Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him! SBF has been arrested and in total he’s facing eight charges: conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers, wire fraud on customers, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders, wire fraud on lenders, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and violate campaign finance laws. We are now officially in the Crypto Legal Saga.
The SEC also made official in their filings some of the incredulous claims that have been circulated recently such as:
If it didn’t actually happen before our eyes, then it might be hard to believe. Just a few months ago, SBF/FTX/Alameda were all some of the most highly regarded in the space. Lesson that nothing is too big to fail.
In more optimistic news, U.S. November CPI came in at 7.1%, under the expected 7.3% which caused markets to rally. This type of data will be crucial in determining the Fed’s monetary policy in 2023. Recall that they’re still claiming to stick to reaching a 2% inflation target. Tomorrow’s FOMC likely to deliver 50 bps.
Daily Bullets:
- SBF arrested and facing 8 different charges with the SEC detailing a list of wrongdoings
- U.S. CPI: 7.1% YoY, 0.1% MoM. Expected: 7.3% YoY, 0.3% MoM - Better than expected
- Binance FUD sees over $2B withdrawn from the exchange
- Tether coordinating with Binance to convert 3B USDT from Tron to Ethereum ERC20 to address concerns
- Tether intends to reduce secured loans in its reserves to zero in 2023
- Discord's new Linked Roles include support for Solana
- A federal judge ordered the CFTC to serve Ooki DAO founders Tom Bean and Kyle Kistner
- Native USDC on Avalanche is now integrated on Coinbase
- Canada enforcing stricter requirements for crypto following FTX including a ban on margin and leverage trading
- Illuvium Labs released a new private beta for "Illuvium: Overworld”
Now for a more expanded and detailed look at the day for those who likes sources:
Crypto News:
- The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried after U.S. authorities filed criminal charges, and The Bahamas intends to extradite him. SEC announces 8 charges. He denied being part of a secret group titled “Wirefraud” just hours before his arrest by the Bahamian authorities
- U.S. CPI: 7.1% YoY, 0.1% MoM Forecasted: 7.3% YoY, 0.3% MoM. US CPI Core: 6.0% YoY, 0.2% MoM Forecasted: 6.1% YoY, 0.3% MoM
- Tether coordinating with Binance to perform a chain swap, converting 3B USDT from Tron to Ethereum ERC20 in response to large outflow of withdrawals
- Tether intends to reduce secured loans in its reserves to zero in 2023
- Bitcoin miner Argo is looking to sell assets and get a loan as it seeks to avoid bankruptcy and after it accidentally published a document implying it would file for Chapter 11
- Discord's new Linked Roles include support for Solana – servers with the Solana app installed can prompt users to link and authenticate with their Solana wallet
- MetaMask Institutional, Cobo and Gnosis DAO team up for soulbound token project
- Investment fund manager M31 Capital has chosen Anchorage Digital Bank to custody the $100M Web3 Opportunity Fund it launched in October
- Avalanche releases Core Mobile, a mobile version of its flagship non-custodial multichain wallet
- Terra validators voted to expand its security measures with a $900,000 grant to SCV Security to identify and monitor vulnerabilities, risks and potential threats to the second version of the protocol
- Algorand was selected to be the blockchain to support a digital guarantees platform in Italy - expected to become operational in early 2023
- FC Barcelona, one of the biggest soccer clubs in the world, announced a new global partnership agreement with biggest European crypto exchange WhiteBIT
- Axelar Network integrates with Secret Network to offer private cross-chain messaging and NFT transfers
Economic/Government/Regulatory:
- A federal judge ordered the Commodities Future Trading Commission to serve founders Tom Bean and Kyle Kistner as part of an ongoing lawsuit against Ooki DAO
- An affiliate of the Chinese tech giant Alibaba has claimed that it will allow customers to pay with the digital yuan on its Taobao e-commerce platform
- Brazil is set to launch a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in 2024
- Iris Energy (IREN), the bitcoin miner that last month said some of its mining equipment isn't producing enough cash to meet its financing obligations, was hit by a class action suit
Exchange News:
- FTX CEO details wrongdoings of SBF including commingling customer assets, relationship between FTX.US and FTX and Alameda. Confirms SBF and FTX acted fraudulently
- SBF contemplated closing Alameda Research in September, according to charges filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and wrote announcement drafts
- FTX employees did invoicing and expenses over Slack and used QuickBooks, consumer-level tax software, to handle its accounting
- Binance CEO CZ addressed major USDC outflows with some $1.6B withdrawn over the past 24 hours on the Ethereum network alone
- FTX lawyers laid out evidence and allegations that SBF, Bahamian attorneys, and the Bahamian government are in violation of U.S. bankruptcy law preventing selective payments to creditors
- U.S.-based customers of Binance are now able to use Binance Pay to send money on their mobile app
- Native USDC on Avalanche is now integrated on Coinbase
- Canada’s financial watchdog is enforcing stricter requirements for crypto firms following the collapse of FTX including a ban on margin and leverage trading
DeFi News:
- Chainlink whale ‘Oldwhite’ used more than 150 wallets to avoid staking limits and staked over 1 million LINK tokens
- Yearn now on Ledger - get the best risk-adjusted yields in DeFi, directly from your hardware wallet
- MakerDAO to execute a bundle of eight governance actions including pay for delegates, raising the DAI interest rate and offboarding renBTC as collateral for DAI
NFT/Gaming/Metaverse News:
- Illuvium Labs has released a new private beta for "Illuvium: Overworld,” the second of six games the team has planned over the next two decades. A third title, Illuvium: Zero, could also have an alpha release before Christmas
- Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard - a move originally aimed toward building Metaverse initiatives - hit a roadblock after an intervention by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
- More than 5 million NFTs have been minted through Reddit’s Collectible Avatars initiative
- Morningstar Ventures launch of 37xDubai art gallery in Q1 2023 - immersive and interactive digital art gallery located in the Burj Daman Tower
Fundraises:
- Dogami, a web3 game that enables players to adopt and raise virtual dogs, raised $7M in a seed extension round led by European venture capital firm XAnge
- Sooho.io, a provider of DeFi services, raised $4.5M in Series A+ funding round to help forge links between separate blockchains in South Korea led by Woori Technology Investment
- MetaVersusWorld, a web3 hyper-realistic and interactive, persistent virtual multiverse, raised $2M in a seed funding round
Early Stage Projects:
- zkSync 2.0 roadmap
- ConsenSys launches zkEVM private beta testnet - over 150,000 signups so far
- Fantom Gitcoin Grants Round 1 - 85+ projects, donations decide where grants will flow
- DIMO Network, a decentralized automotive data insight network, launched its mainnet, which aims to give users more control over - and potentially earn rewards from - driving data
- SynFutures, a DEX on the Polygon network, new V2 upgrade will allow for permissionless listing of futures trading pairs
- Announcing the Quicksilver launch - a sovereign Cosmos-SDK zone providing liquid staking for the Interchain
- LlamaNode RPCs are live - a reliable public good built for the decentralized world
- Bridge Protection: now live on Socket. Powering Cross-Chain Innovation with Secure Bridging
- Limit orders from CoW Protocol are officially live
- Neon EVM’s Mainnet Launch delayed
- Hooked Protocol’s Roadmap for 2023
- Introducing the Moonbeam Accelerator - helps growth-stage projects on Moonbeam refine their ideas & reinforce skills for running successful Web3 startups
- MOOAR Incubator Programme - exclusive mentorship programme from the Co-Founder of Find Satoshi Lab and the mastermind behind STEPN
- Governance token and DAO for ParaSpace targeting a Q1 2023 launch
Data:
TL;DR: Over the past 7 days, a net $2B was withdrawn off Binance as it faces fresh insolvency FUD. For all exchanges, we can see that the top 5 coins being withdrawn are USDC, ETH, USDT, BUSD and APE. Binance TVL fell from $65.7B yesterday to $61.8B today. Also, CPI came in for November better than expected at 7.1%. We can see that we are down 2% since peaking in June at 9.1%. Economic data such as this will help shape the Fed’s future monetary policy. Remember that they have a stated goal of reaching 2% inflation.
Exchange Stablecoin Outflows:
Exchange Token Outflows:
Binance TVL:
CPI:
Research/Reads:
- SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in Crypto Asset Trading Platform FTX - source
- JPMorgan -The Dynamics and Demographics of U.S. Household Crypto-Asset Use - source
- Crypto Products, But Increasingly Useful - source
- Adoption of DeFi, ZK Tech, NFTs and More Will Continue to Increase in 2023 - source
- Coinbase is proud to publish our fourth Transparency Report 2022 - source
Crypto Twitterverse:
that's curtains for SBF. FTX CEO John Ray testifies before him tomorrow. Sam will be utterly hamstrung by this.
financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
— nic carter (@nic__carter)
Dec 12, 2022
After a very busy month, price action is consolidating. Given the nature of crypto and the tectonic shifts occurring beneath it, we do not expect this paradigm to last 🧵👇
— Cumberland (@CumberlandSays)
Dec 12, 2022
1/ Modular blockchains could be the key to a whole new world of crypto.
And it's a growing narrative for the next bull run.
What makes them special, and why should you care?🧵
— Ignas | DeFi Research (@DefiIgnas)
Dec 13, 2022
Lawsuit against Compound alleging, among other things, that COMP is an unregistered security
Plantiffs own <$100 of COMP tokens
— Sisyphus (@0xSisyphus)
Dec 13, 2022
Did we miss anything or is there anything you want to discuss? We’d Love to hear your feedback and engage with the community! Feel free to leave a comment and let us know your thoughts on the Crypto market!
Subscribe to receive our brief daily and extended weekly newsletter along with in-house research content!