- Crypto Financial Services Firm Eqonex Files for Voluntary Debt Restructuring in Singapore
Eqonex (EQOS), a Nasdaq-listed crypto financial services firm, filed a voluntary application with the High Court in Singapore to place the company into judicial management.
In a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Eqonex said its Hong Kong-based entity, Diginex, has been placed into creditors’ voluntary liquidation and Eqonex Capital in Singapore is also expected to enter voluntary liquidation.
The company signed a strategic partnership with Bifinity, a payments technology firm owned by crypto exchange Binance, in March as it began preparing to focus on custody, brokerage and asset management. Bifinity agreed to provide a $36 million loan that could be converted into equity and Jonathan Farnell, former head of U.K. operations at Binance, became CEO. Due to technical breaches of the loan agreement, Bifinity withheld the fifth tranche of the loan.
- Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin Discusses FTX Collapse — Says ‘Centralized Anything Is by Default Suspect’
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared his thoughts on the failure of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in an interview with Bloomberg, published Sunday. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11. Buterin told the news outlet:
What happened at FTX was of course a huge tragedy. That said, many in the Ethereum community also see the situation as a validation of things they believed in all along: centralized anything is by default suspect.
The Ethereum co-founder emphasized that blockchain-based and decentralized finance (defi) protocols work “flawlessly.” He stressed the importance of putting one’s trust in “open and transparent code above individual humans.”
- Solana Bear That SBF Dunked On With $3 Offer Gets the Last Laugh
Back in January 2021, when Solana was a relatively new blockchain network and Sam Bankman-Fried wasn’t quite the mythical crypto figure he’d soon become, the FTX founder publicly antagonized a trader who was bearish on Solana’s prospects.
“I’ll buy as much SOL [as] you have, right now, at $3,” Bankman-Fried tweeted at the pseudonymous CoinMamba, following a lengthy back-and-forth about bets on its future price. “Sell me all you want. Then go fuck off.”
The tweet became legendary in crypto. But now, following the collapse of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried’s bankruptcy, the tables have turned.
https://decrypt.co/115237/solana-bear-sbf-dunked-on-last-laugh
- Cardano’s Stablecoin Djed Will Be Released In January Next Year
During the Cardano Summit conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, developers made the announcement. Djed is a decentralized stablecoin that will operate on Layer-1 of the Cardano blockchain and is soft-pegged to the dollar.
The COTI Network CEO and co-founder, Shahaf Bar-Geffen, provided information about the Djed stablecoin release and the subsequent steps in its development. COTI Network is a long-standing partner of the Cardano ecosystem.
In January 2023, the eagerly awaited algorithmically-backed stablecoin Djed finally launched, according to a statement made by Bar-Geffen at Cardano Summit, the largest Cardano community gathering of the year.
For more than a year, the stablecoin has been in development. Once the platform is up and running, Cardano users can use ADA as collateral to mint the stablecoin.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7291550
- Genesis denies ‘imminent’ plans to file for bankruptcy
Cryptocurrency lending company Genesis has refuted speculation that it is planning an “imminent” bankruptcy filing should it fail to cover a $1 billion shortfall caused by the fall of crypto exchange FTX.
The firm has reportedly faced difficulties raising money for its lending unit and told investors it would have to file for bankruptcy, according to a Nov. 21 Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the matter.
A spokesperson for Genesis told Cointelegraph that there were no plans to file for bankruptcy “imminently” and that it continued to have “constructive” discussions with creditors:
“We have no plans to file bankruptcy imminently. Our goal is to resolve the current situation consensually without the need for any bankruptcy filing. Genesis continues to have constructive conversations with creditors.”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/genesis-denies-imminent-plans-to-file-for-bankruptcy
- US Senators Ask Bank Regulators to ‘Review’ SoFi’s Crypto Listings
U.S. senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Chris Van Holland (D-Md.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) wrote open letters to digital finance company SoFi and several bank regulators, asking for a “review” of SoFi’s crypto offerings.
The letter to SoFi expressed concerns about the company expanding its crypto business, how it holds customers’ cryptos and its listing of dogecoin (DOGE), which a blog post on the company’s website cited as an example of a “pump and dump” coin.
The lawmakers asked SoFi to explain how it lists cryptocurrencies for sale, how it addresses customer complaints and how it determines “the appropriate credit, market and operational risk capital requirements for digital asset exposures.”
- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Warns About Crypto Exchange Website Using Its Name
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. warned Friday that a crypto exchange website is using its name. “Earlier this afternoon it came to our attention that there is an entity using the name Berkshire Hathaway,” the company stated, elaborating:
The entity … has no affiliation with Berkshire Hathaway Inc. or its chairman and CEO, Warren E. Buffett.
The landing page of the crypto site in question indicates that the company is a bitcoin exchange. “Berkshire Hathaway is a Texas-based company created to give our investors the opportunity to achieve a completely passive income from investment in cryptocurrency mining,” the website’s front page details.
- Investors Are Shorting Bitcoin, Ethereum in Record Numbers
More institutional investors than ever are betting on the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies going down, according to a Monday report from CoinShares.
Institutional investor sentiment was “deeply negative” last week, according to the report, as short product inflows represented 75% of the total inflows—the largest inflow on record.
Short products allow investors to short cryptocurrency (bet on the price of an asset going down). In the case of last week, investors flocked to put their money on the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum continuing to decline.
https://decrypt.co/115214/investors-are-shorting-bitcoin-ethereum-in-record-numbers
- HashFlare Founders Arrested in ‘Astounding’ $575M Crypto Fraud Scheme
The two founders of the now-defunct Bitcoin cloud miner HashFlare have been arrested in Estonia over their alleged involvement in a $575 million crypto fraud conspiracy.
HashFlare was a cloud mining company created in 2015, which purported to allow customers to lease the company’s hashing power in order to mine cryptocurrencies and gain an equivalent share of its profits.
The company was seen as one of the leading names in the business at the time, but shut down its mining operations in Jul. 2018.
However, according to a statement from the United States Department of Justice citing court document, the entire mining operation, run by founders Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, was part of a “multi-faceted scheme” that “defrauded hundreds of thousands of victims.”
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7291254
- Iris Energy to cut mining hardware after defaulting on $108M loan
Australian Bitcoin mining firm Iris Energy is the latest to suffer from the squeeze of the crypto bear market, losing a significant chunk of its mining power after defaulting on a loan.
A filing by the firm to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 21 revealed that it has unplugged its hardware used as collateral in a $107.8 million loan as of Nov. 18.
The units “produce insufficient cash flow to service their respective debt financing obligations,” the firm noted. The operation generates around $2 million in Bitcoin
BTC tickers down $15,702 gross profit per month but cannot cover the $7 million in debt obligations.
Iris has now reduced its capacity by around 3.6 EH/s (exahashes per second) of mining power. It stated that capacity remains at around 2.4 EH/s which includes 1.1 EH/s of hardware in operation and 1.4 EH/s of rigs in transit or pending deployment.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/iris-energy-to-cut-mining-hardware-after-defaulting-on-108m-loan
