Crypto exchanges reported to account for a number of layoffs

Anna Evans on March 27, 2023

Crypto exchanges – The world watched as major tech industries like Amazon and Meta bid thousands of employees goodbye in a series of mass layoffs.

The trend continued into 2023, extending to the crypto space.

According to a CoinGecko report, January 2023 was the second worst month for crypto layoffs due to a wave of redundancies hitting the industry.

As a result, over 2,806 individuals lost their jobs.

The layoffs

The overall number of layoffs within the crypto industry last month might put the year on the right course to surpass 2022’s figure of nearly 7,000.

According to the research, the layoff course comes as the bear market and challenging global macroeconomic conditions continue to pressure companies.

Among the January figures, centralized crypto exchanges contributed to most of the cuts with 84% of all layoffs.

The researchers cited lower trading volumes and declining revenues as significant factors for the layoffs.

Exchanges

Some of the major crypto exchanges that announced mass layoffs in January include the following:

Blockchain.com
Coinbase
Crypto.com
Huobi
Luno

Coinbase and Crypto.com were among the companies to initiate layoffs early in 2022 (June, to be specific).

Bobby Ong, the COO and co-founder of CoinGecko, said:

“During the bull market run, crypto exchanges expanded aggressively in response to the rapid growth in retail investor demand.”

“While crypto companies, in general, have been hit hard by the onset of crypto winter amid a tough macroeconomic environment, layoffs have revealed that exchanges, in particular, have been ‘swimming naked’ and can no longer sustain their previous excesses.”

Recovery

In January, the crypto market recovered some of the losses they endured in 2022.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin gained nearly 40% value last month.

“It remains to be seen whether crypto exchanges will need to take any further cost-cutting measures,” said Ong.

However, June 2022 remains the month with the highest record of layoffs at crypto exchanges as 3,003 jobs were cut.

It was the first major crisis due to the collapse of the Terra ecosystem.

Terra

In the middle of the year, the crypto space endured the most challenging time as Terra’s UST stablecoin and the governance token LUNA collapsed.

LUNA has been part of the top ten when it fell 100% to a fraction of a fraction of a cent.

The collapse can be attributed to the mechanisms behind Terra and its stablecoin and general panic.

Upon hearing the stablecoin was dropping, many investors sought an exit.

Initially, the 20% rate was marked as stable, but it started to drop after Proposal 20 in March.

Proposal 20 means that if Anchor’s reserves increase by 5%, so would the interest rate.

However, if they decreased by 5%, the interest rate would also drop.

Further collapse

The crypto space faced more pressure in November when crypto exchange platform FTX collapsed.

The collapse led to a domino effect, which not only affected other crypto exchanges, but also cost 1,805 employees their jobs.

FTX also significantly affected companies that had exposure, including:

Genesis Trading
Galaxy Digital
Voyager Digital

Many of the companies lost access to millions of dollars that were kept with the crypto exchange.

Investors were also locked out of their funds.

According to the CoinGecko report, centralized cryptocurrency exchanges accounted for 82.2% of the November layoffs in 2022.

Regardless, crypto job cuts are still matching a broader number in the tech sector as crypto accounted for 4.3% of all tech layoffs last year.

However, the number was slightly lower in January, standing at 4% of all tech layoffs.

The following sectors were hit hardest by mass layoffs:

Consumer technology
Food tech
Transportation

Image source: Coin Telegraph

Blockchain association launches in Abu Dhabi

Greg Jackson on March 27, 2023

Image source: IDB

Blockchain technology has been the hottest topic in the tech industry in recent years, and now it is looking to take a massive leap.

Recently, a new blockchain and crypto-focused association launched in Abu Dhabi’s free economic zone.

It aims to improve the development of blockchain and crypto ecosystems across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia.

The association

The Middle East, Africa & Asia Crypto & Blockchain Association (MEAACBA) launched days earlier in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).

The ADGM is a free economic zone in the city’s center.

It is subject to its own set of civil and commercial laws.

Additionally, the zone is designed to improve the growth of fintech companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The non-profit organization aims to facilitate regulatory solutions, create commercial opportunities, and invest in education for industry growth support.

Staff

The MEAACBA is going to be spearheaded by board chairman Jehanzeb Awan, the founder of an international risk and compliance consulting firm based in Dubai.

Other supporters of the association include:

Richard Teng, Binance’s regional head of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Stuart Isted, Crypto.com’s general manager of Middle East and Africa
Ola Doudin, the CEO of BitOasis, a cryptocurrency exchange in the region

Awan said he hopes the organization will bring a collaborative and community-based approach to further industry growth in the MENA region.

He also hopes to create wide-reaching benefits for the “highly dynamic and exciting” space.

“The industry will benefit from the Association as it provides a coordination mechanism between regulators, government agencies, banks, legal tax, and advisory firms to address the most pressing challenges,” said Awan.

In addition, Ahmad Jasim Al Zaabi, ADGM’s chairman, said that the MEAACBA’s addition would help create a more “progressive financial sector” in the region.

The launch

The MEAACBA launch comes as the FSRA published a set of “Guiding Principles” in its approach to navigating the regulatory complexities brought by the digital asset industry in November.

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority is the financial regulator of ADGM’s free economic zone.

In addition, the principles are considered “crypto-friendly.”

It still complies with the strict international standards on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CFT) by the United Nations.

Additionally, recent studies show that the MENA region is the fastest-growing cryptocurrency market.

Furthermore, between July 2021 and June 2022, the transaction volume in MENA has a 48% increase from the past twelve months, reaching $566 billion.

The use case for cryptocurrencies in emerging markets comes from savings preservation and remittance payments.

Finally, it counters inflation in unstable economies.

Reference:

Middle East, Asia, and Africa blockchain association launches in Abu Dhabi

GQ3 NFTs failed to gain traction upon mint

Madelyn Stewart on March 27, 2023

GQ3 – For the past few years, NFTs have been all the rage, and even past its peak, NFTs continue to influence industries.

Celebrities are not the only ones who have been working to break into Web3 as several major brands have also made the switch.

Legacy brands, in particular, are eager to break into Web3, hoping to revive their popularity with the new generation.

GQ is among the latest legacy brands to jump into Web3.

It launched its GQ3 community, releasing an associated Ethereum NFT drop to complete the venture.

The NFT promised benefits to buyers, but the GQ3 collection failed to sell out.

As a result, the brand is looking for ways to keep NFT buyers happy despite the declining resale prices.

The news

The GQ3 NFT mint launched on Wednesday as 1,661 NFT access pieces were offered for over 0.1957 ETH each.

According to data from the OpenSea marketplace, only 1,060 NFTs were sold when the mint window closed on Friday.

GQ released an announcement on its official Discord channel and a tweet that is now deleted, saying it would randomly airdrop half of the remaining NFTs to current holders.

The move is sometimes utilized by projects that fail to fully mint out NFTs.

It provides holders with additional potential value when NFT launches fail to translate its hype into sales.

“We are going to reward all those who supported our artists and believed in GQ3 by sharing an Issue 001 token to a randomized 50% of unique holder wallets,” said the announcement.

It also suggested that NFT recipients can share with a friend.

In addition, the Condé Nast-owned publication revealed that it would hold on to the remaining supply, citing community and promotional reasons.

The NFTs

Following the mint conclusion, GQ revealed the NFTs artworks were made from several artists including:

Chuck Anderson
Kelsey
Niziolek
Serwah Attafuah
The pseudonymous REO

Meanwhile, secondary market prices for the GQ3 NFTs fell sharply.

The floor price, the price of the cheapest-listed NFT, sits at 0.105 ETH or $155 on OpenSea.

It also briefly fell below 0.1 ETH.

Following the end of the mint, 27 ETH or $39,350 worth of NFTs have been traded so far.

Each GQ3 NFT comes with several benefits, such as:

A one-year print magazine subscription
Digital access
A GQ hat
Other GQ merchandise
Access to GQ3 parties (a party will be held at the NFT NYC conference in April)

Additionally, holders can participate in an exclusive channel of the Discord server, gaining priority access for future NFT drops.

“We are committed and dedicated to GQ3 and in this for the long term,” the GQ3 announcement reads.

“[And] we want everyone to see the inspiring work our artists created.”

Legacy brands

GQ is following the steps of other legacy brands in print publications as they embark into the Web3 space, including:

Time
Playboy
The New York Times

All brands have utilized NFT drops and focused on community efforts.

In 2022, GQ released an NFT-themed print issue, heralding the launch of the GQ3 initiative, including its Discord server and eventually the NFT rollout.

So far this year, GQ is not the only legacy brand to fall short of its NFT hype and drop.

In January, auto brand Porsche tried to sell 7,500 Ethereum NFTs.

One of the reasons the launch failed was in how the brand marketed itself.

Due to the vague utility and benefits, Porsche failed to spark much interest.

Upon launching, it only sold over 1,850 NFTs before the company announced that it was cutting the mint short.

As a result, less than a third of the planned supply was sold.

However, the restricted supply of the Porsche NFTs helped boost demands.

Since then, secondary prices have surged, starting at 1.98 ETH (around $2,800) on OpenSea, more than doubling its original mint price.

Image source: NFT Culture

Meta Reveals It Will Be Pulling the Plug on Its Crypto Projects in September

Anna Evans on March 27, 2023

Cryptocurrency has been one of the hottest topics online for the past decade, and many brands ventured into the crypto space hoping to emulate the success seen in established brands, including Facebook (later rebranded as Meta).

Meta first made its way into the crypto space in 2019, introducing crypto enthusiasts with the Libra project. While it was still a hot prospect then, the recent crypto market crashes have contributed to its downfall.

Last Friday, Meta CEO announced that the digital wallet payments pilot Novi (which was introduced last year) would end on September 1, ending the Libra stablecoin experiment.

The announcement was posted on its website, attaching links that urged users to withdraw the money they deposited earlier “as soon as possible.”

Starting July 21, users will lose the feature to add money to their accounts. They will also be unable to access their transaction history and other data. Additionally, the Novi app and the Novi WhatsApp account will become void.

The Libra coin was later renamed Diem and placed in the Novi Wallet (originally called Calibra) in June . Novi’s role was shifted when regulatory pressure prompted the project to change its course.

In 2020, Novi became a money-transfer pilot for crypto based remittances, but the popularity was limited to the United States and Guatemala.

While the Novi pilot is meeting its end, Meta revealed plans of repurposing the technology for future products like the metaverse initiative.

“We are already leveraging the years spent on building capabilities for Meta overall on blockchain and introducing new products, such as digital collectibles,” said Meta in its email.

“You can expect to see more from us in the Web3 space because we are very optimistic about the value these technologies can bring to people and businesses in the metaverse.”

Meta has also expanded its reach, exploring and branching out into other sectors to support NFTs on its site.

Despite Meta’ stablecoin-oriented plans for Novi, the company had little to no choice but to scrap those plans after they faced regulatory pushback regarding Meta’s ability to combat the prevalent money laundering, protect consumers, and monitor other security and financial risks, rebranding while it scaled back.

Earlier in January, Meta sold the successor Diem’s projects to Silvergate, a crypto-oriented bank, for $200 million.

The company’s decision to close the Libra chapter follows a downturn in crypto markets as the industry contends with layoffs, including businesses like Celsius and Voyager, both of which are facing solvency issues.

SEC actions against Coinbase spur reaction from crypto community

Larry Jansen on March 27, 2023

SEC – US authorities have been cracking down on the crypto space, which has greatly affected the community.

On Wednesday, Coinbase received a notice from the SEC, alleging the company’s staking products make up unregistered securities.

It also mentioned parts of the Coinbase exchange and Coinbase Wallet.

The SEC’s actions against Coinbase have erupted among the crypto community.

As a result, questions have emerged about what the situation could mean for cryptocurrency in the United States.

Coinbase

According to sources, Coinbase leadership is frustrated with how the SEC allowed American investors to dive into crypto for years when they suddenly pulled the rug out.

Coinbase reportedly held talks with the SEC about regulatory and policy matters for months.

They started shortly after filing a petition with the SEC in July, where they asked the regulators to start a public rulemaking process to clarify what would be considered securities.

On Monday, Coinbase submitted a letter to the SEC to clear up the rulemaking clarity around staking.

The SEC then gave notice that it would pursue enforcement action against the company.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong highlighted in a Twitter thread how the SEC allowed the company to go public on the Nasdaq.

Earlier on Wednesday, Coinbase notified users that it would suspend Algorand staking rewards on March 29.

Later that afternoon, Paul Grewal published a blog post saying the Wells Notice didn’t provide information they could respond to.

Reaction

Custodia Bank founder and CEO Caitlin Long offered her two cents on Twitter writing:

“It should be crystal clear by now that the Biden Administration wants all crypto – even the legit parts of it – run out by the US.”

“See also yesterday’s White House economic report, which dunked on all financial innovation while espousing the “stability” of traditional banks.”

Long, along with others, questioned the SEC’s sudden delivery of a “Wells Notice.”

They allowed Coinbase, a publicly traded company, to offer staking rewards for years, but have only now threatened to sue the company, claiming they offered unregistered securities.

“Over the past 9 months, [Coinbase] has met with the SEC more than 30 times, sharing details of our business to build a path to registration,” wrote Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal.

“During this time, the SEC hasn’t given basically 0 feedback on what to change, or how to register. Instead, today we received a Wells Notice.”

Andreessen Horowitz general partner Chris Dixon chimed in, saying:

“Since day one, @coinbase has invested heavily in being fully compliant with US laws even when it forced them to move slower or lose a competitive edge vs other exchanges that chose to take shortcuts.”

“The US has a strong history of fostering innovation, and regulators have played a key role by establishing clear rules and pursuing bad actors,” he continued.

“We hope the US will take a more constructive approach to collaborating with innovators while protecting consumers.”

Support & criticism

Many in the crypto community expressed their support for Coinbase, saying they stood with the company and Adam Cochran, the founder of Cinnemhain Ventures of CEHV.

However, while others slammed the SEC, some members of the crypto community took the opportunity to criticize Coinbase.

The most vocal of critics came from the XRP community, many of whom were still bitter after Coinbase delisted XRP from the Coinbase Wallet last fall.

Meanwhile, Ripple Labs has been in a long-standing court battle with the SEC since December 2020.

The agency accused the company of misleading investors and raising $1.3 billion in unregistered securities.

“I doubt I will ever understand how the SEC can sign off on @coinbase being publicly listed then raise all these issues afterwards,” said attorney Bill Morgan.

“Forget just crypto, how is the SEC protecting shareholders of Coinbase with this dreadful conduct?”

Image source: Crypto Crunch

Building the Next Big Social Decentralized Application

Anna Evans on March 27, 2023

Photo: Coin Telegraph

In an article, Koinos Group CEO Andrew Levine emphasizes people’s daily use of social applications and yet, despite the popularity of blockchains, none of these social applications are decentralized. With two blockchains, Ethereum and Steem, as a reference, Levine sheds light on this.

Ethereum, despite the high number of developers compared to any other general-purpose blockchain, has not managed to build a social application with mainstream adoption.

On the other hand, Steem was, at one point, one of the most widely used blockchains and one of the most used social DApps in the world. Its market capitalization reflected this all-time high — about $2 billion.

“Steem was able to grow extremely fast and onboard hundreds of thousands of ordinary users but never received the level of developer adoption that Ethereum did and ultimately failed to live up to its potential. How and why this happened is a valuable lesson about building both DApps and blockchains,” Levine writes.

Ethereum: A general-purpose blockchain

At the time of Steem’s development, Ethereum was the only viable blockchain that a developer could use to build their app without having to modify the code of an existing blockchain like Bitcoin.

Because of Ethereum, developers could just write up the code needed for their application instead of having to build a blockchain from scratch. Then, they could upload it to the Ethereum blockchain as a “smart contract.” This allowed developers to ride on the work already done by the Ethereum developers and focus on their application.

Levine highlights, “Allowing developers to upload code to the blockchain created infinite possibilities, including the possibility to upload code that uses up all the network resources making it useless. Some limit had to be imposed on this ‘limitlessness.’ To solve this problem, Vitalik Buterin invented ‘gas’ — a decentralized system for charging a fee to execute code on a blockchain (Ethereum).”

Blockchain fees

Levine called the fee-based design of Ethereum “brilliant” and said that it set the direction of design on general-purpose blockchains for a decade, after nearly every subsequent blockchain implementing some variant of gas.

“The genius of Ethereum is that it gave developers access to a limitless (‘Turing complete’) programming language. The genius of gas is that it created a decentralized limitation on what developers could do with that language. It is this underlying conflict (limitless v. limited) that explains why there are still no mainstream social DApps on Ethereum,” Levine said.

Fee-less blockchains

The Steem developers took a different approach than Ethereum. A very basic blockchain (a “framework”) named Graphene was built, and it could easily transform into a specific social blockchain (an “application-specific” blockchain).

The Steem developers also experimented with a fee-less system for regulating network usage, fundamentally different from gas.

Many initially thought that Steem was a scam during its first launch after announcing a fee-less “bandwidth” system. Because Bitcoin and Ethereum had fees and was on the way to dominate the industry, people believe that a blockchain without fees was bound to fail.

Still, Levine comments, “While the bandwidth system Steem launched with was far from perfect, by offering social features and allowing users to transact for free, Steem quickly became one of the most valuable blockchains in the world, and by far the most used … but it ultimately never really competed with Ethereum.”

Smart contracts rule

Levine highlights that Steem never rivaled Ethereum because Graphene, the blockchain framework it was built on, lacked smart contracts.

“Graphene made it easier to launch blockchains with specific features, but it was by no means ‘easy’ and changing those features or adding new features was incredibly difficult, unlike Ethereum, which allows any developer to upload any code they want, whenever they want,” Levine explains.

In his article, he concludes, “From this perspective, the solution becomes obvious. If we could combine the fee-less system developed for Steem with the flexibility of a blockchain with smart contracts like Ethereum, we could give developers the best of both worlds enabling them to create free-to-use applications with the freedom to add new features whenever they want! Simple, right?”

GameStop finally introduces Web3 gaming to its marketplace

Gary Roberts on March 27, 2023

Image source: Protocol

GameStop recently announced the addition of NFTs issued on Ethereum’s Immutable X Layer-2 scaling network to its marketplace.

The additional support allows users to buy and sell Web3 game assets.

Marketplace

Plenty of games now have interactive NFT items available on GameStop marketplaces.

The market offers digital trading cards, customizable bundles, and more.

Immutable X-based game titles include:

Gods Unchained
Illuvium
Guild of Guardians

In July, GameStop launched its long-awaited NFT Marketplace.

However, the platform only offered digital artwork and collectibles at launch.

Many in the Web3 space were curious when the company would include interactive game NFTs, given the company’s direction and plans for the market thus far.

Immutable X

GameStop’s partnership with Immutable X was announced in early February.

The companies announced a $100 million token incentive fund for Web3 game developers.

Additionally, GameStop participated in a $500 million investment and grant fund for NFTs and game makers on Immutable X.

The platform is built on Ethereum.

While Ethereum transactions require high gas fees, Immutable X allows faster and cheaper gaming, app and NFT interaction.

The platform offloads transactions to the second level of the blockchain, speeding up the transaction.

Immutable, the company behind the platform, achieved encrypted “unicorn” status in early 2022.

Tencent and Animoca are investing in the company’s Web3 gaming vision.

The two investors are bringing the startup to a $2.5 valuation through a Series C funding round of $200 million in March.

The platform

GameStop announced that its marketplace had completed beta testing.

As a result, it is encouraging merchants to use its NFT platform.

A representative said that the market returns users 1% of their daily trading volume in Immutable IMX tokens.

The market also offers rewards for staking tokens.

In addition, the marketplace commission is 0.2% for an indefinite period.

NFT

GameStop’s NFT, before the launch of Immutable X, only saw a total volume of over $29 million from nearly 24,000 retailers.

Meanwhile, OpenSea generated $309 million in trading volume last month.

Although GameStop NFT has more trading activity than Coinbase NFT, they still do not have a significant share of the NFT market.

Adding Web3 games to the platform could affect the change.

Reference:

GameStop adds Web3 gaming NFTs to marketplace with Immutable X

DOJ means business with shutdown of shady crypto exchange platform

Anna Evans on March 27, 2023

Image source: TechNext

DOJ: Following the collapse of the crypto exchange platform FTX, the US government is ready to prove that it takes crypto crimes seriously.

Last Wednesday, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) made a cryptic declaration to hold a live press conference in the afternoon.

The purpose of the press conference was to announce the “International Cryptocurrency Enforcement Action.”

The revelation made crypto Twitter panic, causing crypto prices also to decline.

Bitcoin and Ethereum prices dropped by 5% in minutes, creating a flash crash.

A warning shot

Upon the announcement, people started speculating which major crypto players the DOJ referred to.

Many presumed Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao only stirred the fears with a tweet: “4.”

Earlier, he announced that it would be his signal for upcoming fake news, attacks, and other situations.

When the press conference happened, the DOJ debunked the following suspects:

Binance
Blockfi
Celsius
Voyager

Instead, it was the Hong Kong-based, Russian-owned crypto exchange Bitzlato.

The crypto exchange

One of the relatively unknown crypto exchanges, Bitzlato only has over 1,400 followers on Twitter, with its last tweet coming on Valentine’s Day 2022.

According to the DOJ, the exchange processed more than $700 million in illicit funds, including millions in ransomware proceeds.

According to a Coinbase operations director, Bitzlato tagged wallets with $11,000.

During the company’s peak, the wallets held $6 million.

Charges

Last Wednesday, the DOJ charged Anatoly Legkodymov, the senior executive of Bitzlato, for conducting a money-transmitting business that transferred illicit funds.

He and Blitzlato failed to meet US regulatory safeguards like anti-money laundering requirements.

Legkodymov was arrested last Tuesday.

“Today, the Department of Justice dealt a significant blow to the cryptocrime ecosystem,” said Deputy Attorney General Monaco.

“Overnight, the Department worked with key partners here and abroad to disrupt Bitzlato, the China-based money laundering engine that fueled a high-tech axis of cryptocrime, and to arrest its founder, Russian national Anatoly Legkodymov.”

“Today’s actions send the clear message: whether you break your laws from China or Europe – or abuse our financial system from a tropical island– you can expect to answer for your crimes inside a United States courtroom.”

Legkodymov

According to the DOJ, Anatoly Legkodymov is the majority shareholder of Bitzlato.

The crypto exchange platform marketed itself as requiring minimal user identification, saying selfies or passports aren’t required.

When Bitzlato asked users for identification, it allowed them to use information from “straw man” registrants.

The platform became a space for criminal proceeds and funds used in illegal activity.

Its largest counterparty for crypto transactions was Hydro Market, an anonymous online marketplace for the following:

Narcotics
Stolen financial information
Fraudulent identification documents
Money laundering

In the complaint, Bitzlato customers frequently used the customer service portal to ask for support for transactions with Hydra.

Furthermore, Anatoly Legkodymov and other managers were aware of the activities on the platform.

While Bitzlato claimed it didn’t accept users from the United States, it dealt in affairs with US-based customers.

Its customer service representatives advised users that they could transfer funds from US financial institutions.

Legkodymov also administered the crypto platform from Miami between 2022 and 2023.

Other investigations

Apart from Bitzlato, the DOJ has investigated Binance for over five years.

Following the FTX collapse, federal prosecutors have cause to dig deeper into their Binance investigation.

The investigation includes the participation of the DOJ’s money laundering team, the US Attorney’s Office in Seattle, and the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.

Additionally, the DOJ is reportedly looking into the Digital Currency Group, the owner of crypto lender Genesis, following its bankruptcy filing.

The SEC is also conducting its own investigations.

Once Genesis and Gemini filed for bankruptcy last week, they were filed for violating securities laws.

Hester Peirce, the SEC Commissioner, was reluctant to say that the FTX collapse would lead to more crypto regulation.

“I think we would all be on the lookout for regulatory frameworks that are developed in the context of enforcement action, because it’s a very tempting thing for regulators to do that,” she said.

“And it just cuts everybody else out of the process.”

Chainspace NFT project bridges Bitcoin and Ethereum

Larry Jansen on March 27, 2023

Chainspace – Since the Ordinals project inspires a fresh wave of innovation, Bitcoin NFTs have emerged as the most popular subject in the Web3 community.

Chainspace, an experiment integrating Bitcoin and Ethereum via lo-fi video rendering from an app connected to the two chains, is one of the most well-known projects today.

The project

Chainspace is a digital artifact that “emits infinite art,” according to its pseudonymous inventors Timshel and el-ranye.

There are 800 total on-chain apps in the project.

Each online application manipulates the image from the computer or mobile device’s camera in a manner akin to a Snapchat filter.

Using an Ordinals inscription, the app is also preserved on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Chainspace transforms the image into ASCII art using detailed selfie camera video.

The end product employs letters and symbols to provide an abstract real-time visual image of the user.

Chainspace portals are distinctive and have various effects; some were influenced by Web3 projects like Loot and Terraforms.

A sense of community

Timshel, the co-creator, is a prominent member of the growing Lootverse gaming scene and frequently takes part in on-chain publishing initiatives.

He said that Chainspace gives Web3 users a method to interact with communities while yet keeping some of their humanity to themselves.

Timshel used a screenshot from Chainspace’s Discord to demonstrate his point.

“This is beautiful because this ‘GM’ [good morning] is much more essential and resonant and human than [a] random Pepe emoji,” said the co-creator.

“There’s something really cool and special to see how people are using this, sharing their feelings, their selves, and their faces.”

Portals

There is no “access pass” to events held on other blockchains provided by the NFT/inscription.

The whole web application is recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain since Ordinals have the capacity to store more on-chain data than Ethereum NFTs.

Each Chainspace gateway functions as an individual, transferrable Ordinals inscription.

“The Ordinals innovation and the idea of inscribing up to now 4MB of content onto a single Satoshi on Bitcoin – it just immediately clicked to me,” said Timshel.

“It opened up a whole blossom of ideas in my head about things you can do that are higher fidelity that what’s possible on ETH, but still create a token on ETH that’s tradable and ownable.”

Cross-chain

Timshel’s remarks allude to the Ethereum element of the Chainspace equation.

The suggestion, however, seems to be layered heavily.

On Thursday, there will be an Ethereum NFT mint.

A unique Ethereum NFT that can be created using Zora and exchanged on various exchanges serves as the representation for each portal.

Via a smart contract, the Ethereum NFT is connected to the Bitcoin-based Ordinal on-chain.

Iain Nash, a software engineer from Zora, created the code that powers decentralized applications and NFT projects, and it is stored in the smart contract.

The artworks created using Ethereum that can be found on markets like OpenSea are really images taken from the Ordinal Inscription.

NFT purchasers can opt to trade in Ethereum and acquire possession of the Bitcoin Ordinal since the NFT and Inscriptions are coupled.

Swapping

Timshel and el-ranye can currently manage a manual procedure.

When additional Ordinals infrastructures go live, they want to create a simpler automated procedure.

Timshel said that Chainspace is “200% on-chains,” i.e., it is entirely based on the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains.

The exchange of the Ethereum NFT for custody of the Bitcoin Ordinal is a one-way transaction, though.

Users are not able to hold both versions at once or switch between them.

Timshel cautioned that the condition of Ordinals, which has generated debate among some Bitcoin enthusiasts, partially determines the capacity to trade.

Accessibility

In order to make it clear that NFT collectors are not purchasing an exclusive pass, chainspace portals are open to the whole public.

Any user may use any of the portals to take a still photo from the video feed and then use it anyway they see fit.

On Thursday, 620 NFTs will go for sale from Timshel and El-Ranye, giving active Discord users precedence on the allowlist.

Thereafter, they will be able to purchase an Ethereum NFT for 0.33 ETH ($550), and an additional 100 NFT will be given away as an airdrop to Web3 builders who took part in or had an effect over Chainspace.

Meanwhile, the team has exclusive access to 60 NFTs.

Image source: CNBC

Alameda payments sent SBF a huge chunk of cash

Madelyn Stewart on March 27, 2023

Alameda– On Wednesday, disgraced crypto exchange platform FTX’s new management released a surprising announcement regarding its founder’s payments.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the co-founder and ex-boss behind the company’s collapse, reportedly took in $2.2 billion in payments and loans from Alameda Research.

The figure is jaw-dropping and, compared to other executives, comes off as striking.

Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison’s payout was a lowly $6 million.

According to the new management’s documents, a total of $3.2 billion was handed out to ex-FTX staff, most of which came from the company’s sister trading firm.

Alameda

When FTX collapsed in late 2022, Alameda Research was at the heart of the drama.

The quantitative trading firm was also founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.

According to newly appointed FTX CEO John J. Ray III, who assumed control after SBF ran, Alameda had the ability to use FTX customer assets for its own purposes without oversight.

Meanwhile, FTX was previously one of the pinnacles of the Web3 age.

It was a digital asset exchange that allowed customers to buy, sell, and bet on the future prices of several cryptocurrencies.

Based in the Bahamas which was more accepting of crypto, FTX had over 134 companies under its banner before it collapsed.

SBF founded Alameda in 2019, but he claims he left his leadership role from the trading firm in 2021, leaving the day-to-day operations in the hands of others.

According to prosecutors, FTX’s sudden bankruptcy can be attributed to management making dangerously risky bets with customer cash courtesy of Alameda Research.

The payouts

The documents were released this week by FTX’s new management, revealing that SBF received most of the $3.2 billion in payouts.

While he enjoyed the largest piece of the pie, Nishad Singh, the former FTX director of engineering, received $587 million.

Meanwhile, co-founder Gary Wang got $246 million.

Ryan Salame, the former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO received $87 million while former co-head of Alameda Research Sam Trabucco got $25 million.

According to the announcement, they didn’t include the massive amount of more than $240 million that was used to acquire luxury property in the Bahamas.

Furthermore, it should be mentioned that Trabucco stepped down from his post as Alameda CEO in August.

Since then, he hasn’t been heard from in public.

Authorities have yet to announce charges against Sam Trabucco while the rest of SBF’s inner circle were already charged.

Ellison

Following Trabucco’s resignation, Caroline Ellison was promoted to being the lone CEO of Alameda Research in October 2021.

They were previously co-CEOs of the platform.

Ellison had an on-off romantic relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried.

While her role in the company’s collapse was widely covered, her past brought her further spotlight as her now-deleted Tumblr blog brought a rather unique perspective of what transpired in the Bahamas penthouse.

The penthouse was home to 10 roommates, including Ellison and SBF, where they made high-level decisions.

However, decisions were not the only things happening around the house as the group was described as being a “polycule,” or a network of people in a polyamorous relationship.

In November, Ellison’s blog, which was active from 2014 to 2022, showed information that linked perfectly with her biography.

The blog’s contents indicated that she had a strong fascination with race science and polyamory.

It also provided more insight on the author’s view of the crypto space, who, in one post, wrote:

“I didn’t get into this as a crypto true believer. It’s mostly scams and memes when you get down to it.”

The charges and the company today

Sam Bankman-Fried currently faces 12 criminal charges in the United States, with some being handed down in a superseding indictment in February.

The charges also include conspiracy to commit fraud on FTX customers in connection with the purchase and sales of derivatives.

In January, SBF pleaded not guilty to the original charges.

Since then, he has been waiting for a trial in October.

Meanwhile, Ellison, Wang, and Singh admitted to fraud, and they have been cooperating with investigators.

As of now, billions of dollars in FTX client cash is still missing, with a massive amount believed to have been stolen.

Image source: Salon.com

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