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Circle marks a possible $3B loss from Binance stablecoin conversions

Circle, the company behind the issuance of USDC Coin (USDC) said recent events have caused it to miscalculate its financial projections — referring to the collapse of FTX and a decision by rival exchange Binance.

In September, crypto exchange Binance announced it will auto-convert USDC to its own stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD), last week saw the collapse of FTX.

Circle’s 2022 miscalculated projection was noted in its amended S-4 registration statement which was filed to the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) on Nov. 14.

The S-4 is a registration statement is a document that companies fill out and submit to the SEC before merging or taking over another company or providing an exchange offer.

Circle noted that while they were not able to assess how significant a role Binance’s auto conversion’s from USDC to BUSD played in USDC’s decline in circulation, they observed an approximate $3 billion increase in BUSD from Aug. 17 to Sept. 30, with the firm adding:

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FTX collapse is Trust Wallet Token's gain — Why did TWT price soar 150% in six days?

Trust Wallet Token (TWT) has surged by nearly 150% in the last six days, bucking the downturn in the cryptocurrency market, whose net capitalization has crashed by almost $100 billion in the same period.

TWT whale accumulation picks up momentum

TWT's price reached an intraday high of $2.43 on Nov. 15, a day after establishing a record high at nearly $2.75. At its lowest in 2022, the token was changing hands for $0.40, which makes it one of the year's best-performing assets, with over 225% year-to-date gains.

TWT/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView

The Trust Wallet Token's uptrend picked up momentum in November following the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX, prompting a bank run situation wherein traders withdrew their funds from exchanges en masse.

For instance, the total number of Bitcoin (BTC) in FTX's wallets dropped to zero in the week ending Nov. 13. Similarly, the exchange's Ether (ETH) reserves fell from 611,000 to just 2,800 in the same period.

Ethereum balance on FTX. Source: Glassnode

Distrust in centralized exchanges seems to have boosted the appetite for self-custody wallets. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao's endorsement of the token's parent platform, Trust Wallet, has also played a major part in driving up the TWT price. 

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Arbitrum sees steady growth as airdrop speculation leads to increased earnings

Post Ethereum (ETH) merge, layer-2 blockchains have been catching the eyes of users and investors alike. Research firm Delphi Digital has been tracking Arbitrum since August and recently shared its analysis in a monthly market report.

According to data, user behavior and historical analysis show multiple trends of rapid growth in transactions, total value locked (TVL) and daily active users at Arbitrum-based platforms. 

Arbitrum reaches the top-10 in monthly earnings

When projects give away more token incentives than the revenue they incur, they have negative earnings. Token incentives that are higher than fees a protocol receives are typically a sign that the growth is not sustainable and more than likely wash trading.

Over the last 30 days, Arbitrum has earned $1 million in fees, a 134.41% increase. The increase in fees also increased the 30-day revenue for the Arbitrum protocol by 46.91%. Such growth puts Arbitrum as eighth among all DeFi protocols with $240,000 in earnings.

Earnings leaderboard sorted by earnings. Source: Token Terminal

User growth hits 70,000 daily active users as Optimism investors move to Arbitrum

In order for a protocol to receive revenue and earnings, they need daily active users. The daily active users transacting and interacting with Arbitrum is how fees increase. Over the past 30 days, Arbitrum witnessed user growth double to more than 70,000 but more recently user count is back to under 30,000.

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Blockchain and the world’s growing plastic problem

Everything makes its way to the sea, and none more so than plastics. There are now five floating plastic islands in different oceans across the world, with the largest island even having a name, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is three times the size of France. Lying between California and Hawaii, it is the world’s biggest ocean waste repository, with 1.8 billion pieces of floating plastic that kill thousands of marine animals each year.

Of course, we now know that 35% of waste originates from wealthy countries and 50% of this waste is exported to developing countries. At the same time, 70% of developing countries mismanage their own waste and lack the infrastructure to collect and recycle waste. Finally, 90% of all plastic waste enters the oceans through rivers, mostly through a few hundred rivers in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Many projects have sprung up looking to tackle the problem of plastic pollution at the end of its journey. On Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador, one of the projects funded by Bitcoin philanthropists is the collection of plastics in the river before they reach the sea. 

Plastiks.io is another project that addresses the end games, identifying credible recycling and cleanup projects typically in developing countries that are funded by business or philanthropic individuals in the west.

Canada-based Plastic Bank also works to incentivize stewards to collect plastic from the oceans and, to date, claims that its Ocean Stewards have stopped more than 64 million kilograms of plastic from entering the ocean.


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Crypto.com's CRO token is in trouble but a 50% price rebound is in play

Crypto.com’s native token Cronos (CRO) is showing restraint on Nov. 14 against mounting sell-pressure building in the wake of the FTX’s dramatic collapse last week. Now, the CRO/USD pair is eyeing a watershed price recovery.

On Nov. 14, CRO’s price wobbled between profits and losses, trading around $0.069 a day after crashing to $0.05, its lowest level since April 2020 — that’s a 60% price decline from November’s peak of around $0.178.

CRO/USD weekly price chart. Source: TradingView

CRO funding rate drops to -3%

The period of CRO’s price decline occurred alongside a sharp drop in the token’s perpetual futures funding rates.

Funding rates are recurring payments made by traders based on the difference between the prices in the futures and the spot market. A positive funding rate means bullish traders (long positions) pay bearish traders (short positions), representing their confidence about a price rally.

Conversely, a negative funding rate means short traders pay long traders to keep their positions open. On Nov. 14, CRO’s funding rates on Huobi and OKX dropped to minus 3%, showing traders are extremely bearish on the token.

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CZ and Saylor urge for crypto self-custody amid increasing uncertainty

Industry heavyweights have urged crypto investors and traders to self-custody their crypto assets amid the significant market uncertainty brought on by the collapse of FTX. 

In a Nov. 13 tweet to his 7.6 million followers, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao pushed the crypto community to store their own crypto via self-custody crypto wallets.

“Self custody is a fundamental human right. You are free to do it anytime. Just make sure you do do it right,” he said, recommending investors to start with small amounts in order to learn the technology and tooling first:

Speaking to Cointelegraph during the Pacific Bitcoin conference on Nov. 10-11, MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor also discussed the merits of self-custody given the current market environment.

Saylor suggested that self-custody not only provides investors with property rights, it also prevents powerful actors from corrupting the network and its participants:

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FTX goes up in flames and impacts broader crypto industry, causing regulators to respond: Hodler’s Digest, Nov. 6-12

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

FTX and Binance’s ongoing saga: Everything that’s happened until now

An earthquake rattled the crypto space this week, its impact felt in numerous related stories regarding FTX, Alameda Research and Binance. Although the bad news came rolling in this week, suspicions relating to FTX’s status appear to have started on Nov. 2. The concerns had to do with a large number of FTX Token (FTT) held by Alameda (Sam Bankman-Fried, aka SBF, founded Alameda and co-founded FTX). By Nov. 6, Binance had decided it would sell its sizable position in FTT. FTX withdrawal issues surfaced on Nov. 7, symptomatic of a bank run. Binance expressed interest in buying FTX but declined the purchase, citing concerns on Nov. 9. 

Other developments throughout the week included SBF reportedly requesting $8 billion to cover exchange withdrawals and news of the situation affecting other big players such as Sequoia Capital, as well as related regulatory headlines

Nov. 11 saw SBF’s resignation as well as FTX, Alameda and FTX US applying for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. About 130 entities under FTX Group are filing for bankruptcy.

Breaking: Bahamas securities regulator freezes FTX assets

On Nov. 10, FTX saw its assets frozen and its registration suspended by the Securities Commission of The Bahamas, based on suspicions of mishandled client funds. A provisional liquidator was elected by the Bahamian Supreme Court, meaning FTX must now obtain permission to touch any of its assets. FTX is primarily based in the Bahamas, falling under its jurisdiction. The situation regarding FTX user withdrawals has been touch and go, with some withdrawals seemingly approved and funds leaving the exchange. Additionally, FTX negotiated a deal with Tron to allow holders of TRX, BTT, JST, SUN, and HT to swap assets from FTX to external wallets without penalty.


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3 key crypto price events to watch in the wake of the FTX and Alameda debacle

Up until the start of this week, Bitcoin (BTC) had been demonstrating record-low volatility, and this gave altcoins enough latitude to paint some nice technical setups. 

At the same time, on-chain data and technical analysis were beginning to suggest that BTC was midway through carving out a bottom, and many analysts believed that brighter days lay ahead.

Fast forward to the present, and the volatility spike the market received actually turned out to be a black swan event.

As you already know, FTX is kaput.

Alameda Research is kaput.

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Total crypto market cap drops to $850B as data suggests further downside

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization dropped by 24% between Nov. 8 and Nov. 10, reaching a $770 billion low. However, after the initial panic was subdued and forced future contracts liquidations were no longer pressuring asset prices, a sharp 16% recovery followed.

Total crypto market cap in USD, 2-days. Source: TradingView

This week’s dip was not the market's first rodeo below the $850 billion market capitalization level, and a similar pattern emerged in June and July. In both cases, the support displayed strength, but the $770 billion intraday bottom on Nov. 9 was the lowest since December 2020.

The 17.6% weekly drop in total market capitalization was mostly impacted by Bitcoin's (BTC) 18.3% loss and Ether's (ETH) 22.6% negative price move. Still, the price impact was more severe on altcoins, with 8 of the top 80 coins losing 30% or more in the period.

Weekly winners and losers among the top 80 coins. Source: Nomics

FTX Token (FTT) and Solana (SOL) were severely impacted by liquidations following the insolvency of FTX exchange and Alameda Research.

Aptos (APT) dropped 33% despite denying rumors that Aptos Labs or Aptos Foundation treasuries were held by FTX.

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FTX crisis likely to spark a domino effect, macro analyst explains

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The repercussions of the cataclysmic FTX downfall are going to be broader than the crypto markets, as they will accelerate downward moves in stocks and commodity markets, according to Mike McGlone, senior marco analyst at Bloomberg.

“Bitcoin has been one of the leading indicators on the way up, and it’s a leading indicator on the way down. And it’s just broken down, so expect most dominoes to fall,” McGlone pointed out in a recent interview with Cointelegraph. 

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FTX ex-exec floats 'cool token' idea amid warning rebound may take years

Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency may “take years to recover” from the FTX scandal, one industry analyst warns.

In a Twitter thread on Nov. 11, Filbfilb, co-founder of trading suite Decentrader, said that the Terra LUNA debacle was itself still playing out.

Filbfilb: "I've never seen such a debacle"

The crypto industry is experiencing “a clear case of what goes up must come down,” Filbfilb summarizes.

As the fallout from FTX and Alameda Research only begins to become apparent, many industry businesses and associated tokens have been left reduced to a shadow of their former selves.

Amid bankruptcy concerns from those with exposure to FTX and investigations from regulators, the outlook looks bleak for the industry’s reputation.

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US senators commit to advancing crypto bill despite FTX collapse

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United States senators Debbie Stabenow and John Boozman have doubled down on their commitment to publishing a final version of the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act 2022 (DCCPA) in the wake of FTX’s shocking collapse.

For a short time, the cryptocurrency community wasn’t sure how the senators would respond to the FTX crisis — as the DCCPA bill is understood to have been strongly supported by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

But the members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry confirmed their intentions in a Nov. 10 statement — stating “the events that have transpired this week reinforce the clear need for greater federal oversight of the digital asset industry.”

“Chairwoman Stabenow and I remain committed to advancing a final version of the DCCPA that creates a regulatory framework that allows for international cooperation and gives consumers greater confidence that their investments are safe,” wrote Senator Boozman.

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Analysts urge calm as Tether depegs from USD, Bitcoin loses $17K rebound

Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto markets saw fresh volatility on Nov. 10 after stablecoin Tether (USDT) unpegged from the U.S. dollar.

USDT/USD 1-day candle chart (Binance U.S.). Source: TradingView

Tether exec: "No issues" with USDT

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed USDT hitting lows of $0.971 on Bitstamp on the day amid fears that the largest stablecoin by market cap may fall further.

Those fears were stoked by evidence of embattled exchange FTX and sister company Alameda Research attempting to short USDT.

Currently in the throws of a crisis reminiscent of the Terra LUNA debacle, both firms have fallen foul of the cryptocurrency community and beyond as regulators step up scrutiny of the industry.

The impact has been felt across crypto prices, with BTC/USD reaching more than two-year lows of $15,638 on Bitstamp.

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Tron's stablecoin USDD loses dollar peg on suspected selloff by Alameda Research

In April 2022, the Tron network launched USDD, a token pegged to the U.S. dollar, as an "over-collateralized stablecoin," meaning its likelihood of slipping below $1 should be lower due to excessive reserves backing its valuation.

USDD stablecoin slips below $1 peg

But it was not enough to keep USDD's price anchored to $1 on Nov. 8 when some whales dumped over 11 million USDD tokens to seek exposure in rival stablecoins Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). A day later, USDD's price fell to as low as $0.96, followed by a modest recovery to $0.98 on Nov. 10. 

USDD price performance on a 24-hour adjusted timeframe. Source: Messari 

The selling pressure was visible more broadly in the USDD liquidity pool on Curve's decentralized finance protocol. As of Nov. 10, the pool was heavily imbalanced, holding nearly 82.50% in USDD and the rest in USDT, USDC, and DAI stablecoins. 

Tron founder Justin Sun speculates that Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund headed by FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, could be the whale dumping its USDD holdings to avoid insolvency. Alameda's balance sheet reportedly was 50% FTT (FTT), FTX's native token that has recently fallen more than 90%.

Miscalculated collateral reserves

USDD is issued by Tron DAO Reserve (TDR), which also serves as the custodian of its collateral. TDR is primarily responsible for selling the collateral to maintain USDD's peg in the event of a sell-side shock.

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Sequoia Capital marks down entire $214M FTX stake to zero

Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital tweeted out a letter sent to its partners on Nov. 10 revealing the firm had marked its $213.5 million investments in FTX and FTX US down to $0, claiming them as a complete loss.

The letter said that the crisis facing FTX has “created a solvency risk” but claimed its exposure to the exchange is “limited” in its Global Growth Fund III, where its cost basis for the FTX portion of the fund totaled $150 million.

Sequoia also reassured its partners that the writing off of FTX wouldn’t have a detrimental impact on the fund, saying it accounted for less than 3% of the capital committed to it, adding:

“The $150M loss is offset by ~$7.5B in realized and unrealized gains in the same fund, so the fund remains in good shape.”

The venture capital firm also reported to have invested $63.5 million into FTX and FTX US from its Sequoia Capital Global Equities Fund, however, the holdings represented less than 1% of the entire portfolio.

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Crypto.com commits to proof-of-reserves after halting certain deposits and withdrawals

Kris Marszalek, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has become the latest crypto company promising to publish "audited proof of reserves," amid the downfall of rival exchange FTX. 

"We share the belief that it should be necessary for crypto platforms to publicly share proof of reserves," said Marszalek, adding that his company "will be publishing our audited proof of reserves."

The idea for crypto companies to publish their proof of reserves has gained traction in the wake of the FTX liquidity fiasco. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao on Nov. 8 also pledged to start a Proof-of-Reserves audit system to give the public insights into the state of their reserves. 

The Crypto.com CEO's comments come only hours after the exchange temporarily suspended withdrawals and deposits of USDC and USDT on the Solana network on Nov. 9.

In an email to users on Nov. 9, which had been circulating on Twitter, Crypto.com reportedly notified users of an “Immediate suspension of UDSC and USDT Deposits and withdrawals on Solana.”

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FTX website comes back online with message advising against deposits

Financially-troubled crypto exchange FTX has brought its website back online following a period of intermittent downtime — with the trading platform now sporting a banner confirming withdrawals are halted and advising users against depositing.

The FTX website returned online at approximately 9:00 pm UTC  on Nov. 9, after encountering five separate periods of network downtime spanning over two hours, according to the “IS IT DOWN OR JUST ME” website.

The crypto community on Twitter has also noticed a new bright red banner that can be seen throughout the website that reads:

“FTX is currently unable to process withdrawals. We strongly advise against depositing.”

FTX's notification on deposits and withdrawals on the trading platform. Source: FTX.com

A pinned message on the official FTX Telegram Group on Nov. 8 also confirmed the halting of withdrawals, without any estimates about when they would return. 


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Solana TVL drops 32.4% as FTX turmoil rocks ecosystem

The total value locked (TVL) on the Solana chain has plummeted 32.4% in the last 24 hours, as news stemming from the collapse of FTX has sent waves through the crypto ecosystem. 

According to DefiLlama, at the time of writing, Solana’s TVL has fallen to $423.68 million, down 32.4% in the last 24 hours, a far cry from its all-time-high (ATH) of $10.17 billion on Nov. 9, 2021.

Total value locked within the Solana ecosystem Source: DefiLlama

TVL measures the total value of all assets locked into DeFi protocols. As TVL increases that means more coins are deposited within the DeFi protocols, and can indicate bullish sentiment, while a falling TVL shows that investors are pulling their funds out of the ecosystem for one reason or another.

The fall in TVL went as far as a 51.7% decline over 24 hours, however, but slightly corrected leading up to the writing of this article.

The Solana-based liquid staking protocol Marinade Finance has seen the biggest loss in TVL on the chain, having fallen 35.1% to $115.79 million within the last 24 hours.

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Bitcoin price hits multi-year low at $15.6K, analysts expect further downside

Investor sentiment in the crypto market is floundering after Binance decided to nix its agreement with FTX to purchase the distressed cryptocurrency exchange. The events have sent Bitcoin to a new yearly low, while other altcoins have also taken a sharp downturn. 

Data from Cointelegraph shows Bitcoin (BTC) declining to $15,698 amid the chaos caused by FTX’s potential insolvency and the failure of the Binance deal. Analysts are turning to technical charts to try and find the next price path.

Analyst expects downside continuation with brief support at $12K

Independent market analyst, CanteringClark said that BTC price could possibly find a short-term bounce at $15,000. Citing an assortment of indicators, the analysts suggested that Bitcoin could eventually settle around the $12,000 level.

Will Bitcoin price drop below key multi-year moving averages?

Analyst Caleb Franzen explained that the estimated moving average (EMA) is an indicator utilized to gauge price over a certain period of time. According to Franzen, if Bitcoin price continues to fall, it would be the first time in its history that the 52 week and 104 week EMA's crossed below the 156 week EMA.

Read more: Bitcoin sinks to new yearly low at $16.8K as FTX insolvency fears turn into contagion

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Singapore's Temasek engages with FTX in liquidity crisis

Singapore’s state-owned investment firm Temasek, a shareholder at FTX, is reportedly engaging with the cryptocurrency exchange in the liquidity crisis that led to its unexpected (and still pending) bail out on Nov 8.

In comments to Reuters, the sovereign wealth fund said it was "aware of the developments between FTX and Binance, and are engaging FTX in our capacity as shareholder," avoiding providing further details about the case impacts on its portfolio.

Temasek invested in a series of FTX's round findings that led to the exchange's $32 billion valuation in January. Ten months later, the Singaporean firm is taking part in rescuing the exchange. Temasek participated in FTX's Series B, Series B extension, and Series C funding rounds, when the exchange raised US$1 billion, US$420 million and US$400, respectively.

Some shareholders learned about the agreement, via Twitter on Nov. 8. In his letter to shareholders sent later on, Sam Bankman-Fried, aka SBF, apologized for being "hard to contact" in the past days, acknowledged he has no idea what exactly the agreement with Binance means, and lastly, close the letter saying he will be "quite swamped" in the coming days, and will write again "when I have time too."

FTX was backed by other big players in the venture capital scene, including Sequoia Capital, BlackRock, SoftBank, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Paradigm, Circle, Ribbit Capital, Alan Howard, Tiger Global, and Multicoin Capital.

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