The promoters listed in the lawsuit are: talent manager Guy Oseary, digital artist Beeple, Madonna, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon and related entities, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Serena Williams, Diplo, Post Malone, Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, the Chainsmokers, Steph Curry, Future, The Weeknd, DJ Khaled, and Adidas.
Class action lawsuit against Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, and others accuses them of undisclosed NFT promotions
Former Love Island Australia contestant Vanessa Sierra rug pulls her NFT project
An investigation by OKHotshot has reported that Sierra rug pulled the NFT project, using project funds to wash trade her own NFTs before cashing out. In total, she withdrew 120 ETH (at the time worth around $316,000; today worth around $151,000). Throughout, Sierra claimed that "absolutely none of the funding has been taken by founders".
In addition to the allegations around her NFT project, OKHotshot identified other shady behavior by Sierra, such as pumping-and-dumping other NFTs she'd purchased, and placing lowball offers in $DAI on big-ticket NFTs, hoping that their owners would mistake them for ETH.
After OKHotshot published the thread, Sierra blocked them on Twitter, and deleted the NFT project's Twitter account and website.
Digital Surge enters administration
Some of Digital Surge's customers reported having entrusted the company with hundreds of thousands of dollars from their superannuation funds (retirement pension). "I lost everything," said one customer who had put his entire superannuation of more than AU$150,000 (~US$102,000) into his Digital Surge account, where it is now frozen.
FTX-hosted NFTs break after website is redirected to a restructuring page
However, NFTs that had been minted on the FTX platform relied on metadata from an API at that domain, meaning that the NFTs are now pointing to broken links. Owners of these NFTs can still see that the NFT exists, but images no longer work—even when viewing the NFTs in their own wallets, or when listing them for sale on other platforms.
Other projects that rely on the FTX NFT platform's API, such as the Coachella NFT project, also broke: the Coachella NFT platform shows 0 NFTs in existence. Those NFTs still show up where they are listed on external NFT platforms, although the images and metadata are broken.
- Tweet by jac0xb.sol
- Coachella NFT marketplace
- Broken Coachella NFT on the Magic Eden marketplace
Koinly lays off 14% of staff
The layoffs were reportedly "terribly" executed, with days of uncertainty and employees receiving little or no notice before being fired.
Swyftx lays off another 40% of employees
Swyftx's CEO admitted the company had grown too fast. He attributed the decision to the continued downturn in the crypto market and shaken trust as a result of FTX, though Swyftx says they had no direct exposure to the bankrupt crypto exchange.
Orthogonal Trading is insolvent, defaults on $36 million in loans
On December 3, Orthogonal Trading admitted to Maple that they were unable to meet loan repayments. The group was unable to repay a $10 million loan due the following day. The group has $36 million in liabilities across various loans on Maple's USDC and wETH pools.
Orthogonal Credit, a sister group to Orthogonal Trading, published a blog post distancing themselves, writing that they were "shocked and dismayed" by Trading's misrepresentation. "We are speechless by the extent of the exposure and liquidity position of Orthogonal Trading’s book of business," they wrote. They attributed the insolvency to FTX exposure.
- "Maple Severs All Ties With Orthogonal Trading", Maple
- "Maple Finance Severs Ties With Orthogonal Trading, Alleging It Misrepresented Financial Position", CoinDesk
- "Statement from the Orthogonal Credit Team — December 5th 2022", Orthogonal Credit Medium
- "Orthogonal Trading defaults on $36 million of loans on Maple Finance", The Block
Bybit lays off another 30% of employees
In a Twitter thread, Bybit CEO attributed the layoffs to the "deepening bear market" and said the layoffs touch all departments.
"We are all saddened by the fact this reorganisation will impact many of our dear Bybuddies and some of our oldest friends," he wrote. On the bright side, they no longer have to be called "Bybuddies".
Genesis owes $900 million to customers of Gemini Earn
Gemini has formed a creditor committee to try to recoup funds from Genesis, as well as Genesis parent company DCG.
- "Crypto broker Genesis owes Winklevoss exchange’s customers $900mn", Financial Times
AAX customers search for executives
On November 28, the company's vice president for global marketing and communications acknowledged that he had resigned from the company, explaining on Twitter that "I did fight for the community but none of the initiatives we came up with were accepted."
Upon realizing that the exchange was unlikely to resume withdrawals, some customers have taken it upon themselves to try to find AAX's executives. Some showed up at the Hong Kong headquarters, only to find it deserted. Another user appeared at their Singaporean coworking space, also to find it empty. Users have been posting leaked personal identity documents of listed executives on Telegram, hoping to locate them.