GM friends.
The mysterious BALD deployer rugs it hard. The token plunges 90% as $76M goes up in smoke within a few hours. And all the while, on-chain evidence indicates it’s an operator in FTX and Alameda’s inner circle. WTF.
Pour black coffee and crack a fresh pack of smokes. You’ll need them. Here’s your mid-week crypto update. ☕️📰🚬
Here’s what’s in today’s issue:
- David & Sam share their thoughts on the $BALD rug pull being connected to SBF, Curve almost creating a DeFi disaster, MicroStrategy buying more BTC, 6 ETH ETF filings, Balancer launching on Avalanche, France having concerns about Worldcoin, Elizabeth Warren’s new attack on crypto, Meta’s metaverse plans & BTC halving FOMO going mainstream.
- This Week On Chain.
- Rekt Capital has the latest technical analysis for you on the market.
- This week’s trending coins by Rebecca
- Erik has a report for you on AI’s paying with Bitcoin.
- Defi Dad has a tutorial for you on how to lend or borrow with fixed term loans using Term Finance.
- Jesse has a ton of hot new airdrops for you.
For any crypto related questions please comment on the website.
The News Now
BALD Gets Rug-Pulled. Connections to SBF.
We reported earlier this week about the meme-coin “BALD” pumping over the weekend. And by pumping, I mean the token’s price rose 400K% from issuance in a two day period, going from almost nothing to a peak market cap of $85M.
And on Monday, it all came crashing down. Whoever deployed BALD began removing millions from its few trading liquidity pools. A few traders noticed. Then many panicked. And the token tanked 90%. Another day in crypto. Another rug-pull. Good times.
But here’s where things get crazy. On-chain data suggests the rug-puller was likely a high-level operator within FTX and Alameda’s inner circle. Here’s the most compelling evidence:
- There’s a two year transaction history between the wallet that deployed BALD and another known to be operated by Alamada Research. That connection has been confirmed by Coindesk.
- Wintermute’s Head of Research, Igor Igamberdiev, has publicly declared, and cited with on-chain evidence, that the rug-puller is “definitely someone from Alameda”. He’s not sure who, but suspects it’s former co-CEO Sam Trabucco.
SBF is currently under a court-ordered house arrest. That’s his parents’ house. The court has conditioned SBF to very limited internet access. He gets a flip-phone rather than a smartphone (serious), and his parents (both Stanford Law professors) have signed a court affidavit stating that an internet monitoring and restriction device has been installed on the premises.
SBF’s timeout gives further credence to the idea that it’s someone in his inner circle. That, or it’s just SBF calling the shots with his Fed-supplied Motorola Razr.
Curve (and broader DeFi) Survives Near Asteroid Miss
In crypto, a lot can happen in little time. In just the past few days, DeFi went from seemingly stable, to knocking on catastrophe’s door, to seemingly stable again. Here’s what happened.
As previously reported, Curve Finance was hacked over the weekend. Approximately $70M was stolen. News of the hack created downward price pressure on the protocol’s governance token, CRV, which on Monday dropped 20%, from $0.73 to…
