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:
FTX Exploiter Converts ETH to Synthetic BTC: Over $600 million funds stolen from FTX were steadily converted to ether and then ren bitcoin (renBTC), a token that represents bitcoin on other blockchains, early on Sunday, as the unknown hacker looks to capitalize on the exploit of the bankrupt exchange. Because crypto transactions are public, and other exchanges have vowed to freeze stolen funds, the maneuver might attempt to cash out by other means.
Meanwhile, a new court document shows that FTX owes its top 50 creditors approximately $3.1 billion. The document also shows that FTX’s new CEO, John Ray, is earning $1,300 per hour.
Separately, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried personally received $300 million from the now-infamous $420 million Series B in October 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal.
‘Grayscale Discount’ Widens to Record 43%: Shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the world’s largest publicly traded crypto fund, are trading at a record discount relative to its underlying bitcoin as corporate owner Digital Currency Group sets out to raise $1 billion to backstop losses. Genesis, another DCG portfolio company, froze customer withdrawals last week related to losses in its lending division.
DCG, once called the “Standard Oil” of crypto (and owner of CoinDesk), has reportedly been rocked by ongoing market contagion following the collapse of FTX. The corporate titan may be forced to sell assets or face margin calls if unable to secure funding.
Uniswap Collects Users’ Public On-Chain Data: Uniswap Labs said in a privacy policy update that it stores certain on-chain data from users. This excludes personal data (like names and street address), but may include off-chain info like browser and device types.
“We do want to make data-driven decisions that improve user experience,” Uniswap Labs said, adding this data won’t be shared with third parties like marketers.
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Putting the news into perspective
The Takeaway
Decentralized Social Media – Has the Moment Come?
Decentralized social media platforms are seeing an uptick in users as people look for Twitter alternatives. Aave’s NFT-based system Lens Protocol, token-paying Minds and new upstart Farcaster may not be able to scale to the size of their corporate-owned competitors, but they do offer a certain peace of mind that someone like Elon Musk cannot come in make changes willy-nilly. Read the full story here.
Overheard on CoinDesk TV…
Sound Bites
“It’s these broader issues around oversight, compliance and auditing.”
– Dragonfly Capital Partner Tom Schmidt, discussing the red flags VCs missed before investing in FTX, on CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover”
