The Weekly Pen: Aftermath from being FTX’ED, kick off and more

LIQUIDITY
MONEY
DEFI
CRYPTO
BITCOIN
INVEST
By the Pen

Week46 marks the aftermath of the Lehman-like collapse of crypto behemoth FTX, led by the (maybe) prosecuted and (maybe) exiled Sam Bankman-Fried. The news and the trickle-down effect have overshadowed many other events in the crypto industry, but dear not. The Pen team from Penning is back to give you the top trending (all next to news about FTX) from the world of Web3, DeFi, and Crypto. Put your feet up, lean back, and enjoy the read.

FTX AFTERMATH

The downfall of the crypto community’s darling, who once proclaimed himself as being the savior of faltering crypto startups to “protect” the industry, Sam Bankman-Fried is now in the epicenter of a crypto crash and burn scandal which makes Celcius Network look like a lullaby story. A sneeze that will most likely make the industry catch a cold during the crypto winter following a very hot market, here’s an overview of the touch of death caused by FTX, the awful gift that just keeps on giving after taking everything away:

  • FTX Alameda files for Bankruptcy. It is of no surprise that FTX and Alameda have filed for Chapter11. While the act is usually structured as a way to well, restructuring, things might not work out for them as they planned.
  • FTX had $900 million of assets and $9B+ of liabilities. No one needs to be a state-chartered accountant to figure out that there’s something here that just doesn’t add up.
  • Alameda and SBF had a “backdoor”, so they could secretly access billions in FTX customer deposits. An exchange led by a CEO who hated regulators as they were not “consumer-oriented” this so-called backdoor seems all a little too convenient.
  • FTX and Alameda execs knew everything. Of course, they did, but narcissist has a tendency of pretending not to know, while their alternate minds try to figure out how the truth can be altered and become false claims.
  • FTX gets new CEO on board. As part of their Chapter11 filing, a new CEO has stepped in to save the remains of the exchange giant. Let’s see how long this CEO can manage to stay on board once he learns that his payday might never come.
  • Crypto asset management firm ikigai lost a “large majority” of its fund on FTX. Well so did millions of consumers across the world and who really cares about a firm that didn’t perform their due diligence well enough when celebs are under scrutiny and being sued for promoting something they had no clue about? Who’s gonna sue VCs who invested public money into a giant scam?
  • Oh and btw, speaking of regulators before, FTX was one of the biggest donors to the democratic party, so maybe SBF might just get off the hook.

WHO’S NEXT

In the web of the fall of FTX, many other exchanges were subsequently hit. Whether it was just a matter of time before they were exposed for mismanaging funds and using shady “backdoors” as well, the collapse of SBF and its web of scams is just the pebble in the sea, and the final nail in the coffin, which might the start of their demise as well. As crypto contagion spreads, BlockFi is already preparing for a potential bankruptcy, who’s been deeply entangled financially with FTX. BlockFi being a crypto lender was the lead successor after the collapse of crypto lending giant Celcius.Network. However, it might now just be a bitter memory in the industry.

Customers are already starting to worry whether crypto.com will follow the fall of FTX. While regulators are circling FTX and its underlying related companies, crypto.com CEO dismisses speculation of financial trouble. But, back in august this year, it came to light that crypto.com accidentally transferred $10.5M while trying to transfer $100 to an Australian woman and didn’t notice her until after 7 months. Fast forward to the past weekend, crypto.com “accidentally” deposited 320,000 ETH worth $416M which gate.io discovered and corrected the “mistake”. Whatever the truth might be, there seems to be a small pattern of crypto.com making too many accidental transfers.

While there might be many more to speculate about who’s going to catch a cold from the sneeze of FTX, the winter just got colder.

SHELL TO CHILL WITH BITCOIN

Speaking of a cold winter in the midst of a rising energy crisis across Europe, Dutch oil giant Shell is working on bringing solutions to Bitcoin mining. With Shell’s primary goal being to reduce carbon emissions (really?) Through sustainable solutions, they also want to reduce the cost of energy of Bitcoin mining through the use of resources available from the company itself. Shell will be offering its lubricant and cooling solutions to miners. Whether this is a play to increase their revenue as much as possible and sees the bitcoin mining industry as an add-on to their “stream of markets”, it might be a win-win for the industry and economy.

NIKE AND ADIDAS KICK-OFF

This week is the kick-off of the world cup 2022 in Qatar, where the most celebrated football (or soccer) players will embellish their holy feet with brands such as Puma, Nike, and Adidas are also embellishing the world of web3 through platforms named Swoosh (Nike) and Adidas into the metaverse (Adidas). Swoosh will be run on polygon and is set to be due in early 2023.

N.Y., CBDC, AND THE INITIAL 8

Penning has covered the rise of CBDCs from Key Opinion Leaders, over the last few weeks and will do so on this week’s weekly Pen as well. New York federal reserve has chosen 8 big banks (BNY Mellon, Citi, HSBC, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo) to kick off the creation of CBDC and test the feasibility of a digital dollar based on distributed ledger technology. With Mastercard being at the tests epicenter, this is a major step towards to creation of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which was recommended by The Biden administration, elected from the democratic party largely funded by Sam Bankman-Fried (no, no theory here…). The U.S. Dollar will be represented as tokens and settled through simulated central bank reserves on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger. China is currently the frontrunner in the adaption of CBDCs with their eYuan, U.S. is now in play to win the infrastructure game. CZ, SBF, U.S. vs China, who cares about Qatar World Cup 2022?

CZ TO THE RESCUE

Bitcoin and crypto prices saw a hike in price after Binance CEO CZ announced the intention to set up an industry recovery fund to support strong projects undergoing liquidity crises. The effect of the news added $46Bn to the crypto market cap in just 6 hours. His aim is to show that whatever is happening should reflect a negative representation of the industry. The main purpose of the fund is to reduce further cascading negative effects of FTX’s collapse. Even though the fund might only be short-term, it could potentially save many and put a halt to much more destruction.

Where does all this mess, havoc, centralized power struggle and another era of faltering financial system leave DeFi?

TILL WE YIELD AGAIN

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