WuBlockchain Weekly：SBF court appearance、OKX down and Top10 News

Top10 News

1. DAOs recognized as limited liability companies by the Marshall Islands link

In a world-first, the Republic of the Marshall Islands announced that the government has passed the Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Act of 2022, which legally recognizes DAOs and enables legal entities to formally adopt DAO structures and governance tools.

2. SBF’s weekly summary

a. FTX founder SBF signs extradition papers, will return to US for charges link

Sam Bankman-Fried signed the papers to waive an extradition hearing from the Bahamas and will now be flown to the United States to face prosecution. Bankman-Fried was charged by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District with eight counts including securities fraud and money laundering.

b. Two executives in SBF’s crypto empire plead guilty to fraud link

Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a founder of FTX, have pleaded guilty to federal criminal fraud charges and are cooperating in the federal criminal case against Mr. Bankman-Fried.

c. SBF to be released on $250 million bail, will live with his parents link

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was released on $250 million bond while awaiting trial for fraud and other criminal charges, a New York federal judge ruled Thursday. The bond was secured by equity in his family home, and by the signatures of his parents and two other individuals with “considerable” assets.

3. OKX briefly down due to an error of its cloud provider link

Due to Alibaba Cloud HK Zone C equipment failure, OKX was down on December 18. OKX said that after about ten hours of downtime, it has recovered, mainly due to the OKX’s reliance on a single cloud service provider. It will implement multi-cloud deployment strategies. OKX Will bear the customer’s loss due to service interruption.

4. If Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF dreams fail, firm may try a tender offer, CEO says link

Grayscale may give a tender offer for up to 20% of the outstanding shares of the $10.7 billion trust, which would make a direct appeal to shareholders to sell — or tender — their shares at a specific price during a certain time.

5. Bitcoin miner Core Scientific is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy link

Core Scientific, one of the largest publicly traded crypto mining companies in the U.S., is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas early Wednesday morning.

6. The “Big Four” accounting firms are “currently unwilling” to conduct a proof-of-reserves audit for a private crypto company link

The “Big Four” accounting firms — known to be Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers — are “currently unwilling” to conduct a proof-of-reserves audit for a private crypto company, a Binance spokesperson told Blockworks.

7. Donald J. Trump announced the launch of his NFT on Polygon link

Donald J. Trump announced the launch of the “Trump Digital Trading Card” series NFT on the Truth Social account, priced at $99, with a total of 45,000, issued on the Polygon chain, and can be purchased with credit cards or WETH.

8. Visa is exploring auto payments for self-custodial wallets link

Visa said they implemented delegable accounts solution on StarkNet. With StarkNet’s account model, VISA was able to implement delegable accounts solution thus enabling auto payments for self-custodial wallets.

9. Voyager announces agreement for Binance US to acquire its assets link

The Binance US bid is valued at approximately $1.022 billion and is comprised of (i) the fair market value of Voyager’s cryptocurrency portfolio at a to-be-determined date in the future, which at current market prices is estimated to be $1.002 billion, plus (ii) additional consideration equal to $20 million of incremental value. Binance US will make a $10 million good faith deposit and will reimburse Voyager for certain expenses up to a maximum of $15 million.

10. Binance will remove some trading pairs; Huobi will delist HPT, etc. link

Binance will remove and cease trading on the following trading pairs at 2022–12–27 03:00 (UTC): ANC/BNB, ANC/BTC, ANC/USDT, MIR/BTC, MIR/USDT, TORN/BTC, TORN/USDT, YFII/BTC (Spot Pairs). In addition, Justin Sun’s Huobi exchange stated that it will delist BHD, CNNS, CHAT, COL, FAIR, GTC, HOT, HPT, LET, MTN, MONFTER, RIFI, TOPC, UGAS, XMX and YCC. Among them, HPT is the platform token launched by Huobi Mining Pool.

Fundraising

Revel, an NFT or “social collectibles” platform, raised $7.8 million in seed financing led by Dragonfly Capital link
Foundation Devices, a developer of Bitcoin-centric tools, has raised $7 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital link
DeFi technology company Pods has raised $5.6M in Seed Funding, invested by IOSG, etc. link
Arrakis Finance, a decentralized market-making protocol, raised $4 million in a seed funding round, invested by Uniswap Labs Ventures, etc. link
Bitcoin development company Layer 2 Labs has raised a $3 million seed round link
Concordex, a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on Concordium, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding link
Hardware wallet startup Cypherock has raised $1 million in a seed round link

Learn more, check out crypto-fundraising.info.