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So, what appeared to be really tired or drunken Kramer trashing crypto today makes a guy wonder if the lows are in. Personally, won't touch the stuff, but for the guys in the realm, I like the fade. I remember when he was trashing all the oil companies as useless because of electric, and if I recall at one time, he said there was a place for crypto. Money says he doesn't make it three more years, and that's a sad indictment of what money and the pursuit of it can do to a soul.
 

Weather Man

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Ex-Alameda CEO says she, others plotted to use FTX customers' funds

FTT-USD -3.08%Dec. 23, 2022 5:10 PM ET54 Comments

Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Sam Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research, said she conspired with others to use billions of dollars of customers' funds from SBF's failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX (FTT-USD) while misleading lenders about the true nature of the companies' financial relationship.
“I am truly sorry for what I did. I knew that it was wrong. And I want to apologize for my actions to the affected customers of FTX, lenders to Alameda and investors in FTX,” according to a transcript of her plea hearing on December 19 that was sealed until Friday, as quoted by the Associated Press.
From 2019 through 2022, Alameda had access to a borrowing facility at FTX.com whereby the hedge fund maintained negative balances in a number of currencies, Ellison admitted.
The former Alameda chief noted she agreed with SBF to keep secret from FTX customers, lenders and investors that Alameda had access to an unlimited credit line from FTX without the requirement of posting collateral and without owing interest on negative balances. That dynamic was never disclosed to FTX investors.
Both Ellison and Gary Wang, the co-founder of FTX, pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal criminal fraud charges and are cooperating with the Southern District as prosecutors build their case against SBF.
“While I was co-CEO and then CEO, I understood that Alameda had made numerous large illiquid venture investments and had lent money to Mr. Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives,” Ellison swore, adding that the investments were financed with short-term and open-term loans worth several billion dollars from lenders across the crypto space.
“I understood that FTX would need to use customer funds to finance its loans to Alameda,” she said.
On Thursday, Bankman-Fried was released on a $250M bond and a day later was spotted at his parents' home in Palo Alto, California.
 

q6543

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Weather Man

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Bitcoin basher and crypto skeptic Peter Schiff on Sunday took to Twitter to offer a piece of advice to “HODLers.”

The gold bull shared a chart of Bitcoin dropping below a support area around $16,845 and said the apex crypto is now much closer to its ceiling than its floor. “The yellow line that was once support is now resistance,” he added.

The smart move is to sell Bitcoin today, Schiff said, reasoning that the upside potential is low and the downside risk is high.
 

Weather Man

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Increasing crypto deposit outflows at banks a cause for concern: S&P Global​

Dec. 26, 2022 9:30 AM ETFTX Token (FTT-USD), SI, MCB, SBNY, CUBI, PVBCBy: Jessica Kuruthukulangara, SA News Editor53 Comments

Digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin coins, line graph crash

Ryan Spiering/iStock via Getty Images

The collapse of embattled cryptocurrency exchange FTX (FTT-USD) has frayed investor confidence in the industry and its credibility. While many crypto companies fell victim to the resulting contagion, banks that deal with digital assets have also been impacted.
According to a recent S&P Global report, such banks have seen an increase in crypto-related deposit outflows. And this trend is expected to continue, given crypto volatility after the FTX collapse.
Crypto lender Silvergate Capital's (NYSE:SI) crypto deposits fluctuated by over $5B in a given quarter twice this year. Metropolitan Bank (NYSE:MCB) reported a 7.2% sequential decrease in total deposits in Q3, primarily due to a $485.9M decline in crypto-related deposits. Of this, S&P noted, 70% resulted from the bankruptcy of its customer Voyager Digital in July.
Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY), which saw a $6.1B reduction in crypto deposits, plans to limit its crypto deposit exposure to less than 20% of total deposits. Customers Bancorp (NYSE:CUBI) saw a 9.5% sequential decline in Q3, according to S&P.
Provident Bancorp (NASDAQ:PVBC) estimated a Q3 loss of $27.5M related to loans to crypto miners amid bitcoin volatility and rising power costs. It warned that the actual figure may exceed this estimate. As of Sept. 30, the bank had $76.5M in loans secured by crypto mining rigs (5.2% of its loan portfolio) and $71M in lines of credit secured by bitcoin and ether.
In the past six months, shares of Silvergate (SI), Metropolitan (MCB), Signature (SBNY), Customers Bancorp (CUBI), and Provident (PVBC) all declined in double-digit percentages compared with the S&P 500's 1.9% increase.
S&P recently noted that FTX was once viewed as a "stabilizing force" in the crypto space as it offered to back troubled lender BlockFi in July. But the deal never went through due to FTX's own liquidity crisis and BlockFi eventually filed for bankruptcy.
Once FTX declared bankruptcy, 130 affiliated entities followed suit. Companies with significant exposure to FTX include Genesis Trading, Galaxy Digital and bankrupt Voyager. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is currently facing multiple federal charges.
The FTX contagion also hit venture capital funding in the crypto sector. According to data firm PitchBook, the final eight months of 2022 saw a steep drop in VC investments — from ~$4B per month to under $1B, a trend that's expected to continue into 2023.
But all may not be lost. "Market fear and doubt percolated in 2022 as participants suspended operations and/or filed for bankruptcy. However, investors will likely become more comfortable investing in crypto in late 2023 as we lap 2022's failures and see more regulations, better risk management, and real-world use cases," said PitchBook senior analyst Robert Le.
Read why SA contributor Nathan Aisenstadt believes regulation and mandatory audits of crypto firms will help boost confidence.
 

Weather Man

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No free money to finance a bounce back.
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Bitcoin ASIC miners prices plummet by 80%​

Story by Owotunse Adebayo • 4h ago

Bitcoin ASIC miners used by miners to produce Bitcoin are now witnessing a massive price decline. According to several reports, the mining equipment is presently selling at figures that it last sold last year. The new price levels are another metric to measure the current market decline, which has worsened over time. Aside from the price of the ASIC miners, the hash rate has also witnessed a massive drop to register figures that have not been seen in a while.

Bitcoin ASIC miners prices plummet by 80%

ASIC miners lose massive value​

According to a website that tracks the prices of these machines, the cost of one of the biggest machines has lost more than 86% of its value since it last sold in May 2021. In order to put it into perspective, the machine costs $119 per terahash but now sells for $15. The miners that were in this group were the Antminer and the Whatsminer.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/mon...o-long-term-holders/vi-AA15zAkm?ocid=msedgntp
The moderate machines also suffer the same fate, with their prices losing about 89% over the same period. The machines used to sell for $96 but are now available for as low as $10. Meanwhile, the least ranked machines are now selling for $4, dropping a massive 91% over the same time from their previous price of $52. Before then, the machine sold for the same price in 2020.

Analysts back crypto market resurgence​

Since the bear market began, there have been little realized gains across all sections of the crypto market. The massive drop in the price of these ASIC miners has resulted from the struggles that most of these mining centers have faced over the year. Some companies were able to file for bankruptcy, while others were lucky enough to take on these debts. However, some companies turned to their stashed BTC to stay afloat.

Some companies that have had to shut their operations due to little gains and other factors include Core Scientific, Riot Blockchain, and Argo Blockchain. In the same case, the sharp price drop has given rise to investors that prefer to buy the dip. Although it is hard to say what will happen in the market regarding the price of assets and the ASIC miners, the people in charge believe that fortunes will turn soon. Something like this happened in 2020, immediately after the price of Bitcoin was halved. It didn’t take long for the cost of the equipment and asset to make a pushback and go over the top.
 

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Justice Department starts criminal probe after $372M goes missing at FTX

Dec. 27, 2022 1:55 PM ET2 Comments

  • The U.S. Department of Justice started an investigation into an alleged cybercrime that siphoned at least $372M out of FTX hours after the cryptocurrency exchange had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the case.
  • The probe into the stolen assets is separate from the fraud case against FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried. U.S. authorities have been able to freeze a small portion of the stolen funds, the person told Bloomberg.
  • In a Nov. 17 filing, John J. Ray, III, the restructuring expert overseeing FTX's wind-down, disclosed at least $372M of "unauthorized transfers" on the same day the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
  • It's unclear if the theft was perpetrated by an insider, as had been indicated by Bankman-Fried in interviews before he was arrested, the article said.
  • Bankman-Fried is currently under house arrest at his parents' house in California after posting $250M bail.
 

MG0h3

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But the blockchain tracks every transaction! It will be easy to find the funny money


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q6543

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But the blockchain tracks every transaction! It will be easy to find the funny money


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Exactly .... he was just flat out stealing.

That's why he hated bitcoin.
 

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Crypto Exchange Gemini Sued by Investors Over Interest-Earning Program​

Story by Sandali Handagama • 4h ago

Crypto exchange Gemini is being sued by investors over the sale of interest-earning crypto products, court filings from Tuesday show.

Investors Brendan Picha and Max J. Hastings filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and "others similarly situated," with the U.S. Southern District Court of New York. They are seeking a trial by jury, according to the complaint.
Picha and Hastings say Gemini's Earn program – which offered interest of up to 7.4% to customers for lending their crypto assets – didn't register those assets as securities in accordance with U.S. securities law. The filing says Gemini abruptly halted the program around Nov. 16 after crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy and contagion from its fall caused a liquidity crisis at Genesis Trading, which functioned as Gemini's borrower. Genesis is owned by Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent of CoinDesk.
 

Weather Man

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Binance is spamming me with staking emails.

Start staking KSM today and earn 11% APY on the largest major staking platform in the U.S.
 

Weather Man

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Please tell me again how safe this rat poison is for the regular consumer.

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Bitcoin core developer loses BTC stash to hackers​

Story by Owotunse Adebayo • 4h ago

One of the contributors in the development of Bitcoin has claimed to have lost all his Bitcoin stash to a hacker at the cusp of the new year celebrations. According to the developer Luke Dashjr, the hack occurred some hours before midnight. In a post by the developer on Twitter, he mentioned that the hackers were able to breach his PGP, a device that acts as a key in hardware wallets.

Community members give an opinion on the hack​

Some members of the crypto community have lent a helping hand in ascertaining how the hackers were able to breach his security. The members concluded that the hackers deployed a malware attack on his servers, which compromised his systems. Dashjr also mentioned that he noticed the changes in the account when some exchanges sent him messages about activities. Others in the crypto community have lent their condolences and support to the developer, Binance CEO CZ led.

Redditors have also expressed their condolences, while others have noted that the developer failed to address the issues that first occurred on his computer. The Redditors said that he kept all his wallet and other activities on the same computer, and when the malware was deployed, the hackers could access everything. While others suggest that it might have been carelessness on the developer’s part, some claim he is trying to evade paying taxes with the recent claims. This recent news has also triggered the need for people to own hardware wallets. Influential crypto community members have also drummed up the need for hardware wallets going by the recent FTX issues.
 

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Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance (CRYPTO: BNB), is one of the leading voices in the crypto industry. Known colloquially as “CZ,” Zhao has always supported self-custody of digital assets as “a fundamental human right”, but his opinion seems to be shifting.

During a Binance-led Twitter Spaces on Dec. 14, CZ said that 99% of retail buyers choosing to custody their own digital assets are going to lose them anyway.

“For most people, for 99% of people today, asking them to hold crypto on their own, they will end up losing it,” Zhao said.

Zhao said it just wasn’t a realistic option for most users. He pointed to problems like security keys that are not stored securely, backed up, or often even encrypted. He said holding crypto in one’s own wallet is “not risk-free.”

“More people lose more crypto when they’re holding on their own than on a centralized exchange,” he opined.

 

q6543

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Well, weatherman... what are your thoughts?

Do you trust yourself to custody your own assets? Or do you agree with CZ and want to leave custody of your assets in the hands of others, ie FTX, VOYAGER etc..

I use a ledger X and love it.
 

Weather Man

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Well, weatherman... what are your thoughts?

Do you trust yourself to custody your own assets? Or do you agree with CZ and want to leave custody of your assets in the hands of others, ie FTX, VOYAGER etc..

I use a ledger X and love it.

I set up an account and could never bring myself to buy anything. I wish I hadn't because if Binance ever gets hacked, I'm ****ed, kicking myself. The info they needed to prove I am who I am was a big ****ing red flag I should have paid attention to.
 

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