Donald Trump teases a "major announcement" that's just NFTs

December 15, 2022

Donald Trump teases a "major announcement" that's just NFTs

Social media post by Donald Trump: "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! My official Donald Trump Digital Trading Card collection is here! These limited edition cards feature amazing ART of my Life & Career! Collect all of your favorite Trump Digital Trading Cards, very much like a baseball card, but hopefully much more exciting. Go to collecttrumpcards.com/ & GET YOUR CARDS NOW! Only $99 each! Would make a great Christmas gift. Don't Wait. They will be gone, I believe, very quickly!"

Donald Trump NFT announcement (attribution)

It's finally happened. The siren song of NFT grifting proved too much for Donald Trump.

Trump supporters got all excited when Trump posted on social media to tease a "major announcement". Was he going to run for speaker of the House? Return to Twitter? Unveil a presidential running mate?

His supporters were surprised — and not exactly thrilled — when the announcement turned out to be a collection of 45,000 NFTs (sorry, "digital trading cards") featuring artwork of himself in heroic outfits and poses. The NFTs are "just" $99 apiece, and money goes to Trump, not his campaign.

Even some of his strongest supporters were nonplussed. Steve Bannon said, "I can't do this anymore," and opined that he should fire whoever advised him to make the collection. A source working for Trump said that he is "supposed to be running for president right now", and questioned how "fleecing our supporters for $99" was in service of that goal.

Nevertheless, the NFTs seemed to sell decently well, with more than 30,000 minted by that evening.

"Trump’s new NFT collection is already losing value in the secondary market", Fast Company
"Donald Trump’s ‘Major Announcement’ Is Grifty NFT Project"The Daily Beast
Tweet by Justin Horowitz

December 13, 2022

Binance withdrawals surge due to concerns over the company's reserves

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Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, processed at least $1.9 billion in withdrawals in a 24-hour period—considerably more than it processes in a typical day. In fact, the company briefly had to pause withdrawals of the stablecoin USDC because they needed to swap various stablecoins in order to continue to process withdrawals—something they could not do while the New York-based bank was closed.

These mass withdrawals signal concerns about Binance, whose users are looking for reassurance that the company is not engaged in similarly shady practices as their now bankrupt rival FTX. Recent news that the US Department of Justice is considering criminal charges against the company has not helped reassure customers.

"Binance withdrawals hit $1.9 bln in 24 hours, data firm says", Reuters

December 12, 2022

Sam Bankman-Fried arrested

Sam Bankman-Fried pictured from the shoulders up

Sam Bankman-Fried (attribution)

Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested by Bahamian authorities, who said in a press release that they took the action "follow[ing] receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition".

December 12, 2022

Argo Blockchain faces possible bankruptcy

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When the company accidentally published draft bankruptcy documents to its website, Argo Blockchain was forced to reveal that it is in last-ditch negotiations to raise capital. The company stated that they were still hoping to avoid a Chapter 11 filing, but that they were "at risk of having insufficient cash to support ongoing business operations within the next month". The company has been trying to raise $25–35 million since late August, and when a $27 million equity deal fell through in early November, the miner acknowledged it might soon have negative cash flow.

As a result of the inadvertent publication of bankruptcy documents, the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq paused trading on the company's stock. The company published a statement saying they had requested trading be re-enabled, since they had not actually filed for bankruptcy (yet).

"Bitcoin Miner Argo Blockchain Says It's Close to Restructuring Without Having to Declare Bankruptcy", CoinDesk
"Restoration of Trading on the London Stock Exchange", Argo Blockchain

December 12, 2022

U.S. Department of Justice is considering filing criminal charges against Binance

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Reuters has reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is considering filing criminal charges against Binance executives, including CEO Changpeng Zhao ("CZ"). This comes as a part of a four-year-long criminal investigation into money laundering and sanctions evasions. According to Reuters, DoJ prosecutors are "split" on whether to take aggressive actions against Binance executives, or to spend more time reviewing evidence.

Reuters reports that Binance's defense attorneys have argued, among other things, that "a criminal prosecution would wreak havoc on a crypto market already in a prolonged downturn." Well then.

"Exclusive: U.S. Justice Dept is split over charging Binance as crypto world falters, sources say", Reuters

December 11, 2022

Decentraland adds that one feature we've all been waiting for: landlords

A square made up of blue, grey, and red pixels representing a land map

This Decentraland plot just sold for $19,000 (attribution)

If the idea of dropping thousands of dollars to "own" a plot of "land" in the Decentraland metaverse doesn't do it for you, have I got news for you: Decentraland has just introduced official support to allow its users to become a part of the rentier class. Exciting!

In case you were wondering, I checked, and yes. Someone has already come up with the concept of metaverse mortgages.

Personally, I'm excited to see other horrific parts of the system of homeownership get recreated virtually. Metaverse homeowners associations. Metaverse building permit red tape. Metaverse NIMBYs. Metaverse property liens. Metaverse neighborhood watch.

"Decentraland will now let you become a virtual landlord", The Block

December 10, 2022

Lodestar Finance attacked and drained of nearly $7 million in assets

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The Arbitrum-based crypto lending platform Lodestar Finance was attacked by an exploiter who was able to manipulate the price of the plvGLP token, allowing them to "borrow" the entire available liquidity of the Lodestar platform with the inflated token. The attacker made around $6.4 million in profit. Some of the stolen tokens were burned—hence the difference between the attacker profit and the loss to the platform.

According to Lodestar, they think they may be able to recover around $2.4 million of the stolen funds. Meanwhile, they have attempted to contact the thief to try to negotiate the return of stolen funds. "We will generously reward your collaboration," they wrote on Twitter.

Tweet thread by LodestarFinance

December 9, 2022

CEO of crypto media outlet The Block resigns after it's revealed he took tens of millions in loans from Sam Bankman-Fried

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The Block is a cryptocurrency-focus media outlet that was originally founded in 2018 by Mike Dudas. In 2020, Michael McCaffrey became CEO of the company, and in 2021 he led a buyout to make the company employee-owned. Dudas says that at the time, he believed "McCaffrey's family was wealthy and loaned him money to buy out [his stake] and the VCs so the team could assume full independent ownership."

Now it has come to light that McCaffrey had actually taken a series of loans amounting to $43 million from Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the now-collapsed FTX exchange and Alameda trading firm. According to McCaffrey and various others at The Block, he was the only one who knew of the arrangement.

The original $12 million loan was used for the company buyout. Another $15 million loan in January 2022 went towards company operations. A third $16 million loan was used... to buy personal real estate in the Bahamas.

Meanwhile, The Block's disclosures page reads, "It is critical that The Block is fully transparent about our own financial holdings so as to avoid any appearance of bias or impropriety. The most valuable asset that we hold and strive to earn again every day is our reader's trust. Therefore, we have implemented a financial disclosure policy that is industry leading."

"Exclusive: SBF secretly funded crypto news site", Axios
"The Block founder says he's exploring ways to get the publication into 'trustworthy' hands", TechCrunch,

December 8, 2022

Class action lawsuit against Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, and others accuses them of undisclosed NFT promotions

Paris Hilton, wearing a neon green dress, sits onstage next to Jimmy Fallon, who is at his desk on the Tonight Show. He is holding up two cardboard printouts of Bored Ape NFTs.

Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon talk up their Bored Apes in an excruciating segment of The Tonight Show in January 2022 (attribution)

A class action lawsuit against the company behind Bored Apes and its executives, those on the board of "Ape DAO", a whole host of celebrity promoters and brands, and the MoonPay service has accused the group of a scheme to employ celebrities to promote Bored Ape NFTs and ApeCoin without proper disclosures. The suit goes on to claim that MoonPay, a service known for brokering big-ticket celebrity crypto purchases, was used to obfuscate payoffs, and itself benefitted from the publicity earned from brokering these deals. The suit alleges that each of the "promoters" were compensated in some way, either through direct payments or via financial stake in MoonPay.

The promoters listed in the lawsuit are: talent manager Guy Oseary, digital artist Beeple, Madonna, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon and related entities, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Serena Williams, Diplo, Post Malone, Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, the Chainsmokers, Steph Curry, Future, The Weeknd, DJ Khaled, and Adidas.

Adonis Real v. Yuga Labs, Inc.

December 8, 2022

Former Love Island Australia contestant Vanessa Sierra rug pulls her NFT project

A simple illustration of a blue blob shape wearing a rainbow pastel beanie and beige hoodie with a yellow smiley face on it, smoking a cigarette.

SmolBoy #128 (attribution)

After a stint on Season 2 of Love Island Australia, Vanessa Sierra has made a career as a successful OnlyFans performer. In 2021, she also began offering crypto trading tips in a Telegram channel that now has more than 10,000 subscribers, and in March 2022 she launched her first NFT project: "Smol Boyz Land". The project was supposed to involve acquiring metaverse land, and was based around her opinion that "it's clear statistically and exponentially that [metaverse land] prices will trend upwards". What could go wrong?

An investigation by OKHotshot has reported that Sierra rug pulled the NFT project, using project funds to wash trade her own NFTs before cashing out. In total, she withdrew 120 ETH (at the time worth around $316,000; today worth around $151,000). Throughout, Sierra claimed that "absolutely none of the funding has been taken by founders".

In addition to the allegations around her NFT project, OKHotshot identified other shady behavior by Sierra, such as pumping-and-dumping other NFTs she'd purchased, and placing lowball offers in $DAI on big-ticket NFTs, hoping that their owners would mistake them for ETH.

After OKHotshot published the thread, Sierra blocked them on Twitter, and deleted the NFT project's Twitter account and website.

Tweet thread by OKHotshot

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