On January 1st of 2022, one Bitcoin would value you about $46,000. By November eighth, that same coin went for about $18,500. And that’s when the year’s most dramatic crypto memoir was moral starting: the ongoing collapse of the FTX exchange, which introduced but another round of existential threats to the crypto trade as a complete.

This year has regarded like death by a thousand scandals for crypto. There was the Luna / Terra crash, which worn out billions in value practically overnight. There was Axie Infinity, the as soon as-hot NFT game that misplaced $625 million in a hack and has struggled to recuperate. Celsius collapsed. Three Arrows Capital collapsed. Bear in mind when NFTs were cool and folks belief their JPGs were rate tens of millions?

All this happened, obviously, as the overall financial system began to crash back down to earth after a pandemic-created spike in stock costs — which also dampened society’s overall tolerance for chaotic, nonsensical gambling on web money. As the financial system began to even out and our collective possibility tolerance went down, crypto went for many investors from a fun plaything to a dangerous bet.

Crypto has crashed sooner than, and as ever, the HODLers are saying there’s upside left to return. Nevertheless suitable now, the longer term for cryptocurrencies of all varieties appears fairly bleak.

Right here’s all our coverage from the ongoing crypto winter:

Sam Bankman-Fried scored $300 million at some stage in a gigantic FTX funding push.

The now-collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX raised $420 million in a gigantic funding round in October 2021, however $300 million of it went to founder Sam Bankman-Fried, according to The Wall Road Journal.

He apparently provided a few of his stake in FTX to salvage that vital, however it tranquil meant he acquired a lot of cash that investors probably wanted to pass immediately into the company.


FTX would like to make certain Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t work there anymore.

With FTX’s founder and ragged CEO steadily tweeting away and apparently DMing with Vox reporters (despite a precarious legal status as his ragged agency attempts to declare bankruptcy), John Ray, the new CEO of FTX, has an important message to share.


Sam Bankman-Fried on the FTX failure: his “single largest fuckup” was submitting for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Apparently Alameda took large losses when Luna went down, and sloppy accounting avoided Bankman-Fried from realizing how bad it was. Also, his meetings with regulators were “PR.”


The Dwelling Financial Products and companies Committee goes to uncover into Binance’s role in FTX’s collapse.

Howdy, bear in mind yesterday, when I said Changpeng “CZ” Zhao had painted a target on his exchange, Binance, by helping plunge FTX?

Properly, the Republican who’s most likely to lead the Dwelling Financial Products and companies Committee advised The Block that Binance’s role within the debacle will probably be part of a hearing in December.


FTX’s “company therapist” says he really provided dating advice.

Unusual job perk moral dropped: a “career coach” who also serves as the personal therapist for a large swath of the company. From Vice:

In his telling, Lerner worked for FTX no longer exactly as a therapist and certainly no longer as a physician, however as a coach, even as he maintained unbiased physician-patient relationships with about 20 staff and prescribed medication to at least a few of them.

On this capacity, Lerner said, he was centered on the neatly-being of the company’s staff, no longer easiest relating himself with their careers, however their personal (and even dating) lives, at occasions searching out potential “dating alternatives” for company staff within the Bahamas in command to maintain them at the company with out relying on in-workplace romance.


BlockFi is preparing for bankruptcy after FTX implodes.

I feel like I’ve been saying “yikes” a lot, however it is my general sentiment about this complete thing. As soon as you happen to’re affected by BlockFi or FTX and want to talk, I’m liz@theverge.com, and I want to hear from you.


Who appears at FTX and sees an investment alternative?

Obvious, it may sound like a bad idea to put money into a bankrupt exchange with extra accusations of fraud than anything else we’ve considered on this facet of Enron, however the Wall Road Journal reports Sam Bankman-Fried is asking around anyway.

Mr. Bankman-Fried, alongside a few remaining staff, spent the past weekend calling around in search of commitments from investors to inch a shortfall of as a lot as $8 billion within the hopes of repaying FTX’s potentialities, the oldsters said. 

In Mr. Bankman-Fried’s case, the funds aren’t meant to sustain a bare-bones staff, however to repay individual traders and institutional potentialities who have been unable to salvage funds out, the oldsters said.


No, FTX was no longer required to release Bahamian funds first.

On Friday, the bankrupt FTX said it started facilitating withdrawals for its potentialities within the Bahamas (where the company’s based) at the demand of “Bahamian HQ’s regulation and regulators.”

Nevertheless the Securities Rate of The Bahamas says that’s no longer the case, stating it never “directed, authorized or advised… the prioritization of withdrawals for Bahamian potentialities.” Meanwhile, a complete lot of tens of millions of dollars are tranquil lacking from the exchange.


BlockFi cuts off credit card potentialities.

After pausing client withdrawals moral a couple of days ago, now BlockFi is shutting off its credit card. In an email sent to potentialities, it says it’s suspending “purchasing privileges” on the BlockFi Rewards Visa card “in gentle of contemporary trends at BlockFi,” however didn’t elaborate any further.


FTX feels the heat.

After FTX filed for bankruptcy on Friday, the Miami Heat announced that it’s terminating its partnership with the company, which acquired the naming rights to its basketball stadium last year.

The stadium will tranquil be known as the FTX Arena when the Heat faces off against the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday (and probably for the foreseeable future) whereas the team appears to accept a new sponsorship deal.


Is FTX’s founder a League of Legends genius? (No.)

One in all the funniest parts of this week’s FTX meltdown was learning that CEO Sam Bankman-Fried apparently blew investors’ minds by playing League of Legends at some stage in a meeting.

It was first reported as a little bit of gee-whiz startup mythmaking, and within the tradition of Kyle Orland’s brilliant investigation into Travis Kalanick’s Wii Tennis prowess, FT does the vital job of puncturing it by working down his actual history with the game. Turns out he’s a middling-to-bad player and doesn’t really train it — which is fair! Nevertheless maybe no longer a rate of abnormal genius.


Coinbase is undergoing additional layoffs.

As first reported by The Information, crypto exchange Coinbase is adding to the 1,100 or so folks it let perambulate earlier this year with cuts to 2 other teams.

As confirmed in a statement from the company, they affect the recruiting and institutional onboarding groups, which are shrinking by about 60 folks in total.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted this week that the company isn’t affected by the ongoing FTX flameout and doesn’t engage in that roughly “volatile behavior.”


The Department of Justice would like to understand how Binance’s due diligence on the now-canceled FTX acquisition went.

So bear in mind when FTX was going to salvage provided by Binance, apart from whoopsie, Binance did due diligence for a couple hours and noped out?

US authorities would like to understand what Binance saw.