Author: Coindesk

To make it brief, in the days leading up to FTX’s bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022, SBF was frantically trying to shore up a gigantic hole in his company’s balance sheet by raising funds basically from anyone he could. This reportedly includes everyone from Silicon Valley VCs, Saudi money men and even SBF’s archrival ex-CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao (who reneged on a handshake buyout deal after reviewing the state of FTX’s finances, only speeding up the ongoing run on the exchange). Read the full article here

“The most amazing thing about bitcoin, apart from the founding story, is anyone who works on it, or gets paid in it, or buys it for themselves—everyone who puts any effort in to make it better—is making the entire ecosystem better, which makes the price go up,” he said. Read the full article here

“The OP Stack largely provides what is needed to deploy an L2. Minimal changes are needed to support Celo’s unique features,” the proposal reads. “It is battle-tested with multiple chains in production and compatible with other stacks, such as Polygon’s Type 1 ZK Solution.” Read the full article here

CoinDesk 20 tracks top digital assets and is investible on multiple platforms. The broader CMI comprises approximately 180 tokens and seven crypto sectors: currency, smart contract platforms, DeFi, culture & entertainment, computing, and digitization. Read the full article here

“Our position is not to poke at any regulator, any political party, or the government,” Levine said. “We’re just applying the existing rules and existing framework. We know there’s a business need based on clients, based on the market opportunity. We understand what the current regulatory framework is, and SAB 121, as it is, in the current view of federal regulators and state regulators. We believe that pursuing the trust license in becoming a qualified custodian was the right approach.” Read the full article here

Bitcoin traded either side of $63,000 during the European morning on Friday having retreated from its rebound to $64,400 late Thursday. BTC looks set to end the week in an upward trend having recovered from its collapse south of $57,000 last week. At the time of writing, bitcoin is priced just under $63,000, 3.1% higher in the last 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), measuring the broader digital asset market, is up 3.6%. Solana led the gains among the CD20 constituents, climbing over 9% to $154, while DOGE is up just over 4.5% at $0.15, testament to the meme-coin…

In the past 24 hours, TON, the native cryptocurrency of the layer project The Open Network, has risen 17.5% and decentralized GPU-based rendering solution Render Network’s RNDR token has gained 13.2%, according to data source Coingecko. Both are among the best-performing coins of the past 24 hours. Bitcoin, the market leader, has rallied 6% to $63,000. Read the full article here

The fast-growing organization of cryptocurrency supporters, Stand With Crypto, is getting into campaign financing with the opening of its own political action committee (PAC) that will make direct donations to endorsed congressional candidates, said Chief Strategist Nick Carr. Its opening slate of endorsements will feature five candidates seeking open seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, though the money will have to wait. Stand With Crypto’s effort is an “associated PAC,” meaning it’s supported by the nonprofit group’s own members, and each of them will be limited to $5,000 contributions. Once they start adding cash to the PAC…

The two have been registered with the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND), the most senior official of the unit, which falls under the nation’s Finance Ministry, told CoinDesk. They were among more than 9 offshore entities banned – others included Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global and Bitfinex – at the end of last year. Read the full article here

The results of this effort would, of course, have no legal weight in Russia and would not end Putin’s presidency per se, but the referendum could, in theory, give a public relations boost to efforts to oust him. And it gives Russians a way to voice criticism in a nation where the consequences of dissent can be high; opposition leader Alexei Navalny recently died while jailed in an Arctic penal colony. Read the full article here