Some of Digital Surge's customers reported having entrusted the company with hundreds of thousands of dollars from their superannuation funds (retirement pension). "I lost everything," said one customer who had put his entire superannuation of more than AU$150,000 (~US$102,000) into his Digital Surge account, where it is now frozen.
Digital Surge enters administration
The Australian crypto broker Digital Surge entered voluntary administration several weeks after suspending withdrawals in the wake of the FTX collapse. In their announcement, executives proposed a "proposed rescue plan" that will be voted upon by customers, and which would involve cash infusions from the company's directors.
FTX-hosted NFTs break after website is redirected to a restructuring page
After FTX declared bankruptcy, the entire FTX.us domain was redirected to a page providing information on the bankruptcy proceedings.
However, NFTs that had been minted on the FTX platform relied on metadata from an API at that domain, meaning that the NFTs are now pointing to broken links. Owners of these NFTs can still see that the NFT exists, but images no longer work—even when viewing the NFTs in their own wallets, or when listing them for sale on other platforms.
Other projects that rely on the FTX NFT platform's API, such as the Coachella NFT project, also broke: the Coachella NFT platform shows 0 NFTs in existence. Those NFTs still show up where they are listed on external NFT platforms, although the images and metadata are broken.
- Tweet by jac0xb.sol
- Coachella NFT marketplace
- Broken Coachella NFT on the Magic Eden marketplace
Koinly lays off 14% of staff
UK-based crypto tax company Koinly announced they would be letting go of 14% of their team. This amounted to more than 100 employees, including the entire London- and Sydney-based teams. The company attributed the decision to the crypto market decline, as well as "fewer people reporting crypto on their tax returns". Hmm.
The layoffs were reportedly "terribly" executed, with days of uncertainty and employees receiving little or no notice before being fired.
Swyftx lays off another 40% of employees
Following a round of layoffs in August that cut 21% of their workforce, Australian cryptocurrency exchange Swyftx has just performed another round of layoffs less than four months later. This time they're cutting 40% of their staff, around 90 people.
Swyftx's CEO admitted the company had grown too fast. He attributed the decision to the continued downturn in the crypto market and shaken trust as a result of FTX, though Swyftx says they had no direct exposure to the bankrupt crypto exchange.
Orthogonal Trading is insolvent, defaults on $36 million in loans
The unsecured lending platform Maple Finance published a blog post announcing that they were severing ties with Orthogonal Trading, who had "misrepresented its financial position" for a month. "It is now clear that they have been operating while effectively insolvent, and it will not be possible for them to continue operating a trading business without outside investment," wrote Maple.
On December 3, Orthogonal Trading admitted to Maple that they were unable to meet loan repayments. The group was unable to repay a $10 million loan due the following day. The group has $36 million in liabilities across various loans on Maple's USDC and wETH pools.
Orthogonal Credit, a sister group to Orthogonal Trading, published a blog post distancing themselves, writing that they were "shocked and dismayed" by Trading's misrepresentation. "We are speechless by the extent of the exposure and liquidity position of Orthogonal Trading’s book of business," they wrote. They attributed the insolvency to FTX exposure.
- "Maple Severs All Ties With Orthogonal Trading", Maple
- "Maple Finance Severs Ties With Orthogonal Trading, Alleging It Misrepresented Financial Position", CoinDesk
- "Statement from the Orthogonal Credit Team — December 5th 2022", Orthogonal Credit Medium
- "Orthogonal Trading defaults on $36 million of loans on Maple Finance", The Block
Bybit lays off another 30% of employees
After reducing their staff by 20–30% in June, Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit is doing another round of layoffs. This time the cut is estimated at around 30%, which is likely around 750 people based on their headcount.
In a Twitter thread, Bybit CEO attributed the layoffs to the "deepening bear market" and said the layoffs touch all departments.
"We are all saddened by the fact this reorganisation will impact many of our dear Bybuddies and some of our oldest friends," he wrote. On the bright side, they no longer have to be called "Bybuddies".
Genesis owes $900 million to customers of Gemini Earn
After a domino effect in which Gemini suspended withdrawals from its "Earn" lending product due to Genesis suspending withdrawals due to FTX's collapse, it's been revealed by the FT that Genesis holds around $900 million in Gemini customer assets.
Gemini has formed a creditor committee to try to recoup funds from Genesis, as well as Genesis parent company DCG.
- "Crypto broker Genesis owes Winklevoss exchange’s customers $900mn", Financial Times
AAX customers search for executives
On November 13, the AAX cryptocurrency exchange suspended withdrawals, claiming they were dealing with a botched system upgrade. Shortly before, they had reassured their customers that they had stable reserves and no exposure to FTX.
On November 28, the company's vice president for global marketing and communications acknowledged that he had resigned from the company, explaining on Twitter that "I did fight for the community but none of the initiatives we came up with were accepted."
Upon realizing that the exchange was unlikely to resume withdrawals, some customers have taken it upon themselves to try to find AAX's executives. Some showed up at the Hong Kong headquarters, only to find it deserted. Another user appeared at their Singaporean coworking space, also to find it empty. Users have been posting leaked personal identity documents of listed executives on Telegram, hoping to locate them.
Oracle attack on Helio, enabled by a separate hack on Ankr, allows attackers to steal $15 million
Attackers were able to take advantage of an exploit on the Ankr protocol to obtain around 183,000 aBNBc tokens for only 10 BNB (~$2,900). Before the Ankr exploit, which crashed the price of aBNBc, this many aBNBc tokens would have had a notional value of around $55.5 million. An issue with the price oracle on the staking platform Helio allowed attackers to borrow 16,444,740 HAY, a stablecoin intended to be pegged to the US dollar. The attackers then swapped those HAY for around $15 million in the BUSD stablecoin. Meanwhile, the HAY stablecoin lost its peg, crashing as low as $0.20.
Ankr defi project exploited for over $5 million
The BNB Chain-based Ankr defi protocol suffered an exploit of their aBNBc token. "We are currently working with exchanges to immediately halt trading," they wrote. However, the attacker had already bridged and tumbled around $5 million in funds from the exploit before the announcement was even made.
The attacker, and possible subsequent copycat attackers, used a vulnerability in the project smart contract to mint quadrillions of aBNBc, which they then swapped to various other tokens.
Binance halted trading on aBNBc tokens, as well as on HAY tokens, a stablecoin project that was subsequently exploited. Ankr also tweeted that "We have been in touch with the [decentralized exchanges] and told them to block trading", although decentralized exchanges are typically not supposed to be able to "block trading".
Ankr later blamed the hack on an employee, who they say had inserted malicious code into the protocol that was used to exfiltrate the private key.