Up until now, the fallout from FTX’s bankruptcy has largely remained manageable. Its casualties have been limited inside crypto and outside it. But a story in the New York Times yesterday is an omen that the exchange’s collapse will bring down bigger players. According to The Times, Alameda Research – the crypto trading firm cofounded by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, invested in Farmington State Bank, … Continue reading Notes 11/24: FTX and Tether, Entrepreneurs Who Lunch (with FT)

The Merge – Ethereum’s anticipated transition from an energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) continues to move markets in cryptocurrency. The Bellatrix Upgrade, initiated on the Ethereum chain this morning, pushed the price of ether, Ethereum’s native token, up by 5% to $164.37 from its price 24 hours ago. On a weekly basis, the price of ether is up by 10%. Momentum for … Continue reading Notes 9/6: The Merge Boosts Ethereum, Binance Provides A Leg Up To USDC

The world’s biggest stablecoin has switched accounting firms again. In an announcement this morning, Tether said it had hired BDO Italia, a subsidiary of BDO Inc., one of the world’s biggest accounting firms, to produce attestations about its reserve holdings – a basket of assets that is used to back up and facilitate quick redemption of Tether tokens. It also said that it was planning … Continue reading Tether Hires New Accounting Firm 

According to reports, traditional hedge funds have begun shorting Tether, the world’s biggest stablecoin by market capitalization and transaction volume. Leon Marshall, head of institutional sales at Genesis – a market maker, told the Wall Street Journal that interest from traditional hedge funds in shorting Tether has spiked in recent weeks. There are two reasons for this. First, they believe that the broader macroeconomic slump … Continue reading Traditional Hedge Funds Are Shorting Tether. Can They Bring It Down?

Terra blockchain’s new token LUNA seems to be a chip off the old block. Within hours of debuting this past Friday, the token’s price shot up by 47% to a peak of $19.53. It crashed soon after and reached a low of $3.98 on the same day based on data from Coinmarketcap. As of this writing, it has recovered to trade at $9.16. According to … Continue reading Terra’s LUNA Jumps On Debut, Then Crashes

The crash of algorithmic stablecoin UST continues to be a head spinning mess. Many big investors in the Terra blockchain and its native currency Luna claim to have cashed out of their holdings, some for a striking profit. But there doesn’t seem to be much respite for retail investors in the token. Luna, the underlying token responsible for maintaining UST’s peg, is practically worthless. Even … Continue reading What Happened to Investors During The UST Crash?