An eight-episode limited series exploring the unraveling and scandals behind sunken crypto exchange FTX and its leadership is slated to soon begin production. The series has been purchased by technology conglomerate Amazon, and will likely air on Amazon’s video streaming service Prime. It’s understood to be based on “insider reporting” from journalists covering FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried according to a Nov. 23 report from the entertainment magazine Variety. Brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, famed for directing Avengers: Endgame and multiple other Marvel-owned movies are reported to have sold the idea to Amazon and are slated to direct the …
Crypto exchange CrossTower Inc., which is currently bidding for the assets of Voyager Digital, is reportedly window shopping for other crypto company acquisitions. In a Nov. 24 Bloomberg report, CrossTower CEO Kapil Rathi revealed that the company is looking to pick up firms with a “good set of customers” and a “good balance sheet” despite the current bear market, stating: “We’re in a great place to either acquire entities who have a good set of customers with them and a good balance sheet [...] so we are openly looking at different types of companies from an organic growth perspective.” In …
Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis has compared the fall of Mt. Gox to FTX to determine how FTX’s bankruptcy will impact the ecosystem. It concluded that FTX was a relatively smaller part of the crypto industry than Mt. Gox was at the time and that the industry should bounce back stronger than ever. In a Nov. 23 Twitter thread, Chainalysis’ research lead Eric Jardine began his comparison by first looking at the market share of the two firms, finding that Mt. Gox averaged 46% of all exchange inflows in the year leading up to its collapse in 2014, compared to FTX’s …
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has once again attracted the ire of the crypto community — this time over his slated appearance at an upcoming New York City conference on November 30. Vocal members of Crypto Twitter have questioned why the former CEO of the now-bankrupt exchange continues to walk free given the events over the last month. In a Nov. 23 Twitter post, Bankman-Fried announced he will be speaking with New York Times journalist Andrew Sorkin at the DealBook Summit “next Wednesday.” The news was confirmed publicly by Sorkin, who said: “There are a lot of important questions to …
In this week’s newsletter, read about how a nonfungible token (NFT) protocol was affected by the FTX collapse leading to layoffs. Despite the effects of the FTX collapse, industry players within the NFT space are still confident in the recovery of NFTs. Meanwhile, Disney brought back metaverse-backer Bob Iger as its CEO, and check out how NFTs have taken center stage at Formula 1. And, don’t forget this week’s Nifty News featuring China-based tech companies offering FIFA World Cup fans a metaverse-like viewing experience of the soccer event. Nickel Digital, Metaplex and others continue to feel the impact of FTX …
Two Democratic members of the United States Senate have called on the Justice Department to investigate the collapse of FTX and potentially prosecute individuals involved in wrongdoing. In a Nov. 23 letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse requested the Justice Department launch an investigation into crypto exchange FTX’s downfall with the “utmost scrutiny.” The lawmakers cited the impact the collapse of a major firm in the crypto space had had on related companies — lending companies including Genesis and BlockFi halting trading — and funds which FTX …
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, has reiterated apologies to the exchange’s employees in a letter explaining the collapse. According to a Nov. 22 letter reviewed by Cointelegraph, Bankman-Fried broke down the reasons behind FTX’s liquidity crisis and subsequent bankruptcy to employees. He largely confirmed information reported by media outlets amid the exchange’s collapse, citing the crypto market downturn as one of the factors leading to reduction in the value of FTX’s collateral assets. November’s “run on the bank,” according to the former CEO, helped reduce the exchange’s collateral to roughly $9 billion with $8 billion in …
USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin issued by the U.S.-based Circle Financials Ltd, is taking the lead over its top rival, Tether (USDT), when it comes to institutional adoption, according to on-chain data. USDC daily transfer volumes are higher The market capitalization of USDC tokens in circulation comes to be around $44 billion versus USDT's $65.42 billion. However, USDC's daily transfer value on the Ethereum blockchain has been consistently higher than USDT throughout 2022, data from Glassnode shows. For instance, as of Nov. 22, the USDC daily transfer was around $14 billion compared to USDT's $5 billion. In other words, USDC …
The downfall of former crypto exchange FTX has had the entire industry in disarray since the situation began to unravel days before it declared bankruptcy on Nov. 11. A new op-ed from United States Senator Elizabeth Warren revealed a negative stance towards the industry with regard to the fallout. Warren wrote that the crypto industry is on a “well-worn path of financial innovation,” which starts with exciting rewards but ends in “crippling losses.” She compared it to subprime mortgages of 2008, penny stocks and credit-default swaps. The Senator said what happened with FTX should be a “wake-up call” to regulators …
The FTX crash appears to have affected not only companies and investors but also entire cities that previously became partners of the troubled cryptocurrency exchange. South Korea’s second-largest city, Busan, is reportedly reconsidering its plans to build a local crypto exchange as a consequence of the FTX collapse, the local news agency Yonhap reported on Nov. 23. The government and financial authorities of Busan have become increasingly concerned about the concept of a public-private digital exchange amid the FTX contagion. “In view of various conditions, it is unreasonable for the city of Busan to promote the establishment of a digital …
Argentina’s shock 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia in the opening match of the FIFA World Cup has plummeted the price of the Argentine Football Association Fan Token (ARG), in line with the hopes of the nation’s die-hard soccer fans. With the ARG token priced at $7.21 at kick-off, the poor performance by the Lionel Messi-led soccer team saw the token’s price fall 31% to $4.96 by the end of the match before rising to $5.22 at the time of writing, according to data from Coingecko. By contrast, the floor price of "The Saudis," a Saudi Arabian-themed nonfungible token (NFT) collection …
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank, released a statement Nov. 21 to address “some questions and misconceptions that have arisen in the wake of the FTX.com (FTX) debacle.” The agency explained its The first point MAS wanted to make was that it could not protect local users from the fallout from FTX collapse “such as by ringfencing their assets or ensuring that FTX backed its assets with reserves” because “FTX is not licensed by MAS and operates offshore. MAS has consistently warned about the dangers of dealing with unregulated entities.” Yet it was Binance that ended …