Hello and welcome to The Node. This is Daniel Kuhn and Xinyi Luo, here to take you through the latest in crypto news and why it matters. In today’s newsletter:
USDC Issuer Circle Cancels Plan to Go Public: Circle backed out of a plan to go public via a SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, after failing to complete necessary U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission paperwork “in time,” CEO Jeremy Allaire said. Going public “remains part of Circle’s core strategy,” he added.
The original merger deal with Concord Acquisition Corp. had valued the second-largest stablecoin issuer at $4.5 billion – and more recently at $9 billion.
Genesis Creditor Groups’ Loans Amount to $1.8B: Genesis may owe creditors up to $1.8 billion and counting, according to the latest figures reported by law firm Proskauer Rose, which is representing some former customers. About half that amount is reportedly locked up in Gemini’s lending platform Earn, which had lent money to Genesis. (Digital Currency Group owns both Genesis and CoinDesk.)
Meanwhile, Alameda Research apparently lost upwards of $1 billion after backfilling an FTX user’s highly leveraged bet on mobilecoin (a crypto tied to encrypted messaging platform Signal). The loss, incurred in 2021, may have been the beginning of the end for Sam Bankman-Fried’s trading empire.
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Calling someone “influential” is not a value judgment – it’s an acknowledgement they’ve had a profound impact on the world. Crypto will never be the same after the likes of Terra’s Do Kwon and FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, who both seemingly perpetrated frauds (but even if they didn’t, ended up as failures). As dark as 2022 has seemed, there’s also been unquestionably good advances – like Ethereum’s switch to proof-of-stake, Zcash’s massive privacy upgrade and more. CoinDesk writers and editors want to give credit where it’s due, for all those reshaping the world of Web3, non-fungible tokens, the metaverse and beyond. Read the full list here.
Additionally, this year CoinDesk collaborated with Coinbase NFT to mint and auction 14 Most Influential 2022 portraits and integrated our utility token, DESK. Bidders can win tickets to our Consensus festival and feel good knowing they might have some positive influence, with the NFT proceeds going to working artists and climate charity One Earth. Check out the drop here.
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Overheard on CoinDesk TV…
Sound Bites
“He is a master of deflection.”
– Securities lawyer at Murphy & McGonigle, on Sam Bankman-Fried’s media parade, on CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover”
FTX’s recent implosion sent shockwaves throughout the crypto world as retail and institutional investors saw billions of dollars of investments wiped out. Many investors became aware of the issue at once, triggering a widespread withdrawal that led to FTX’s insolvency. Industry-wide discussions regarding exchange reserves came to the forefront in the aftermath, leading many exchanges to only just now start announcing commitments to proving reserves.
But is proof-of-reserve enough? How can an investor know whether an exchange is actually safeguarding user assets and operating with transparency?
*This is sponsored content from Gate.io.
What others are writing
Off-Chain Signals
Structural Adjustment: How The IMF And World Bank Repress Poor Countries And Funnel Their Resources To Rich Ones (Bitcoin Magazine)
Sam Bankman-Fried takes aim at FTX CEO John Ray in new interview (The Block)
