTX.&nbsp;



“FTX had recently acquired the Japanese exchange Liquid, and Liquid has since experienced serious issues because of FTX’s collapse,” Xu said.&nbsp;



Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is credited with spurring FTX’s unraveling by pledging to offload more than half a billion dollars in the platform’s native token, before offering to acquire FTX only to pull out.



Liquid halted withdrawals to <a href="https://twitter.com/Liquid_Global/status/1594313077700591620" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">comply</a> with FTX’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-contagions-next-victim-a-japanese-exchange" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chapter 11 bankruptcy</a> proceedings initiated in Delaware earlier this month — leaving room for Binance to swoop in.



According to recent <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-30/ftx-s-japan-unit-drafts-plan-to-return-client-funds" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a> from Bloomberg, Liquid has been working on a yet-to-be-finalized plan that will allow its customers to get their money back, a rarity for bankrupt firms worldwide. The plan is set to be executed in January.



“So, again, Binance smells opportunity here, and this play makes business sense,” Xu said. “On a global level, I should note, this is a broader strategic play by Binance to reinforce its status as the dominant digital asset exchange.”



<h3>Binance ‘trying to capitalize on the moment’</h3>



Japan is not the only country that Binance has been making moves in. It has also secured regulatory approvals and authorizations in France, Italy, Spain, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, Poland, Lithuania and Cyprus amid a push for nods seen across the crypto ecosystem.



This does not come as a surprise to Calanthia Mei, co-founder of Masa Finance, a soulbound identity protocol.



“Binance is well positioned financially, and they are preparing to expand their presence globally,” she said.



“People in Japan are very tech-focused, and this [acquisition] likely means they are open to frontier technologies like digital assets. So Binance sees demand for its services there and is trying to capitalize on the moment,” she added.



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Binance Seizes FTX Bankruptcy To Expand Into Japan — Again

Jon Rice

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell has announced that around 30% of the company’s staff will be laid off as a direct result of the ongoing crypto winter, a bear market that has claimed major companies and thousands of jobs across the globe.



Powell noted in a Kraken blog post that “This reduction takes our team size back to where it was only 12 months ago” and described the move as necessary because “negative influences on the financial markets have continued and we have exhausted preferable options for bringing costs in line with demand.”



CoinGecko lists Kraken as the fifth-largest crypto exchange by volume, with a 24-hour volume of over half a billion dollars.



The 11-year old crypto exchange <a href="https://blog.kraken.com/post/16442/business-update/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">offered</a> 16 weeks of pay to staff who were laid off, as well as an extension of a window to exercise vested stock options and immigration support for those who need it.



Powell, the co-founder of Kraken who <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/kraken-ceo-jesse-powell-steps-down" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">recently announced</a> that he would be leaving the role of CEO, gained a reputation within the crypto industry as a pugnacious but caring employer who believed strongly in the original philosophical tenets of cryptocurrency.



“I’m confident the steps we are taking today will ensure we can continue to deliver on our mission which the world needs now more than ever before,” he said.



Kraken <a href="https://blog.kraken.com/post/14372/kraken-announces-global-hiring-push-and-commitment-to-crypto-first-culture/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previously announced</a> in June 2022 that &#8220;We have not adjusted our hiring plan, and we do not intend to make any layoffs.&#8221; In a passionate Twitter thread on November 10, following the FTX meltdown, Powell said &#8220;I pray that we don&#8217;t lose our people, like we did in the wake of Gox.&#8221;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">14/ I pray for everyone who got caught up in this mess. I hope it doesn&#39;t turn you off of crypto. I hope you take care of yourself and continue to be a part of this community. These are growing pains. Money can be made again. Stay with me. I remain your humble servant, Jesse&mdash; Jesse Powell (@jespow) <a href="https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1590635245912887298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 10, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Blockworks has reached out to Kraken for comment.



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Kraken Lays Off Over 1,000 People as Crypto Winter Wears On

As the crypto industry continues to reel from FTX’s collapse, total assets under management for digital asset investment products is at its lowest level in almost two years, according to data from CryptoCompare.&nbsp;



Digital asset management firms saw their AUM decline by an average of 14.5% in November, the lowest monthly figure recorded since December 2020, researchers noted.&nbsp;



Trust products specifically, such as Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), saw a 13.6% decline in AUM, bringing total value held down to $15.3 billion. Trust products as a whole make up close to 80% of total crypto investment product AUM.&nbsp;



“AUM represented by ETFs also saw a significant fall of 23.9% to $1.68bn in November, representing 8.64% of the total market share,” CryptoCompare analysts wrote in the <a href="https://www.cryptocompare.com/media/43936180/damr_november.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report</a>. “As of November, the market share of ETFs has fallen 24.9% since its 2022 peak in June.”&nbsp;



As investor interest in crypto ETFs shows signs of waning, Grayscale is holding out hope the SEC will greenlight its plans to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-grayscale-exploring-bitcoin-trust-options" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">convert GBTC to an ETF</a>.&nbsp;



“The SEC will use the FTX situation to argue that their position is correct — that GBTC shouldn’t be converted to an ETF,” said Jeffrey Blockinger, Quadrata’s general counsel. “The delay in pushing regulation forward on Capitol Hill could in turn be used by the SEC to reinforce its stance towards the GBTC application to become an ETF.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



The topic has come under further scrutiny in recent weeks as concerns about Grayscale’s parent company, Digital Currency Group, and its solvency mount. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/the-grayscale-dilemma-a-record-discount-and-a-golden-goose" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Analysts and bankruptcy</a> experts, however, remain confident that GBTC assets would remain protected in the event of a bankruptcy filing, which DCG has maintained it is determined to avoid.&nbsp;



Crypto investment products on the whole have experienced a significant decline in inflows since signs of trouble at FTX first started to surface in early November. In the week of Oct. 31, digital asset investment vehicle providers had about $27.4 billion in AUM, according to <a href="https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-104-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-4f7e017fed86" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">data</a> from CoinShares. By the week of Nov. 21, that number had dropped to around $22.2 billion, CoinShares <a href="https://blog.coinshares.com/volume-107-digital-asset-fund-flows-weekly-report-8c4942fcc525" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>.&nbsp;



Inflows to short-bias funds by contrast <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/what-fud-coinshares-reports-largest-inflows-in-months" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">have been rising</a>. The week of Nov. 21 was marked by “deeply negative sentiment with the largest inflows into short-investments on record,” James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, said.&nbsp;



“Short investment product inflows represented 75% of the total inflows, suggesting on aggregate sentiment was deeply negative for the asset class, while total AuM is now at the lowest point in 2 years at $22 billion,” Butterfill added.



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Crypto Investment Product AUM Drops to Lowest Level Since 2020

Shalini Nagarajan

Sam Bankman-Fried, disgraced boss of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, has claimed an extra $4 billion appeared minutes after filing for bankruptcy — money he says could’ve made out-of-pocket users whole.



“Eight…minutes after I filed for bankruptcy, $4 billion more [of liquidity] came in,” he said, without elaborating on where or who it came from. When asked whether that amount could be used for customer recovery, Bankman-Fried said he was working on it.&nbsp;



The bankruptcy process means current trustees are seeking alternatives to maximize value for creditors, according to the former crypto billionaire, who says he’s been locked out of the proceedings in lieu of restructuring lawyers.



Lawyers reckon FTX owes funds to up to one million users. “I honest to God believe that if I hadn’t filed for bankruptcy, all users would be whole and withdrawals would be on…and not just [FTX] US, international as well,” he said in a 23-minute <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DezodR9hNI&amp;t=8s" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">interview</a> conducted on Nov. 16, about a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-bankrupt-hacked-investigated-a-timeline-of-events" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">week after</a> the exchange and its subsidiaries declared bankruptcy.&nbsp;



As fellow YouTuber Coffeezilla <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rL35_WV3lE" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pointed out in a video</a> breaking down both interviews with crypto vlogger Tiffany Fong, it’s difficult to take Bankman-Fried’s claims seriously.



Allegations of misappropriating user funds aside, he repeatedly reassured FTX users that the exchange remained solvent throughout a crippling $6 billion bankrun.&nbsp;



FTX was in fact insolvent. FTX, FTS US and adjacent trading unit Alamada Research are now under the oversight of veteran restructurer John J. Ray III, who replaced Bankman-Fried after his resignation.



With this in mind, skepticism is warranted when it comes to Bankman-Fried’s version of events going forward.&nbsp;



<h3>Sam Bankman-Fried: ‘I could barely use the system’</h3>



Bankman-Fried admitted that customer wire transfers directed to FTX went to Alameda by default, because FTX didn’t have its own bank account when it started. This led to accounting problems that got out of hand, Bankman-Fried said.



FTX’s native token FTT was central to FTX and Alameda’s intertwined accounting. FTT featured prominently on both Alameda and FTX’s balance sheets, while Bankman-Fried firms owned a majority of the tokens in existence — creating a precarious position worsened by weakened token prices.



The value proposition for FTT, like many other crypto exchange tokens, mostly relies on two things: discounts on trading fees and buy-and-burn schemes, the latter of which consists of the exchange itself buying up its own token and destroying the haul. Often exchanges will use revenue from trading fees as part of that system.&nbsp;



“I think FTT was basically more legit than most tokens in some ways. I think its value is more economically underpinned than the average token was,” Bankman-Fried told Fong in defense of using the token so prominently in his accounting.



Separately in the interview, Bankman-Fried downplayed allegations that he’d built a backdoor to siphon funds from FTX to Alameda without alerting auditors or internal systems.&nbsp;



He claimed he wouldn’t have been able to create such a system as he didn’t actually know how to code or how to use FTX’s backend. “I could barely use the system. I used this system from a user interface perspective. But I literally never opened the code for FTX,” he said.



Coffeezilla later pointed out that the Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/exclusive-least-1-billion-client-funds-missing-failed-crypto-firm-ftx-sources-2022-11-12/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report</a> containing the initial allegations actually claimed FTX Chief Technology Officer Gary Wang built the backdoor — not Bankman-Fried — leaving the matter unaddressed.



<h3>Bankman-Fried says he gave dark money to Republicans</h3>



In the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP54LZB3WRw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">second interview</a> with Fong on Nov. 20, Bankman-Fried sounded more reflective and deliberate. He acknowledged that any apologies now ring hollow.



A key problem for the exchange, according to him, was that no individual was solely in charge of monitoring the risk of monetary positions.&nbsp;



He also added that FTX’s situation would be a “lot more stable” had Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao not expressed concerns about its balance sheet before pledging to dump more than half a billion dollars in FTT.



Bankman-Fried’s political donations also came up, as he was among the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/crypto-firms-executives-step-up-campaign-donations-lobbying-ahead-of-midterms-11667612593?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">biggest donors</a> in US politics ahead of this year’s midterm elections. As Blockworks previously reported, Bankman-Fried personally donated <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-donations-campaign-finance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$40 million</a> to Democratic candidates and political action committees, the latter of which contributed to campaigns on both sides of the aisle.&nbsp;



He was also <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/sam-bankman-fried-biden-donor.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">famously</a> the second-highest contributor to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign behind media mogul Mike Bloomberg, giving $5.2 million to Bloomberg’s $56 million. The splurge left many to consider Bankman-Fried a staunch Democrat.



Bankman-Fried however told Fong that he actually donated about the same to both parties. His Republican donations were dark and therefore didn’t require disclosure.



According to <a href="https://campaignlegal.org/update/what-dark-money" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Campaign Legal</a>, “wealthy special interests can easily hide their political spending from the public and avoid accountability for trying to rig the system and influence our votes and our government…by giving to super PACs through non-profits.”



Bankman-Fried said he opted to make his donations to Democrats public as journalists “freak the f— out” when figures backed Republican causes.



David Canellis contributed reporting.



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Sam Bankman-Fried: FTX Would Be More Stable if CZ Stayed Silent

The BlockFi bankruptcy last week marked the latest instance of crypto’s collapse starting to resemble TradFi’s 2008 crisis. More high-flying firms are running out of financial runway, if they have yet to shut their doors entirely.&nbsp;



Attorneys for BlockFi — once one of the largest crypto lenders — appeared before a bankruptcy court in New Jersey, where the company is headquartered, on Monday. Industry participants, closely following the proceedings, told Blockworks what BlockFi’s insolvency means for the industry more broadly.&nbsp;



Crypto companies, if the entities haven’t done so already, ought to take a serious look at their accounting practice and ensure compliance with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-industry-must-report-bad-actors" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fast-moving</a> regulatory requirements, according to Aaron Jacob, head of accounting solutions at TaxBit.



“After a chaotic crypto winter, regulatory clarity, transparency, and better accounting will let spring finally emerge again,” Jacob said.



BlockFi’s next court appearance is tentatively set for Jan. 9, 2023. Below is a rundown of what&#8217;s happened so far:



<h3>BlockFi sues Sam Bankman-Fried for Robinhood shares</h3>



Soon after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, BlockFi <a href="https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/109/1094078/118164201903.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sued</a> embattled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried for outstanding Robinhood shares.&nbsp;



BlockFi alleged it entered a Nov. 9 agreement to specific payment obligations from an unnamed borrower, later identified as Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, by pledging unidentified “common stock” as collateral.&nbsp;



Bankman-Fried previously acquired a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-denies-claims-to-acquire-robinhood" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">7.6%</a> stake in Robinhood, leading to speculation the former FTX chief executive could purchase the brokerage firm outright, though the company <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-denies-claims-to-acquire-robinhood" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">later denied</a> a potential acquisition being on the table.



BlockFi is now looking to cash in on the collateral as the likelihood of Alameda repaying its loan is very slim.&nbsp;



<h3>Two-thirds of staff will be laid off</h3>



Following the demise of Three Arrows Capital, BlockFi had already cut its staff by <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cryptocurrency-lender-blockfi-set-to-cut-staff-by-a-fifth" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">one-fifth</a>.



BlockFi now has 292 employees and 82 contractors, according to Joshua Sussberg, a partner at law firm Kirkland &amp; Ellis.



After selling roughly <a href="https://www.docdroid.net/dvgRC8u/x3tecaphkcg84s9obt8s0jmcg84-pdf#page=31" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$238 million</a> worth of its cryptoassets to try to remain above water, the company said additional two-thirds of its remaining employees would need to be laid off to save $34 million annually.



The laid-off employees will be paid through the notice period.



<h3>$355 million in cryptoassets are frozen on FTX</h3>



Court filings revealed BlockFi had “substantial exposure to FTX.” That &#8220;substantial&#8221; turned out to be $355 million worth of frozen cryptocurrencies now in limbo on the insolvent centralized exchange, Sussberg said in bankruptcy court.



The $355 million is on top of an existing $671 million loan to Alameda — which has already defaulted.



<h3>SEC among BlockFi bankruptcy creditors</h3>



BlockFi has roughly 100,000 creditors and $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities and assets, the latest bankruptcy filings show. Among them is the SEC, which the troubled lender is said to owe roughly $30 million.



The lender previously reached a $100 million settlement with the SEC after the regulator said BlockFi failed to register yield-bearing products as securities earlier this year. The settlement, in an industry first, included a provision for the firm to stop offering such accounts to US clients.&nbsp;



As its largest creditor, per filings, Ankura Trust owes BlockFi $729 million.



<h3>Emphasis on transparency</h3>



Meanwhile, FTX’s new CEO John Jay Ray III dubbed internal mismanagement of the exchange “a complete failure.”



“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Ray said in a statement.&nbsp;



Opaqueness didn’t apply to BlockFi’s own bankruptcy, according to filings.



“BlockFi was forthright about what it would and would not do with funds on its platform — in stark contrast to others reported to have done the opposite,” the filings said.



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5 Highlights From BlockFi Bankruptcy Proceedings

Almost half a year after Uniswap Labs <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-labs-pushes-further-into-nfts-with-genie-acquisition" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">acquired NFT marketplace aggregator</a> Genie, the largest decentralized exchange revealed today that NFT trading will now be made available to all users on its platform.



Users will be able to trade NFTs across eight major marketplaces on Ethereum, making Uniswap one of the largest single on-chain marketplace for digital assets across tokens and NFTs, Scott Gray, the head of NFT product at Uniswap Labs, said.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“Staying intact with Uniswap’s brand, the interface is open source, trustless, and users have self custody over their NFTs,” Gray said.</blockquote>



Its new platform will enable users to explore trending NFTs and collections across different marketplaces. The tool will also include a “sweep” feature where users can purchase an entire collection of NFTs through once purchase.



The existing 15,928 Genie users will receive an initial airdrop of $5 million USDC, and gas rebates will be awarded to the first 22,000 NFT users. The gas rebates, capped at 0.01 ETH per user, will begin today and end on Dec.15 and can be claimed for 12 months between Jan.16, 2023 and Jan.15, 2024 through the Uniswap app.



<h3>Uniswap NFTs: The road to revenue</h3>



Uniswap Labs has been actively looking into new ways to generate revenue since its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-labs-valued-at-1-6b-after-165m-funding-round" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$1.6 billion fundraise</a> in October.



Although Uniswap Labs received an equity valuation of $1.66 billion, a spokesperson from the company told Blockworks that in its current state, “Uniswap Labs is a pre-revenue company.”



Its latest NFT platform is not looking at immediate revenue. The company is actively looking at ways to iterate its platform “to become the best aggregator for placing offers across all these marketplaces and being able to manage inventory across all these marketplaces,” Gray said.



“A lot of capital inefficiencies in the NFT market still exist, and we have a few more months of work to solve them and move onto the next set of problems in the NFT space.”



The NFT marketplace is just one of many initiatives launched by the company. Uniswap governance has also been experimenting with implementing a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-fee-switch-pilot-likely-to-go-ahead" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fee switch</a>, where the protocol would receive a tenth of select liquidity pool fees — cutting into liquidity provider revenue.&nbsp;



The latest establishment of Uniswap Foundation, a separate entity to Uniswap Labs, is also looking at ways to provide grants to community projects that will grow the ecosystem over the next few years.



“As we consider future revenue models, we want to empower users and earn their business,” a Uniswap spokesperson said.



Updated on Nov. 30 at 9:45 am ET: Uniswap governance may implement a fee switch, not Uniswap Labs.



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Uniswap Taps Into NFTs as It Looks To Be Financially Sustainable

Brazil lawmakers have formally approved a regulatory framework set to govern the country’s crypto sector.



The bill <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/historic-brazilian-bill-regulating-crypto-heads-to-senate-vote" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">drew attention</a> earlier this year after a previous version passed through the Senate in April. It had since since been stuck in the Chamber of Deputies, the government&#8217;s lower house.



Local media <a href="https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/camara-aprova-marco-regulatorio-dos-criptoativos-no-brasil/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> that the text, written by federal deputy Aureo Ribeiro, includes a new crime: digital asset embezzlement, which appears targeted at exchange operators. 



Penalties include prison time between two to six years along with fines, which can also be handed out to entities which operate in Brazil without a physical presence. 



There&#8217;s also a rule requiring crypto companies such as exchanges and other intermediaries to hold a virtual service provider license, similar to rules set in place across the US and Europe.&nbsp;



The country’s efforts to regulate local crypto players comes amid turmoil in the wider digital asset space. Strife was most recently prompted by the collapse of FTX, which has left up to one million users out of pocket including regular investors, crypto projects and hedge funds. 



Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly siphoned user funds to make risky bets across crypto markets via sister trading unit Alameda Research, leading to a multibillion-dollar black hole in its balance sheet and a crippling liquidity crisis.



Brazil lawmakers however disagreed over whether to demand crypto exchanges ensure client funds are segregated from operational cash. This would hypothetically protect customers from corporate malfeasance and other crippling events such as exchange bankruptcy.



But Ribeiro effectively opposed this proposed change, saying it would stifle the crypto market. Currently on hold, the asset segregation issue will be debated at a later date.



<h3>Crypto is big in Brazil</h3>



Government-appointed bodies will reportedly decide which digital assets can be listed for trade, and relevant companies will have an 180-day grace period to comply with the incoming rules.



Brazil, which has suffered from high inflation for decades, is one of the most active crypto markets in the world, according to recent <a href="https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-global-crypto-adoption-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chainalysis data</a>. <a href="https://thepaypers.com/thought-leader-insights/the-crypto-landscape-in-brazil--1258289" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">About 5%</a> of its population actively invests in crypto, and more than 900 Brazil-based companies currently accept crypto as payment. 



One silver lining could be that the domino-style tumbling of unregulated crypto firms over the past year may usher in regulated institutions with stronger compliance frameworks and robust risk systems. At least, that&#8217;s what Brazil&#8217;s incoming crypto regulations could inspire.



Brazil’s bill is already approved, but it will now head for a signature from outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro before his term ends on Dec. 31. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to take up office on Jan. 1.



Some lawmakers reportedly preferred the bill be approved during Bolsonaro&#8217;s term, over fears Silva may not be as enthusiastic about cryptocurrency.



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Brazil Crypto Laws Demand up to 6 Years Prison for Embezzlement

IBM and Danish shipping giant Maersk are scuttling a four-year-old enterprise blockchain project designed to track global trade — another hint that distributed ledger solutions may not yet be viable in the wild.



TradeLens is a blockchain-based logistics platform aimed at digitizing supply chains. It was launched in 2018, a time when multiple economic sectors, including global shipping, sought to revamp various processes with centralized blockchain solutions — most of the time without associated cryptocurrencies.



Hundreds of major companies had signed on to TradeLens at its height. Those included intermodal carriers such as BNSF Logistics and major port operator MSC — the second largest shipping company after Maersk.



TradeLens will be ending by the close of Q1, 2023, the companies said in a Tuesday <a href="https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2022/11/29/maersk-and-ibm-to-discontinue-tradelens" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a>.



“Unfortunately, while we successfully developed a viable platform, the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved,” Rotem Hershko, Maersk’s head of business platforms, said.



As such, TradeLens has been unable to attain the level of commercial viability required to continue operating. The project ultimately fell short of financial expectations, undermining its future as a standalone business.



TradeLens was built on IBM proprietary blockchain software which leveraged Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source framework from the Linux Foundation. 



Enterprise blockchain networks such as TradeLens are far more centralized than major protocols such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. They&#8217;re usually entirely permissioned (private), maintained and controlled by a small group of entities (and often just one), rather than hundreds or thousands of unrelated network participants all working together to maintain consensus.



Jointly built by IBM and GTD Solution — a division of Maersk — TradeLens&#8217; intention was to promote efficiency and secure global trade.



Maersk said it would continue efforts to digitize the supply chain and further industry efficiency using other solutions, without mentioning specifics. Blockworks has reached out for comment.



“We will leverage the work of TradeLens as a stepping stone to further push our digitization agenda and look forward to harnessing the energy and ability of our technology talent in new ways,” Hershko said.



TradeLens joins a number of other enterprise blockchain projects hitting a brick wall. Earlier this month, the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blockchain-not-bitcoin-is-dead-australian-bourse-cans-dlt-shift" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Australian Securities Exchange</a> nixed a blockchain-powered system designed to replace its aging settlement layer after nearly three years of development, having spent around $170 million on the cause.



That followed Microsoft ending its <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/blockchain/#overview" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Azure blockchain service</a> last year. The platform was launched in 2015 to help companies to deploy their own permissioned blockchain networks.



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IBM, Maersk Snuff Blockchain Project Due to Lack of Interest

Privacy-focused protocol Secret Network — intended to be anonymous and confidential — has disclosed a security vulnerability that threatened to reveal user transaction histories.



The bug, discovered by researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in October, allowed extraction of a so-called “consensus seed,” effectively a master decryption key for Secret Network.



“Exposure of the consensus seed would enable the complete retroactive disclosure of all Secret-4 private transactions since the chain began,” the team said. SCRT Labs, the group behind the blockchain’s development, patched the vulnerability earlier this month.



The attack vector involved exploiting flaws in Intel&#8217;s Software Guard Extension (SGX). SGX is a set of security-related instruction codes built into some Intel central processing units (CPUs), including their latest 10th, 11th and 12th-generation chips.&nbsp;



The SGX bugs first became public knowledge in early August, and the researchers say they also discovered related flaws in video software PowerDVD.&nbsp;



Secret Network, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/secret-network-announces-400m-ecosystem-funding-reveals-big-name-investors" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">backed</a> by scandal-ridden firms Alameda Research and Terraform Labs, runs on delegated proof-of-stake consensus, a method first utilized by EOS. The protocol is considered somewhat of a competitor to other privacy-centric networks such as Monero and Zcash, albeit with a much smaller market capitalization around $150 million (compared to $2.5 billion and $550 million).



Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, which allow anyone with the right equipment (and in the latter’s case, enough ether) to join the network, Secret Network token holders select 50 trusted third parties to maintain specialized validating nodes that keep the blockchain flowing.



But the researchers didn’t have to become fully-fledged network validators to exploit the bug. They were able to extract their Secret Network master key by running a full node (which anyone can do) with a machine powered by the vulnerable processors.&nbsp;



Full nodes download a complete copy of the blockchain onto the related machine, and in Secret Network’s case, a “sealed consensus seed” along with it.



Secret Network node software uses what’s known as a trusted execution environment (TEE). These are secure regions of a main processor that only certain trusted devices, codes, or applications can access. The researchers were able to exploit this part of Secret Network’s stack, alongside Intel’s SGX, to decrypt the sealed consensus seed and thus reveal all private transactions on the protocol’s ledger.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">We were able to get onto the network with compromised nodes, which actually would have been very hard for Secret to prevent (IAS said our devices were trusted). The problem is that in doing so, we were able to deanonymize all the transactions since the chain began&mdash; Tom Yurek (@tom_yurek) <a href="https://twitter.com/tom_yurek/status/1597658913587232768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption>Tom Yurek, part of the discovering team, discusses the bug on Twitter</figcaption></figure>



<h3>Secret Network users urged to reconsider their operational security</h3>



SCRT Labs has assured users that to the best of its knowledge, no malicious actor had exploited the vulnerability in the wild prior to it being patched. 



The researchers, however, have stated there’s no way to know for certain whether the attack had been executed previously.



SCRT said it held off releasing details of the bug due to a mutual agreement between itself, Intel and the researchers to mitigate potential for the vulnerability to be exploited, a common move in software development.



In any case, the team that discovered the flaw have urged “privacy-conscious” users to reassess their online footprints, considering that their past “secret” transactions may be exposed.



“SCRT Labs &#8216;fixed&#8217; it now, but all past transactions are compromised,” the team said. Secret Network’s native token has remained relatively steady since the disclosure, only dropping around 2%, although it’s already collapsed 85% in the year to date alongside swathes of other crypto projects.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" width="1024" height="284" src="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-1024x284.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40559" srcset="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-1024x284.png 1024w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-300x83.png 300w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-768x213.png 768w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-1536x426.png 1536w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-2048x568.png 2048w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-428x119.png 428w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-470x130.png 470w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-389x108.png 389w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-80x22.png 80w, https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screen-Shot-2022-11-30-at-11.02.28-50x14.png 50w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>The researchers break down the attack into two phases: Prepare and Exploit | Source: <a href="https://sgx.fail/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SGX.fail</a></figcaption></figure>



New Secret Network nodes are currently limited to “server-class” hardware while SCRT has vowed to ratchet security-focused features for the network. The stewards also said they would strengthen their communications with Intel to ensure users receive early warning of future undisclosed vulnerabilities.



Funds on Secret Network are considered safe (only the confidentiality of the network has been compromised, not user private keys). The researchers noted the most concerning application of the attack is bulk surveillance of Secret users’ personal finances.



There was still opportunity to front-run DeFi applications and breach private metadata tied to NFTs deployed on the network. “Any digital assets that rely on private metadata, such as NFTs exchanging secret authentication keys, would be at risk of theft,” they wrote.



David Canellis contributed reporting.



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Secret Network Crypto Transactions Not So Secret After All

Dan Smith

RUNE

THORChain Savers Vaults: A Decentralized Earn Program

Permissionless is the brainchild of Blockworks and Bankless. Over 5,500 people attended the inaugural event in 2022, making Permissionless the world’s largest DeFi conference.&nbsp;



What sets Permissionless apart? It’s a crypto native’s paradise, crafted specifically for both builders and investors who are dedicated to scaling the industry.&nbsp;



Permissionless is headed to Austin in 2023, and you know what they say… Everything is bigger in Texas.&nbsp;



Permissionless 2023 will feature the biggest names in Web3, a gargantuan exposition hall filled with the top brands in the space, an awe-inspiring NFT Gallery, inclusive, community-focused parties and events, metaverse experiences, and so much more.



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<h2>Why Sponsor Permissionless 2023?</h2>
If you’re serious about crypto, you have to be at Permissionless. Permissionless brings together DeFi builders, DAO participants, protocol developers, crypto companies, funds and institutions, and more. It’s a true crypto-native’s paradise, where you’ll have the opportunity to showcase your offerings and form lasting connections with the community.
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