The Breakdown First Five - Friday June 16, 2023

Welcome back to The Breakdown First Five — the 5 most interesting and/or important stories in bitcoin, crypto, and markets to start your day.

5. Where do stolen Apes go?

Apparently stolen NFTs are mostly being snatched by high school kids to fund the purchase of Roblox skins and online poker chips. Investigative reporting from The Block turned up 32,000 victims of wallet draining attacks over the past nine months, summing to $73M in stolen profile pictures. The real kicker was that the average hacker isn’t a shadowy super coder in North Korea, but a high schooler with some basic tools and a gambling addiction.

4. More Shutdowns

Crypto payments processor Wyre will shutter next month. At one point the firm had a $1B acquisition lined up, but now the 10 year old onramp provider will close its doors. The company said its shut down was not related to any regulatory agency, but rather the ominous “market conditions” which have claimed many scalps this Crypto Winter.

3. How to lose a Defamation lawsuit

Crypto sleuth ZachXBT has raised $1M to fund a defamation defense against MachiBigBrother. Donations rolled in from Binance and Justin Sun as well as the broader crypto community. Someone even launched a memecoin with a trading tax going to the defense fund. Big L for Machi who said he just wanted an apology, not to become the main character yet again.

2. Binance and SEC agree to terms

The Court has approved an agreement between the SEC and Binance that will see Binance.US avoid the “death penalty”. US Customer funds will be returned onshore and international staff will be prohibited from access. Operational expenses will continue to be paid and a full accounting will be fast tracked. With the restraining order out of the way, the main lawsuit will now move to an expedited discovery process.

1. Tether bought Chinese paper

The potential bombshell reporting on Tether’s reserve holdings failed to produce a smoking gun. Mostly rehashing what was already known or suspected, Tether held a boatload of Chinese corporate paper in March 2021. They also had questionable banking relationships in the Bahamas and Asia. No indication the reserves ever came up short and nothing that hasn’t already been widely speculated.

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Thanks for reading -NLW