July 25, 2022 / Unchained Daily / Laura Shin
Daily Bits✍️✍️✍️
- Bitcoin mining difficulty dropped by 5% on July 21.
- SushiSwap launched SushiXSwap, a crosschain swap AMM.
- Jump Crypto has begun supporting liquidity on Synthetix again.
- Web3 music platform Audius reported a $1.1 million governance hack.
- Crypto lending platform Zipmex reopened deposits on its platform and says it is in discussions with potential investors to buy out the firm.
- Ether held on exchanges is at a four-year low.
- Uniswap will integrate Sudoswap, a decentralized marketplace, to allow for more efficient NFT swaps on its yet-to-be-released NFT platform.
- OpenSea unveiled a Solana NFT minting launchpad.
- TVL on Bancor is down 30% since pausing support for impermanent loss protection.
- FTX is in talks with Bithumb about acquiring the South Korean exchange.
- BlockFi reported $600 million in uncovered collateral at the end of Q2.
Today in Crypto Adoption…
- Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, released a set of NFTs created by DALL-E.
The $$$ Corner…
- FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried says his company might deploy hundreds of millions of dollars to backstop the crypto industry in the bear market.
- Chain, a blockchain infrastructure firm, completed a $100 million acquisition of Measurable Data Token, a blockchain as a service company.
What Do You Meme?
What’s Poppin’?
FTX Unveils Plan to Save Voyager Customers
On Friday, FTX and Alameda Ventures published a joint partnership proposal with the recently declared bankrupt Voyager Digital that would see FTX provide early liquidity to customers of Voyager.
Behind the scenes, Alameda would purchase all digital assets and digital asset loans (outside of anything from 3AC) with cash from Voyager and put them into escrow. From there, FTX would allow Voyager customers to create new accounts at FTX funded by an undisclosed portion of their bankruptcy claims. From there, customers would be able to cash out or reinvest in tokens at FTX.
“Voyager’s customers did not choose to be bankruptcy investors holding unsecured claims,” says Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, in the press release. “The goal of our joint proposal is to help establish a better way to resolve an insolvent crypto business – a way that allows customers to obtain early liquidity and reclaim a portion of their assets without forcing them to speculate on bankruptcy outcomes and take one-sided risks.”
On a must-read tweet thread, Sam Bankman-Fried also added that the offer “would let customers–if they chose–get the remaining assets [left on Voyager] back right away, with no fees or additional haircut.”
According to the press release, FTX wants to close the deal by early August, with the joint proposal asking for an initial response from Voyager on Tuesday of this week. Furthermore, the proposal is subject to the bankruptcy court’s approval.
At face value, FTX and Alameda offering to give customers quick liquidity feels like a heartwarming storyline. However, according to Georgetown’s Adam Levitin on Twitter, the offer is “not as good as it looks.” From Levitin’s perspective, the proposal has a few “hiccups,” including that FTX is…
- not saying anyone will be paid in full
- pushing for a speedy timeline, which Levitin suspects will not be approved in court
Furthermore, Levitin points out that Voyager may not even have the right to sell digital assets if they are considered customer property.
While it remains to be seen how Voyager responds, the market appears to be interested in the deal, as Voyager’s token VGX experienced a substantial price hike in the aftermath of FTX’s proposal
Recommended Reads
- Qiao Wang on crypto cycles
- Jake Chervinsky on the SEC and securities law
- Jason Choi on founding a web3 company
On The Pod…
Adam Cochran, partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, discusses the impact of 3AC’s impending liquidation. Show topics:
- why 3AC founders (and family members) are listing themselves as creditors
- what the “corporate veil” is and why it matters regarding 3AC
- where retail investors stand in the pecking order of creditors
- why Adam doesn’t believe we know the full story about 3AC’s downfall, despite liquidators leaking a 1,000-page report about it
- what creditors might do with 3AC’s yacht
- why Adam is less worried about the health of GBTC in light of recent 3AC filings
- what effect 3AC’s fall will have on Genesis and Digital Currency Group
- why creditors might prefer liquidations to be paid out in equity compared to cash in this environment
- how 3AC’s liquidation is impacting retail investors at Voyager and Celsius
- why there could be a crypto credit crunch coming soon
Book Update
My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, is now available!
You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians
