In some more weird crypto news from this week, one of the biggest crypto wallets announced that they were delisting some big cryptocurrencies due to a lack of interest.
Note that this was not a formal delisting from the exchange, but from the exchange’s wallet product. Apparently, these cryptocurrencies now only saw “low usage” and therefore had no place on this particular wallet.
This type of announcement begs the question — can cryptos go out of style? How unfashionable do you have to become in order to be yanked off of wallet products in this way? I can’t imagine that it cost *that* much money to keep these coins as an option on the wallet: in fact, it may actually cost more in design manpower to move around the little table options to get rid of these “low usage” options.
Being listed on an exchange (or on a prestigious data aggregator like…CMC, for example) is often touted as a sign of legitimacy for crypto projects. If your project made it past the review process for listing, then you get that gold star of approval. Delistings then, especially from exchanges, happen more rarely and often because of ongoing law enforcement actions or in the aftermath of rug pulls.
This delisting for unpopularity, especially of four cryptocurrencies that are still “popular” enough to rank in CMC’s top 30, is an unusual move and should put other cryptocurrencies on alert.
It turns out that crypto, unlike life, is actually a popularity contest.
Sign up for TraderWagon to Share $1,000,000 in Rewards!
1,000 Bonus Passports for Binance Football Fever 2022! Sign up for TraderWagon, Win Fan Tokens & Join the Football Fun!
Sam Bankman-Fried won’t stop talking. In an interview with a crypto YouTuber, the embattled entrepreneur denied creating a secret backdoor so he could move funds out of FTX. He also confirmed he’s ignoring advice from lawyers to stay quiet — telling them to “go f*** themselves.” The 30-year-old said he regretted filing for bankruptcy as $4 billion in liquidity became available just eight minutes later, and claims this would have been enough to make all users whole. SBF fears that, while FTX US customers will get their money back in full, international users may only get “20 to 25 cents on the dollar.” Elsewhere, he acknowledged that he has lost the trust of the crypto community, and “any apology will ring hollow.”
Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi has more than $1 billion tied up in the bankruptcies of FTX and Alameda Research, a lawyer has revealed. Alameda has defaulted on loans worth a whopping $671 million, and BlockFi also has $335 million locked up in FTX accounts that are now frozen. The latest casualty in the bear market says it is planning to lay off two-thirds of its remaining 292 employees. Crypto lawyer Sasha Hodder told CoinDesk that she fears BlockFi customers “are really at the bottom of the list” when it comes to getting their money back. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which is owed $30 million following a settlement earlier this year, may end up being at the front of the queue.
Russian crypto billionaire and Libertex Group chairman Vyacheslav Taran has been killed in a helicopter crash en route to Monaco. The 53-year-old was the sole passenger in the flight from nearby Lausanne in Switzerland. Taran was founder of Forex Club and the Libertex exchange. The company said in a statement: “Vyacheslav Taran will be missed more than words can express, and everyone at Libertex will eternally be grateful for what he has accomplished.” He is the third crypto executive to die in strange circumstances in the past month. Last week, Amber Group co-founder Tiantian Kullander died unexpectedly in his sleep. And on Oct. 28, MakerDAO co-founder Nikolai Mushegian drowned in Puerto Rico.
Coinbase has announced that it will drop support of four old and well-known cryptocurrencies for its wallet: Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum Classic, Stellar Lumens and Ripple’s XRP. In a note on its website, Coinbase said that as of Jan. 23, 2023, its Coinbase Wallet will no longer support the tokens and their networks “due to low usage.” After that date, it will be possible to move those assets onto another wallet, but it will require use of a Coinbase recovery phrase — warning: “Sending or receiving unsupported assets through Coinbase Wallet will cause you to lose them.” This delisting only applies to the Coinbase Wallet, and not to Coinbase.com or the Coinbase app.
Thanks for reading! Have a great day — more news tomorrow!
