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Is Sam Bankman-Fried the Bernie Madoff of the Crypto Industry

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FTX, froze withdrawals due to a lack of collateral in processing transactions on the Exchange in November. What was one of the titans of the Cryptocurrency Industry less than a month before the fall, seemingly overnight turned into a headline for one of the largest cases of fraud and financial mismanagement in over a decade.

Sam Bankman-Fried will go down in Crypto history as a fraud larger than Bernie Madoff. How do we explain FTX’s over $10B in losses, Where did the $2B in venture funds go?

SBF, donating $40m to not go to jail for stealing $10b+ is one of the highest ROI trades of all time, Elon Musk stated on Twitter that the donations could be over $1B distributed among the Dems. The money went somewhere, so where did it go.

Interestingly, Beto O’Rourke has returned Funds Sam Bankman-Fried “donated” to him. Time for all the other politicians who received FTX customer money to do the same thing.

FTX, is a gift for Alameda Research. FTX is gathering and attracting tons of uninformed retail order flow for Alameda to monetize by trading against, similar to PFOF. In retrospect, Alameda Research is a gift for FTX. Alameda offers valuable liquidity to customers. Otherwise, the exchange would have no volume.

Alameda Research, could make a market with limited competition against uninformed retail order flow. Alameda would simply take the other side of random buy and sell orders and make money.

Imagine, Alameda Research is the House. The house has a slight ‘edge’ – a slight positive expectancy. Over time, the skillful poker players start to show up. Jump, Wintermute, and smaller shops.

Will Clemente tweeted, SBF is already on record admitting to mistakes and negligence that were his own fault. He’s not walking away as a free man. Sam Bankman-Fried masterminded and how the mainstream media and politicians are enabling the strategic behavior we are witnessing.

On Coffeezilla’s Podcast;

The entirety of SBF’s defense is built around avoiding his own terms of service which says FTX can’t loan out funds of ordinary users. (margin trading is different!) SBF claims here they treated these accounts differently (not true). I asked Sam if they treated client assets responsibly, where is the money?

SBF, said he thought some of it was lost in the Alameda Research wire transfers before they had a bank. I told him to ignore that. What about everyone else. He said some of the assets might still be at FTX.

Read Coffeebreak’s Twitter Thread on The EXACT moment SBF admitted to fraud.

No serious CEO in their right minds would allow a token like SRM, which had a market capitalization value of $200MM based on the marked to market value of the circulating supply of the tokens, would have allowed that same token to be used as nearly $5B of collateral on the exchange.

SRM USD Chart.

This implies that a large portion of that “less liquid” collateral that Alameda was using was locked. SRM also only had an average daily volume of <$20M. FTT wasn’t much better – though it was propped up by the weekly “buy and burns” funded from a % of exchange fees.

Binance US to Acquire Bankrupt Voyager’s Assets for $1 Billion

Meanwhile, Binance’s American entity Binance.US has emerged as “the highest and best bid” for bankrupt Voyager’s assets. The total sum is roughly $1.022 billion, which includes the latter firm’s crypto portfolio (valued at an estimated $1.002 billion) and “additional consideration equal to $20 million in incremental value,” read the announcement.

 Voyager Digital Ltd. (“Voyager” or the “Company”) (OTC Pink VYGVQ; FRA: UCD2) announced today that its operating company Voyager Digital LLC selected U.S. exchange BAM Trading Services Inc. (doing business as “Binance.US”) as the highest and best bid for its assets after a review of strategic options with the core objective of maximizing the value returned to customers and other creditors on an expedited timeframe.

Binance.US is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, and is incorporated in Delaware. It is an independent legal entity and has a licensing agreement with Binance.com.

The Binance.US bid, which sets a clear path forward for Voyager customer funds to be unlocked as soon as possible, is valued at approximately $1.022 billion and is comprised of (i) the fair market value of Voyager’s cryptocurrency portfolio at a to-be-determined date in the future, which at current market prices is estimated to be $1.002 billion, plus (ii) additional consideration equal to $20 million of incremental value. The Company’s claims against Three Arrows Capital remain with the bankruptcy estate, and any future recovery on these and other non-released claims will be distributed to the estate’s creditors.

The Binance.US bid aims to return crypto to customers in kind, in accordance with court-approved disbursements and platform capabilities.

Binance.US will make a $10 million good faith deposit and will reimburse Voyager for certain expenses up to a maximum of $15 million. Should the deal not close by April 18, 2023 subject to a one-month extension, the agreement allows Voyager to immediately move to return value to customers.

Voyager Digital LLC will seek Bankruptcy Court approval to enter into the asset purchase agreement between Voyager Digital LLC and Binance.US at a hearing on January 5, 2023. The sale to Binance.US will be consummated pursuant to a Chapter 11 plan, which will be subject to a creditor vote and is subject to other customary closing conditions. Binance.US and the Company will work to close the transaction promptly following approval of the chapter 11 plan by the Bankruptcy Court.

This sale agreement follows Voyager’s July 5, 2022 entrance into a voluntary restructuring process aimed at returning maximum value to customers. Additional information about the timeline and customer access to crypto will be shared as it becomes available. A copy of the asset purchase agreement and other pleadings filed in this case may be obtained free of charge by visiting the Voyager case website https://cases.stretto.com/Voyager.

FTX Saga Has Set Back Adoption of Crypto Assets by One or Two Years – Evgeny Gaevoy

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CEO of Wintermute, a leading global crypto market maker Evgeny Gaevoy, has recently disclosed that the FTX saga has set back the adoption of crypto by one or two years.

Gaevoy further disclosed that other bankrupt crypto companies such as Three arrows, Celsius and FTX are currently faced with challenges because they were not completely decentralized and also not properly centralized.

In his words, “Everything that failed this year, if you look at Celsius, Three Arrows, FTX now, all those guys were taking the worst of both worlds because they were not completely decentralized, and they were not properly centralized either”.

Before the collapse of FTX, Evgeny disclosed that his company Wintermute stopped trading and withdrew a significant amount of its funds from the platform before FTX  issued a warning that “trading might be halted despite Bankman-Fried’s assertion that it was not financially impacted by the global FTX exchange’s liquidity problems.

Wintermute was one of the largest market makers on FTX, and it was reportedly the second-largest trading firm by deposit and withdrawal size on the platform.

In September 2022, the company lost a whopping $160 million in a hack that occurred on the Defi platform.

Recall that in October 2022, reports disclosed that crypto exchange platform Defi, was hacked and about millions worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from it, which was followed by a backlash from users on Twitter.

On the impact of the FTX collapse on the crypto industry, it has negatively impacted investors’ confidence.

It has also created a ripple effect in the industry as reports reveal that just over the past week, customers have pulled billions of dollars worth of assets from Binance.

The ripple effects continue to extend through to other platforms, as investors expect to continue to see it play out over the next few months.

With the industry still largely unregulated, this has raised more concerns for investors because their assets don’t have the same protections as that of banks.

The FTX collapse has also led to the high volatility of crypto as Bitcoin, the King of cryptocurrencies, fell as low as $15,600. The crypto market has continued to feel the heat hard, with the market value bleeding out roughly $183 billion.

Also, fears have risen over the financial health of other major crypto exchanges, as following FTX’s failure, some of them have filed for bankruptcy with several others considering doing so.

However, analysts predict that despite the unfriendly state of crypto markets, and the toll it has taken on investors, the digital asset industry is likely to pull through.

What is a ‘Hot’ and ‘Cold’ Digital Wallet?

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Digital you can use, but ultimately they all serve with the key purpose of keeping your digital assets safely and securely stored on the blockchain.

When storing your Crypto, you want to keep it safe while striking the right balance between functionality and security. If you buy any amount of Crypto and you want to store it yourself, you have to choose between holding your Cryptocurrency in a “hot” wallet, a “cold” wallet, or using a combination of the two.

What is a ‘Hot’ and ‘Cold’ Wallet?

Hot (Software) Wallet

A hot wallet is a type of digital wallet that stores private keys on a device connected to the internet, such as a smartphone or PC.

Hot wallets are generally very convenient and are perfect for actively participating in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, minting non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and interacting with smart contracts. Hot wallets usually come in the form of a browser extension or a smartphone application.

This makes them very similar to traditional banking applications but comes with its own set of risks. Being connected to the internet means that hot wallets are a perfect target for malware and hackers.

These risks can be decreased by using antivirus software and generally being careful around the internet, but they are never completely eliminated.

For those who want extra protection from potential risks, cold wallets are suitable alternatives.

Cold (Hardware) Wallet

A cold wallet usually comes in the form of a dedicated device that isn’t connected to the internet. Private keys are stored on the cold wallet device itself and never leave it. This means it is at a far lower risk from potentially being hacked and having the assets stolen.

The drawback is that Cold Wallets make interacting with decentralized protocols and transferring assets more difficult, since it can’t be done with just a phone or a computer. Cold Wallets are often used as long-term storage options due to their security.

Ledger and Trezor are the most popular cold wallets. They connect to a computer through USB and require users to physically approve each transaction on the device.

Should I choose Hot or a Cold Wallet?

Both hot and cold wallets have strengths and weaknesses. Both types provide good baseline security if used properly, but cold wallets come with an additional layer of protection. Cold Wallets however, make a trade-off in convenience for defi use-cases.

The final choice between cold and hot wallets will be up to you and will depend on your needs and preferences. The general recommendation is to use both approaches in tandem, for maximum convenience without sacrificing security.

Closing Thoughts

The opposite of hot wallets, a cold wallet is a device that can’t connect to the internet, or can only connect manually. A hot wallet is connected to the internet and could be vulnerable to online attacks—while, Cold wallets are crypto wallets that are responsible for storing private keys in an offline environment.

Google to Launch an AI Feature That Can Decrypt Doctors Incomprehensible Prescription

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Search Engine company Google in a bid to help patients decode Doctors’ incomprehensible handwritten prescriptions, is set to launch an AI feature that can help decrypt it.

The tech giant which hosted a conference in India on Monday has partnered with several pharmacists and hospitals in the country to help achieve this idea.

The feature will be rolled out on Google lens, which will allow users to take a picture of the prescription note. Once the picture is taken, it will be processed by the AI-driven lens, which will then decode whatever is written on the note.

During the conference, the Director of research at Google Dr. Mannish Gupta gave a brief demonstration of how the technology works, where it correctly decoded a doctor’s handwritten prescription.

According to reports, the Google Lens feature can recognize 15 billion things, up from one billion in 2018.

Also, users who want to learn a new language can use Google Lens, which can translate more than 100 languages, such as Spanish, and Arabic, amongst other languages.

Google disclosed that India has the highest number of Google lens users in the world, as India has remained a key market for the tech giant.

As of November 2022, Google had a clear monopoly on the mobile search engine market across India with a share of 99.74 percent, providing a clear picture of Google’s rise to becoming the biggest search engine operator within the South Asian market.

In 2021, Google.com was among the most visited websites in India. The search engine company however did not disclose the release date for its proposed AI lens feature.   

In 2017, the search engine company rolled out its visual search tool “Google Lens”, and has since upgraded the app with new features that can recognize images better and help users with improved contexts related to the picture.

Apart from the smartphone app, Google has also integrated Lens on Chrome for users to access the tool on desktops as well.

With its latest move to introduce an AI feature that can decode Doctors’ prescriptions, it will no doubt bring a sigh of relief to patients who have for a very long time been faced with the difficulty of decoding it.

Google wants to make squinting at your doctor’s questionable penmanship a thing of the past. A feature being developed for Google Lens will use “assistive technology” to detect medications mentioned in prescriptions, TechCrunch reports. Pharmacists are working with the tech giant on the feature, announced Monday at the annual Google for India conference, but no release date has been set. Google noted that the technology would help, not replace, medical staff. “No decision will be made solely based on the output provided by this technology,” it said in a statement. (LinkedIn News)

Jane Egerton-Idehen, Head Sales MEA at Meta, Joins Tekedia Institute Faculty

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It is going to be super-amazing in the next Tekedia Mini-MBA. One of the finest growth markets in the world is coming to teach us at the temple where innovators, entrepreneurs and business professionals come to master the mechanics of entrepreneurial capitalism, and advance their communities, firms and nations.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so excited to announce that Jane Egerton-Idehen, Head of Sales Middle East & Africa at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has joined the faculty of Tekedia Institute. Jane is an accomplished business executive with diverse experiences that cut across MTN, Ericsson, Nokia, and Avanti Communications.

A graduate of Electronics Engineering from UNN and MBA from Warwick Business School, our faculty is a dynamic leader who has consistently set clear visions, established comprehensive strategies, built award-winning sales & marketing teams, and scaled business excellence.

And in this course, she will teach “How To Scale a Startup”. In this Africa’s cambrian moment, scaling is the moment, and at Tekedia Institute, we are bringing the scalers to guide us, lead us and teach us. Thank you Jane for answering this call for your continent – and I invite all to come and learn from the best.

We’re Tekedia – distinctively better business education.