The legal complaint reads, "Prior to Plaintiff coming on board, Defendants had no unified, organized, or overarching investment strategy other than lending out the consumer deposits they received. Instead, they were desperately seeking a potential investment that could earn them more than they owed to their depositors. Otherwise, they would have to use additional deposits to pay the interest owed on prior deposits, a classic 'Ponzi scheme.' The recent revelation that Celsius does not have the assets on hand to meet its withdrawal obligations shows that Defendants were, in fact, operating a Ponzi-scheme."
Former asset manager for Celsius files lawsuit alleging the company was a Ponzi scheme
Reddit launches more NFT avatars, but won't call them NFTs
This is not Reddit's first foray into NFTs. The platform launched four 1-of-1 "CryptoSnoo" NFTs in June 2021, which allow the four holders to display the NFTs on their profile. The "Collectible Avatars" appear to be an attempt to open this same functionality to a broader group of Redditors, while simultaneously appearing to try to sidestep the more negative sentiment around NFTs that has developed since their last project.
Crypto platform 2gether closes user access to accounts
2gether had previously made news in August 2020, when hackers stole 114 Bitcoin and 276 ETH — then worth around €1.183 million ($1.2 million), and representing 15% of customer funds. The company successfully raised €1.5 million ($1.52 million) in a financing round several months later to cover the loss.
- La plataforma de criptomonedas 2gether cierra y deja a 100.000 afectados, La Vanguardia (in Spanish)
User trying to swap $5 in stablecoins via Decentral Bank ends up with "$10 trillion"
Decentral Bank paused the smart contract upon noticing the decimal point bug, and burned the excess $10 trillion supply to restore the proper amount of stablecoins in circulation.
Luckily for them, they were able to pause the contract before anyone exploited it in ways that were not so easily rectified. The ability to receive $1 trillion in USN out of $1 could have easily been used to drain the USN/USDT liquidity pool.
Bitstamp tries to launch "inactivity fee", cancels it after backlash
The plans enraged some of their users, who called the company a scam and questioned the decision to charge only the users with the least funds. Following the backlash, Bitstamp walked back the decision to impose the fee.
Genesis lost hundreds of millions due to exposure to Three Arrows Capital and Babel Finance
Genesis is owned by the deep-pocketed Digital Currency Group (DCG), which may enable it to weather this loss better than some of its crypto brethren. CEO Michael Moro tweeted that "DCG has assumed certain liabilities of Genesis" relating to Three Arrows Capital's inability to meet a margin call.
Report reveals that crypto investment firm Uprise lost 99% of customer funds trying to short Luna during its collapse
The firm advertised its AI-enabled automatic trading strategies, which it said would reduce the risk involved with leveraged crypto trading.
A spokesperson for Uprise stated, "It is true that damage to customer assets has occurred due to unexpected great volatility in the market."
- "Uprise lost 99% of client funds while shorting LUNA during its price crash: SE Daily", The Block
- [단독] '카카오·KB 베팅' 코인투자사, 루나로 267억 날렸다, Seoul Economic Daily (in Korean)
Voyager Digital files for bankruptcy
Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich wrote on Twitter that he expected that Voyager would "emerge as a stronger company", certainly an optimistic prediction for a crypto broker that froze customer funds with no promise they will ever be able to access them, then filed for bankruptcy.
U.S. Office of Government Ethics issues guidance prohibiting executive branch employees who hold crypto from working on crypto policy
The OGE's purview is limited to the executive branch, meaning that although this impacts White House employees and federal agencies like the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department, it unfortunately does not apply to legislators.
Polium gaming console is announced, in a feat of vaporware impressive even for web3
The website advertises specifications for an eventual console that contradict — it will be both 4K and 8K, for example — and promises to integrate Apple's TouchID (despite the fact that Apple does not allow non-Apple products to use that technology). The product's Medium page describes their plans to take pre-orders before the console hardware is built (good sign), and estimates a release date of Q3 2024.
Polium has also gotten flak for its logo, which quite resembles the GameCube logo. Although they claimed in a tweet that "we did not copy the Nintendo's GameCube logo", they also promised to "illustrate a new logo that is original" — apparently acknowledging that theirs is not.