Weekly Update: 17 Nov 2022
1) BlockFi, financially entangled with the now-bankrupt FTX, is planning to lay off workers and exploring a bankruptcy filing itself. [WSJ]
– Last week, BlockFi paused customer withdrawals in the wake of FTX’s implosion.
2) Genesis’ crypto-lending unit is halting customer withdrawals. [Coindesk]
– Genesis Global Capital, serves an institutional client base and had $2.8 billion in total active loans as of the end of the third quarter of 2022.
3) Abu Dhabi has granted Binance permission to offer financial services, the latest in a series of regulatory approvals for the exchange in the Middle East. [Cointelegraph]
– Binance had already gained a foothold in Abu Dhabi after being granted in-principal approval from Abu Dhabi’s Global Market ADGM in April 2022. This gave the exchange the go-ahead to operate as a broker-dealer for cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
4) DeFi protocols have experienced double-digit percentage growth in users and transactions in the past seven days, a sign of vitality following the collapse of FTX. [Coindesk]
– For example, dYdX, a decentralized crypto exchange on the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem, has seen users increase by 99% and transactions climb by 136%.
5) Gemini Earn paused as Genesis contagion spreads [Blockworks]
– Gemini Earn product has paused withdrawals, and the exchange released a statement noting that Genesis has paused withdrawals and will not be able to meet customer redemptions within the service-level agreement of 5 business days.
6) Nike has unveiled its latest foray into the nonfungible token (NFT) and metaverse space with the launch of an NFT marketplace named .Swoosh. [Cointelegraph]
– Nike announced that its “first digital collection” is set to launch on the Web3 platform in 2023, with the rest of 2022 devoted to growing the platform and user base.
7) Stripe, Deloitte, Sullivan & Cromwell Are Among 53 FTX advisors, vendors and bankers weathering exchange’s collapse [Forbes]
– Most of the firms listed undoubtedly have little or no liability in FTX’s collapse, though questions will remain as to whether some of them should have suspected trouble.
8) zkSync developer Matter Labs raises $200M (Series C), commits to open-sourcing platform [Cointelegraph]
– The round was co-led by Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly, with additional participation from LightSpeed Venture Partners, Variant and existing investor Andreessen Horowitz.
