Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
Markets were mostly frozen this week, with most of the leading cryptocurrencies seeing very little price movement to end the year, except for the unlucky few—in particular Solana and Dogecoin, which suffered double-digit percentage drops.
It was another week of relatively few adoption moves or crypto dispatches from Washington. The industry has all of its eyes on the courtroom saga of FTX’s unraveling. But there were still enough news moments to get Crypto Twitter excited.
On Tuesday, news broke of the arrest of Avraham Eisenberg, a New Yorker who has allegedly milked millions from crypto exploits.
Eisenberg’s name resurfaced in October when he stole over $100 million from crypto trading platform Mango Markets, returned $67 million of it, and (at the time) got away with it, claiming his actions were in the interests of depositors, fully legal, and backed by a larger organization behind him.
Meanwhile, the widow of Hal Finney, an early Bitcoin contributor and receiver of the first transaction on the network, announced a Bitcoin-themed fundraiser marathon to raise money for research into ALS, the neurodegenerative disease that killed Finney back in 2014.
If you’d like to participate in the ‘Running Bitcoin’ event and make a donation, you can do so by visiting our website https://t.co/VfKft7m3Gz and following the instructions there. Or you follow us @RunningBTC21k. Every little bit helps, and we are grateful for your support. 4/5
— halfin (@halfin) December 27, 2022
One disgruntled investor in crypto investment firm Multicoin Capital shared a missive they’d received that should really have been sent back in November, when the FTX crisis started. Multicoin appears to have been heavily affected by both direct and indirect exposure to FTX, in particular its whale-sized hoard of Solana (SOL).
Due to Solana’s strong ties to FTX, SOL has been in freefall for the last two months; it just hit a two-year low while struggling to stay above the $10 support level.
I finally received my Nov investor statement from Multicoin Capital. Over the past 11 months the hedge fund is down a whopping 90%, and they’re still holding a bag of toxic shit. Time to close the fund down guys? Oh, and congrats on barely outperforming your benchmark $SOL 🙄 https://t.co/iLY96kqNUG
— Soldman Gachs (@DrSoldmanGachs) December 27, 2022
Vitalik Buterin on Thursday tweeted his support for Solana’s community of deeply disappointed developers and fans.
Some smart people tell me there is an earnest smart developer community in Solana, and now that the awful opportunistic money people have been washed out, the chain has a bright future.
Hard for me to tell from outside, but I hope the community gets its fair chance to thrive🦾🦾
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 29, 2022
On Tuesday, eagle-eyed NFT enthusiast @ClownVamp spotted what looks like outright plagiarism in Manchester United’s new Tezos-based NFT collection. ClownVamp tweeted their compelling evidence in a thread.
The following day, a fan-made South Park spoof of FTX and its disgraced former CEO made the rounds on CT.
Finally, on Friday, on-chain sleuths like @ZachXBT noticed that seven-digit funds from wallets linked to Alameda Research were being moved through transaction privacy mixers.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was quick to deny all involvement, but Twitter was quick to roast him.
so youre using the internet to tweet but you promise that youre not checking under the couch cushions for spare change
— happy nic year (@nic__carter) December 30, 2022
As you were, everyone…
Oh okay that’s the end of it then
— Brad Michelson (@BradMichelson) December 30, 2022
Sam came back online an hour later to deliver a follow-up in which he offered to advise regulators. That seems unlikely to happen while he faces eight criminal fraud charges, but anything is possible in crypto.
I believe it is likely the case that various legit legs of FTX have the ability to access these funds; hopefully that’s what’s happening here. If not, hopefully one steps in soon to do so. I would be happy to help advise regulators on this if any wanted.
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 30, 2022
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