FTX's embattled founder also confirmed he's ignoring advice from lawyers to stay quiet — telling them to "go f*** themselves."
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SBF denies creating secret FTX backdoor 👀
Sam Bankman-Fried won't stop talking. In an interview with a crypto YouTuber, the embattled entrepreneur denied creating a secret backdoor so he could move funds out of FTX. He also confirmed he's ignoring advice from lawyers to stay quiet — telling them to "go f*** themselves." The 30-year-old said he regretted filing for bankruptcy as $4 billion in liquidity became available just eight minutes later, and claims this would have been enough to make all users whole. SBF fears that, while FTX US customers will get their money back in full, international users may only get "20 to 25 cents on the dollar." Elsewhere, he acknowledged that he has lost the trust of the crypto community, and "any apology will ring hollow."
BlockFi owed $1 billion by FTX and Alameda 💰
Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi has more than $1 billion tied up in the bankruptcies of FTX and Alameda Research, a lawyer has revealed. Alameda has defaulted on loans worth a whopping $671 million, and BlockFi also has $335 million locked up in FTX accounts that are now frozen. The latest casualty in the bear market says it is planning to lay off two-thirds of its remaining 292 employees. Crypto lawyer Sasha Hodder told CoinDesk that she fears BlockFi customers "are really at the bottom of the list" when it comes to getting their money back. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which is owed $30 million following a settlement earlier this year, may end up being at the front of the queue.
Crypto billionaire dies in helicopter crash 🚨
Russian crypto billionaire and Libertex Group chairman Vyacheslav Taran has been killed in a helicopter crash en route to Monaco. The 53-year-old was the sole passenger in the flight from nearby Lausanne in Switzerland. Taran was founder of Forex Club and the Libertex exchange. The company said in a statement: "Vyacheslav Taran will be missed more than words can express, and everyone at Libertex will eternally be grateful for what he has accomplished." He is the third crypto executive to die in strange circumstances in the past month. Last week, Amber Group co-founder Tiantian Kullander died unexpectedly in his sleep. And on Oct. 28, MakerDAO co-founder Nikolai Mushegian drowned in Puerto Rico.
Coinbase Wallet drops four cryptocurrencies ❌
Coinbase has announced that it will drop support of four old and well-known cryptocurrencies for its wallet: Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum Classic, Stellar Lumens and Ripple's XRP. In a note on its website, Coinbase said that as of Jan. 23, 2023, its Coinbase Wallet will no longer support the tokens and their networks "due to low usage." After that date, it will be possible to move those assets onto another wallet, but it will require use of a Coinbase recovery phrase — warning: "Sending or receiving unsupported assets through Coinbase Wallet will cause you to lose them." This delisting only applies to the Coinbase Wallet, and not to Coinbase.com or the Coinbase app.
There isn't much crypto literacy in the U.S. 😬
The second annual CryptoLiteracy survey found that Americans are still overwhelmingly crypto illiterate. Just 9% of the 1,000 respondents to the 30-question October survey received a passing grade of 60%, despite questions that were very basic. And while that is more than double last year's 4%, it's still far below the 32% who said they own cryptocurrencies. Just 30% knew what network nodes are, while just 25% understood crypto mining, 20% correctly identifying staking and a satoshi, and decentralized finance, or DeFi, coming in at just 18%. Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, fared better than the broader crypto market, with 40% able to correctly answer: "What is a non-fungible token?"
