Crypto

What to expect from crypto regulation in the wake of the FTX scandal • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 20, 2022Posted in Crypto, FTX, regulationNo Comments

At our TC Sessions: Crypto event last week in Miami, I sat down with Bitwise Asset Management General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer Katherine Dowling, Perkins Coie Partner Sarah Shtylman and Paradigm Policy Director Justin Slaughter to talk about the crypto regulation landscape, with a specific focus on the U.S. What we didn’t know heading into the panel was just how much would change about the industry owing to the fallout from FTX’s collapse the week prior. Slaughter in particular felt the impacts of the FTX fiasco firsthand: Paradigm wrote down a $278 million investment in the exchange following its declaration of bankruptcy. We talked about that up front, but mostly as a jumping-off point to discuss the knock-on effects for the state of regulation, which was itself already a contentious mess, particularly when it comes to U.S. lawmakers and the various federal regulators involved in the market, including the SEC and the CFTC. The key takeaways that all three panelists essentially agreed upon is that the benefit of the FTX situation is that there’s now more impetus than ever to arrive at some kind of regulatory framework specific to crypto in the U.S., and that there’s now ample demand from the industry side, as well as an opportunity to further educate regulators since they’re looking for illumination coming out of the FTX collapse. On the incentive side, there’s harm reduction, since regulators and lawmakers don’t want more FTX scenarios to continue to unfold, as well as FOMO on the business being done abroad in markets where they’ve raced ahead to encourage crypto adoption. Check out the full panel above for much more.

Can gaming resurrect the NFT market? OpenSea thinks so • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Crypto, NFTs, OpenSea, Startups, TechCrunch Sessions: Crypto 2022No Comments

Today at ZebethMedia’s crypto-focused event in Miami, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer discussed his business, and the future market for non-fungible tokens. The digital assets, better known by the acronym ‘NFT,’ saw their stock rise during the 2021-era crypto boom. NFTs became synonymous with neo-wealth bubbling up from the blockchain economy, as a number of image collections that employed the digital asset format reached pop-culture status and eye-watering prices. However, as ZebethMedia has reported, the evolving market for crypto-related activities and products is currently in a downturn. NFT trading volumes are depressed compared to year-ago levels, and elsewhere in the decentralized economy there’s chaos to be found as the implosion of exchange FTX continues to reverberate. This made Finzer’s appearance at the event potentially clarifying — in the midst of a downturn, where does OpenSea see the future for its core product category? Naturally given that he’s running a company in the space, we expected optimism from the tech executive. He delivered. Inside his perspective, however, a few key themes emerged that caught our attention. (ZebethMedia has riffed on the idea of how it re-ignite consumer interest in NFTs, it’s worth noting). First, gaming. Finzer argued early in his conversation with our own Anita Ramaswamy that the world of NFTs is “quite diverse,” going on to state that NFTs in games are a place where his market is seeing an “explosion in innovation.” The CEO also cited gaming as a market opportunity for NFTs to spark more consumer enthusiasm (OpenSea is working on assisting games and gaming companies mint NFTs). The union of gaming and digital assets has proved a popular theme for press coverage and founder activity. However, much focus during the last crypto boom focused on play-to-earn (P2E) games like Axie Infinity. But while Axie has seen its fortunes rise and fall, OpenSea appears to be yet bullish to gaming-related NFTs. As a person who has spent a reasonable amount of time in games like Diablo franchise, I can imagine certain use cases for the pairing, even if I remain a little bit skeptical of bringing real-world economics into most video games. The scale of Finzer’s excitement regarding NFTs and gaming indicates to this publication that it’s perhaps where we should be most focused when covering what the asset varietal can do next. Looking more broadly at the NFT market space itself, Finzer argued on stage that platforms like Instagram joining the industry will be net-positive. In his view, inclusion of NFTs from social companies may provide an on-ramp to the crypto market for regular folks. Given that, historically, such points of entry have been criticized as too steep, new methods of getting consumers into NFTs is likely welcome to his platform. The future of NFTs may be less crypto-focused than it has been. Finzer cited the recent Reddit NFT effort in a discussion of trust, consumers, and crypto more generally. Many Reddit NFT users are not aware that it’s a crypto-powered product, he explained. If consumers are willing to engage with crypto products outside of a crypto-native experience, it is easier to see how gaming and crypto could eventually find common ground. What’s ahead for the company? Not a native token, at least not yet, per our chat with OpenSea today. The company also didn’t want to talk about potential fundraises, though we do expect it to raise more capital in 2023. After listening to the chat, it felt like the era of pricey profile pictures had faded to the background. Now we have to see if the potential use cases for NFTs in other areas of the digital economy — and perhaps even IRL — can make the jump from possibility, to reality.

The FTX implosion is an opportunity to learn • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Chainalysis, Crypto, Ledger, TezosNo Comments

At ZebethMedia Sessions: Crypto 2022, Chainalysis CPO Pratima Arora, Tezos co-founder Kathleen Breitman and Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier talked about security in the crypto industry. And a good chunk of the discussion was spent talking about the collapse of FTX. “First of all, I don’t think it is over,” Pascal Gauthier said. “In the FTX story, it is starting to be a bit more clear every day that the vast sums of money have sort of disappeared and sort of been mismanaged by SBF and his management team.” As a crypto exchange, FTX has become a sort of single point of failure for many users as well as for many of the moving parts of the crypto industry. It’s still not clear how many people, companies and projects have been affected by FTX filing for bankruptcy. But it makes you wonder if crypto has been a bit too centralized. “Cryptocurrencies are basically meant to disintermediate — that’s explicitly their purpose. And I think if you’re not designing something where users can be empowered in some form or another, you’re not doing a good job of designing your protocol. Basically, you’re just shifting the onus from one centralized actor to another,” Tezos co-founder Kathleen Breitman said. But it doesn’t mean that centralized exchanges will disappear overnight. Many crypto users simply don’t know how to store their crypto assets in a secure way — whether it’s a hardware wallet like Ledger or a non-custodial software wallet. That move to decentralized crypto is going to require some education — and it might be a good opportunity to learn. “We need to unlearn web2 and learn web3. Web2 is something where you don’t control anything. You are the product for bigger companies. Therefore, you click yes, yes, yes on everything that you do without thinking twice and you sacrifice freedom for convenience,” Ledger’s Pascal Gauthier said. “The problem is web3 cannot work if you click yes, yes, yes […] And there is some convenience that will go away as a result of this because you have just to be much more responsible in the sense that now it’s yours. It’s for you to worry about it,” he added. People were already saying that we were in a crypto winter before the FTX saga. That’s why the coming months and years are likely to be a long bear market for the crypto industry. But people who have been working in crypto for long enough have already been through tough times. “We will see some slowness on adoption,” Chainalysis’ Pratima Arora said. “I feel like this is the time to hunker down and build, and then the best companies will survive. We will weed out things that don’t work. And we will see that without bad actors we’re going to come out of it stronger. It’s like a cleansing round.”

Bahama homes were purchased with FTX corporate funds • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in bankruptcy, Crypto, FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, SBF, StartupsNo Comments

A new bankruptcy filing, first reported by CNBC, shows that FTX’s corporate funds were used to purchase homes in the Bahamas among other personal items. The details arise less than a week after the now infamous crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy – a decision that founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said he regrets. FTX’s new CEO, Enron wind-down veteran John J. Ray III, said in the filing that he never in his career had “seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.” “From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” Ray said in the filing. The document states that corporate funds of the FTX group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors. Ray added that “certain real estate” was recorded in the personal names of employees and advisors, and “there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans.” The newly-installed chief executive makes it clear that he’s not blaming all FTX employees for the potential mishandling of funds. “Although the investigation has only begun and must run its course, it is my view based on the information obtained to date, that many of the employees of the FTX Group, including some of its senior executives, were not aware of the shortfalls or potential commingling digital assets.” If that possible lack of blame extends to the real estate transactions is not clear. He adds that current and former employees are some of the people most hurt by FTX, and that “these are many of the same people whose work will be necessary to ensure the maximization of value for all stakeholders going forward.” FTX’s downfall began last week after Binance backed out of a deal to acquire the crypto exchange as a result of a due diligence process. News reports that FTX was mishandling funds and under investigation soon bloomed into the company filing for bankruptcy. Bankman-Fried, meanwhile, claims that he is still hoping to raise a $8 billion lifeline for the company. “Everyone goes around pretending that perception reflects reality, it doesn’t,” Bankman-Fried said in a Twitter conversation with Vox reporter Kelsey Piper earlier this week. “Some of this decade’s greatest heroes will never be known, and some of its most beloved people are basically shams.”

‘I’m worried about the overall lack of LP appetite going forward.’ • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Crypto, Double Down, Dragonfly Capital, FTX, Magdalena Kala, TechCrunch Sessions: Crypto 2022, Tom Schmidt, VentureNo Comments

During an unprecedented bull run, crypto-focused investors raised, and deployed, billions of dollars in capital. But now, not only are VCs operating in a bearish crypto market, they are navigating the fallout of the FTX collapse and the potential impact it will have on their investment strategies moving forward. Double Down founder and general partner Magdalena “Mags” Kala and Dragonfly general partner Tom Schmidt shared their views at ZebethMedia’s crypto conference in Miami on Thursday on what’s next in crypto in the wake of the FTX drama. Luckily, the pair each closed their respective funds this year — Schmidt’s firm closing on an “oversubscribed” $650 million vehicle — and Kala’s Double Down just one week before all the FTX goings-on went down. Both say they had already planned to proceed cautiously in deploying their capital, but now even more so. “I am worried about contagion risk and for the other shoes to drop,” said Schmidt, who counts a number of exchanges in his firm’s portfolio. “We’re still holding our breaths and taking a pause to reevaluate what we will do in the coming year.” “I’m more worried about builders not entering the space, builders leaving the space and the overall lack of LP appetite going forward,” he admitted. Kala said she feels fortunate to be sitting on dry powder in light of the current macro environment. “A lot of those who raised last year don’t want to have to raise again in 2023,” she said. “And so I think we will see a slowdown and higher bar for projects.” Schmidt said he has been “very slowly” deploying out of his firm’s third fund. “I have a reputation for being critical, and going deep to understand what’s happening,” he said. “Our long-term thesis is to use technology to create a new set of financial services, a financial substrate. And what we’re looking for are companies that fit that idea…at the same level of diligence.” A lack of diligence has been cited with regards to the FTX debacle, with many wondering how the crypto exchange managed to raise so much money despite what Schmidt called “red flags.” “The thing about FTX and Alameda is that it was so unbelievable when you heard it,” he said. “We were never fans. This was supposed to be blue chip and have blue chip investors backing them but the numbers never made sense. If you looked at how much they were making and how much they were spending on stadium sponsorships and donations, nothing really made sense.” In Kala’s view, the whole debacle highlights that “decentralization is actually needed.” But she is not surprised that many investors may have overlooked so-called red flags. “From a diligence standpoint, it can be that you see what you want to see,” Kala said. “In the moment you can be so taken by the narrative.” Schmidt believes that the past few years represented an “anomaly” in diligence and the traditional venture process. He recalls meetings with crossover funds backing a company, in some cases deploying 20x more capital than him, where the investor clearly did not have a fundamental understanding of what the company was doing. Overall, he does believe that regulation played a role in the FTX saga. “Certainly regulation could have helped. It was this certain environment that pushed them offshore,” Schmidt said. “I expect we’ll see more of an attitude adjustment…I’d like to see the U.S. be a leader on this front.” For Mala, “nothing has changed” with regard to the core fundamentals of crypto. She described FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s efforts when it came to regulation being “more like a dog and pony show.” “The real change is happening with real players,” she said. “But also the other thing that we see with VCs is that slowly we are having this change of guard who are actually knowledgeable [about crypto.]”

Zulu banks $5M for its LatAm digital wallet amid shaky ground for crypto • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Cadenza Ventures, Crypto, Esteban Villegas, Fintech, Venture, zuluNo Comments

With new information coming to light about the FTX saga every day, it’s certainly an interesting time for cryptocurrency. Just ask our ZebethMedia colleagues at TC Sessions: Crypto today. As we figure out if any of this has damaged trust in the industry and funding for startups, adoption of crypto in Latin America continues to grow — Chainalysis puts the adoption growth number at 40%. In addition, the region represents “a 9.1% share of the global crypto value received in 2022 with remittances and high inflation the highest drivers of adoption.” Even venture capitalists believe Latin America’s thirst for crypto. For example, former Binance executives created a fund earlier this year to pump $100 million into this region and others. VCs even believe this might be one of the regions that could stay red hot despite a crypto winter. That’s a good indication as to why we continue to see investment going into Latin America-focused startups offering a crypto feature. Today, Colombia-based Zulu, a digital wallet for Latin America consumers, is the latest company to bring in new funding. The $5 million seed round was led by Cadenza Ventures, which was joined by Nexo Ventures, Simplex, CMT Digital, Gaingels, and a group of startup founders, including Caterine Castillo of Neivor; Jose Jair Bonilla, Carolina García and Oscar Sarria of Chiper; Andrew Chang, former COO and Advisor of Paxos; and Man Hei Lou of Treinta. Here’s how it works: its platform enables Android and iOS users to save in secure digital dollars and send cross-border payments at no cost. In addition, it protects users from the currency devaluations that often occur in countries like Colombia, Venezuela and Peru, the company said. “Zulu is a decentralized wallet where each user holds their own keys and personally custodies their assets within a great user experience and with tools that are typically provided by centralized exchanges,” Esteban Villegas, co-founder and CEO told ZebethMedia via email. “Blockchain technology needs to be easier for the individual user to navigate and can help leapfrog Latin America to being one of the most financially democratized regions in the world.” Villegas and co-founders Jaime Varela and Julian Delgado started the company in March 2022 after meeting while students at Universidad de Los Andes. Their goal was to bring web3 services to the population of Latin Americans who are traditionally overlooked by banks. The company said it has approximately 500,000 users across Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Mexico and has plans to expand into other LatAm countries and the U.S. in 2023. Speaking to the ongoing challenges in the cryptocurrency world today and what it might mean for companies in Latin America trying to get funding, Villegas remains optimistic that funding will continue to flow into these kinds of companies that have demonstrated a clear path to success. “Fundraising will be harder within our industry, but this is net-positive,” he added. “Companies and projects that had no clear roadmap or product-market fit will be removed from the scene, and companies with clear use-cases and real impact will be moved to the front of the stage.” Zulu joins companies that have also taken in funding recently, including Ping’s $15 million seed round, a fairly large raise in the current VC environment, to continue developing a digital payment tool that facilitates international payments for remote workers, contractors and freelancers in both their local currency and in fiat and cryptocurrency. And in September, DolarApp announced $5 million in seed funding for its platform for users to open a bank account and move from pesos to dollar dominated stablecoin USD Coin (USDc) and back in seconds. As to whether this could affect crypto regulation in Latin American countries, Villegas said consumers do need to be protected from fraud, but any regulations shouldn’t ultimately “stifle the type of innovation that will eventually level a playing field into the region.” “Crypto regulation is necessary in Latin America to remove bad players, but it should be flexible enough to allow for new players who are working to create a positive impact, but are not heavily financed, to thrive,” he added.

Is web3 really the new phase of the internet? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Crypto, FTX, Marc Andreessen, sir tim berners-lee, web3, world wide webNo Comments

We are on the verge of a new phase of the web, or so the story goes. Its proponents have labeled it web3. While last week’s implosion of systemically important crypto exchange FTX showed that the tech industry is far from realizing that vision in terms of execution, the concept of web3 has been a fundamental driver for startups and venture capital over the past few years. If we are truly in the midst of a third wave, it’s important to understand the history of the web, how it evolved and how this new phase — if it is actually one — fits in this chronology. Is the so-called web3 the next logical step for the internet, one that will have a lasting effect on its evolution or something else altogether? We need to place what we call web3 in proper historical context and judge whether its rise truly marked an innovation cycle or is just a simple repackaging of existing tech to make it more palatable to an investor ecosystem hungry for the next big thing. It’s clear that one of the primary motivations for identifying a new phase of the web is the incredible wealth creation that accompanied the first two phases. Venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and operators in web3 continuously repeat the adage that web3’s current state resembles the early days of the internet. It follows logically, then, that early adopters and builders in the web3 space believe there is likely to be a significant financial reward for being one of the first in, just as there was with the earliest days of the web itself. As we wade through the history of the internet (yes, really!), consider how the web developed and grew, and whether you see a similar dynamic at play in crypto right now. In this tumultuous moment for the web3 vision, it’s worth examining whether the FTX collapse shows this new wave was a house of cards all along or whether the string of bankruptcies among web3 companies this year was simply a setback in the adoption of the inevitable future of the internet.

“We were the last straw that broke the camel’s back” • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Binance, Crypto, CZNo Comments

Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, commented on the collapse of FTX at ZebethMedia Sessions: Crypto 2022. He played down his personal role in the series of events that ultimately led to FTX filing for bankruptcy. “I still don’t think I have that much influence. I think we were the last straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s not a straw that is really strong,” he told ZebethMedia’s Anita Ramaswamy. “There’s a whole bunch of stuff that built up to it. I just may have happened to be the last thing that pushed it.” He repeated some of the concerns that he has already expressed over the past few days. CZ believes the implosion of FTX is a negative event in the short term. But it will have a positive effect over the long term. “Many consumers are really hurt financially, they have money stuck on FTX, etc. That’s going to really shake confidence and credibility in the industry,” CZ said. “We will have a lot more education to do. We do need to increase transparency of our businesses — significantly. That itself is actually probably a good thing.” In many ways, CZ tried to differentiate Binance from FTX, saying that they are very different exchanges by design. But what makes Binance different? “We still run a profitable business today, we’re okay,” CZ said. “I was very surprised by the amount of money that [FTX] lost, and the amount of customer funds they moved, and the state of things there.” But Binance is still very dependent on transaction fees on its main crypto exchange. CZ said Binance generates around 90% of its revenue from that activity. And it changes vastly depending on the price of bitcoin. If the crypto winter lasts longer than expected, Binance could start generating revenue from its other products, such as CoinMarketCap and Trust Wallet. “When we acquired CoinMarketCap, they were making $3 million per month in ad revenue. We removed all ads so there’s no banners, no pop-ups,” CZ said. “It’s a much cleaner experience. But we can turn that back on. That’ll give us $40 million a year. But we don’t need to today. We have many products we provide for free just to increase the speed of adoption. but if we want to monetize those we could.” The second concern with Binance is that Binance also has its own token with BNB. FTX’s demise all started with concerns about the value of FTX’s own token FTT. “Fair concern, but we have proof of reserve and are working with auditors, regulators. We want to be as transparent as possible. We are in a very different situation than FTX,” CZ said. The industry recovery fund During the interview, Changpeng Zhao also talked about his plans to launch an industry recovery fund. It sounds like the fund is still very much a work in progress. “It’s not set in stone. Different numbers have been thrown around. I’ve seen numbers around $2 billion and I’m not sure if that’s enough or too much,” he said. Almost all projects you hear about in the news, they will have talked to us Changpeng Zhao While it sounds like a relief effort, Binance is approaching the fund with a business mindset. “There’s different ways to get compensation. We can get equity or ask for other things,” CZ said. Binance could also help open source projects if they don’t have enough funding. In that case, it would be traditional grants. Yesterday, Genesis halted customer withdrawals for its institutional client base dealing with Genesis Global Trading. According to their website, they have $2.8 billion in total active loans. Could Genesis benefit from some help from Binance’s industry recovery fund. “I can’t comment on specific deals. I would assume that there would be NDAs in place but we are looking at a large number of projects. Almost all projects you hear about in the news, they will have talked to us,” CZ said. Going forward, there is a lot of work to do to rebuild trust. Sure, CZ said Binance has 100% reserve for user assets. But a simple statement like that is no longer enough given FTX’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried recent statements. “Publishing a cold wallet address is a short-term temporary method. It doesn’t mean that you’re 100% guarantee. And as we have seen in certain cases, it actually increases the amount of questions when things don’t really add up,” CZ said. “How secure is the wallet infrastructure? What kind of technologies do you use for your custody solution? How do you handle customer disputes? In which situations do you compensate users or not compensate users?” Of course, he believes Binance is a cutting-edge exchange on all those questions. “And we actually would like to share many of them to make them industry standards — like how we manage wallets. I think we have one of the most secure technologies for managing wallets. We also manage the largest wallets in the world,” he said. Many people believe FTX’s collapse will lead to more decentralization. In that case, FTX was a single point of failure. Many users lost some money because of that centralization. But CZ doesn’t necessarily see that as an existential risk. According to him, there will always be centralized entities and decentralized technologies in the crypto industry. “Today, if you ask everybody in the world who does not have crypto to hold crypto on their own, they are not technically capable of doing that,” he said. “So if we just force people to go from banks directly to DeFi, Most of them will lose their own money because they misplaced it, or they lost their keys, or they don’t know how to encrypt it, etc. That’s not the best way to grow the industry.”

Binance chief says crypto exchange doesn’t currently see a viable business in India • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Binance, CoinDCX, Coinswitch Kuber, Crypto, indiaNo Comments

Scores of crypto-focused venture capital firms have raced to India in the past two years, hoping to turn the world’s second largest internet market’s large developer community into a key web3 power house. But what does Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, arguably the most powerful and influential figure in the crypto industry, think about the potential of India? Not much, as of today. “To be honest, I don’t think India is a very crypto-friendly environment,” said Zhao at ZebethMedia Crypto conference Thursday. Zhao is not alone with such grim view about the Indian market. Dozens of investors and startup entrepreneurs I have spoken to have privately shared similar concerns, but Zhao’s comment is remarkable because nobody else with such stature has publicly expressed such view. Zhao blamed the country’s high tax environment for making the market not so viable for global players. “If you are going to tax 1% on each transaction, there is not going to be that many transactions,” he said. To be sure, Binance, by far the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, is operational for users in India. “A user could trade 50 times a day and they will lose like 70% of their money. There is not going to be any volume for an order book type of exchange. So we don’t see a viable business in India today. We just have to wait. We are in conversation with a number of industry associations and influential people and trying to put some logic there,” he said, adding that charging a high tax on each transaction is resulting in lower tax accumulation broadly. “We are trying to get this message across, but tax policies typically take long time to change,” Zhao cautioned. “Binance goes to countries where regulations are pro-crypto and pro-business. We don’t go to countries where we won’t have a sustainable business — or any business, regardless of whether or not we go.” Zhao dismissed any concerns that the firm is seeing less potential in India because of the troubled deal deliberations with local exchange WazirX. India enforced a law earlier this year for taxing virtual currencies. It is taxing income from the transfer of any virtual assets at 30%. To capture details of all such crypto transactions, New Delhi is taking away a 1% tax deduction at source on payments made related to purchase of virtual assets. The nation’s move, alongside the market downturn, has brutally wiped the transactions local exchanges CoinSwitch Kuber, backed by Sequoia India and Andreessen Horowitz, and CoinDCX, backed by Pantera, observe on their platforms. WazirX was processing volumes of about $500 million a day during the peak crypto bull cycle of last year. The figure had dropped below $5 million as of a month ago, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Other global exchanges have attempted to make a push in India. Coinbase, which has backed both CoinDCX and CoinSwitch Kuber, launched its crypto platform in the country earlier this year but quickly rolled back the service amid regulatory scare. Coinbase co-founder and chief executive Brian Armstrong said in May that the firm disabled Coinbase’s support for local payments infra UPI “because of some informal pressure from the [central bank] Reserve Bank of India.”

Singapore’s Temasek writes down $275M investment in FTX • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in CryptoNo Comments

FTX’s investors are continuing to deal with the fallout from the cryptocurrency’s bankruptcy. In a statement today, Temasek, the investment firm owned by Singapore’s government, said it write down its full investment in FTX, “irrespective of the outcome of FTX’s bankruptcy protection filing.” Temasek invested $210 million USD in FTX international, giving it a minority stake of about 1%. It also invested $65 million for a minority stake of about 1.5% in FTX US, in two funding rounds from October 2021 to January 2022. The firm said the total cost of its investment was 0.09% of its net portfolio value of $403 billion SGD (about $293 billion USD). Temasek made a point of noting that its investment in FTX was not an investment in cryptocurrencies. “To clarify, we currently have no direct exposure in cryptocurrencies,” it said. Instead, the reason it invested in FTX was because it wanted to back a “leading digital asset exchange providing us with protocol agnostic and market neutral exposure to crypto markets with a fee income model and no trading or balance risk sheet.” It also said that its due diligence process for FTX took about 8 months, from February to October 2021, and involved a review of FTX’s audited financial statement, which it said showed the exchange to be profitable. But with FTX’s collapse, Temasek now says “it is apparent from this investment that perhaps our belief in the actions, judgement and leadership of Sam Bankman-Fried, formed from our interactions with him and views expressed in our discussions with others, would appear to have been misplaced.” Temasek’s announcement comes a few days after SoftBank said it was writing down its $100 million investment in FTX, which was once valued at $32 billion. Sequoia also said it was writing down its other investments. FTX’s other investors include BlackRock, Tiger Global, Insight Partners and Paradigm.