FTX Insider Shares Insights On SBF

GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and let's make the most out this Monday.

⭐️Today's selection:

• 🕴️Former FTX US CEO Talks About SBF
• 💸Further Alameda Liquidations
• 🧙‍♂️FTT Mystery
• 💰Venture Mondays
• 👌Selected Meme of The Day
• 📰Bite-Sized News

FORMER FTX US CEO TALKS ABOUT SBF

As the SBF saga continues, more and more people begin to speak out about how things looked on the inside of the now-sunken ship.

Former FTX US CEO Brett Harrison recounted what his FTX journey looked like.

In a detailed Twitter thread, B. Harrison describes the whole picture. He even shares what personal SBF's qualities attracted him to work for SBF in the first place.

But then things changed when Brett began realising that SBF is not the same person that he used to know.

And it all kept adding up until, one day, Brett Harrison realised that it was either SBF's way or the highway.

Because it all lead to a heated argument between the two chiefs.

The conflict between the two escalated when Harrison wanted to separate the American FTX team from its parent company.

Harrison recalled that the conflict made him see how unqualified and uncompromising SBF could become when someone questioned his decisions.

Harrison also suggested that the shift in behaviour could be attributed to addiction or mental health issues. This story illustrates the nature of SBF and gives a glimpse into the inner workings of the company.

TL;DR: Former FTX US CEO wrote a detailed Twitter thread in which he described how uncompromising, and emotionally unqualified SBF was a CEO who did not allow others to doubt his decisions.

FURTHER ALAMEDA LIQUIDATIONS

In our last newsletter, we reported on how FTX lost 4 BTC due to a misunderstanding of smart contract functionality on Aave.

However, it turns out that this was not the largest mistake to occur recently in the crypto world.

According to data from Arkham analyst agency, over the weekend of January 14th, Alameda Research lost more than $1 million due to forced position liquidation.

The report shows that the account originally held 9,000 ETH ($10.8 million) with a $20 million USDC pledge and $4 million DAI, for a net balance of $15.2 million at that time.

On the night of January 14th, the account was forcibly closed, resulting in 1.2 million USDC being written off for 731 ETH.

The Arkham report notes that there were transactions from the wallet both before and after the liquidation, suggesting that whoever controlled it was unable or unwilling to close the position.

This situation is similar to the difficulties faced by the board of liquidators and new management at FTX, due to the strong centralization of power within the company and the lack of full accounting of the firm's assets.

But... It's not only Alameda that experienced such stuff recently.

More than 70% of traders recorded losses due to the growth of BTC (essentially there were either having bets that the price will go down (shorting); or just had over-leveraged trades.

According to Coinalyze, $500 million worth of short positions has been liquidated since Friday, the highest in 3 months.

TL;DR: Alameda Research lost more than $1 million due to forced position liquidation. Ir overlayed with $500 million worth of short positions being liquidated due to the fact that BTC increased in value over the weekend.

FTT MYSTERY

FTT is the native token of the now-collapsed FTX exchange.

Quite naturally, the token's value went down together with the crypto exchange, and vice versa.

But... Something mysterious is going on... For reasons unknown, the token has been showing signs of vitality.

In fact, its value increased by 180% in a week.

One of the reasons for that may be that FTX, as it was reported last week, "suddenly found $5 billion of assets that were thought to be lost'.

But by the time of that news, FTT was trading at 5% higher already. Sooo... What gives?

Another possibility (not yet 100% confirmed) is that most of the FTT coins are either blocked or frozen, and a huge amount of them is held by CZ (Binance).

This means that the supply of FTT on the market is likely limited, making it easier for the price to increase quickly and be manipulated.

Finally, a mini-battle has started between FTT and LUNA, another token that also saw a significant increase in price (60%) in the last week.

This competition may have also played a role in FTT's price increase.

TL;DR: FTT, the native token of the collapsed exchange FTX, has been increasing in value.

VENTURE MONDAY

Play2Earn CosmoGene developer Sortium raised $7.75M in a seed funding round. Arca, a US-based full-service investment management firm, was among the participants.

They're working on a game that is still in the early stages of development, with more information to be released at a later date.

However, those interested in gaining early access may try participating and contributing on the game's Discord server.

This engagement may also result in future perks such as token allocation or NFTs. (P.S. don't forget to go through verification, otherwise, you will be kicked out)

Decentralized capital markets protocol Alkimiya raised $7.2M in a funding round led by Castle Island Ventures and 1kx, with participation from Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Dragonfly Capital Partners.

Alkimiya is a new way to help people who mine crypto like Bitcoin to make more money and manage the risks of mining. Right now, it can be challenging for miners to make a consistent profit because the value of what they mine can go up and down a lot.

Alkimiya makes it possible for miners to convert the digital currency they mine into something that is easier to value, so they can make more money and manage their risks better.

Social crypto wallet developer The Easy Company raised $14.2M in a seed funding round.

Lobby Capital, Relay Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Tapestry VC, Upside and Scribble Ventures are among the investors.

Easy is a social wallet for web3, designed to make interacting with decentralized technology easier, safer, and more fun for users.

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

BITE-SIZED NEWS

• California Cannabis Nursery to Use Blockchain to Verify Plants' Authenticity. Puff, Puff, Verify.
• Bithumb Ordered to Pay Millions in Damages for Service Outage. Bithumbs-down 👎
• Shiba Inu Developers Plan to Launch a Beta Version of Layer-2 Network, Shibarium. The Shiba-verse is expanding.