⚔️ Voyager Rejection of FTX Buyout Leaves Investors Searching for Answers

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Crypto Deals

⚔️ Voyager Rejection of FTX Buyout Leaves Investors Searching for Answers

Stricken Platform and Bankman-Fried Jockey for Advantage as Bankruptcy Unfolds

By Aleksandar Gilbert and Samuel Haig

NEWS Thanks but no thanks. That was the message Voyager Digital, a bankrupt crypto lender and exchange, delivered to FTX and Alameda Ventures on Sunday.

RESTRUCTURING On July 22, Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of digital asset exchange FTX, proposed a restructuring deal to Voyager. The stricken platform’s customers would get immediate relief in the form of liquidity and the option to join FTX, one of the top crypto exchanges worldwide.

WHITE KNIGHT But two days later, Voyager rejected the proposal out of hand as “a low-ball bid dressed up as a white knight rescue,” according to a court filing. Translation: FTX was attempting a takeover adverse to Voyager’s interests. The bankrupt firm also described the proposed deal as “a liquidation of cryptocurrency on a basis that advantages AlamedaFTX.”

MOGUL Alameda Ventures is an affiliate of Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm founded by billionaire Bankman-Fried. While the crypto mogul has relinquished day-to-day control of the Alameda companies, they and FTX have occasionally acted in concert during this year’s digital asset meltdown, extending credit to or buying distressed companies.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

DeFi Deals

✋🏼Lido DAO Rejects Token Sale To Dragonfly

By Aleksandar Gilbert

REJECTION With help from an anonymous whale, Lido rejected a proposed deal with Dragonfly Capital on Monday. In an attempt to cushion itself against an extended crypto winter, Lido’s leadership had proposed selling 10M LDO to Dragonfly Capital for stablecoins at $1.45 per token. LDO, the governance token of crypto’s largest liquid staking protocol, was trading at $1.60 on Sunday night in New York.

CONTROVERSIAL But Lido’s deal with Dragonfly, which had to be approved by LDO holders, proved controversial. Skeptical LDO holders argued that the deal’s terms effectively gave the venture capital firm “free money,” and accused an anonymous high-roller of hijacking the vote on Dragonfly’s behalf.Lido has become the latest crypto player to reckon with mistakes made during the frenzy of last year’s bull market.

FRAY But another big LDO holder entered the fray over the weekend, tipping the vote to scuttle the deal. A revamped proposal is expected in the coming days.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

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Layer 1s

🧐 Aptos $150M Fundraising Breathes Life into Layer 1 Prospects

By Owen Fernau

TRADE The Layer 1 trade still appears to have some life in it. Aptos Labs, the web3 startup developing the Aptos blockchain, has raised $150M in Series A funding.

ROUND The round was led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto also included TradFi giants, Apollo Global Management, the private equity firm, and Franklin Templeton, the mutual fund provider.

FUNDING Aptos was founded by developers who formerly worked on Diem, Meta’s blockchain initiative that the social media giant abandoned in January. The company plans to use the funding to “ship the most performant and upgradable blockchain technology”.

MULTICOIN Aptos Labs has scored $350M of funding in 2022 despite the bear market, having raised $200M earlier in the year. Crypto investment firm Multicoin Capital, which announced a $430M fund earlier this month, invested in both of Aptos’ rounds.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Market Action

😬 Ether and Bitcoin Slide Ahead of Expected Interest Rate Hike Wednesday

SEC Reportedly Probes Coinbase on Securities Registrations

By yyctrader

RATES All eyes are on the Federal Reserve this week as the U.S. central bank is widely expected to increase benchmark interest rates by another 0.75% on Wednesday, following a similar move in June, the largest hike since 1994.

Source: CME FedWatch

RUNUP A solid run up over the past month saw Bitcoin and Ether rally 26% and 65% respectively from their June lows, pushing crypto’s market capitalization back above $1T.

PRICES As the price of everything from oil to corn soared this year, the Fed has aggressively raised interest rates in a bid to cool the economy and rein in demand. At a consumer level, rising interest rates encourage people to spend less and save more, as financing big-ticket items like houses becomes more expensive.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

DEXs

📉 Bancor TVL Drops 30% Since Suspending Protection from Impermenent Loss

By Owen Fernau

NEWS Total value locked (TVL) in Bancor, one of DeFi’s first decentralized exchanges, has plummeted 30.2% since the protocol paused impermanent loss protection on June 19, according to data from The Defiant’s newly released chart feature.

IMPERMANENT LOSS In contrast, each of the top four Ethereum DEXs in terms of TVL has seen the value of assets stored in their smart contracts rise by between 11.4% and 24.9% in the 33 days since Bancor paused impermanent loss (IL) protection.

TVL In Ethereum DEXs

SMART CONTRACTS Bancor’s dropping TVL could be partially attributed to falling asset prices, but of the top five tokens deposited in the protocol’s smart contracts, none are down more than 1% in the last month.

FIVE TOKENS As those five tokens, which include Bancor’s native BNT token, make up roughly 84.7% of Bancor’s total TVL of $154.2M, it appears very likely that the decrease in TVL is due to users actually withdrawing assets from the protocol.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

DEXs

🦄 Uniswap Will Integrate Sudoswap To Access Deeper NFT Liquidity

By Jason Levin

NEWS Uniswap is diving deep down the NFT rabbit hole. The automated market maker is integrating decentralized NFT marketplace Sudoswap to allow for efficient NFT swaps when it launches its NFT platform. The news was shared by Scott Gray, head of NFT product at Uniswap Labs.

MARKET MAKERS The integration will allow users to purchase NFTs using the Uniswap platform while accessing the on-chain liquidity offered by sudoAMM. Sudoswap’s automated market maker sudoAMM was released on July 8. Automated market makers allow digital assets to be traded automatically using liquidity pools rather than a traditional marketplace that needs to match buyers with sellers.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

The Tube

📺 Quick Take: zkEVM - who's announced what and wtf is it?

📺 The Defiant Weekly: CeFi failed. DeFi did not. But is that the whole story?

Shoutout

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What Is Staking?

A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Tokens to Maintain Blockchains

By Rahul Nambiampurath

BENEFITS One of the key benefits of blockchain technology is that it can offer banking services without banks. Instead of banking clerks, there are smart contracts. Instead of offices and guards, there is a decentralized network secured by its consensus mechanism. This is the foundation for Finance 2.0, or Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

TOKENHOLDERS One of the most sought-after DeFi features is staking. Just as banks pay interest on deposits, smart contracts pay income to tokenholders who stake their assets.

TROUBLE Since time immemorial, borrowing and lending has been the lifeblood of any economy. Borrowers need money to grow their businesses, or they may need cash to get out of temporary financial trouble.

LENDERS In turn, lenders supply funds to meet borrowing demand. To make it worth their while and cover the risk if they don’t get paid back, they charge an interest rate, so that borrowers have to return more than they borrowed. Otherwise, why would lenders bother?

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Elsewhere

🔗 The SEC is investigating Coinbase over its coin listings: Bloomberg: The Block

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating Coinbase for improperly allowing trading in several tokens that should have been registered as securities, according to a report from Bloomberg.

🔗 ETH at the merge, Social decentralization and more: The Daily Gwei Refuel

Video on Merge news.

🔗 Why Solana is more decentralized than you think: Medium

It’s been twelve months since a Tweet from the Solana foundation announced the number of active validators passing 1,000, and now Solana has 1,875 active validators.

raj 🖤 sms @rajgokalNFT's can have a powerful effect of bringing people together with purpose. when @StephenCurry30 and crew dropped @solana NFT's to commemorate his 3-point record, he used the opportunity to bring collectors together for a day of community service. legend, on and off the court 👌

Stephen Curry @StephenCurry302️⃣9️⃣7️⃣4️⃣ fam in the Bay!! What a special group. Still in awe of what our @2974Collection has become. From an idea, to the actual NFT, to a celebration w/ friends. Love to @FTX_Official for helping bring this dream to light. Thanks to everyone for joining me on this journey! 🙌🏽💯 https://t.co/MWu5lQZ8Ku 12:42 AM ∙ Jul 26, 2022159Likes37Retweets

Trending in The Defiant

Feds Turn Up the Heat on Crypto with Insider Trading Case Against ex-Coinbase EmployeeThe U.S. Justice Department’s crackdown on crypto just ratcheted up a notch. On Thursday, Federal prosecutors accused a former Coinbase employee and two others in the first-ever case of insider trading involving cryptocurrencies.
SushiSwap Triggers Dustup During Launch of Market Making Feature SushiSwap is trying to reverse its declining market share by enabling cross-chain swaps across seven major chains. Yet the protocol’s launch of its new XSwap feature on July 21 was clouded by its claim that it’s the “first ever” automated market maker (AMM) exchange enabling cross-chain swaps.
What Is Ethereum? When Bitcoin first launched in January 2009, it was effectively valueless. In fact, it took two years for Bitcoin to reach $1.

🧑‍💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Owen Fernau, Aleksandar Gilbert, Claire Gu, Samuel Haig, Jason Levin, and yyctrader, and edited by Edward Robinson, yyctrader and Camila Russo. Videos were produced by Robin Schmidt and Alp Gasimov. Podcast was led by Camila, edited by Alp.

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