Summary

  • SBF charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering by justice department, securities violations by SEC.
  • FTX CEO John Ray III is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday.
  • Binance tried to reinsure clients with its Proof Of Reserve but faced headwinds from audit experts highlighting this is not an audit report, it does  not address the effectiveness of the company’s internal financial-reporting controls, and said Mazars did “not express an opinion or an assurance conclusion”.
  • CME Group in partnership with CF Benchmarks plans to launch three new DeFi reference rates and real-time indices for Aave, Curve, Synthetix.
  • Payments giant Stripe jumps into Web3 with tool that helps companies turn cash to crypto.
  • Texas offers Bitcoin miners tool to avoid breaking power grid.
  • SEC strikes back in Grayscale suit over GBTC ETF Conversion.
  • The Block CEO resigns after failing to disclose $43 million in personal loans from Alameda Research.
  • The Central Bank of Spain announced plans to launch its own experimental program for a wholesale CBDC.

Binance’s proof of reserves raises red flags: Report
Binance’s efforts to improve its reserve transparency also exposed financial red flags.
Binance Withdrawals Surge as Concerns About Its Reserve Report Spook Traders
Binance endured $902 million of net outflows in the past 24 hours, according to data by Nansen.
CME Group Teaming With CF Benchmarks for 3 New DeFi Rates and Indices
Pricing will initially come from a group of six crypto exchanges.
Bitcoin Miners Offered Way to Cut Texas Electricity Usage to Help the Grid
The state’s interim, voluntary program to lower power consumption during high demand periods, might go live as early as Jan. 1, 2023.
Stripe announces fiat-to-crypto onramp widget
Stripe previews a widget that lets users buy cryptocurrencies using their card or a bank transfer without signing up to a crypto exchange.
The Block CEO resigns after failure to disclose loans from Bankman-Fried’s Alameda
Bobby Moran, The Block’s chief revenue officer, will step into the role of CEO, effective immediately.
FTX US ‘Was Not Independent’ of Parent Company, New FTX CEO Will Say in House Testimony
FTX CEO John Ray III is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday.
Report: Before the Bankruptcy Filing, FTX Co-Founder SBF Was Told by Crypto Execs to ‘Stop Trying to Depeg Stablecoins’ – Bitcoin News
The report says cryptocurrency executives were allegedly concerned that SBF’s Alameda Research was trying to “depeg stablecoins.”

Markets

Crypto Charts 51
Bitcoin Last time we said ’If the bearish view is valid then a correction in 3 waves is close to completing with a possible push to 17530 which would test the top of the channel as well as the 161.8% retracement level. Given the divergence in the MACD we
  • ETH spot to futures volumes drops below Merge levels.
  • Bitcoin Future volume decline with a recurrent peak on Mondays.

Bitcoin volatility index  peaked over 100% since the beginning of the year with FTX event and become more stagnant these last 2 weeks.

Regulations

Spain’s central bank to experiment with wholesale CBDCs
Bank of Spain has announced it will be experimenting with wholesale CBDCs, which will be separate from the work the EU is doing on the digital euro.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas after U.S. files criminal charges
Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest is the first concrete move by regulators to hold individuals accountable for the multibillion-dollar implosion of FTX last month.

Opinions

Opinion: The Block and the future of crypto media
The future of crypto media is uncertain. Cas Piancey explains why, through it all, he’s still bullish on independent journalism.


Reading / Podcasts

‎The Delphi Podcast: Ethereum Layer 2 Rollup Debate: Optimism, Starkware, Arbitrum and zkSync on Apple Podcasts
‎Show The Delphi Podcast, Ep Ethereum Layer 2 Rollup Debate: Optimism, Starkware, Arbitrum and zkSync - Apr 23, 2021