The crypto meltdown. Thank you Silvergate
Silvergate brings the latest crypto crash. The unhappy marriage of SEC and crypto. $2 Billion NFT sales in February. The $10 Billion mystery of OKX. Bitcoin comes to schools in El Salvador.
Hello y'all. This is The Token Dispatch, and today is the sort of day we like to forget 🔴. We rather be him and be doing what he is doing. Instead, we are here, dispatching … your favourite newsletter. You are welcome 🙏
Has Silvergate burnt all its chips? Looks like 🙄
Silvergate, a major crypto bank, has had a meltdown. Why? It found itself left, right and centre of the great FTX crash. No inch to escape. Bang in the middle. This is what we call a cocktail of bad judgement and dodgy friends. And now, it has all come to head. March 3, 2023. Silvergate stock crashed to half, and everyone abandoned them. Coinbase, Circle, Paxos, Crypto.com, Bitstamp, Cboe Digital Markets, Galaxy, Gemini … you name it. If that was not enough, FTX has come out clean - $8.9B in customer funds are missing. Thank you SAM.
Result? All of crypto hit the slide, a market wide sell-off difficult to digest. Start the engine 🚒 bring in them fire fighters 🧑🚒
TTD Sponsorship
Coinbase and SEC #TheAffair ❤️🔥
"Just because a crypto trading platform claims to be a qualified custodian doesn’t mean that it is."
You know who said that? That's Gary. We love him. We talk about him everyday, without fail. And he don't reckon that the way crypto trading and lending platforms operates, they can be relied upon. Okay, he's got a point. Look what we have been dealing with for a year now. Meltdown after meltdown. But then, it's 2023. The crypto industry has more appetite to fight.
Then, we have Brian. The CEO of Coinbase. He has been holding fort for a while now. First up, he insists that SEC and Coinbase relationship is a healthy one, their “interests are aligned” and they are keen in bringing digital assets inside the SEC’s “regulatory perimeter.” He also claims that ‘staking’ products aren’t securities. Never mind the USDC skating. The Captain America of the Cryptoverse. Right then.
TTD Number Picker 🔢
$2 Billion
That's the NFT sales number for February 2023. That's straight outta DappRadar’s desk. We know who we are indebted to for these blur-ring numbers, right? Still, the figure is 117% more than January 2023, which clocked $946 Million. That's the highest number since May 2022, also known as the Do Kwon storm.
Bitcoin comes to Schools in Elsalvador 🇸🇻
El Salvador’s Mi Primer Bitcoin learning initiative to teach at least 300,000 Salvadorans in 2023 about Bitcoin and the future of money. The Bitcoin School was established in 2019 to provide free education on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to the people of El Salvador, which became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021.
FYI, we also like the Bitcoin Academy by Jay-Z and Jack
TTD WTF 😮
The $10 Billion mystery. OKX
The OKX token is worth $12.15 Billion on CoinGecko, that makes it 7th largest crypto. and $2.9 Billion on CoinMarketCap, which takes it to 23rd on the crypto list. So between the two, where did OKB lose close to $10 Billion. That's lot of dosh to go missing. Here's how the mystery unfolds. Go figure.
TTD NFT Buzz 📯
The Emmy-winning, Disney-backed Baobab Studios have planned a multi-platform franchise with Momoguro. Game. TV show. Bucket full of NFTs.
Panerai, the 160-year-old luxury watch maker is getting into NFTs, to include a "digital passport" sold with every watch.
10 million NFTs. 50 global brands, and all of that in 2023. Arianee's chief Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel spells their mission.
TTD Mark To Market 📈MTM📉
Ethereum eyes 25% correction in March 2023.
The Shanghai upgrade will unlock 17.4 million ETH into circulation, and will enable the stakers to withdraw their vested tokens from Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) smart contract. Analysts reckon that it might trigger a short-term sell-off event. Ethereum Developers are targeting March 14 for Shanghai upgrade on Goerli Testnet. Mark the date.
TTD Surfer🏄
Hong Kong citizens not interested in digital Yuan e-CYN. Chinese government’s CCDC don't have many takers despite the 20% discount.
Billy Markus to Elon Musk - no thank you. The Dogecoin founder rejects the idea of working in Twitter HQ.
Three Japanese banks - Tokyo Kiraboshi Financial Group, Minna no Bank and The Shikoku Bank - start stablecoin experiment.
David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams, the hosts of Bankless podcast, are raising $35 Million fund to invest in emerging Web3 startups.
Indian crypto exchange BitBNS says that the Law Enforcement advised them against making $7.5 million hack public.
If you like us, do tell us. If you don't like us, still tell us. ✌️
Finally, after you done reading and telling, don't forget to share with everyone you love. Each one in your little, big world can sign up here. 🤟
If you dig what we do, show us some love on Twitter, Instagram and Telegram #prettyplease
So long. OKAY? ✋