While investors in FTX claim a Bahamian bank assisted the exchange in committing fraud, Yuga Labs has acquired a river NFT conglomerate.
Yuga Labs obtains PROOF.
The recent acquisition of NFT conglomerate PROOF by nonfungible token (NFT) major Yuga Labs has gone ahead without a hitch, albeit trading activity before to the announcement has drawn some criticism.
Yuga revealed on February 16 that it had acquired PROOF for an undisclosed sum, together with its Moonbirds, Oddities, Mythics, and Grails NFT collections. Kevin Rose, the founder and CEO of PROOF, will become an adviser to Yuga and take over PROOF’s team, intellectual property, and assets.
Nevertheless, a few analysts have since noted that two days before to the announcement, Moonbirds’ daily sales volume increased to around $1.3 million, which is a fourfold increase from the previous day. According to DappRadar, this then increased further, reaching $1.5 million on February 15. As a result, the collections floor price also increased.
Along with a surge in sales, on February 14 NFT sales reached over 300, which was quadruple the amount sold the day before (just over 100).
There were X users who were upset about the well-timed trades. The sales increase was noticed by pseudonymous coder “cygaar,” who mockingly stated on February 16 that there was “definitely no insider trading here.”
A pseudonymous trader named “Cirrus” claimed to have discovered that one wallet had purchased about 200 NFTs related to PROOF in the days preceding Yuga’s declaration, and that the wallet’s owner was “sitting on a couple hundred thousand in profit after the Yuga news.”
As per the agreement, Yuga will incorporate PROOF’s collections into its current NFT lineup, which consists of Meebits, CryptoPunks, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, flagship Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), and its planned Otherside metaverse.
Moonbirds, a once-high-performing NFT that was introduced in April 2022, has seen a sharp decline in value since then. According to NFT Price Floor data, its current 1.76 Ether floor price, or around $5,000, is almost 30% less than its 2.5 ETH mint price, or roughly $3,000, at that time.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by PROOF or Yuga Labs.
Alameda allegedly had a “secret line of credit” from Deltec Bank
Investors in FTX who lost money when the phony exchange crashed claim Bahamian Deltec Bank provided a “secret line of credit” to FTX’s sibling company Alameda Research so it could purchase Tether USDT and assisted FTX in transferring customer funds to Alameda.
In a roughly 160-page statement filed in a Florida District Court on February 16, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison revealed a wealth of correspondence, records, and a declaration.
According to the lawsuit, Alameda received a three-day short-term credit line from Deltec beginning in 2021, with the ability to extend it up to over $2 billion at times. This allowed the trading house to purchase USDT and profit while the stablecoin traded for little over $1.
In a declaration filed with the complaint, Ellison stated, “Alameda could create USDT on credit through the unofficial Deltec Line of Credit and sell that USDT for a gain before having to fund the purchase by depositing U.S. dollars in Tether’s Deltec account.”
According to the lawsuit, a Deltec executive instructed Alameda to keep the service a secret and that no other Deltec customers were provided with the same service.
According to the lawsuit, Alameda registered an account with Deltec in part to have better access to USDT since it could send funds to Tether’s Deltec account in order to generate tokens.
The lawsuit further claimed that by moving money between FTX and Alameda’s accounts, Deltec assisted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in misappropriating FTX client monies. When Alameda sent money to Tether in order to buy USDT, Ellison said that FTX and Alameda customer monies were also combined.
Mining Rigs for Bitcoin Could Increase After Halving.
After the blockchain’s mining payouts are halved in April, the price of Bitcoin mining hardware may soar. According to Blockware Solutions, miners should “embrace the halving, rather than running away in fear.”
The hosted mining rig merchant stated in a report dated February 16 that entering the Bitcoin mining market at a time when it was halving was the “winningest strategy” during the last market cycle, and it was predicted that “that is likely to be the case again this time around.”
It went on, “BTC is about to enter its next bull market, machines are at bear market prices, and the newest generation of ASICs are just hitting the market.”
Blockware indicated that there is a “highly correlated” relationship between the price of mining rigs and Bitcoin, citing data done in January 2023. During the 2021 bull cycle, it was discovered that the price of the well-known Bitmain S19 miner would increase by 0.96% for every 1% increase in the price of Bitcoin.
According to Blockware, in the 12 months following the 2020 halving, Bitcoin increased in value from around $9,000 to about $60,000, while the price of S19s increased from about $2,200 to about $12,000.
It identified the illiquid supply, macroeconomic variables, and the billions of dollars flowing into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds as “bullish catalysts” for the coin. According to Blockchair, the halving of Bitcoin, which will reduce block rewards to 3.125 BTC, is anticipated on or around April 20.
While Yuga teases a clubhouse, bored apes add to Miami’s culinary scene.
A Miami-based Cuban restaurant styled with the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) holder’s NFT has launched, and Yuga Labs has hinted at a real-world clubhouse in the city.
Greg Solano, a co-founder of Yuga, was present during the opening of “Bored Cuban,” which was named after the NFT collection, on February 15. It joins Bored & Hungry, another Los Angeles restaurant with a BAYC motif.
The eatery is near Miami International Airport and features an image of a bored ape smoking a cigar while sporting a Latin American-style shirt known as a guayabera. The associated NFT, owned by bored Cuban Eric Castellanos, doubles as the store’s mascot.
Concurrently, Yuga Labs hinted through the BAYC in a mysterious X post on February 17 that it appears to be developing a clubhouse in Miami.
With the subtitle “(IRL),” the BAYC posted an animated image of an ape poring over designs for a “Miami clubhouse.”
Although the teaser received mostly good feedback, one BAYC holder asked how the clubhouse could be made “more inclusive” to NFT holders worldwide.
They wrote, “BAYC is a worldwide club.” “Only a small portion benefits from having a single clubhouse in Miami while it’s cool.”
Additional news
Investors in FTX sued Sullivan & Cromwell, claiming the legal firm was aware of the exchange’s “omissions, untruthful and fraudulent conduct, and misappropriation of Class Members’ funds” and had both engaged in and profited financially from FTX’s “multibillion-dollar fraud.”
Around $26 million worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum were taken advantage of on the decentralized exchange FixedFloat. While it looks into the attack’s methodology, FixedFloat has remained silent.
