June 22, 2022 / Unchained Daily / Laura Shin
Daily Bits✍️✍️✍️
- Celsius token CEL rocketed 50% after an orchestrated short squeeze.
- The whale in Solend DAO moved $25 million of its debt to another DeFi protocol.
- Vitalik Buterin criticized the stock-to-flow Bitcoin model.
- Uniswap Labs acquired Genie, an NFT marketplace aggregator.
- Meta, Microsoft, and other tech giants are building the standards of the metaverse.
Today in Crypto Adoption…
- Deutsche Börse Group, the operator of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, partnered with Kaiko for crypto market data.
- Hex Trust, a crypto custody service, obtained approval in Dubai.
- Bitcoin investment firm NYDIG partnered with Deloitte to help businesses incorporate digital assets.
The $$$ Corner…
- Magic Eden, the main NFT marketplace on Solana, raised $130 million at a $1.6 billion valuation.
- Binance U.S. looks to raise another $50 million in additional funding.
What Do You Meme?
What’s Poppin’?
BlockFi Secures a $250 million Loan From FTX
By Juan Aranovich
Crypto platform BlockFi secured a $250 million credit line from FTX. The news was announced by BlockFi’s CEO Zac Prince on Twitter and was later confirmed in a press release by the company.
“Today BlockFi signed a term sheet with FTX to secure a $250M revolving credit facility providing us with access to capital that further bolsters our balance sheet and platform strength,” Prince said.
This agreement comes at a moment of uncertainty in the crypto market, with prices tanking, big companies like Celsius and Three Arrows Capital being liquidated on their positions, and a tough macroeconomic environment.
In his announcement, Prince insinuated that this could mark the beginning of a new partnership between the two crypto companies. “This agreement also unlocks future collaboration and innovation between BlockFi & FTX as we work to accelerate prosperity worldwide through crypto financial services,” said Prince.
Just last week, Prince confirmed that BlockFi had liquidated one of its major clients, presumably Three Arrows Capital, for not meeting its obligations on an overcollateralized margin loan.
It’s not the first time Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder, has come to the rescue of another crypto company. Last Friday, crypto broker Voyager Digital secured a $200 million loan from Bankman-Fried’s quant trading firm Alameda, in order to have “more flexibility to mitigate market conditions”.
FTX US also announced yesterday that they would be acquiring Embed Financial, an equities clearing startup. This acquisition has to do with FTX Stocks, the equities trading platform owned by FTX, as Embed Financial will provide custody, execution, and clearing services for securities.In a sign that not all is rosy at FTX, according to The New York Post, FTX pulled out from discussion to have a jersey patch on the MLB’s Los Angeles Angels’ uniform.
Recommended Reads
1) The Current State of Crypto (June 2022) by Onchain Wizard:
2) Crypto user Armani on xNFTs:
3) ChainLinkGod on the value proposition of DeFi:
On The Pod…
Caroline Pham, commissioner at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, discusses how we should build a regulatory framework for crypto assets, whether the SEC and CFTC should work together, what were the consequences of the Terra collapse, and much more.
Show highlights:
- how Cmr. Pham got started in crypto and became a CFTC commissioner
- the importance of the regulatory strategy around crypto
- what crypto’s role is in the financial system
- how bitcoin is a sort of money outside of the traditional financial system
- how friendly regulators should be with the industries they regulate
- why she believes transparency is one of the greatest ideals of American democracy
- how Cmr. Pham believes in self-determination and the power of free markets
- why Cmr. Pham published an op-ed with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce
- how the Terra collapse incentivized regulators to look deeper into the space
- whether the US approach towards regulation can improve
- the role of the regulatory agencies in making the US the financial leader of the world
- what Cmr. Pham thinks about the new Gillibrand and Lummis bill
- whether SEC Chair Gary Gensler is right about the majority of cryptos being securities
- what are the low-hanging fruit opportunities for regulators when it comes to crypto
- how Cmr. Pham believes we should have a global regulatory framework for crypto
- why she believes algorithmic stablecoins are derivatives
- why things like Terra could act as a “shadow banking 3.0”
- whether there is a way to regulate without having intermediaries
what Cmr. Pham thinks about FTX proposal to bypass futures commission merchants
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
