Terra luna

- A + A (June 23): Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, whose crypto ecosystem collapsed in a US$40 billion wipeout in May, told the Wall Street Journal that he lost almost all his net worth in the crash. “This doesn’t bother me,” he said in the interview with the Journal published Thursday. “I live a fairly frugal life.” Kwon told the newspaper he was probably a billionaire when the Luna token Terraform Labs backed was trading near US$100. That coin is now trading at close to zero. Investigators in South Korea and the US are now looking into the circumstances around the unraveling of TerraUSD, the stablecoin Kwon championed that crumbled from its dollar peg in May. The event wiped out the savings of thousands of investors globally and set off a wider implosion in cryptocurrencies. South Korea this week barred some current and former Terraform Labs employees from leaving the country, as prosecutors step up their investigation into TerraUSD. Prosecutors are also … [Read more...] about Terra co-founder lost nearly all his wealth in wipeout, WSJ says

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin By Christos Makridis The latest “crypto winter” following the collapse of Terra/Luna and withdrawals from other stablecoins has reignited attacks against the web3 community on the basis of insider trading and financial instability . The virtual attacks have led federal regulators, including Vice Chair Lael Brainard of the Federal Reserve, to call for the development of central bank digital currencies. But these shortcomings of crypto should be paired with the shortcoming of fiat currencies as well, recognizing that plenty of illicit laundering and insider trading takes place with the dollar too . Despite the recent attacks on crypto, the community is growing. Gary Vaynerchuk convened a diverse and energetic group of people, including celebrities like Eva Longoria and Snoop Dogg, at the inaugural VeeCon 2022, hosted in Minneapolis, Minnesota May 19- 22. Also in attendance was Congressman Tom Emmer … [Read more...] about “Let Crypto Build”, Says Congressman Tom Emmer

- A + A (June 23): Bitcoin climbed as some executives and investors expressed optimism that the selling pressure that drove the largest token to an 18-month low over the weekend is abating. The largest cryptocurrency rose as much as 4.7% to US$20,786, while Ether climbed as much as 6.4%. Bitcoin is now up 16% over the past few days, while many altcoins have seen far bigger gains. The crypto advance came even as European stocks were trading mixed. With several crypto lenders and at least one hedge fund struggling to meet their financial obligations, concerns had mounted that the wave of liquidations that sank cryptocurrencies last week would worsen. Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao on Wednesday offered a more upbeat assessment, saying the “cascades” of deleveraging are getting smaller. Crypto markets are struggling to consolidate after declining precipitously in recent months as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to fight inflation. The collapse … [Read more...] about Bitcoin advances as concerns over deleveraging ‘cascades’ ease

Sam Bankman-Fried (Bloomberg filepix by Lam Yik) - A + A (June 23): Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto billionaire who co-founded digital-asset exchange FTX Trading Ltd, is providing credit lines to try to stem contagions for his beleaguered industry. Crypto lending platform BlockFi Inc, which had been raising funds at a reduced valuation, said on Tuesday that it secured a US$250 million revolving line of credit from FTX. Last week, crypto exchange Voyager Digital Ltd, whose shares are down 90% this year on Toronto Stock Exchange, got a US$200 million credit line — a mix of cash and USDC stablecoins — as well as a separate, 15,000-Bitcoin revolving facility from Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s trading firm. A wave of liquidation has triggered fear of contagion risks in the crypto industry, after a broad-based selloff in digital assets and the spectacular collapse of the TerraUSD and Luna tokens. Major lenders Celsius Network Ltd and Babel Finance have frozen … [Read more...] about Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried doles out credit lines to stem contagion

- A + A (June 27): For a generation of alienated techies, crypto's all-for-one ethos was its biggest draw. Now panic is spreading across this universe — and that same ethos is posing what may be the biggest threat yet to its survival. What started this year in crypto markets as a “risk-off” bout of selling fueled by a Federal Reserve suddenly determined to rein in excesses has exposed a web of interconnectedness that looks a little like the tangle of derivatives that brought down the global financial system in 2008. As Bitcoin slipped almost 70% from its record high, a panoply of altcoins also plummeted. The collapse of the Terra ecosystem — a much-hyped experiment in decentralized finance — began with its algorithmic stablecoin losing its peg to the US dollar, and ended with a bank run that made US$40 billion of tokens virtually worthless. Crypto collateral that seemed valuable enough to support loans one day became deeply discounted or illiquid, putting the fates of … [Read more...] about A US$2 trillion free-fall rattles crypto to the core