Weekly Summary

- Gemini’s Cameron Winklevoss Pens Open Letter to Barry Silbert over $900m Frozen Funds
- FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Pleads Not Guilty in Federal Court
- Indonesia to Set up National Crypto Exchange in 2023 Ahead of Regulatory Shift
- Lido Overtakes MakerDAO and Now Has the Highest TVL in DeFi
- Bitcoin Core Developer Has Lost 200+ BTC in Hack, Highlighting Self-custody Risks

Industry Stories

Cameron Winklevoss Slams Barry Silbert over $900m blocked funds: Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of Gemini, released an open letter on Monday that accused fellow crypto baron Barry Silbert, CEO of DCG, of “bad faith stall tactics” and the intermingling of funds within his conglomerate since FTX’s fallout. Winklevoss claimed that Silbert owes 340,000 Gemini Earn customers a total of $900 million of assets, and issued a one-week ultimatum to find the solution until Jan 8. Silbert, in response, refuted several accusations in Wilkevoss’s letter in a tweet.

SBF Pleads Not Guilty to Fraud, Money Laundering Charges, Faces Trials in October: In the federal court on Jan. 3, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges related to his failed crypto exchange FTX and hedge fund Alameda research, including fraud and money laundering, CNBC reports. The former crypto billionaire now has the trial set to begin on October 2nd, and gets the two co-signers of his $250m bail hidden from the public.

Indonesia to Launch National Crypto Exchange This Year to Reform Regulation: Indonesia plans to launch a national crypto exchange in 2023, ahead of its shift of regulatory powers over such assets from a commodities agency to the Financial Services Authority, Bloomberg reports. This move comes as a part of Indonesia’s broader financial reform launched in December 2022, when it also expressed keen interest in establishing a central bank digital currency with a whitepaper.

Lido Overtakes MakerDAO and Now Has the Highest TVL in DeFi: Ether staking solutions had been in high demand since Ethereum’s shift to proof-of-stake (The Merge) in September. Lido Finance appears to have benefited most, as its total value locked (TVL) is now sitting at the top position among other liquid staking players such as MakerDAO and AAVE, according to Defillama. LDO, Lido DAO's governance token, has also hiked by almost 30% since the start of 2023.

Bitcoin Core Developer Claims to Have Lost 200+ BTC in the Hack: Bitcoin core developer and early investor Luke Dashjr claimed on Jan 1 that his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) key was compromised and his wallet got drained. It allegedly resulted in a theft of more than 200 BTC on Dec. 31. Bitcoin community has been expressing concerns about their wallet’s safety over the OG’s loss. Self-custody vs. custodians has become a hot topic since the FTX collapse. In November, Michael Saylor said self-custody is necessary to prevent powerful actors from accumulating and abusing power, while Vitalik Buterin warned about the risks of self-custody such as smart contract bugs.

Service Highlight

As trading books are reset for the new year, Matrixport has shared a year-end thought piece, “The Beauty of Zero”, written by Matrixport U.S. CEO, Anthony DeMartino.
The thought piece talks about how to refine our approach in the upcoming year based on what we learned from 2022, recapping some of the highlights from a financial perspective, the Fed hiking rates and the spectacular extinction of numerous household names in crypto.
“What is a zero? To most people, the number carries little significance, but to traders, especially those who have lived through times like these, it represents a fresh start. The reset to zero on January 1 will be comforting to all those who trade or invest. It's a release from the heaviness of a year of bad choices, bad investments, and bad luck. The zero brings optimism, an optimism that next year can and will be better, a year where we will see a reversion to the mean, a year where performance is bound to improve.”

Find out more here.


Matrixport News

Matrixport published 10 charts that defined 2022 in the Matrix on Target research series. One notable trend was the decline of the top three stablecoin market capitalizations, which signaled a move back into fiat by crypto traders. But the question remains: will those funds ever return to crypto? Take a look at our year-end report for more analysis on this and other key topics.
Unlock full insights here.

Matrixport partners with Bitgin to add support for New Taiwan Dollar (TWD) as a fiat deposit method. Users can now use their TWD to convert to BTC, ETH and USDT on Matrixport App.
Read more here.

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