We’ve gathered the week’s most important crypto-industry news.
- FTX has asked the court to sell Grayscale and Bitwise trust shares worth $744 million.
- The court has approved Celsius’s return of assets to investors.
- Binance reported bitcoin reserves of $22.5 billion.
- Russia issued its first hybrid digital financial assets (DFAs).
FTX seeks court sale of Grayscale and Bitwise trust shares worth $744 million
The bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX filed a request with the court to sell Grayscale and Bitwise trust shares worth $744 million.
The move could be the first step in the sale of assets owned by the platform, which were valued at $3.4 billion.
In October, creditors and FTX management approved a plan under which customers could expect to recover $9.2 billion by mid-2024.
In the same month, the exchange’s leadership began considering three options for restructuring the platform.
Court approves Celsius to return assets to investors
Celsius obtained court approval in its bankruptcy to return assets to investors in early next year.
Under the proposal, debtors will allocate Bitcoin and Ethereum worth $2 billion. Celsius will also create a new public company called NewCo and transfer its shares to creditors. Customers can expect to recover 67–85% of funds.
On July 13, the U.S. Department of Justice brought seven criminal charges against former Celsius head Alex Mashinsky. Among them are securities fraud, manipulation of the CEL token price, and misleading investors.
Later, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement of the claims against the company. The agreement provides for the platform to pay $4.7 billion.
Binance reports bitcoin reserves of $22.5 billion
Binance published its monthly proof-of-reserves (PoR) report — its balance includes 609,310.54 BTC to back client deposits of 584,659.08 BTC.
Ethereum reserves are also over-collateralised by 5.2%. The stablecoin BUSD, whose support is set to end in 2024, shows a 33.6% overhang.
The most over-collateralized assets were FDUSD (125.3%), CHZ (120.7%), USDT (118.8%), MATIC (113.3%), DOT (112%), and BNB (111.4%).
According to the company, the report aggregates all user balances from the Merkle Root hash, which combines account data from the Merkle tree into a single table for auditors.
To conduct the PoR, the exchange uses a special type of zero-knowledge proof — zk-SNARK. This method prevents leakage of customers’ personal data.
In November 2022, Binance was the first among centralized exchanges to launch Proof-of-Reserves. The motive was a loss of trust following the FTX collapse. Subsequently, similar initiatives were implemented by Bitget, OKX, Gate.io and Huobi.
Bakkt expands business into new markets in Latin America, Europe and Asia
American institutional platform Bakkt announced its entry into markets in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Asian countries, including Hong Kong and Singapore.
Partners in execution were 3.0verse and Hapi.
Bakkt also agreed with EDX Markets to join its settlement and custody network, initially acting as a backup qualified custodian.
In August, the institutional platform’s CEO Gavin Michael said that there was active client acquisition.
Russia issues first hybrid DFAs
The issuer was Rosbank, issuing on the Atomayza platform. The instrument represents digital rights to gold, which can be redeemed for cash or gold bars.
Earlier digital asset issues were pegged to the price of the precious metal and did not offer redemption in kind.
Other market participants are preparing to launch similar projects, despite a number of identified shortcomings.
At the start of November, Expobank issued on the Masterchain platform DFAs, the value of which depends on the price of a diamond.
Also on ForkLog:
- SEC backed the restart of FTX “within the law”.
- Binance published its own crypto wallet.
- Journalists learned of USDC issuer’s IPO plans for 2024.
- Unrealized profit from MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin holdings exceeded $1 billion.
- CME overtook Binance in the Bitcoin futures rankings.
- OpenSea’s valuation fell to $1.4 billion, the NFT marketplace cut 50% of staff.
- Journalists learned that Kraken plans to launch an L2 network.
- Poloniex hack losses exceed $100 million.
- Bitget launched institutional fiat gateways with euro support.
- Binance will stop accepting deposits in Russian rubles.
- Avalanche’s development company cut 12% of staff.
- In Uzbekistan, a second bitcoin exchange obtained a license.
- In Kazakhstan, authorities explained Coinbase blockage.
What to read this weekend?
ForkLog has uncovered details of the SEC’s case against Binance and details of a possible secret deal between Terraform Labs and Jump Crypto.