“I Don’t Know,” says Sam Bankman-Fried when asked why is he posting cryptic tweets

Founder of embattled cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman Fried, says he doesn’t know why he is posting cryptic tweets on social networking giant Twitter, after his exchange, along with 130 other associated companies filed for bankruptcy.
Bankman-Fried, apparently realizing the magnitude of his crimes, also said it was now time for him to improvise. “It’s going to be more than one word. I’m making it up as I go,” Bankman-Fried said and when asked if he was planning to continue posting cryptic tweets, he said, “Something like that.”
Coaxed to further elaborate on the argument he was trying to make, the 30-year-old said, “I don’t know. I’m improvising. I think it’s time.” Full story here. 

After draining user accounts, FTX hacker rises to 35th place among holders of ether

A crypto address connected to the alleged drain of FTX accounts is trading decentralized stablecoin Dai for Ether in a series of multimillion-dollar swaps, making the hacker the 35th-largest holder of the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalisation.
Over 21,555 ETH, totalling over $27 million, were transferred from multiple addresses connected to the drainer's accounts to a single address on November 15 during the early morning European time. They were subsequently converted to the stablecoin DAI on the trading portal CowSwap, according to blockchain data. Details here.

Bankman-Fried is looking to raise fresh equity

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the troubled cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is attempting to acquire further funds despite the fact that last week his company and 130 other related firms petitioned a court to begin the bankruptcy process.
Bankman-Fried and a small group of other staff members spent the previous weekend making calls in an effort to collect commitments from investors to cover a projected $8 billion gap in order to pay back FTX's clients, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The report states that his efforts to make up the difference have so far been ineffective.
However, it is yet unknown what Bankman-Fried has offered in exchange for any potential fund infusion or whether any investors have formally committed to anything. More here.

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest purchases Grayscale Bitcoin Trust shares for $2.8 million

Days after the troubled cryptocurrency fund's discount hit a new low, Cathie Wood's Ark Invest bought shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust for $2.8 million.
According to a declaration issued by the business, Ark Invest purchased 315,259 shares of GBTC. As per Ark's most recent transaction declaration, it bought 315,259 shares of GBTC on November 14. The Ark Next Generation Internet ETF now includes these shares.
This deal cost the asset management company more than $2.8 million.
Ark Invest has not bought any GBTC since July 2021. Full story here.

Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel, urges regulators to cooperate and regulate the crypto market

The billionaire founder and CEO of Citadel, Ken Griffin, has asked American regulators to cooperate in order to more effectively oversee the cryptocurrency market in the wake of the recent collapse of the exchange FTX.
On November 15 at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, Griffin said that territorial disputes between American regulators are "preposterous" and should be avoided. "Without naming the agencies, they all dance around who owns what. The bottom line is that American investors have really gotten hurt to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in the declining market cap of crypto over the last two years. That really strikes at the entire core essence of what investor protection is all about,” Griffin said. More here.

Bankman-Fried claim FTX US had sufficient funds to pay all of its customers

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, on November 15 claimed that the American division of the cryptocurrency exchange, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 11, had enough cash on hand to compensate every customer who suffered losses as a result of the fall of FTT, the exchange's native token.
He added that Alameda Research, a sister company of FTX that is facing criticism for utilizing the funds from the cryptocurrency exchange to make hazardous trading wagers, had more assets than liabilities.
The creator tweeted that "Alameda has more assets than liabilities M2M (but not liquid! )," and "Alameda held margin position on FTX Intl."
He continued, "FTX US has enough to pay back all clients. Read further.

BlockFi set for possible bankruptcy as FTX crisis deepens

A day after BlockFi said that it will explore all options to mitigate its significant exposure to beleaguered exchange FTX, cryptocurrency lending and trading platform on November 15 is reportedly ready to file for bankruptcy.
In response to the failure of FTX and its sister firm Alameda Research, BlockFi halted customer withdrawals last week, citing a "lack of clarity" regarding the situation.
Quoting unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal reported that BlockFi is now preparing to fire some of its employees as the struggling company gears up for a potential chapter 11 filing on its own. Full story here.

International Banks and the New York Fed collaborate on a 12-week digital dollar pilot

In an endeavour to test how banks use digital dollar tokens, major international banks have teamed up with the New York Federal Reserve for a 12-week digital dollar pilot, that will attempt to quantify the impact of digital dollar tokens and how their presence in a common database can help speed up payments. Along with payments major Mastercard, participating institutions include Citigroup, HSBC, BNY Mellon and Wells Fargo.
The 12-week proof-of-concept pilot program will investigate the application of the regulated liability network - a platform that banks can use to issue tokens that reflect customer deposits that are settled on a central bank reserve on a shared distributed ledger. Details here.

FTX’s deal to purchase bankrupt crypto lender Voyager for $1.5 billion cancelled

Voyager Digital is attempting to reach an agreement to sell itself to one of the bidders who lost the auction for the insolvent crypto lender after the auction's winner, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was also compelled to file for bankruptcy.
According to Joshua Sussberg, the lead bankruptcy attorney for Voyager, FTX broke its agreement to buy the company out of bankruptcy.
Sussberg testified in court on November 15 that FTX has permitted Voyager to make alternative offers but has not yet officially announced that it is terminating the agreement to buy the smaller cryptocurrency company. Full story here.

Amid FTX contagion, cryptocurrency exchange Huobi discloses proof of reserves

Toeing its peers, Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange Huobi on November 15 disclosed the quantity and value of its digital assets held in reserves. According to Huobi, revealing the assets held in reserves increases transparency and user confidence in the exchange. According to Huobi's "inexhaustive overview" of its digital asset holdings, the crypto exchange has 9.7 billion Tron tokens, around 32,000 Bitcoin, 274,000 Ethereum, and 820 million USDT stablecoins. Read here.

Major cryptocurrencies rise as inflation appears to be turning downward

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and major cryptocurrencies rose in trade on November 15 on the back of encouraging news concerning inflation coming out of the United States.
According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at the time of writing was up 3.4 percent over the last 24 hours and trading around $17,014. However, it is still down more than 17 percent over the previous week after news of the prominent collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which devastated the whole cryptocurrency market.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, rose by 2.6 percent in value in a single day, trading around the $1,269 level. The cryptocurrency that drives the blockchain-based smart contract platform has taken bigger damage than Bitcoin in the last week, falling over 20 percent in the period.
Much of the crypto market—including the top biggest digital assets by market cap—was in the green. The modest recovery comes after US stocks rose on November 15 as a result of fresh data from the Labor Department's Producer Price Index report, which showed a decrease in the cost of commodities excluding food and energy. Read more here