Alameda Sues Voyager 👀

The battle between bankrupt firms Alameda and Voyager for $445M, BlockFi approved to sell its mining assets, Ripple expands money transfer product, and the top crypto news, deals, and reports

Author

Ryan Allis
February 01, 2023

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Issue Summary: Welcome back to Coinstack, the best weekly newsletter for crypto investors and industry insiders, where we review the top news, stats, and reports in the digital asset ecosystem. This week we cover stories about Alameda, Voyager, BlockFi, Ripple, Ethereum, Binance, Coinbase, Argo, and Mastercard and new rounds from Sec3 ($10M) and Hypernative ($9M). It’s been good to see ETH and BTC prices up about 50% since the November 2022 lows.

Among top L1s, Solana is leading the way in token price performance since we began writing Coinstack in January 2021

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💵 Weekly Crypto Fundraises & Deals

Here are all the crypto fundraises we heard about this week, ranked by size…

  1. Sec3, a blockchain security firm, raises a $10M seed round from Multicoin

  2. Hypernative, a platform that monitors on and off-chain data after a protocol, has raised a $9M seed round, led by Boldstart Ventures and IBI Tech Fund

  3. Senken, raises $7.5M for a blockchain carbon credits platform from Obvious Ventures and Kraken Ventures — making climate finance more transparent.

  4. Addressable, making marketing to anonymous crypto users easier, has raised $7.5M in seed funding, co-led by Fabric Ventures and Viola Ventures

  5. Sovereign Labs, making it easier for developers to create new ZK-rollups, has raised $7.4M, led by Haun Ventures

  6. Oh Baby Games, a gaming platform that plans to launch three separate games in 2023 along with cross-chain collectibles, has raise $6 seed round, co-led by eGirl Capital and Synergis Capital

  7. StoryCo, a collaborative storytelling platform, has raised $6M in a seed round,co-led by Collab+Currency and Patron

🗞️ Crypto News Recap: The Top Stories

Welcome back to This Week in Crypto… everything you need to know in one scannable format. Here are the top 5 stories of the week…

1) 👀 Alameda Sues Voyager Digital for Over $445M- Troubled crypto trading firm Alameda Research is suing bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital for more than $445 million, seeking to recover loan repayments that it made after Voyager filed for bankruptcy protection, alleging that Voyager enabled Alameda’s wrong doing. Now that’s a novel legal theory. We didn’t realize bankrupt companies could still sue each other, but here we are. 😉

2) 😌 Defunct Crypto Lender BlockFi Granted Approval to Sell Assets-Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi has earned court approval to sell its remaining assets. BlockFi, which let users earn interest on their deposited cryptocurrencies, fell into bankruptcy in late November 2022 due to its connection with FTX.

3) 💧Ripple Sold $226M of XRP in Q4 ‘22 - Ripple said it has sold $226M of XRP in connection with on-demand liquidity (ODL) transactions. ODL was launched in 2018 and helps Ripple customers to move money instantly around the world without the need for correspondent banking using XRP – unlike traditional remittance methods which can take days to settle alongside high fees.

4) 🔑 Ethereum Devs Launch New Testnet for Simulating ETH Withdrawals - Ethereum developers will open a new test network on Feb 1 called “Zhejiang,” where users can start testing Ethereum Improvement Proposal-4895, also known as staked ether withdrawals, that’s included in the protocol’s next big upgrade, the so-called Shanghai hard fork — which has been tentatively targeted for March or April 2023.

5) ⚖️ Argo Blockchain Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over IPO Misinformation- Argo Blockchain investors have filed a lawsuit alleging that the crypto miner made misleading statements and concealed important information during its initial public offering (IPO) filing. The Texas-based Bitcoin mining firm went public on Sept. 23, 2021, after submitting the required documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). During its IPO, Argo issued 7.5 million shares at an offering price of $15, bringing in proceeds of approximately $105 million to the mining firm. However, a Jan. 26 lawsuit by early Argo Blockchain investors alleged that the crypto miner made misleading information during its IPO registration.

6) ⚖️ Coinbase Fined $3.6M for Operating Without Registration in the Netherlands-Leading crypto exchange Coinbase is facing a $3.6 million fine for allegedly operating in the Netherlands without legal registrations with De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB).

7) 💳 Binance, Mastercard Issuing Prepaid Card in Brazil As Regional Crypto Interest Grows- Crypto exchange Binance and payments provider Mastercard are teaming up once again, this time to launch a prepaid Binance card in Brazil.Share Coinstack

    📊 Key Stats of the Week

    Here are the most important and interesting stats in crypto this week...

    1. Ethereum Fear and Greed Index Is 53. Neutral

    2. A Simple Explanation of the Most Common Ethereum Token Standards

    Source: @Blockworks_

    3. ETH Options Markets Are Trending Bullish With Call Options Dominating 65% of Volumes, Up From 50% Since the #FTX Collapse

    Source: @KaikoData

    4. Aptos Tracking ~500k MAU

    Source: @OurNetwork

    5. OKB’s 1 Year Price Performance Is Drastically Higher Than Its Competitors, Coming In at +89% As of Yesterday While Most Others Are Performing Negatively

    Source: @rebeccastev

    📝 Highlights from the Top Crypto Reports

    Here are the top highlights from the best crypto research reports this week…

    About the Author: Messari brings transparency to the crypto economy. Messari wants to help investors, regulators, and the public makes sense of this revolutionary new asset class and build data tools to drive informed decision-making and investment. This is an excerpt from the full article, which you can find here.

    Primer on ApeCoin

    ApeCoin is the adopted token of the APE Foundation, a legal entity that administers the decisions of the ApeCoin DAO. The DAO is a separate entity from Yuga Labs, creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and associated NFTs. The two entities collaborate to further the adoption of ApeCoin, BAYC, and surrounding IP in a number of ways.

    Incentives in the Yuga ecosystem and the ApeCoin DAO are aligned via:

    • A 15% airdrop allocation for BAYC and MAYC holders

    • A 16% allocation directly to Yuga Labs (6.25% marked for charity donation), and

    • An 8% allocation to Yuga Labs founders.

    Key Metrics

    The Fourth Quarter Narrative

    DAO decentralization took several steps forward in Q4’22 with the launch of APE staking and the first-ever DAO special council elections. Special council nominees are community members elected via token governance to take on more integral roles in governing the DAO. Q4’22 saw ApeCoin DAO formalize a process for the onboarding, potential re-election, and ensuing replacement of council nominees.

    Performance Analysis

    The APE price largely followed the broad market downturn going into Q4. Selling was then amplified by the implosion of FTX in early-mid November. During that period, the majority of long-tail crypto assets declined -40% or more, with APE falling 40% on the dot. Post-crash, APE rebounded around 30%. Value-wise, the token is still down -80% from all-time highs (ATHs).

    There were a few potential catalysts for token price appreciation. Crypto gaming continued to develop, APE became a medium of exchange (i.e., gas token), and the protocol reclaimed mainstream cultural prominence. A good indicator that the above catalysts are taking hold can be seen in Google Search data in the last 12 months. The main risk to APE that could catalyze downward price pressure is sell pressure from airdrops, staking rewards, and potential unlocks.​

    🎧 Top Crypto Podcasts of The Week

    Here are the crypto podcasts that are worth listening to this week...

    📈 Top Performers This Week

    Here are the top 15 performers in the last week from all tokens with a market cap of $20M+.

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    📰 The Coinstack Newsletter:

    Tracking the most important blockchain stories of the 2020s, including a decentralized internet and the creation of a new open global monetary system that works for everyone. As always, published for informational purposes only. Please do your own research. Just our opinions. Not intended as financial advice as we are not financial advisors. We may own some of the digital assets we write about as we believe strongly in the sector. Please do your own research. Published and written weekly by Ryan Allis and Mike Gavela.

    Coinstack is a news and analysis newsletter for the digital asset industry. None of the information here is a recommendation to invest in any securities or other types of investments. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Any historical returns, expected returns, or probability projections may not reflect actual future performance. All investments involve risk and may result in loss.

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