SBF Backstabbed By Alameda CEO

GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and let's turn on that web3 coffee machine.

⭐️Today's selection:

• 🤝Caroline Ellison Pleads Guilty, Cooperates With DOJ
• 👁️ Polygon 2022 Review
• 🧩Quiz Thursday
• 👌Selected Meme of The Day
• 📰Bite-Sized News

CAROLINE ELLISON PLEADS GUILTY

SBF is not the only one in trouble. Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, former executives of Alameda Research and FTX, are facing criminal charges as well.

Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty to seven counts. The maximum sentence on these charges could be 110 years in prison.

Gary Wang (the CEO of Alameda before Caroline) pleaded guilty to 4 counts, which carries a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.

But they decided to make things easier for themselves. By cooperating with the Department of Justice. Or, backstabbing their former colleague, Sam.

It depends on one's point of view.

This was announced by prosecutor Damian Williams. He announced that there will be other major developments ahead related to the FTX case.

He confirmed that SBF is now "on his way back to the United States." He will be flown directly to the courthouse "as soon as possible."

There are more updates. The SEC calls the FTT token security.

And it was revealed that FTX used FTT to buy Blockfolio, the crypto portfolio management and tracking platform.

FTX invested $84M in them, allowing Blockfilio to reach a market evaluation of $160M.

The regulator believes that the FTX token should be treated as an investment contract.

The document also states that Fried explored the option of winding down Alameda, but ultimately declined. He decided that it would lead to "reduced liquidity on FTX".

When the exchange started having problems, Caroline Ellison and SBF were surprised that bitcoin wasn't falling as hard. Here's an excerpt from a chat between them:

[Alameda executive 1]: "I'm surprised BTC isnt down more"Ellison: "me too"Bankman-Fried: "yea me 3"

Oh boy. The audacity.

So, here's what Allison's cooperation with the authorities gives her. First, she will be allowed out on bail, and even the amount is already known - $250,000. 

In addition to that, the notorious businesswoman must turn over to the authorities any proceeds from her fraudulent activities.

TL;DR: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, former Alameda and FTX execs have agreed to cooperate with DOJ.

Polygon 2022 Review

Okay, let's go back to some positive stuff. This year is coming to an end. Let's celebrate particular projects and their achievements.

So for the remaining days and a few days of 2022, we'll be sharing what has happened to blockchain ecosystems over the past year.

Today let's zoom in on Polygon.

Launched in 2017 under the name of Matic Network, this project eventually grew, changed its name to Polygon, and became a big player in the DeFi ecosystem.

Polygon is a layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts. A game changing project that continues realising its potential.

It's designed to make it easier and faster to build and run decentralized applications (dApps) on Ethereum.

It has its own blockchain, which is based on Ethereum and supports smart contracts and decentralized applications.

Okay. Enough with words. Let's see some numbers. By the end of 2022, this is what Polygon achieved:

• Total Value Locked (TVL): $990.87 million.
• Unique daily active users: 390k.
• Active Monthly developers: 61.
• Successful transactions processed this year: 960,000,000.

In 2022, Polygon achieved something crucial. They onboarded major brands on their blockchain. This meant a massive leap towards global adoption.

Such brands as Starbucks, Reddit, Nike, Instagram, Adidas, Adobe, Meta, The Walt Disney Company and others chose Polygon for their web3 ventures.

Reddit alone achieved so much thanks to this project. They announced that over 3 million Polygon wallets have been created so that users could claim their Reddit NFT avatars.

And talking about these Reddit NFTs, more than 5 million of them have been minted. If this doesn't sound like success, I don't know what does.

NFTs, essentially is the gateway solution that allowed most of these companies to kick off such activities.

Meta is in the process of creating the possibility for Instagram users to mint their Instagram content on Polygon as NFTs.

Starbucks is about to launch their NFT reward program for loyal customers.

Or... Remember we just wrote about Donald Trump's success in the NFT domain? Well, they were all minted on Polygon.

Polygon did great things for web3 development. We gotta appreciate that.

Okay, what does Polygon see for itself in 2023?

• They will be focusing on gaming. Bringing 'Fun' and 'tokenomics' in gaming is what they're about to do. That's a colossal task.
• Continued work on Polygon ID. Blockchained-based, interoperable, user-centered way of creating, establishing, and protecting one's digital identity.
• All focus on ZK technology. This technology speeds up transaction processing significantly.
• With attention to ZK tech, and with awareness about 2022's lessons (FTX, Terra), they'll focus on non-custodial wallets, stablecoin adoption, security.

What can we add? Go, Polygon.

TL;DR: 2022 was a tumultuous year for crypto. But Polygon stood tall, and their achievements radiate optimism and set high expectations for the future.

QUIZ THURSDAY

By now, you've scrolled past the Polygon part of the newsletter. Here's a test about how much of an attentive reader are you.

This is the Polygon Christmas tree. The decorations represent some of the companies they've partnered with. But... There are some imposters among them. The question is: how many?

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

BITE-SIZED NEWS

• Twitter Launches Feature Allowing Users to View Crypto, Stock and ETF Prices. Elon keeps himself busy not only with polls about stepping down.
• Decentralized Exchange Raydium Shares Additional Information about Recent Hack. More info to learn from.
• Coinbase Gets Licensed as a Virtual Asset Service Provider in Ireland. Top of the morning, Coinbase lads.