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Aftermath of FTX implosion: Mercedes, And Canadians Teachers

Mark Brennan
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Aftermath of FTX implosion: Mercedes, And Canadians Teachers

The implosion of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX has widespread implications from the Bahamas to Canada.


Mercedes

Some partners are holding their breath to see how things pan out. Mercedes, which signed a sponsorship deal with FTX in September 2021, said on Thursday that they were keeping the branding of cryptocurrency exchange FTX on their cars at this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix in Brazil while watching developments as reported by Reuters.

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan is the latest to come to the fore this week, in the aftermath of the FTX debacle, as it released a statement this week disclosing it had made a $75 million investment in both FTX International and its U.S. entity FTX.US. The fund later made an additional investment of $20 million in FTX.US.

Securities Commission of the Bahamas

Things seem to be advancing from bad to worse for the already beleaguered exchange, FTX, and customers with funds on the platform, with news of the Securities Commission of the Bahamas freezing the assets of FTX digital markets and applying to the Supreme Court for the appointment of a provisional liquidator of FTX.

“Since the unfolding of events involving FTX Digital MArkest (FDM), the Commission has proactively dealt with the situation and continues to do so. The Commission determined that the prudent course of action was to put FDM into provisional liquidation to preserve assets and stabilize the company,” said the commission in their official press release.

Other early-stage investors were also burned after Sequoia capital announced via a tweet that it was marking its investment of $214 million in FTX to zero, as earlier reported by The Crypto basic.

With the battle exchange racing to raise capital to plug the rumored $9.4billion hole, there might be hope that customers could be made whole again.

Cardano Founder Compares Ethereum To A Horror Flick

Mark Brennan
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Cardano Founder Compares Ethereum To A Horror Flick

Hoskinson believes that Ethereum combines the qualities of Hotel California and The Shining.



In a tweet hours ago, Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson doubled down on his description of Ethereum as the Hotel California of Crypto while adding that the chain bore similar qualities to The Shining.

“Ethereum now has a two-for-one: Hotel California and the Shining,” Hoskinson tweeted.

Hoskinson’s comments come in response to a graphic representation of censoring blocks on the Ethereum chain post-Merge, which shows that most blocks produced have complied with the US sanctions unit, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Consequently, raising fears about Ethereum censorship. It bears mentioning that @takenstheorem produced the image on October 15.

The trend comes with the increased use of mev-boost, a service that allows validators to outsource block production to increase APR. Notably, the increased usage comes with increased block proposers due to Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake (The Merge).

It allows validators to decide the relays, effectively the block-producing service they want to use. However, out of the seven relays available, only three are non-OFAC compliant, according to mevwatch.info. While the community wants validators to pick non-OFAC-compliant relays to keep the chain neutral, the rising trend indicates that the OFAC-compliant relays are currently more profitable. Consequently, it incentivizes validators to censor the chain.

The Shining is a popular horror movie released in 1980 based on a Stephen King novel that tracks the story of a family in an isolated hotel with strong supernatural forces. Despite being a horror movie, analysts have often pointed out consistent themes of subjugation.

For example, film writer John Capo believes the movie puts American Imperialism in focus, which could indicate why Hoskinson references it in this particular instance.

Hoskinson explaining the graphic asserts that the US government decides who uses Ethereum. However, this assertion may only be technically correct if these validators refuse to build on non-OFAC-compliant blocks. So long as at least one validator remains neutral, the chain can still process non-OFAC-compliant transactions so long as validators build on the blocks containing them.

At the time @takenstheorem created the graphic, OFAC-compliant relays produced about 51% of the blocks post-Merge. Notably, this metric has increased to 63%, as per data from mevwatch.info. 

Measuring the last 24 hours alone, it is at 70%. At 100%, the chain will become fully OFAC compliant. The graphic image below represents the previous 100 blocks produced at press time. 88% were OFAC compliant.

Last 100 blocks

As a result of these concerns, developers have added a new phase to the Ethereum roadmap called “The Scourge,” as reported by The Crypto Basic. As explained by Vitalik Buterin, this new phase will fix mev-boost concerns and make the chain more neutral.

Notably, Cardano lovers have been having a field day criticizing the current state of Ethereum’s PoS implementation. For example, in response to Hoskinson’s tweet today, one user described it as a “trial run at a CBDC.”

Whales Move 578M+ XRP Amidst Healing Market

Albert Brown
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Whales Move 578M+ XRP Amidst Healing Market

XRP whales appear to be on the move again, as the markets recently witnessed the movement of over 578M XRP tokens in 24 hours amid a recovery phase for the asset.


Blockchain tracking and analytics system Whale Alert recently disclosed a series of four whale transactions involving the movement of a cumulative amount of 578M XRP in under 24 hours as the markets stage a recovery from one of the deadliest bloodbaths witnessed in a while.

The first two transactions involved the movement of tens of millions of XRP tokens between Luxembourg-based exchange Bitstamp and unknown addresses. In the early hours of Thursday, Whale Alert highlighted a transaction involving the movement of 60M XRP ($20.9M) from an unknown wallet to Bitstamp. The transaction occurred at 1:35 AM (UTC) today.

Barely a minute after, another XRP whale movement was recorded on Bitstamp; only, this time, Bitstamp saw a massive outflow of the token. At 1:36 AM (UTC) today, a whale moved 56M XRP worth $19.6M from Bitstamp to an unknown wallet. There is limited information on whether the previous transaction and this one are connected.

As the day progressed, the markets witnessed another massive exchange outflow involving XRP, as a whale moved a whopping 150M XRP valued at $54.2M from the South Korean exchange Bithumb to an unknown wallet. The transaction occurred at 10:22 AM (UTC) today. 

Notwithstanding, the largest XRP transaction recorded in a while occurred shortly after. At 11:56 AM (UTC) today, 312M XRP worth $112.8M was moved from one wallet to another – both addresses remain unidentified as of press time.

The Crypto Basic previously highlighted massive whale movements of 234M XRP between exchanges as the asset price plummeted by 17% when the markets were declining.

Out of the 578M+, XRP moved, and 206M+ were taken out of centralized exchanges (CEXs). Considering the FTX insolvency issues, investors’ confidence in centralized exchanges has waned in the past 48 hours. Consequently, it will not come as a surprise to witness a mass withdrawal of assets from proponents who feel cold wallets are now necessary.

These whale movements come when the markets struggle to recover from one of the fiercest massacres witnessed in the current cycle. XRP, in particular, tanked from a value of $0.46 on Tuesday to $0.32 on Thursday, marking a 29% decline in just 48 hours. The latest market slump was majorly triggered by the FTX saga, which filled the crypto space with massive chaos.

XRP has been set up on a recovery path alongside the rest of the crypto market. The asset has gained 6.6% in the past 24 hours, trading at 0.38 against the dollar as of press time. Despite the 24-hour increase, XRP is still declining in the 7-day timeframe – a pattern that appears prevalent across several assets.

Additionally, XRP technical indicators are moving toward favorable territories despite currently indicating a “Sell” signal, according to TradingView.

The recently-engineered market recovery has been partly influenced by the latest US CPI data, which indicated that consumer prices increased by 7.7% in the year through October – a rate lower than what was projected. The favorable data suggests that the Federal Reserve’s interest hike crusade might halt. This has contributed to an uptick in the value of stocks and cryptocurrencies.

Ripple Managing Director Shares European Ad Campaign Images

Mark Brennan
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Ripple Managing Director Shares European Ad Campaign Images

Ripple launches “crypto means business” ad campaign.



Leading provider of crypto enterprise solutions, Ripple has developed its latest campaign, “#cryptomeansbusiness” to showcase its crypto business solutions.

The campaign is geared towards spreading awareness about how finance professionals and business owners can use crypto solutions to drive a more dynamic financial system that better serves their business; “from streamlining cross-border payments and improving treasury management, to making assets more agile, offering new financial services, and increasing customer engagement,” said Ripple in the official press release.

Banners can be seen when passing through canary wharf, which depicts “the financial center of a city in transformation, inspired by the impact that Ripple’s customers can make when leveraging our solutions to transform the world of finance,” according to global creative company Iris Worldwide.

Notably, the Managing director of Ripple’s European division, Sendi Young shared a photo on Twitter to trigger myriads of comments in support of the campaign, commenting; “We launched it to highlight that #crypto solutions are here to stay and are already making a real impact on businesses around the world.”

“I can’t wait to be in London and see this station in person! Love this ad bringing to life our builder DNA and commitment to make finance work smarter and harder for more people. #CryptoMeansBusiness” said VP of Design at Ripple.

While another user echoed the campaign slogan; “Don’t predict the future of finance; build it.”

As earlier reported by The Crypto Basic, the Ripple camp has expressed confidence in securing victory after finally receiving the controversial speech by former SEC director William Hinman.

With the legal tussle against the SEC almost behind the enterprise solutions provider, the focus can now be shifted to onboarding and adoption.

After Warning About FTX, Bitboy Says Do Not Buy Tron Stablecoin (USDD)

Mark Brennan
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After Warning About FTX, Bitboy Says Do Not Buy Tron Stablecoin (USDD)

Bitboy now has a helpful warning for market participants.



Crypto Youtuber Ben Armstrong, popularly known as Bitboy has warned through a tweet that staying in Tron’s stablecoin(USDD) isn’t a safe bet.

“GET OUT OF USDD NOW (TRX Stablecoin)

Justin Sun: I’m going to possibly buy FTX to save crypto

SBF: Retweets

Alameda under SBF direction: DUMP EEEET

USDD: Depegs”

This comes on the back of speculation that Alameda has been dumping the USDD to provide liquidity on the exchange after the native token of FTX had lost 90% of its value which caused the stablecoin to depeg. USDD native to the Tron Blockchain is trading at $0.98 at press time, down 1.10% in the last 24 hours.

It bears mentioning that Tron DAO Reserve, which is responsible for selling collateral to maintain USDD’s peg in the event of a sell-side shock as the custodian of its collateral, hadn’t been completely honest about their collateral ratio with most of it staked and earning yields in JustLend, the largest lending protocol in the Tron ecosystem by Total Value Locked, adding that the USDD’s collateral ratio could fluctuate further as its reserve assets, BTC and TRX, undergo price declines.

In simpler words, an almost 113% collateral ratio versus the 283% boasted by Tron DAO Reserve.

Bitboy in a more recent tweet, alleges SBF is making a last-ditch attempt to save the exchange with a threat to dump and depeg USDD unless Justin Sun throws support and liquidity behind the exchange.

Notably, as earlier reported by the Cryptobasic, bitboy was the first to nail it with Sam Bankman Fried; even before the news became public, he called out FTX’s CEO alleging he was about to ruin Crypto.

Notably, Chief Technology Officer at Ripple, David Schwartz shared a tweet reminding cryptocurrency Twitter that Bitboy “was warning us that SBF_FTX was the devil even before there was good reason to,” with some suggesting there might be a U-turn at ripple concerning Bitboy about his application to work there.

 

Novogratz Doubts El Salvador Bitcoin Were On FTX

Albert Brown
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Novogratz Doubts El Salvador Bitcoin Were On FTX

Mike Novogratz Airs Claims of El Salvador’s BTC Holdings Being on FTX.



CEO of Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz, has aired claims on Crypto Twitter, noting that El Salvador’s Bitcoin (BTC) holdings were on the embattled FTX.

Amidst the distressing FTX situation that has rocked the foundation of the cryptocurrency space, billionaire Mike Novogratz mentioned that he had heard claims that El Salvador’s BTC holdings were stored on FTX, prompting concerns as FTX has paused withdrawals amidst insolvency risks.

Novogratz made a comment while speaking on a CNBC Squawk Box episode on Thursday, as he weighed in on the panic pumped into the space by the FTX saga and the ultimate effect on the cryptocurrency scene.

“I read – I don’t know if it’s true – that the El Salvadoran government’s crypto was on FTX, and they’re calling for the extradition of Sam,” Novogratz remarked.

Besides the claim of El Salvador’s cryptocurrencies being on FTX, Novogratz also noted that the fallout arising from the FTX issue is likely to be deep. Notwithstanding, he mentioned that it would not stop the community from “holding together” regardless.

 

It is worth mentioning that Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital revealed that it has an FTX exposure of up to $76.8M as it published its Q3 2020 Financial Results on Wednesday. The firm noted that about $47.5M of the funds were in the withdrawal process.

Besides the exposure to FTX, Galaxy Digital’s Q3 2022 Report highlighted a net loss of $68.1M for the quarter. In contrast, Galaxy made a profit of $517M+ in the third quarter of last year.

CZ Talks To Nayib BUkele

Binance CEO talks to El Salvador president Nayib Bukele to confirm the situation; Bukele dismisses Novogratz’s doubts saying El Salvador has no Bitcoin on FTX nor did any business with them.

 

Controversial Terra Classic Proposal Passes With Less Than 30% Of Validators Voting

Mark Brennan
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Controversial Terra Classic Proposal Passes With Less Than 30% Of Validators Voting

Proposal 10879 passes to subject every spend of community assets to an on-chain governance vote.

The Head of organization at Terra Classic independent development group TerraCVita, Rex Harrison, AKA Rexzy, in a tweet yesterday, disclosed that proposal 10879 had passed the governance vote with less than 30% of validators voting.

The proposal, which has been the subject of controversy within the community, will subject every spending of community assets to an on-chain governance vote. Notably, popular community figure Vegas proposed it to prevent the management of newly discovered $4 million in off-chain assets by a few individuals trusted by the community with the right expertise to carry out development efforts to fix the chain efficiently. 

With the proposal passing, the $4 million in assets will also be subject to a community vote. In a medium blog post, Rexzy explains that it poses several risks and hurdles to the network’s development. 

First, the community will have to convert the $4 million in off-chain assets to Terra Luna Classic (LUNC) or TerraClassicUSD (USTC), which are very volatile assets. Consequently, the network may need more to fund development activities in a market crash. Additionally, it risked pumping or dumping the price of LUNC. Secondly, with the lifespan on average for each governance vote being two weeks (1 week for the community to review it and an extra week for voting), it means that for each spend from the community pool, developers will have to wait at least two weeks to receive funding.

Aside from slowing down the network’s progress, it could be catastrophic in an emergency.

As such, unsurprisingly, the proposal received pushback from Rexzy and the TerraCVita. Highlighting why the developer-owned validator voted “no with veto,” Rexzy noted that:

  • The proposal did not go through the normal consultation period of seven days.
  • It was impractical as not all of the community’s assets are on-chain.
  • The writing was vague.

Notably, the TerraCVita member has proposed a workaround now that the proposal has passed governance. According to Rexzy, it will function as a compromise of the proposal by Alex Forshaw and core developer Edward Kim. 

Consequently, he says the community has to vote for a trusted executive subject to the same level of accountability obtainable in the corporate world, including third-party audits. The community will task the executive with preparing a comprehensive roadmap with an estimate of the funds to carry out the work and a provision for emergency funds. Notably, this executive can then request the funds through the grants scheme managed by Edward Kim.

In addition, he asserts that the community also has to pay these individuals at the same level as executives running other $2 billion businesses.

The Terra Classic community is pushing to rebuild its broken chain, and recent debates have revolved around how to compensate current developers and attract new ones. Notably, the approval of the Terra grants scheme is a significant step in that direction and signals to the broader development community that the network is willing to fund builders. It could speed up the rebuilding of the chain and create new use cases.

However, managing $4 million in off-chain assets has remained the subject of heated debates.

List of Issues FTX And Its CEO Facing Right Now

Mark Brennan
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List of Issues FTX And Its CEO Facing Right Now

 

It gets worse with each passing hour for Sam’s exchange, FTX.



As the would-be savior, Binance walks away, despite their albeit non-binding Letter of Intent, citing via their Twitter handle “mishandled customer funds and alleged US agency investigations” as reasons for calling off the acquisition post-due diligence.

“As a result of corporate due diligence, as well as the latest news reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged US agency investigations, we have decided that we will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX.com,” Binance said Twitter.

The SEC,  Federal Trade Commission, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission opened investigations into FTX this morning. With Binance having to contend with multiple open investigations of its own — including one involving The Department of Justice and the IRS concerning “funds tied to criminal activity flowing through the exchange,” it doesn’t take a wild imagination to understand how this adversely affects FTX.

With its native token dropping as if pulled by gravity, FTX finds itself between a rock and a hard place, as Bloomberg reports suggest the hole in its balance sheet could be as large as $8 billion.

Notably, websites linked to the foreign arm of crypto exchange FTX were down on Nov. 9 following the debacle. Websites for Alameda Research and the company’s venture capital arm, FTX Ventures, were offline and made private, while both FTX’s main site and FTX US’ website remain accessible. A notice on its website read: “FTX is currently unable to process withdrawals. We strongly advise against depositing.”

According to Bloomberg, the popular exchange’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, a self-proclaimed “effective altruist,” has now lost more than 94% of his wealth in a single day.

The exchange, before events unfolded, was worth 32 billion dollars but got offered to Binance for $1 as earlier reported by the Cryptobasic, but “no one is gonna want to buy billions of dollars of messy debt for $1.”

The seeds of FTX’s downfall were sown months earlier, according to interviews with several people close to Bankman-Fried reports Reuters, stemming from mistakes Bankman-Fried made after he stepped in to save other crypto firms as the crypto market collapsed amid rising interest rates and communications from both companies that have not been previously reported.

Meanwhile, in light of prevailing realities, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital announced to shareholders it would completely write off its more than $210m capital investment in FTX, as the cryptocurrency exchange is facing bankruptcy.

“Based on our current understanding, we are marking our investment down to $0,” the company said in a statement on Twitter.

FTX was backed by big players in the venture capital scene, like BlackRock, SoftBank, Paradigm, Circle, and Multicoin Capital, amongst others.

Real Danger To Ripple Is That SEC Does Not Have To Prove Sale Of An Unregistered Security: Deaton

Mark Brennan
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Real Danger To Ripple Is That SEC Does Not Have To Prove Sale Of An Unregistered Security: Deaton

 

Deaton says it could be game over for crypto regulation in the US should Judge Torres adopt the ruling in the LBRY case.


Amicus Curiae, in the US Securities and Exchange Commission vs. Ripple lawsuit, Attorney John E. Deaton, in a tweet yesterday, has asserted that the real danger to Ripple is that the SEC does not have to prove the sale of an unregistered security.

According to the lawyer, the SEC only has to prove that Ripple offered unregistered security. 

“… the real danger to Ripple is that the SEC doesn’t have to prove the actual sale of an unregistered security,” wrote Deaton in a Twitter thread. “It only has to prove Ripple made an ‘offering’ of an unregistered security.”

The lawyer representing thousands of XRP holders asserts that for this to happen, Judge Analisa Torres will have to disregard secondary sales and rule reasoning that owning billions of XRP alone without any formal contract by Ripple constitutes an offer of security. However, Deaton believes that this scenario is unlikely.

He says so, citing that the Judge had allowed the participation of XRP holders in an amicus curiae capacity for the greater duration of the case. According to Deaton, it shows a desire to understand the perspective of XRP holders, and it would make no sense for Judge Torres to disregard all of that in crafting her ruling.

It bears mentioning that in addition to this, the Judge has also given time for affected entities to submit amicus briefs. So far, at least 12 entities have submitted briefs in favor of Ripple. In contrast, no entity has requested to file a brief supporting the SEC.

According to Ripple chief Brad Garlinghouse, each of these briefs explain the harm the SEC will do to the emerging crypto economy in the US if it wins. Deaton asserted yesterday that if Judge Torres adopts the LBRY ruling, it would be game over for crypto regulation in the US.

The crypto community believes that a win for the SEC will only bolster its regulation by enforcement campaign and extinguish hopes for clear crypto regulations. 

Pro Ripple Lawyer James K. Filan believes that Judge Torres will make her ruling on or before March 31, 2023. Notably, the Ripple camp has expressed confidence in securing victory after finally receiving the hotly contested documents related to the draft of the controversial speech by former SEC director William Hinman.

FIFA Launches Four Blockchain Games Ahead of 2022 World Cup

Albert Brown
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FIFA Launches Four Blockchain Games Ahead of 2022 World Cup

 

FIFA has unveiled four blockchain-based Web3 games as the world moves closer to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.


With the opening ceremony for the 2022 World Cup only ten days away, FIFA has recently unveiled four unique blockchain-based games to bring the Web3 experience to the global scene as it looks to entertain and engage football fans around the world ahead of the World Cup.

FIFA described the four games as “future-focussed” in an official announcement Wednesday and highlighted the growing importance of gaming and esports. The blockchain-based games will be powered by video game studios Uplandme, Phygtl, Altered State Machine, and Matchday.

The first game on the list is “AI League: FIFA World Cup Qatar Edition,” developed by Altered State Machine. The game features a 4-on-4 playing experience as it allows users to act as coaches on a football field populated by players controlled by AI.

Players get to improve in-game characters with power-ups and training sessions and develop relevant tactics, as evident in a conventional footballing experience. The ability to trade characters within a player’s team also exists, and the in-game fields feature stylized streetball locations across the globe.

The second game is Uplandme – FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Upland already exists as a leading Metaverse game that allows users to trade properties in the Metaverse and develop themselves into real estate moguls.

The FIFA World Cup edition will include a feature that enables procuring digital collectibles related to the 2022 World Cup. These collectibles would include digital versions of highlights from the tournament. The game will also introduce the virtual version of the FIFA World Cup Lusail Stadium, as users can travel to it in the Metaverse and shop for items.

The third is Matchday Challenge: FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Edition which allows players to predict the outcomes of games amongst their friends through the use of football cards.

The last game is Phygtl – FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. The Phygtl mobile application will enable users to generate, augment and own a limited fragment of a “golden-globe-football.”

Amidst surging global adoption from top brands, the blockchain space has begun capturing the attention of FIFA, as evident in recent developments. FIFA has especially taken an interest in the Metaverse. In October, the international football governing body announced a multi-year partnership with video game developer Roblox which would allow Roblox users and football fans to access the virtual FIFA World environment.

As a testament to its growing interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies, in March, FIFA revealed that Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com will act as an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

Additionally, in May, reports of a FIFA partnership with PoS blockchain protocol Algorand surfaced. The partnership will establish Algorand as the official blockchain partner for FIFA, allowing the blockchain protocol to drive FIFA’s blockchain-based engagements.

FIFA is inclined to develop a digital asset strategy, and, as a consequence of the partnership, Algorand has been positioned as the blockchain solution to assist the football governing body in that dream.

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