😥 Focus Turns to Alameda as Investors Fear Binance Deal Not the Answer for Stricken FTX

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we’re covering today. But first, we’d like to take a minute to thank our sponsors, who make it possible for us to send out today’s newsletter.

Aave Grants: http://aavegrants.org/thedefiant
Lumerin: https://lumerin.io/thedefiant
Radix: https://radixdlt.com/thedefiant

FTX Crisis

• Focus Turns to Alameda as Investors Fear Binance Deal Not the Answer for Stricken FTX
• Solana Supporters Buck Up Network As FTX Contagion Takes Toll
• Binance to Take Over FTX After Insolvency Concerns Spark Market Rout

News

• Ether Turns Net Deflationary Post-Merge

Markets

• Crypto Markets Whipsawed After Binance’s Deal To Acquire FTX Fuels Short-Lived Rally

Podcast

Video

• Daily Defiant: Feds Seize $3.36 Billion Crypto Linked to Silk Road

DeFi Explainers

• What is zkSync?

Elsewhere

• US Treasury Adds to Tornado Cash Sanctions With North Korea WMD Allegations: CoinDesk
• Twitter Won’t Go Web3 ‘Anytime Soon’: Aave CEO Stani Kulechov: Decrypt
• All crypto exchanges should do merkle-tree proof-of-reserves: CZ Binance

Trending in The Defiant

• FTX Hit By $1.2B in Withdrawals as Confidence Wavers in Exchange Giant
• CZ Cranks Up Pressure on FTX With Massive Token Sale
• OpenSea Roils NFT Market With ‘Enforcement Tool’ For Creators

Sponsored post

• The Knights Who Say Nah

A word from our wonderful sponsors, who make this newsletter possible:

Aave is the leading decentralized liquidity protocol. Aave governance has greenlighted the development of GHO – a decentralized, collateral-backed stablecoin that will be native to the Aave protocol. Launching on testnets soon!

Lumerinis revolutionizing Bitcoin mining with a decentralized marketplace for buying and selling hashpower. Help us test the network in beta and earn real BTC hashpower to sell, trade, or mine. Find out more!

DeFi should be better – and it’s about to get radically better with Radix. Get your free ticket to join RadFi2022 on December 8 and learn what the future holds for decentralized finance. Find out how!

FTX Crisis

😥 Focus Turns to Alameda as Investors Fear Binance Deal Not the Answer for Stricken FTX

Evidence Emerges FTX Used FTT Token for $4B Bailout of Alameda in September

By Samuel Haig

FALLOUT As cryptocurrency investors and users reckon with the fallout from Binance’s shocking takeover of FTX, one thing is clear: the episode is a disaster for the burgeoning industry.

COLLAPSES “These events quickly sent the broader market into a tailspin, heaping more pressure on the prices of crypto,” Bobby Ong, the co-founder of CoinGecko, told The Defiant. “Collapses such as these only serve to erode the confidence of users and the general public towards the industry, and could become a hindrance to growing adoption.”

QUESTIONS The questions now are how bad is it, and how long will it last?

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

FTX Crisis

😬 Solana Supporters Buck Up Network As FTX Contagion Takes Toll

Alameda and FTX Have Extensive Links with Layer 1 Blockchain Network

By Owen Fernau

CONTAGION It’s safe to say that last week few Solana fans were worried about contagion from a centralized derivatives exchange that focused on putting its name on sports arenas and not DeFi.

TORQUE Yet the rapid unraveling of confidence in FTX, the mammoth crypto derivatives exchange, and its sister firm, Alameda Research, has swept up Solana and whipsawed its tokenholders with unforeseen torque.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Sponsored Post

The Knights Who Say Nah is the brainchild of Nick Richey, who is not only an award-winning indie screenwriter and director but also the Keeper of Arms of the largest private collection of arms and armor in the world. Knights marries Nick’s love of media and antiquities, resulting in a multi-platform media company on a mission to democratize access to the world of ancient artifacts.

Knights has pioneered photogrammetry techniques to take one-of-a-kind ancient objects and bring them to the metaverse in 3D, bringing you up-close and personal with each sword, rapier, battle helmet, and beyond. The project will kick off with four culture “drops,” each release representing a different ancient warrior culture. Each drop will include a limited release of 2D collectible avatars and 3D collectible artifact NFTs.

This month, the Knights will open the doors to their carefully constructed universe. Token holders will receive a challenge to “Slay The Dragon,” access to a hidden writers’ room with exclusive first-look access to first draft scripts and concept art, and vote on important decisions regarding the collection. To take your first step into the immersive, multi-cultural Knights universe, follow @KnightsSayNah on Twitter, join the Knights Discord, and visit knightssaynah.com.

🤯 Binance to Take Over FTX After Insolvency Concerns Spark Market Rout

Binance Agrees to Bail Out Rival After FTT Token Collapses

By Aleksandar Gilbert

CRISIS Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, plans to execute an emergency takeover of FTX, the crypto derivatives platform that has been hit with a crisis of confidence as its FTT token lost more than a quarter of its value on Monday, Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO, said in a Twitter thread Tuesday.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Market Action

📉 Crypto Markets Whipsawed After Binance’s Deal To Acquire FTX Fuels Short-Lived Rally

Solana Ecosystem Battered as FTT Crashes 85%

By yyctrader

WORST DAY Crypto markets are on track for their worst day since June as investors are choosing to stay on the sidelines of the nascent industry while yet another centralized crypto player finds itself on the ropes.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Ethererum

🔥 Ether Turns Net Deflationary Post-Merge

Spike In Network Activity Sees Nearly 3,000 ETH Burned in the Past Day

By yyctrader

ULTRA-SOUND Ether is finally ultra-sound money. The largest smart contract platform by market capitalization has hit the much-anticipated milestone of zero net issuance, 54 days after it the network transitioned to proof-of-stake consensus.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Shoutout

Launch your own token in less than 3 simple clicks for the chance to win over 150,000 WX tokens in prizes! Visit our website now to get started!

The Tube

📺 Daily Defiant: Feds Seize $3.36 Billion Crypto Linked to Silk Road

Podcast Video

📺🎙 How Arbitrum Became The Number 1 Layer 2

DeFi Explainers

🤔 What is zkSync?

A Step-by-Step Guide to the High-Capacity Blockchain Network

By Rahul Nambiampurath

CONGESTED Every computer network is limited by its throughput capacity. How much data can it handle before becoming too congested? This problem is especially acute with a specific type of computer network: blockchains.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

Elsewhere

🔗 US Treasury Adds to Tornado Cash Sanctions With North Korea WMD Allegations: CoinDesk

The U.S. Treasury Department is “redesignating” Tornado Cash as a sanctioned entity, overtly alleging that North Korea has used the crypto mixing service to support its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program.

🔗 Twitter Won’t Go Web3 ‘Anytime Soon’: Aave CEO Stani Kulechov: Decrypt

Despite Elon Musk’s recent takeover of Twitter, Aave co-founder and CEO Stani Kulechov believes the microblogging platform won’t be on the blockchain anytime soon.

All crypto exchanges should do merkle-tree proof-of-reserves.

Banks run on fractional reserves.
Crypto exchanges should not.@Binance will start to do proof-of-reserves soon. Full transparency.

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) November 8, 2022

Trending in The Defiant

• FTX Hit By $1.2B in Withdrawals as Confidence Wavers in Exchange GiantFTX’s reserves are under siege as a wave of users withdraw their assets from the derivatives exchange after its dependency on its token FTT and its relationship with a sister company, Alameda Research, raised doubts about its financial strength.
• CZ Cranks Up Pressure on FTX With Massive Token SaleIn a major development for FTX, Binance, a rival cryptocurrency exchange, is planning to dump FTT tokens on the market, according to CEO Changpeng Zhou.
• OpenSea Roils NFT Market With ‘Enforcement Tool’ For CreatorsNFT creators are finally getting a little financial help. At least that’s the pitch from OpenSea. On Tuesday, OpenSea, the No. 1 NFT marketplace, plans to release an “on-chain enforcement tool” that will let artists stop their work from being sold on sites that do not distribute royalty fees.

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

Free subscribers to the newsletter get:

• Daily news briefings
• Sunday Weekly recap
• General chat on The Defiant’s Discord server

👑 Prime defiers get:

• Full transcript of exclusive podcast interviews
• DeFi Alpha weekly newsletter on how to put your money to work in DeFi by yyctrader and DeFi Dad
• Weekly live DeFi Alpha call with yyctrader
• Inbox Dump edition of The Defiant newsletter every Saturday with all the PR that didn’t make it to our content channels
• Exclusive community calls with the team
• Subscriber-only chats on The Defiant Discord server
• Full access to The Defiant’s content archive

Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button below ($15/mo, $150/yr).

You can start a prime membership for free right now with this link. You’ll get full access for 7 days. It’s 100% risk-free.