Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt
Bitcoin and Ethereum managed to escape a broader slide this week as the market briefly reclaimed a trillion dollar market capitalization. XRP, Cardano, Chainlink and Cosmos posted the biggest losses among the twenty leading currencies.
The week began on crypto Twitter with Ukraine DAO—a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that has so far raised millions for Ukraine’s defense and relief work since the start of the Russian invasion—tweeting that it is setting up “Iran DAO” to support Iranian women, many of whom have been protesting against Iran’s islamist regime since the death of activist Mahsa Amini in police custody on September 16.
⚡️BREAKING ⚡️
✨@Ukraine_DAO (🇺🇦, 🇺🇦) is working with @maralllo to set up Iran DAO – @Iranian_DAO (🇮🇷, 🇮🇷)
It will serve as a support network for the brave women of Iran.
— UkraineDAO.eth (@Ukraine_DAO) September 26, 2022
That day, hacker Corben Leo made the elusive world of white hat hacking a little more transparent. A white hat hacker is typically a cybersecurity vigilante who finds vulnerabilities in code and exploits them, typically in order to claim the bounty for doing so.
Also on Monday, a cybersecurity researcher named James Edwards published a theory that last month’s $160 million Wintermute hack was an inside job. Edwards’s claims have yet to be corroborated by other blockchain security experts, but some believe it’s certainly a possibility.
On Tuesday, Cameron Winklevoss, who co-founded crypto exchange Gemini with his identical twin Tyler, weighed in on Bitcoin’s recent decoupling from the stock market.
Bitcoin has been remarkably resilient the past few weeks despite the stock market losing trillions in value. No idea if this is the bottom but there’s been a curious decoupling. Are folks starting to re-examine the “disaster insurance” thesis?
— Cameron Winklevoss (@cameron) September 27, 2022
Climate journalist Ketan Joshi on Wednesday posted a pretty damning observation about Bitcoin’s carbon footprint.
New study: In 2019 and 2020, Bitcoin mining climate damages were higher than gas power generation and nearly as high as coal power. Since 2018 they’ve always been higher than:
– Petrol + car manufacturing
– Meat (inc beef)
– Mining (gold, copper, etc) https://t.co/XYZDfRHkZR pic.twitter.com/NnZO1IR0CV
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) September 29, 2022
FTX Reshuffle
This week some big changes happened at crypto exchange FTX. For a start, Brett Harrison, who joined FTX US as its first president back in May last year, announced he’s stepping down and moving into an advisory role.
1/ An announcement: I’m stepping down as President of @FTX_Official. Over the next few months I’ll be transferring my responsibilities and moving into an advisory role at the company.
— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) September 27, 2022
Head honcho Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted farewell and sounded optimistic for FTX’s U.S. push.
Really grateful to work with @zachdex, @_Ryne_Miller, and others to push forward in the US; and a heartfelt goodbye to @Brett_FTX as he transitions to an advisor and FTX US transitions to its Miami HQ!
Being agile and coordinated is a core value–it’ll be great to be together.
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) September 27, 2022
Akash Pasricha, a reporter for tech industry publication The Information, posted a brief analysis of FTX’s fresh-faced team on Friday.
. @SBF_FTX and most of @FTX_Official reaaaaally don’t care much for formal titles, people familiar tell me.
Great example: the companies don’t really have CFOs, but their finance teams do the same amount of work.
4/
— Akash Pasricha (@akashpasricha) September 30, 2022
Do Kwon still not running
Terra CEO Do Kwon wants everyone to know he’s not feeling the heat from either the fuzz or his own conscience. When headlines emerged earlier this month saying a South Korean court had issued an arrest warrant for him for violating capital market rules (while the Ministry of Finance was seeking to void his passport), Kwon reassured followers that he’s not on the lam.
On Wednesday, Kwon responded to rumors that he’d tried cashing out $67 million in Bitcoin a day after the warrant was issued.
What has been probably the most surprising in all this is the amount of misinformation that gets spread.
There is no “cashout” as alleged, i havent used kucoin or okex in at least the last year, and no funds of tfl, lfg or any other entities have been frozen. https://t.co/E1cbKgoqQz
— Do Kwon 🌕 (@stablekwon) September 28, 2022
Elon’s Twitter saga
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is currently knee-deep in a lawsuit against him filed by Twitter for trying to back out of his deal to buy the social media platform. As part of the legal discovery process, courts have released over a hundred pages of correspondence between Musk and various others, including Twitter’s Bitcoin loving co-founder Jack Dorsey.
Turns out even CEOs need help with their homework sometimes. Twitter user Santosh Kumar took a cynical view of Musk’s brevity.
Why do I get thevibe that Jack is the one getting played here ? He sounds earnest while Musk comes across as someone wanting to steal an idea or something, lol.
— Santosh Kumar (@SantoshSusarla) September 29, 2022
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Source: https://decrypt.co/111053/this-week-on-crypto-twitter-musk-and-dorseys-text-correspondence-leaked-do-kwon-pleads-further-innocence
