Leak Reveals Surprise 1000% FTX Crypto Wave Amid Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, XRP, Solana, Cardano and Dogecoin Price Crashes—CryptoCodex
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Fire in the hole 🧨
The crypto market is on the verge of crashing below $1 trillion after last week’s $200 billion selloff and a gradual decline over the weekend. Traders are now gearing up for a highly anticipated speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole Federal Reserve Conference in Wyoming on Friday, where he is expected to talk about the economic outlook and potentially shed light on how he will try to cool the economy without freezing it over. Read the full story at Forbes.
The bitcoin The price has fallen another 1% in the past 24 hours, taking its weekly losses to nearly 13%. Ether
A bright spark in a weak market this morning is a one-time ethereum rival EOS
Now read this: How the bitcoin boom led to ‘a giant fleecing of ordinary people’
Explosive growth 💥
A million dollars is not cool… Crypto exchange FTX, led by the crypto version of financier J. Pierpont Morgan, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), raised more than $1 billion in revenue in 2021 — up a whopping 1,000% from the previous year, according to leaked documents seen by CNBC.
With the numbers: FTX revenue increased from $89 million to $1.02 billion in 2021, a tenfold increase. Operating income rose to $272 million, up from $14 million in 2020, while net income rose to $388 million last year, up from just $17 million.
But but but… FTX’s annual revenue remains far behind market leader Coinbase, which generated $7.4 billion in revenue and $3.6 billion in net income last year.
On the top: During the first quarter of 2022, FTX brought in $270 million in revenue and is on track to top last year’s revenue in 2022, according to an investor brief shared with CNBC. Although this calculation was made before the crypto market crashed and lost around $2 trillion in value, take it with a big grain of salt.
Home runs: SBF confirmed the figures via Twitter, and responded to CNBC post it: “[For what it’s worth]the numbers here are right ballpark.”
A happy coincidence: It has been pointed out that CNBC reporter who got hold of the investor deck, Kate Rooney, was “in the Bahamas” to interview SBF last week, where FTX is headquartered and Bankman-Fried lives. “I wonder who would leak such a winning report,” asked Coindesk reporter Danny Nelson on Twitter.
Public hearing: The leaked documents come just a month later Bloomberg reported that FTX and FTX US are in talks to raise new capital following SBF’s recent spending spree. In January, FTX announced it raised $400 million at a valuation of $32 billion, while FTX US raised $400 million at a valuation of $8 billion.
SBF wants you! Bankman-Fried has used the last crypto winter to strengthen his crypto empire, buying crypto trader Bitvo and clearing company Embed. In July, FTX US struck a deal with crypto lender BlockFi that gives FTX an option to buy the struggling company and was in talks to buy South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb. SBF also tried to save Voyager Digital and reports have emerged that he has invested anonymously in other companies. Bankman-Fried has taken a passive 7.6% stake in trading app Robinhood, but denied a takeover attempt is in the works.
Dear Sam: Last week, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued warnings to five companies, including FTX’s US arm, to stop making false and misleading statements about FDIC deposit insurance, writing them cease-and-desist letters. Blockwork have more.
Good to know: Banks and the crypto lobby clash with lawmakers over a Fed digital dollar
1.2 trillion dollar oil fund under attack 🪖
🛢️ Norway’s $1.2 trillion oil fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, has said it is more concerned about cyber attacks than market volatility, with crypto-enabled ransomware attacks up nearly 250% against financial targets in the first six months of 2022.
🗣️ “We’re seeing a lot more attempts, more attacks [that are] increasingly sophisticated, says managing director Nicolai Tangen at Norges Bank Investment Management Financial Timesadding, “When it comes to ransomware, about half of network intrusions are phishing attempts and the other half are remote access attacks with stolen credentials.”
📉 A report out last month found that the total number of ransomware attacks, which use malicious software to lock users out of their systems until they transfer bitcoin or other cryptocurrency to the attacker, fell by 23% from January to June when the crypto market crashed.
Now read this: Crypto is falling, but in Argentina it’s still a safer bet
The week ahead 📆
👀 Watch out for these cryptocurrency and crypto-related events this week.
⛏ Bitcoin
– Ethereum miners will have few good options after the merger
📢 On Thursday, the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, an annual conference for central bankers, starts in Wyoming with central bank chief Jerome Powell in the center on Friday. He is expected to give his views on the economy and shed light on how the Fed will proceed in the months ahead as officials try to walk the tightrope between fighting inflation and causing a recession.
⚡ Also Thursday, Teslas
– Here’s what you should know about the 3-to-1 stock split approved by Tesla shareholders
Listen to this: Biden’s approach to crypto