Industry heavyweights have urged crypto investors and traders to self-custody their crypto assets amid the significant market uncertainty brought on by the collapse of FTX. In a Nov. 13 tweet to his 7.6 million followers, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao pushed the crypto community to store their own crypto via self-custody crypto wallets. “Self custody is a fundamental human right. You are free to do it anytime. Just make sure you do do it right,” he said, recommending investors to start with small amounts in order to learn the technology and tooling first: Self custody is a fundamental human right. …

United-States-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has frozen the accounts associated with “FTX Group, Alameda Research, and their executives,” on its exchange after engaging with authorities. In a Twitter post on Nov. 13, Kraken said the accounts were frozen “to protect their creditors” and added it “maintains full reserves” and other users' funds aren’t affected, likely seeking to stamp out fears from users that the exchange might face liquidity issues due to the fund freeze. Kraken has spoken with law enforcement regarding a handful of accounts owned by the bankrupt FTX Group, Alameda Research and their executives. Those accounts have been frozen …

Payments company Curve is in active discussions to acquire crypto lender BlockFi's more than 87,000 credit card customers — whose credit cards have been suspended since Nov. 11. A Curve spokesperson told Cointelegraph that “outreach and negotiations” started on Nov. 12 and are still in the process with Banking as a Service (BaaS) company Deserve, which services the BlockFi card program. My BlockFi credit card has officially stopped working. R.I.P 2021-2022 — Portland.HODL (@PortlandHODL) November 11, 2022 "Terms are being negotiated actively between Curve and Deserve, but a sale or partnership, if agreed to, is pending the conclusion of due …

Crypto exchange CrossTower is working on a revised offer for the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, a spokesperson told Cointelegraph. Voyager announced the reopening of its bidding process after FTX US, the original winner in the bid, filed for bankruptcy in the United States on Nov. 11. "We are working on a revised offer that we feel will benefit the Voyager customers and the wider Crypto community. CrossTower has always been, and will continue to be, very community-focussed.", the spokesperson said, without specifying an amount. In September, FTX US secured the winning bid for the assets for approximately …

An investigation of possible criminal misconduct over the insolvency of cryptocurrency exchange FTX is underway by financial investigators and the Bahamas securities regulators, according to a statement by the Royal Bahamas Police Force sent to Reuters on Nov 13. The Royal Bahamas Police stated: "In light of the collapse of FTX globally and the provisional liquidation of FTX Digital Markets Ltd., a team of financial investigators from the Financial Crimes Investigation Branch are working closely with the Bahamas Securities Commission to investigate if any criminal misconduct occurred." The investigation comes after the regulator publicly denied FTX allegations over the weekend. …

Solana's developers forked the widely used token liquidity hub Serum, after being compromised by a hack on the bankruptcy exchange FTX on Nov. 11 that led to a series of unauthorized transactions. According to pseudonymous developer Mango Max on Twitter, a "verified build of the same version has been made and deployed" on Nov 12. Additionaly, the upgrade authority and fee revenues "have been changed and are now managed by a multi-sig controlled by a team of trusted developers." Serum (SRM) and megaserum (MSRM) tokens, as well as fee discounts were not changed and were working as before. The development …

Bitcoin (BTC) investors are withdrawing funds from exchanges at a rate not seen since April 2021 with nearly $3 billion in Bitcoin withdrawn over the past seven days. New data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode shows the number of wallets receiving BTC from exchange addresses hit almost 90,000 on Nov. 9. Exchange users wake up to self-custody Amid ongoing turmoil over the bankruptcy of major exchange FTX, concerns have heightened among exchange users over security of funds. Commentators have upped advice to avoid custodial wallets and take control of cryptoassets, and regulators are increasing scrutiny of the crypto industry en …

The sudden fall of FTX revealed the need for fresh reforms aimed at protecting investor funds against manipulation and misdirections. The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, believes what FTX did was a bigger fraud when compared to the infamous Mt. Gox and Terra (LUNA) collapses. Buterin believed that people running Mt. Gox and LUNA ecosystems “looked” sketchy and did not try too hard to whitewash themselves enough to change investor perspectives. On the other hand, Buterin said that “FTX was the opposite and did full-on compliance virtue signaling.” While virtue signaling relates to the practice of publicly demonstrating one’s good …

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB) has denied instructing or authorizing crypto exchange FTX to prioritize withdrawals of Bahamian clients. In a statement on Nov. 12, the securities commission vehemently denied a Nov. 11 statement from FTX on Twitter that suggested it had been instructed by “Bahamian HQ’s regulation and regulators” to facilitate the withdrawal of Bahamian funds. “The Commission wishes to advise that it has not directed, authorized or suggested to FTX Digital Markets, Ltd. the prioritization of withdrawals for Bahamian clients,” read the statement which was shared on the SCB's Twitter page. Securities Commission Addresses FTX Statement …

Plaid is a fintech company that facilitates communication between financial services apps and users’ banks and credit card providers. In FTX.US’ case, its products enable users to allow FTX.US customers to connect their bank accounts to the FTX app. This would then allow FTX.US to request payments that will be processed by the ACH network. In a pinned Tweet on Nov. 12, Plaid announced it has suspended FTX’s access to Plaid products as of approximately 6:30 am UTC on Nov. 12, meaning that “FTX can no longer retrieve any financial information via Plaid.” Plaid suspended FTX’s access to Plaid products …

“Right now three of them, Sam, Gary, and Nishad are under supervision in the Bahamas. Which means it will be hard for them to leave,” a source familiar with the matter told Cointelegraph. The source said they also understand that the three, as well as Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, are looking for ways to flee to Dubai, which doesn’t have any extradition treaty. “I just got word that they were trying to get a way to get to Dubai which doesn’t have an extradition treaty.” The source has also revealed that Ellison is currently in Hong Kong, “so she …

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has denied speculation that he’s fled to Argentina as the saga surrounding his collapsed cryptocurrency exchange continued to unfold in near-real time on Twitter. In a text message to Reuters on Nov. 12, Bankman-Fried, who also goes by SBF, said he was still in the Bahamas. When Reuters asked him specifically whether he had flown to Argentina, as the rumors suggest, he responded: “Nope.” Users took to Twitter over the weekend to speculate whether SBF was on the run after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for FTX Group, which includes a slew of companies such as …