CoinDCX, Binance Start 2023 With Crypto Awareness Programme, Web3 Scholarship

The crypto sector, that crossed the market cap of $1 trillion this week, is witnessing a bull sentiment with a bunch of new investors entering the digital assets sector. Indian exchange CoinDCX on Monday, January 23 launched a crypto awareness initiative for Indian industries and investors. The name of this initiative is ‘Namaste Web3′. On the other hand, international crypto exchange Binance has decided to step into 2023 with a Web3 scholarship programme that would onboard 30,000 people.

With India and many other nations, working to frame legislations around the crypto sector, more people would be open to engaging with the investment and trading instruments.

CoinDCX, with its awareness initiative, is looking to inform potential crypto investors about the risks and benefits of pouring money on digital assets.

Web3 technology has opened up a huge white space for innovators and builders. However, the mass adoption of this technology can only happen through continuous education. Through the Namaste Web3, we are providing the ecosystem a voice and visibility to drive public awareness about the use cases and the benefits of this technology,” Sumit Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of CoinDCX said in a statement.

Road shows around crypto awareness will be organised in various Indian cities including Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Pune, Indore, and Kolkata.

Seminars on what to expect from Web3 and how to build decentalised apps (dAapps) using blockchain will also be part of Namaste Web3.

While this initiative goes live in India, Binance has decided to take crypto awareness to a global level with its Binance Charity Scholar Program (BCSP). Over 30,000 people would be eligible to get scholarships and blockchain trainings as part of this programme.

The BCSP will host trainings for developers on how to use Web3 for the creation of advanced, next-gen apps and platforms.

The University of Western Australia, the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management in Germany, and the Utiva Technology Hub in Nigeria have agreed to participate as educational partners in BCSP’s initiative.

The adoption of crypto, NFTs, and the metaverse are expected to explode this year, as more brands and companies will try to outshine each other for visibility among the Web3 native audience.


Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article. 

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Binance Launches Off-Exchange Cold Storage Solution ‘Binance Mirror’ for Crypto Investors as Hacks Intensify

Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange firm, has announced the launch of a crypto asset storage called ‘Binance Mirror’ as investors return to the sector. The global crypto market cap has shown a significant recovery in the first three weeks of 2023, going from $800 billion (roughly Rs. 65,45,524 crore) to its current valuation of $990 billion (roughly Rs. 80,97,818 crore). With ‘Binance Mirror,’ which specifically caters to institutional investors, the firm will provide an off-exchange cold crypto storage solution to hefty investors, so that their fears around losing their finances to hacks or liquidity crunches could be reduced as much as possible

Binance is taking a bullish approach towards shifting the focus of its services towards cold storages of crypto assets. Cold storages or wallets are not connected on the Internet and are not reliant on the databases of exchanges.

“Through Binance Mirror, institutions lock a specified amount of their asset balance available in their Qualified Wallet, Binance Custody’s cold storage solution, and mirror it onto their Binance Exchange account with a 1:1 balance. Their assets remain secure in their segregated cold wallet for as long as their Mirror position remains open on the Binance Exchange, which can be settled at any time,” the exchange said in an official statement.

Last year, the FTX crypto exchange collapsed dramatically after encountering a liquidity crunch. Other crypto firms like Celsius and Voyager also drew curtains on their businesses after being struck hard by the ongoing crypto winter.

Several hackers and scammers have also been targeting crypto exchanges to drain funds. Citing a Chainalysis report, Forbes said that last year, over $3 billion (roughly Rs. 31,076 crore) was stolen in 125 hacks. Amid these circumstances, more people have begun to move out the custody of their crypto holdings into cold storages.

In a recent report, Glassnode had noted that around 5,50,000 Bitcoins worth $9.2 billion (roughly Rs. 76,760 crore) were moved into cold storages last year.

“Security is a top priority for institutions. We spent much of last year refining its operations to help our clients unlock the liquidity of their assets held in our cold storage,” said Athena Yu, VP of Binance Custody.

Binance has been bagging operational licences in several parts of the world. Presently, it has permission to operate in seven member states of the European Union, as well as in parts of the UAE. The exchange is expecting to onboard institutional investors from all these regions


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Binance Granted Regulatory Approval to Manage and Trade Virtual Currencies in Sweden

Binance has successfully registered as a licenced financial institution in Sweden, the cryptocurrency exchange company announced on Wednesday. Swedish regulators have approved Binance Nordics AB to facilitate the management and trading of virtual currencies for its nationals. With this development, Sweden has become the seventh member state of the European Union (EU) to grant Binance regulatory approvals. Previously, France, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Poland have taken a similar decision. For Binance, this marks for an important milestone as the exchange moves forward in its aim to become the most licenced crypto firm in the world.

Crypto investors in Sweden will now have options to purchase digital assets in Euros and utilise Binance Visa card as well as Binance NFT services.

“Our registration in Sweden is the result of many months of diligent, hard work from our team, underpinning our commitment to the Swedish market and our users. We are deeply grateful for the support from the Swedish Financial Services Authority throughout the application process and for the approval,” Richard Teng, Binance’s head of the European and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions, said in a press release.

In the coming days, the exchange will open job positions for Swedish locals and schedule a calendar with details on crypto awareness and educational programmes.

“We are deeply grateful for the support from the Swedish Financial Services Authority throughout the application process and for the approval,” Teng noted.

Binance was founded by its CEO Changpeng Zhao in July 2017 and currently has offices in the US, Cayman Islands, and Lithuania, among other parts of the world.

Binance grabbed the largest chunk of the global crypto market in the year 2022. In its analysis, digital assets research firm Arcane said that by the last week of December, Binance had 92 percent of Bitcoin’s spot market — the base market where crypto assets are settled and exchanged instantaneously.

Before wrapping up the year of 2022, the exchange acquired Indonesia’s Tokocrypto exchange and Japan’s Sakura exchange.

The exchange is currently facing legal issues against its proposal to purchase the assets of bankrupt crypto lender, Voyager.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a limited objection to Binance.US’s proposed $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,250 crore) acquisition of Voyager.

The SEC has said the purchase agreement lacks details on the crypto exchange’s ability to close the deal and has asked for more information on the nature of the company’s business operations following the deal, according to the filing.


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RBI Suggests Common Approach to Crypto Assets to Avoid Potential Financial Risks

To address potential financial stability risks and protect investors, it is important to arrive at a common approach to crypto assets, the Financial Stability Report released by RBI said on Thursday.

In this context, various options are being considered internationally, it said.

One option is to apply the same-risk-same-regulatory-outcome principle and subject them to the same regulation applicable to traditional financial intermediaries and exchanges, the report said.

Another option is to prohibit crypto assets, since their real life use cases are next to negligible and the challenge is that different countries have different legal systems and individual rights vis-à-vis state powers, it noted.

A third option is to let it implode and make it systemically irrelevant as the underlying instability and riskiness will ultimately prevent the sector from growing, it said.

The third option, however, is fraught with risks as the sector may become more interconnected with mainstream finance and divert financing away from traditional finance with broader effect on the real economy, the report said.

Regulating new technology and business models after they have grown to a systemic level is challenging, it pointed out.

To promote responsible innovation and to mitigate financial stability risks in crypto ecosystem, the report said it is vital for policymakers to design an appropriate policy approach.

In this context, under India’s G20 presidency, one of the priorities is to develop a framework for global regulation, including the possibility of prohibition, of unbacked crypto assets, stablecoins and decentralised finance (DeFi), it said.

The collapse and bankruptcy of the crypto exchange FTX and subsequent sell-off in the crypto assets market have highlighted the inherent vulnerabilities in the crypto ecosystem.

Recently, Binance, the largest crypto exchange, also prohibited withdrawals of stablecoins on its platform. The implosion of FTX was preceded by failure of TerraUSD/Luna, an algorithmic stablecoin, a run on Celsius, a crypto lender, and bankruptcy of Three Arrows Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund.

Observing that the turmoil has provided several insights, it said crypto assets are highly volatile.

The price of Bitcoin has tumbled by 74 percent (as on December 14, 2022) from its peak in November 2021. Other crypto assets have also experienced similar falls in prices and heightened volatility.

In addition, crypto assets exhibit high correlations with equities, it noted.

Furthermore, it said, contrary to claims that they are an alternative source of value due to inflation hedging benefits, crypto assets’ value has fallen even as inflation rose.

Second, the report said, the collapse of TerraUSD/Luna is a reminder of how so-called stablecoins that promise to maintain a stable value relative to fiat currency are subject to classic confidence runs.

Finally, it said, the failure of FTX and Celsius reveals that crypto exchanges and trading platforms were carrying out different functions such as lending, brokerage, clearing and settlement that have different risks without appropriate governance structures.

This exposed them to credit, market and liquidity risks disproportionate to what was necessary to discharge their essential functions, it said, adding leverage is a constant theme across the crypto ecosystem, making failures rapid and losses huge and sudden.

 


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Crypto Criminals Not on Holiday, Scams Like 3Commas and ‘Pig Butchering’ Continue to Strike

The crypto sector, thriving in several parts of the world, was struck with several hack and scam attacks this year. Even a couple of days before the industrially quaky year of 2022 ends, news and warning around crypto crimes have made it to the headlines. This week, the private API keys of around 1,00,000 crypto users were leaked on public domains. The victims were all users of 3Commas, an Estonia-based crypto trading service. The incident added more stress to the already disturbed crypto sector that has drastically dropped down in valuation to a yearly low to $795 billion (roughly Rs. 65,87,830 crore).

3Commas lets users set up an automated feature that has bots initiate trades on third party exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and KuCoin on behalf of the users.

An anonymous hacker, as confirmed by 3Commas, had been at work since October that reportedly resulted in a loss of user funds up to $12 million (roughly Rs. 100 crore) via unconsented transactions. These transactions were processed via 3Commas on exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.

Previously, the company was exploring if these unverified transactions were being triggered by phishing attacks.

Several members of the crypto community, including Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, shared awareness and safety suggestions for others.

The incident comes in the backdrop of crypto crimes gaining more and more pace around the world.

US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned crypto investors there about a new technique of ongoing scams — called the ‘pig butchering’. In these instances, scammers get potential victims to move their investments to cryptocurrency. Once their digital wallet ‘fattens’, these scammers hack and steal the funds.

“Be very careful when you go on social media and dating apps and somebody starts developing a relationship with you, and wants you to start investing. Don’t get butchered,” Bitcoin.com quoted Frank Fisher, public affairs specialist at the FBI’s Albuquerque division, as saying.

Back in November, the authorities in the US reportedly claimed to have identified and confiscated seven domain names that were exploited in pig butchering scams.

In a recent report, Chainalysis claimed that the month of October has been the worst in terms of crypto-related crimes. The crypto sector lost over $718 million (roughly Rs. 5,890 crore) owing to such crimes.

Back-to-back hack attacks on the digital assets sector contributed heavily to how the market turned-out to reach its current low valuation of $795 billion (roughly Rs. 65,87,830 crore).

Glassnode, in its latest report, has claimed that most Bitcoin holders have moved their holdings to self-custodial crypto wallets. Glassnode has estimated that around 550,000 Bitcoin worth $9.2 billion (roughly Rs. 76,760 crore) have left crypto exchanges.


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Binance Labs Invests in Self-Custody Hardware Wallet Startup NGRAVE

Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform Binance exchange, has announced its strategic investment in NGRAVE, a Belgium-born Web3 crypto security service provider. The size of the investment was not revealed, but the Binance Labs will be leading the Series A funding round of the startup which is scheduled to be announced anytime from now. The Binance Labs investment in NGRAVE is well thought-out and will be supporting the scaling of one of the best crypto custody solutions providers in the digital currency ecosystem.

“Security remains one of the biggest hurdles for crypto adoption. Self-custodial wallets are one of the most secure methods for storing digital assets and through our investment in NGRAVE, we are looking to continue backing innovative startups that enhance user security,” states Yi He, co-founder of Binance and Head of Binance Labs.

NGRAVE was founded in 2018 and to date, the startup has introduced three unique security offerings for users in the crypto world to safeguard their assets. One of its proprietary products is ZERO, a durable and highly secure hardware wallet. ZERO is connectionless and is a touchscreen device.

Besides ZERO, NGRAVE has also designed the LIQUID app, which connects its wallet users to the blockchain in real-time. Additionally, NGRAVE has debuted GRAPHENE, a stainless steel encrypted and recoverable back-up that ensures users never lose their keys. The role of GRAPHENE in the NGRAVE ecosystem will be quite indispensable as the hassles with the loss of private keys in self-custody situations account for one key reason for why most users avoid this alternative mode of storing their crypto assets.

The partnership between Binance and NGRAVE can best be positioned as a way the industry leaders can learn from the implosion of FTX and prepare the general crypto public to forestall such occurrences in the future.

One of the ways the duo is doing this is to encourage the advent of self-custody solutions one of which can be fostered with NGRAVE’s tripartite custody products.


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Sam Bankman-Fried Cashed Out $300 Million During FTX’s Fundraise in October 2021

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FTX Crypto Collapse: At Least $1 Billion Client Fund Said to Be Missing

At least $1 billion (nearly Rs. 8,050 crore) of customer funds have vanished from collapsed crypto exchange FTX, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The exchange’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried secretly transferred $10 billion (nearly Rs. 80,500 crore) of customer funds from FTX to Bankman-Fried’s trading company Alameda Research, the people told Reuters.

A large portion of that total has since disappeared, they said. One source put the missing amount at about $1.7 billion (nearly Rs. 13,700 crore). The other said the gap was between $1 billion and $2 billion (nearly Rs. 16,100 crore).

While it is known that FTX moved customer funds to Alameda, the missing funds are reported here for the first time.

The financial hole was revealed in records that Bankman-Fried shared with other senior executives last Sunday, according to the two sources. The records provided an up-to-date account of the situation at the time, they said. Both sources held senior FTX positions until this week and said they were briefed on the company’s finances by top staff.

Bahamas-based FTX filed for bankruptcy on Friday after a rush of customer withdrawals earlier this week. A rescue deal with rival exchange Binance fell through, precipitating crypto’s highest-profile collapse in recent years.

In text messages to Reuters, Bankman-Fried said he “disagreed with the characterisation” of the $10 billion transfer.

“We didn’t secretly transfer,” he said. “We had confusing internal labeling and misread it,” he added, without elaborating.

Asked about the missing funds, Bankman-Fried responded: “???”

FTX and Alameda did not respond to requests for comment.

In a tweet on Friday, Bankman-Fried said he was “piecing together” what had happened at FTX. “I was shocked to see things unravel the way they did earlier this week,” he wrote. “I will, soon, write up a more complete post on the play by play.”

At the heart of FTX’s problems were losses at Alameda that most FTX executives did not know about, Reuters has previously reported.

Customer withdrawals had surged last Sunday after Changpeng Zhao, CEO of giant crypto exchange Binance, said Binance would sell its entire stake in FTX’s digital token, worth at least $580 million (nearly Rs. 4,700 crore), “due to recent revelations.” 

That Sunday, Bankman-Fried held a meeting with several executives in the Bahamas capital Nassau to calculate how much outside funding he needed to cover FTX’s shortfall, the two people with knowledge of FTX’s finances said.

Bankman-Fried confirmed to Reuters that the meeting took place.

Bankman-Fried showed several spreadsheets to the heads of the company’s regulatory and legal teams that revealed FTX had moved around $10 billion in client funds from FTX to Alameda, the two people said. The spreadsheets displayed how much money FTX loaned to Alameda and what it was used for, they said.

The documents showed that between $1 billion and $2 billion of these funds were not accounted for among Alameda’s assets, the sources said. The spreadsheets did not indicate where this money was moved, and the sources said they don’t know what became of it.

In a subsequent examination, FTX legal and finance teams also learned that Bankman-Fried implemented what the two people described as a “backdoor” in FTX’s book-keeping system, which was built using bespoke software.

They said the “backdoor” allowed Bankman-Fried to execute commands that could alter the company’s financial records without alerting other people, including external auditors. This set-up meant that the movement of the $10 billion in funds to Alameda did not trigger internal compliance or accounting red flags at FTX, they said.

In his text message to Reuters, Bankman-Fried denied implementing a “backdoor”.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating FTX.com’s handling of customer funds, as well its crypto-lending activities, a source with knowledge of the inquiry told Reuters on Wednesday. The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are also investigating, the source said.

FTX’s bankruptcy marked a stunning reversal for Bankman-Fried. The 30-year-old had set up FTX in 2019 and led it to become one of the largest crypto exchanges, accumulating a personal fortune estimated at nearly $17 billion (nearly Rs. 1,36,900 crore). FTX was valued in January at $32 billion (nearly Rs. 2,57,600 crore), with investors including SoftBank and BlackRock.

The crisis has sent reverberations through the crypto world, with the price of major coins plummeting. And FTX’s collapse is drawing comparisons to earlier major business meltdowns.

On Friday, FTX said it had turned over control of the company to John J Ray III, the restructuring specialist who handled the liquidation of Enron – one of the largest bankruptcies in history.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

 


 

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FTX Said to Have Confirmed Hacking Reports, Investigating ‘Unauthorised Transactions’

Collapsed crypto exchange FTX said on Saturday it was moving funds into offline storage following a series of “unauthorised transactions”, with analysts saying millions of dollars worth of assets had been withdrawn from the platform.

FTX US general counsel Ryne Miller said in a tweet on Saturday that the exchange was expediting the process of shifting all digital assets into cold storage “to mitigate damage upon observing unauthorised transactions.”

Cold storage refers to crypto wallets that are not connected to the internet to guard against hackers.

Late on Friday, Miller tweeted that he was “investigating abnormalities with wallet movements related to consolidation of FTX balances across exchanges.”

Figures from Singapore-based analytics firm Nansen showed a one-day net outflow from FTX of about $266 million (nearly Rs. 2,100 crore), with $73 million (nearly Rs. 580 crore) withdrawn from FTX US alone.

FTX did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Prior to Miller’s tweets, FTX officials appeared to confirm rumors of a hack on the firm’s Telegram channel, according to a CoinDesk report which said that the exchange had instructed customers to delete FTX apps and avoid its website.

“FTX has been hacked,” an account administrator in the FTX Support Telegram channel wrote in a message, according to CoinDesk.

Reuters could not immediately verify the details posted on FTX’s private Telegram channel.

FTX, affiliated crypto trading firm Alameda Research and about 130 of its other companies have filed for bankruptcy court protection from creditors in Delaware, FTX said on Friday.

The distressed crypto trading platform had struggled to raise billions as traders withdrew $6 billion (nearly Rs. 48,300 crore) in crypto tokens from the platform in just 72 hours and rival exchange Binance abandoned a proposed rescue deal this week.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

 


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FTX Files US Bankruptcy Proceedings, Sam Bankman-Fried Steps Down as CEO

Crypto exchange FTX filed US bankruptcy proceedings on Friday and Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO, after a rapid liquidity crisis at the cryptocurrency group that has prompted intervention from regulators around the world.

The distressed crypto trading platform had been struggling to raise billions in funds to stave off collapse after traders rushed to withdraw $6 billion (nearly Rs. 48,320 crore) from the platform in just 72 hours and rival exchange Binance abandoned a proposed rescue deal.

The company said in a statement shared on Twitter on Friday that FTX, its affiliated crypto trading fund Alameda Research and approximately 130 other companies have commenced voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware.

John J Ray III has been appointed to take over as CEO from Bankman-Fried, the statement said.

“I’m really sorry, again, that we ended up here,” said FTX founder Bankman-Fried, in a series of tweets after the commencement of the bankruptcy filing.

In his tweets, Bankman-Fried said the bankruptcy filing “doesn’t necessarily have to mean the end for the companies” and that he was “optimistic” the group’s new CEO would “help provide whatever is best”.

In its bankruptcy petition, FTX Trading said that it has $10 billion (nearly Rs. 80,530 crore) to $50 billion (nearly Rs. 4,02,660 crore) in assets, $10 (nearly Rs. 800) to $50 billion in liabilities, and more than 100,000 creditors.

The week’s turmoil hit already-struggling cryptocurrency markets, sending bitcoin to two-year lows.

FTX was scrambling to raise about $9.4 billion (nearly Rs. 75,740 crore) from investors and rivals, Reuters reported citing sources, as the exchange sought to save itself after customer withdrawals.

“The Chapter 11 filing is a necessary step to allow the company to assess the situation and develop plans to move forward for the benefit of stakeholders,” Ray said in a Slack memo to FTX staff seen by Reuters.

“I realise that the recent news of the situation has been troubling and stressful, but I also know that the bankruptcy filing will be the beginning of a path forward.”

Some investors, including Sequoia and SoftBank, had already marked FTX investments to zero. SkyBridge Capital is working to buy back its FTX stake, the alternative investment firm’s founder Anthony Scaramucci said in an interview with CNBC on Friday.

Regulatory Scrutiny

These events mark a rapid reversal for Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old crypto executive, whose wealth was estimated by Forbes at around $17 billion (nearly Rs. 1,36,850 crore) just two months ago.

Bitcoin dropped after FTX’s announcement, down 3.9 percent on the day at $16,816 (nearly Rs. 13 lakh) by 1603 GMT (09:33 pm IST).

Shares of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related firms also dropped on the news.

FTX’s token FTT plunged 30 percent on Friday, facing an 88 percent weekly loss.

As FTX’s troubles mounted regulators around the world stepped in.

FTX is under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Justice Department, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to a source familiar with the investigations.

Cyprus’s Securities and Exchange Commission has asked FTX EU to suspend its operations on November 9, the regulator said on Friday.

Bankman-Fried did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

“Once Binance walked away from buying FTX after only 24 hours of due diligence the writing was on the wall for FTX,” said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto lender Nexo.

“Now we enter the next phase of the fallout, where we witness the second order effects and discover which entities were exposed to FTX and Alameda.”


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Crypto Lender BlockFi Pauses Withdrawals Amid FTX, Alameda Research Liquidity Crisis

Crypto lending firm BlockFi has announced that it was “not able to operate business as usual,” citing a lack of clarity regarding FTX, FTX.US, and Alameda Research as the reason. The leading cryptocurrency lending platform says that until there is clarity, it will be limiting activity including pausing withdrawals. It also requested that clients do not make deposits, though that would be highly unlikely given the current situation. BlockFi claimed that its priority was to protect its clients and their interests.

The company posted an update to its Twitter account indicating that it will halt services. “We are shocked and dismayed at the news regarding FTX and Alameda,” BlockFi wrote. “We, like the rest of the world, found out about this situation through Twitter.”

Over the past several days, a substantial portion of Alameda Research’s holdings was revealed to be tied to FTX’s FTT token rather than the traditional assets. That controversy led to a bank run on FTX. To gain funding and protect against further losses, FTX tried to arrange an acquisition with Binance that ultimately fell through.

The fallout from the failed deal has continued into Thursday as CEO Sam Bankman-Fried posted an admission of failure.

BlockFi indirectly referred to these events as the reason for its service suspension. “Given the lack of clarity of the status of FTX.com, FTX US, and Alameda Research, we are not able to operate business as usual,” it wrote.

The company said that though it will provide updates on the situation, those updates will be “less frequent than what our clients and other stakeholders are used to.”

BlockFi did not explicitly state whether it had financial exposure to FTX or its related companies. Earlier this week, BlockFi COO and co-founder Flori Marquez said that the company had a $400 million (roughly Rs. 3,200 crore) loan from FTX US rather than FTX. It is unclear whether BlockFi had other exposure.

Incidentally, the competing crypto lending firm Nexo said on Tuesday that it had narrowly avoided losses from FTX’s collapse. Nexo withdrew certain balances just prior to FTX’s collapse and is still operating as usual.


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