One of the numerous mysteries in cryptocurrencies is the ownership of Tether – the world’s biggest stablecoin by market capitalization. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) yesterday provided some answers to that question. Their report claims 86% of Tether Holdings is controlled by four men.   Who Owned Tether Tokens?   The four men identified as Tether holders by WSJ are company insiders, who stand to … Continue reading Notes 2/3: Tether Ownership, Bitcoin Premium in Nigeria

The crypto soap opera of miffed partners and questionable dealings continues with the latest revelations from Genesis’s bankruptcy filing. The crypto lending firm is claiming that Gemini, the crypto exchange that is one of its biggest creditors, violated terms of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and, therefore, its claim of almost $766 million should be voided altogether. Genesis gave collateral to Gemini in the form … Continue reading Notes 1/24: Genesis Bankruptcy Filing

As expected, Digital Currency Group’s (DCG) lending arm Genesis Global Capital filed for bankruptcy last evening. Genesis was the biggest lender in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Its business model consisted of providing yield on cryptocurrencies from firms like BlockFi and Gemini by rehypothecating them to institutional borrowers. At its peak, the company had over $16 billion on its loan book in the middle of November of … Continue reading Notes 1/20: Genesis Bankruptcy Filing, FTX Tech

It was not the allegations of “rampant” wash trading. It was not the absence of proper audits or the *snigger* decentralized chief financial officer. It was not the presence of an unregulated stablecoin or a useless security token masquerading as a utility coin on its exchange. Eventually, it was Binance’s brush with crypto exchange Bitzlato that brought the world’s biggest crypto trading exchange by volume … Continue reading Notes 1/19: Binance Drinks Bitzlato, DCG Falls Apart

The Wall Street Journal today has a long piece on Barry Silbert, founder of Digital Currency Group (DCG). As has been evident for some time now, problems are brewing at two of the firm’s most profitable businesses – Genesis and Grayscale. The former is one of the biggest trading and lending firms in crypto and the latter runs the world’s biggest publicly traded bitcoin instrument. … Continue reading Notes 1/18: Trouble at DCG

Binance is on a roll. After increasing its headcount by 5,000 people last year, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume plans to ramp up its hiring by between 15% to 30% this year, according to its chief executive officer and co-founder Changpeng Zhao or CZ as he is popularly known. Binance claims to have 8,000 employees currently, meaning it will hire somewhere between … Continue reading Notes 1/12: Binance Hires, Bitcoin Bonds

Yesterday, I wrote about the open letter sent by Cameron Winklevoss to the Digital Currency Group (DCG). The letter accuses DCG of “beyond commingling” its assets with those of Genesis, the group’s lending arm responsible for yield in the Earn program. DCG is reported to have made a loan, in the form of a ten-year promissory note, to Genesis to help the latter cover its … Continue reading Notes 1/10: More Winklevoss Drama: Will GBTC Become A Casualty?

December was a terrible month for Binance. Even as the exchange attempted to fashion order in a chaotic cryptocurrency ecosystem erupting with scandals daily, Binance found its own house unraveling. Investors are reported to have converted their holdings of Binance’s stablecoin BUSD to Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. [There is a comment to be made here about the intelligence about said investors, but I shall … Continue reading Notes 1/9: Binance’s Assets, GBTC Discount

The Celsius bankruptcy case is back in the news. The crypto lending platform, which claimed to run a “sophisticated finance platform”, filed for bankruptcy last year amid the rough and tumble of a debilitating crypto winter. In a decision about the case today, Judge Martin Glenn wrote that the company’s contract with its users was “unambiguous” and that it had ownership rights to its customers … Continue reading Notes 1/5: Celsius Bankruptcy, BNB Burn