One such is – CrossTower – a crypto exchange that is reportedly considering new acquisitions of different types of companies with a good set of customers with them and a positive balance sheet.

Risk Appetite for Acquisitions

CrossTower’s CEO Kapil Rathi said investors are “cautious” given that the current crypto market sentiment has soured. According to a Bloomberg report, the exec asserted that the company is in a “great place” despite the incessant bear market. The exec also added,

“We’re in a great place to either acquire entities who have a good set of customers with them and a good balance sheet. So we are openly looking at different types of companies from an organic growth perspective.”

The company’s President, Kristin Boggiano, revealed in a statement that CrossTower had “minimal exposure” to the collapse of the bankrupt crypto firm FTX. The company is also reportedly looking to establish a rescue venture fund along with several of its backers. Rathi, however, maintained that the firm currently has no plans to contribute to Binance’s recovery fund created to support distressed projects.

Voyager Bid

The acquisition development comes weeks after CrossTower announced plans to revise the offer for the assets of Voyager Digital. As reported earlier, FTX US secured the winning bid for the assets of approximately $1.4 billion of the bankrupt crypto lender.

The assets’ sale would be completed after a Chapter 11 plan and an asset purchase agreement was approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

However, FTX and over 100 of its affiliated entities, including FTX US, filed for bankruptcy on November 11. This prompted Voyager to reopen its bidding process, and the new revised offer from CrossTower came on the same day.

CrossTower’s President does not believe Voyager’s own $3 million in exposure to FTX is a concern compared to the potential value of its business. She added,

“Three divided by $1.3 billion is a very small number.”

Other companies in the race to buy out Voyager’s assets include asset manager Wave Financial, which had participated in its previous auction, as well as the US arm of CZ-led crypto exchange Binance.

The post After Voyager Bid, CrossTower Eyes Further Acquisitions appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The two addresses associated with the fund show that its BNB tokens account for 44% of its reserves. 

The Wrong Type of Insurance?

As shared by on-chain analyst Willy Woo on Twitter, the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) includes $367 million worth of BNB. The remainder is made up of Binance’s dollar-pegged stablecoin BUSD ($300 million) and Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap ($270 million). 

These balances are verifiable through public blockchain data, at Binance’s Bitcoin and BSC addresses respectively. The exchange soon plans to implement a proof of reserves system verifying its total exchange assets as well. 

Nevertheless, Woo found Binance’s reliance on BNB within the reserve to be concerning. 

“While I commend Binance for having such a fund, there’s no sense putting incidence-correlated BNB in there,” he said. “How would we feel about FTX having an insurance fund filled with FTT?”

The SAFU was created in 2018 to protect Binance users’ funds in the event of a catastrophe. After slowly being funded through trading fees collected by Binance, it formally opened in January 2022 at a valuation of $1 billion. Crypto market declines have since knocked its spot market valuation to roughly $837 million.

These funds still roughly match the $68 million in Binance’s proof of reserves today, combined with the estimated $800 million within Binance Custody. But further volatility, particularly in BNB, could take SAFU’s valuation far lower when it matters most – especially since its success is directly related to Binance’s stability and success. 

BNB vs FTT

BNB gives holders trading fee discounts when exchanging crypto at Binance. It is similar to FTX’s FTT token in this manner, but with a much larger market cap. 

FTT once comprised a significant chunk of Alameda Research’s total assets, as revealed in its leaked balance sheet earlier this month. The trading firm went down with its sibling exchange on November 11th after Binance CEO Chanpeng Zhao threatened to dump the token on the market. Its price has since collapsed from above $22 on November 6th to below $2 at writing time.

The Solana Foundation revealed on Monday that it held over $70 million in FTT exposure earlier this month. Its remaining tokens, which are now worth far less, are still trapped inside FTX. 

The post Binance SAFU Insurance Fund is 44% Backed by its Own Token appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The platform needs the approval of the country’s central bank and the Ministry of Finance. The Bank of Russia has previously shown its negative stance on the digital asset industry.

Russia’s Potential Crypto Move

According to a recent local report, the State Duma plans to make certain amendments to the existing legislation “On digital financial assets” that could help with the establishment of a “national crypto exchange in Russia.” The lawmakers have already discussed the initiative with market participants in the middle of November. 

Sergey Altuhov – a member of State Duma’s Committee of Economic Policy – confirmed the rumors and suggested that the largest country by landmass should embrace the digital asset sector. However, the industry’s main issue is the lack of appropriate rules, he added:

“It makes no sense to deny the existence of cryptocurrencies, the problem is they circulate in a large stream outside of state regulation. These are billions of tax rubles of lost tax revenues to the federal budget. “

Anatoly Aksakov – an executive at the State Duma – hinted in June that Russia could introduce a crypto platform based on the Moscow Exchange standards. He also opined that such a trading venue should only exist if the central bank carefully monitors it.

“And this division, which will work within the framework of a respected organization with great traditions, accustomed to actively interacting with the central bank, in my opinion, will best of all cope with the task of carrying out operations with cryptocurrency.”

As CryptoPotato reported in September, the Moscow Exchange drafted a bill on behalf of the Bank of Russia that could allow the trading of digital financial assets (DFAs).

The ‘National Crypto Exchange’ Needs an Approval 

The coverage further revealed that representatives from the Ministry of Finance and the central bank did not participate in the meeting between the State Duma and market stakeholders. 

The lower house of the parliament intends to prepare a document and address it to the entities so they could be aware of the idea and consider their position.

The Finance Ministry and the Bank of Russia have to agree with the creation of the platform so it could go live. The banking institution has displayed its negative stance on the digital asset industry numerous times and even urged the government to enforce a total ban on all cryptocurrency endeavors on Russian territory.

The Ministry has not been that hostile, suggesting that imposing regulations is better than a Chinese-style prohibition. 

The post Russia Inches Closer to Launching a National Crypto Exchange (Report) appeared first on CryptoPotato.

SCB Executive Director also lashed out at new FTX CEO John Jay Ray III for “misrepresenting” the agency’s action through the “intemperate” and “inaccurate” allegations.

Bahamas Regulator’s Statement

Its Executive Director, Christina Rolle, revealed that the Commission sought an additional order from the Bahamian supreme court for authority under the “Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges Act” to transfer all digital assets of the exchange into digital wallets under its exclusive control. This move was meant to “benefit the clients and creditors of FDM (FTX Digital Markets Ltd).”

Rolle stated,

“It is unfortunate that in Chapter 11 filings, the new CEO of FTX Trading Ltd. misrepresented this timely action through the intemperate and inaccurate allegations lodged in the Transfer Motion. It is also concerning that the Chapter 11 debtors chose to rely on the statements of individuals they have (in other filings) characterized as unreliable sources of information and potentially seriously compromised.”

The Executive Director also said that certain statements made by the purported officers of the exchange and its Chapter 11 debtors about suffering thefts and breaches further solidified the Commission’s action to secure these digital assets.

New FTX CEO on Transfer of Funds

The mysterious transfers were first detected on November 11, the same day FTX declared bankruptcy, leading to a flurry of speculation. The latest comments, however, come days after millions of dollars in FTX customer funds were moved off the exchange last week at the direction of regulators in the island nation. This assertion was made by Ray, who said in a filing,

“(There is) credible evidence that the Bahamian government is responsible for directing unauthorized access to the Debtors’ systems for the purpose of obtaining digital assets of the Debtors – that took place after the commencement of these cases.”

The company also revealed that its co-founders Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang were recorded saying that regulators in the country directed the dup to conduct “certain post-petition transfers” and that such assets were “custodied on FireBlocks under the control of the Bahamian government.”

Bahamian regulators said it took these actions to protect the interests of clients and creditors under its jurisdiction.

Since the blow-up, FTX and its founders have been at the receiving end of a severe backlash. It was recently reported that the failed crypto exchange, its senior executives, as well as Bankman-Fried’s parents purchased at least 19 properties worth nearly $121 million in the Bahamas over the past two years.

The post Bahamas’ Regulator Explains Why it Made the Right Call to Seize FTX Assets appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The organization held over $180 million worth of crypto asset exposure to the company as of November 6th, just before the exchange ceased processing withdrawals. 

FTT and SRM Holdings

According to the foundation’s report (last updated Monday), Solana held roughly $1 million in cash on FTX as of November 6th. The non-profit said these funds were “negligible” to its operations, accounting for less than 1% of its cash reserves. 

The organization lost far more in crypto assets, however. Though no Solana (SOL) was held on FTX, roughly 3.43 million FTX (FTT) tokens and 134.54 million Serum (SRM) tokens belonging to the foundation are now trapped on the exchange.

In addition, the group held 3.24 million shares of FTX common stock.

According to CoinGecko, FTT was trading for over $22 as of that time, while SRM was worth roughly $0.8 each. Going by the foundation’s numbers, that’s $75.46 million and $107.6 million of exposure to FTT and SRM respectively. 

FTT is FTX’s utility token that gave holders reduced trading fees on the platform. Meanwhile, SRM is the governance token for Serum – a scalability-focused DEX protocol launched by a consortium including FTX, Alameda Research, and the Solana Foundation. 

Since FTX’s collapse, FTT has fallen to just $1.32, while SRM trades for $0.32 as of Thursday. 

Even SOL has suffered major losses, falling below $15 this month, and well out of the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap. Last November, SOL tapped its all-time high of $259 each. 

Despite these losses, Solana stated that its network has not “experienced any notable performance or uptime issues,” in the wake of the fallout. The blockchain is known to have suffered multiple outages in the past.

Wrapped Tokens on Solana

Sollet Bitcoin – a tokenized version of Bitcoin on Solana – lost its price peg to the primary cryptocurrency after FTX went bankrupt. Though FTX was responsible for holding the Bitcoin backing those tokens, balance sheet revelations from November 10th indicate that the exchange held zero Bitcoin on its asset side. 

The Solana Foundation claims to have held another $40 million in exposure to Sollet-based assets, such as soBTC, as of that date. “The status of the underlying assets is unknown at this time,” it added. 

The non-profit noted that USDC and USDT on Solana are issued directly by Circle and Tether respectively, and remain fully pegged at this time. 

The post Solana Foundation Lost Over $180 Million in Crypto on FTX appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The ApeCoin DAO claimed the “current regulatory environment” left it with “no good alternative” but to selectively geo-block the service in numerous areas, including Canada and the United States.

Yuga Bends to Regulators

In its latest project update, ApeCoin offered details about the upcoming launch of ApeStake.io. The site goes live on September 5th, after which the associated smart contract will be funded within two days. Stakers may begin accruing rewards one week after launch on December 12th. 

However, as detailed at the bottom of the page, staking ApeCoin may prove far more difficult for some users than others, depending on their location. Countries and regions including the United States, Canada, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk will all be geo-blocked from staking. 

“We are aware that geoblocking some users in North America is inconvenient for many members of the Apecoin community,” said Yuga. “Unfortunately, in today’s regulatory environment, we had no good alternative.”

“Staking” in crypto often refers to locking up one’s cryptocurrency to secure a given blockchain network, while being rewarded with network fees and subsidies. It may also refer to any service requiring someone to lock up their digital coins in return for periodic yield. 

Such a product puts ApeCoin in the crosshairs of U.S. securities regulators, who have been clamping down on crypto lenders providing similar services throughout the year. For example, a California watchdog ordered Nexo to stop offering interest-bearing crypto accounts in September, deeming them unregistered securities. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) feels much the same: it stopped Coinbase from issuing a lending product last year and has even suggested that “proof of stake” based cryptocurrencies could more closely resemble securities. 

The federal agency began investigating Yuga Labs for potentially violating securities laws last month. It suspected that certain NFTs, as well as Apecoin, may resemble stocks or other securities. 

A Potential Loophole?

While ApeCoin may prevent front-end access to its staking site for certain regions, the organization noted that smart contracts are technically accessible by anyone. 

“We want to remind the community that one of the benefits of decentralized finance is that anybody can interact with a smart contract, or develop clients and interfaces that allow users to interact with smart contracts,” said ApeCoin over Twitter on Wednesday. 

ApeCoin added that third-party companies have already developed alternative interfaces for interacting with the contract, beyond the first-party site. 

The post ApeCoin Geo-Blocks North American Users From Staking appeared first on CryptoPotato.

tripleS has exploded onto the massive global K-Pop scene with its first subunit’s debut album, Access. In just three weeks since its release, the Seoul-based girl group that blends blockchain with pop music has hit more than 28 million YouTube views on the album’s lead track, “Generation.”

tripleS is a K-Pop girl group of 24 different members divided into subunits. Fans can choose the composition of the group’s subunits via blockchain-based voting in a process called “Gravity.” The group’s first subunit is called Acid Angel from Asia and features the vocal talents of Kim Yoo-yeon, Kim Na-Kyoung, Jeong Hye-rin and Gong Yu-bin.

AAA released Access on Oct. 28th and, by Nov. 21st, it has already reached 28 million total YouTube views and over 5,500,000 Spotify streams. The group’s debut landed them the top spot on the iTunes K-Pop Album Chart in the US, Mexico and Turkey and number nine on the iTunes K-Pop Song Chart in the US and Canada. On the iTunes Worldwide Album Chart, it reached number 74.

Access features six tracks — “Access,” “Rolex,” “Charla,” “Dimension,” “+82” and “Generation.” The title song “Generation” reached over 1 million views within the first 24 hours of release and 10 million views within the first seven days of its release.

tripleS’s social metrics also ballooned since AAA’s album dropped on October 28:

• YouTube subscribers — from 257K to 486K
• Twitter followers — from 19K to 51K
• Instagram followers — from 7K to 73K
• TikTok followers — 100K to 705K

Access’s lead track “Generation” focuses on the increasingly blurred line between online and real-life identities, particularly for those of a generation that has never known a world without the internet. The music video features trendy visuals of the AAA quartet fleeing school and dancing through the bustling streets of Seoul. Toward the end of the video, tripleS’s next subunit +(KR)ystal Eyes makes an appearance, teasing the group’s forthcoming second release.

Behind tripleS is the open architecture entertainment ecosystem Modhaus. Modhaus developed the group’s blockchain elements and continues to partner with major Web3 industry names to promote blockchain mass adoption via the hugely popular medium of K-Pop.

Modhaus has partnered with The Sandbox to create a social hub for fan engagement with metaverse-hosted events. Through the partnership, Modhaus will create licensed tripleS NFTs, including avatars, wearables and various digital collectibles. Elsewhere, Modhaus plans to promote tripleS in GameFi communities via partnerships with guilds like GuildFi, Ancient 8 and League of Kingdoms.

About tripleS

tripleS is a 24 member K-Pop girl group that uses blockchain technology to enable fans to control various elements of the experience. The community has voted to create two subunits so far via a Polygon-based voting mechanism by Modhaus — Acid Angel from Asia and +(KR)ystal Eyes.

About Modhaus

Modhaus is a Web3 project aiming to promote Korean Pop culture via blockchain technology. The company brings fans closer to creators by putting them at the center of the experience. Modhaus seeks to include fans across all stages of production using NFT-powered governance mechanisms.

The post Blockchain-Backed K-Pop Girl Group tripleS Hits 28M Views with Debut Album’s Lead Track appeared first on CryptoPotato.

BinaryX has confirmed that it is working on a new free-to-play, play-to-own game, CyberLand, an open-world MMO powered by blockchain technology. The team just released the concept video, which gives a first look of the terrains and features of the game.

Free-to-play, Play-to-Own

CyberLand marks BinaryX’s official transition away from play-to-earn models, and is their first-ever play-to-own game in the metaverse. As a play-to-own game, players have a high degree of freedom in resource production. Players can choose to develop their own assets, construct their own buildings and farm their own products and materials to build their empire. These assets can also be fully traded on the open market.

The team wanted to make a game that is not only visually impressive and entertaining to play, but also lets players create value incrementally, so that players can feel a greater sense of ownership and be able to enjoy the game for much longer than the typical Web3 games.

The Story of CyberLand

The player’s journey in the game begins in a pristine open world with rich natural resources. The player must then explore the vast lands to find resources, invent technologies and develop their land to survive, and eventually build an empire. The game is similar to traditional 4X strategy games. Players get to write their own stories and determine their own fate within the game.

Players will face off against dangerous monsters within the lands. The stronger the monsters, the more precious the resources. Players must fend against the threat of monsters while collecting resources.

The Four Lands of CyberLand

CyberLand currently consists of four terrains: snowfield, plains, desert, and swamps. Each type of land has its own unique resources and is guarded by different monsters. The resources are not known to the player at the beginning of the game, and it is up to the player to search, mine or hunt their own resources. The name of the game is asset ownership, which means that the player gets to own the land that they purchase as an NFT.

100% Player Driven, Off-chain Trading Economy

The game consists of an in-game trading marketplace which is completely off-chain. All transactions of in-game resources can be completed within the game without incurring any gas fees. They can also be transferred to on-chain assets and can be traded on DEXes and CEXes respectively.

The marketplace is also completely player-driven, which means players can trade their land on the marketplace, and determine prices of land and resources by selling the goods they produce from their land in the marketplace. The game also mimics the actual trading economy in a peer-to-peer marketplace, where the supply and demand of resources being sold on the market directly affect the prices of resources in the marketplace.

CyberLand will use $BNX as the main native currency. $BNX can be used in the game for buying land, or as a reward from player participation in leaderboard competitions.

Upcoming Features

In preparation for the beta release, the BinaryX team is working on developing more cool features for the game, including introducing SocialFi features where players can create, manage, and upload monetized content on a shared network while expanding their empire.

The team is also working on an on-chain wallet for seamless cryptocurrency transactions within the game, and designing new playable areas and maps for future DLC releases.

“CyberLand is our attempt at making Web3 games bigger and better. The industry has built a bad rep for various reasons, but we hope that CyberLand will be the first of many great games on the Web3 ecosystem. The team is working hard on the beta version of the game so that players can try it and see for themselves the potential of new free-to-play, play-to-own games. We thank everyone in our community for their support and we’re here to stay.” – Chun Sim, Global Head of Business Operations and Development of BinaryX.

Watch the concept video here

About BinaryX

BinaryX is the GameFi platform behind play-to-earn games CyberDragon and CyberChess, both of which run on the BNB chain.

BinaryX began as a decentralised derivative trading system. The team gradually evolved into developing decentralised video games, and is now transitioning to becoming a GameFi platform offering IGO services to bridge Web2 developers to Web3.

As one of the top 10 projects on the BNB Chain, BinaryX has a vast community of more than 100k coin holders and 17K monthly active wallets. It is also one of the largest metaverse projects by trading volume on the BNB chain, with more than 400 million in market cap. BinaryX also has a token, $BNX, that has consistently demonstrated strong performance despite the bear market.

The post BinaryX Releases Concept Art for World Building MMO CyberLand appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Shortly after its sudden downfall, FTX hired digital asset custodial company BitGo to handle its accounts and assets. Now, the custodial firm has recovered crypto assets worth over $700 million for the exchange.

$740M in Crypto Recovered From FTX

According to a Wednesday filing at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, $740 million in crypto was transferred to BitGo on November 16, four days after FTX filed for bankruptcy.

“Initially, the average estimated monthly cost is expected to equal approximately $100,000 based on approximately $740,000,000 in value of Digital Assets that had been transferred to the Custodian’s custody as of November 16, 2022,” the document read.

Since then, more assets have been recovered, and all of them have been transferred to cold storage in South Dakota. 

Cold storage is a method of storing cryptocurrencies offline in devices that are not connected to the internet, such as hard drives or hardware wallets. 

BitGo has been recovering crypto assets since 2013, with a rich track record of securing such assets. The digital assets recovered consist of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other smaller but popular cryptocurrencies such as the Shiba Inu memecoin.

FTX Still Knee-Deep in Debt

Despite the fortune found, the amount is only a drop compared to FTX’s total debts. As reported earlier, FTX’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), told investors that the beleaguered exchange needed $8 billion to fix its liquidity crisis a day before it ended in bankruptcy. 

Notably, the figure did not change even after the bankruptcy filing, and worse still, customers’ assets are nowhere to be found. In addition, FTX has over one million creditors, owing the top 50 over $3 billion.

Insolvency lawyer Steven Earl said it would take years, if not decades, to realize and distribute the funds locked up in FTX.

The post Here’s How Much Has Been Recovered Since FTX’s Bankruptcy Filing appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The police suspect the company’s executives might have cheated users over the years and committed other crimes.

Hodlnaut Takes Another Punch

According to a Bloomberg coverage, Singapore’s police force started probing Hodlnaut for its alleged involvement in cheating and fraud offenses. This comes as a result of numerous reports which blamed the firm’s directors for having made “false representations relating to the company’s exposure to a certain digital token.”

“If you have deposited digital tokens with Hodlnaut and believe that you may have been defrauded through, among others, false representations made by Hodlnaut, you may wish to lodge a police report at the nearest Neighbourhood Police Centre or online,” the police outlined.

The Singaporean-based cryptocurrency lender halted withdrawals, deposits, and token swaps in August, citing “difficult market conditions.” It dismissed approximately 80% of its workforce and reduced its interest rates nearly a week after suspending services.

Hodlnaut filed to be placed under judicial management with the Singapore High Court, hoping it could “rehabilitate” its business and prevent a forced liquidation of its assets:

“The judicial management application provides a moratorium (or temporary pause) against legal claims and proceedings against Hodlnaut. This pause will provide us with the breathing space to focus our efforts on the recovery plan to rehabilitate the company.”

The authorities approved the request and appointed Rajagopalan Seshadri, Paresh Jotangia, and Ho May Kee as the firm’s interim judicial managers.

The Exposure to Terra’s UST

As CryptoPotato recently reported, Hodlnaut was among the victims of the colossal Terra crash in May this year. The company lost $190 million due to its exposure to the algorithmic stablecoin UST. 

“It appears that the directors had downplayed the extent of the group’s exposure to Terra/Luna both during the period leading up to and following the Terra/Luna collapse in May 2022.”

The crypto lender appears to have been hiding the facts from its users. Bloomberg’s data revealed that some of the company’s employees deleted over 1,000 “key” documents that could have shown the exposure.

Terra’s native token – LUNA – and its stablecoin – UST – plunged to virtually zero causing huge panic among investors and distress in the entire market. Multiple sources disclosed that some people had even committed suicide due to their multi-million losses.

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