FTX reports a over a billion dollars in revenue last year, and is on track for earning another 1.1 billion this year…a staggering projection in the middle of a bear market; Binance COO Patrick Hillman gets a shock when project managers thank him for his help listing on Binance—help he never gave; and Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and other major banks want a stock market built on blockchain. Looks like old fi is finally digging that new-fangled thing that kids these days are calling blockchain^[1]. My name is Ben, and this nightly crypto news wrap up is full of surprises. Let’s get it.

Now we know how Sam Bankman Fried’s FTX was able to backstop companies who needed liquidity. It’s offer to BlockFi, discussions on buyouts for Bithumb and its rejected offer to Voyager—it’s become clear that FTX was able to do all this because it’s rolling in cash^[2]. In fact, last year the company generated a one thousand percent gain from the previous year, with a net income of 1.02 billion, up from the eighty nine million it posted the previous year.

Even in the middle of the bear market, FTX is on track for another 1.1 billion in revenue for 2022. If you’re surprised by this, you’re not alone.

Explosive profits and stable revenue during a down market is big news, especially when compared to Coinbase–a much bigger company that posted 7.4 billion dollars in revenue during the bull market, and has since declined 64% in its reported Q2 earnings from the previous year, and a net loss of 1.1 billion dollars.

FTX knows how to make money moves even in the bear market. No wonder Sam Bankman Freid is always smiling^[3].

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Imagine Binance’s COO Patrick Hillmann’s surprise when he was contacted by members of crypto projects to thank him for help listing on Binance’s exchange—help that he never gave them.

Scammers found new technology to fool people out of funds, using deep fakes to impersonate Hillmann on Zoom calls. The holographic representation of Hillman was able to convince representatives from crypto projects that they’re being considered for listing on Binance—exploiting them for listing fees.

Listing scams are becoming more common, with a Brazilian crypto investment platform Bluebanx recently falling victim.

Binance doesn’t have a fixed listing fee, with projects paying amounts relative to their own comfort level. Proceeds are donated to the blockchain-backed Binance Charity.

Turns out, major investment banks are using blockchain to settle payments for bond trades and other debt securities. Goldman Sachs is using Ethereum, and JP Morgan Chase built a blockchain platform called Onyx.

Right now, banks are using old systems to make big trades, which is why former president of the New York Stock Exchange Tom Farley said: “blockchain technology is going to rewire all financial services”.

Trade settlements can take hours or days to finalize, leaving a lot hanging in the balance in the meantime–price fluctuations, and the risk that one party in the trade won’t go through with the transaction.

Goldman digital asset group’s Matthew McDermott said he’s not running things on blockchain just to “satisfy his curiosity”—everything they do is commercially driven, meaning what they use has to make money.

Using blockchain to settle trades makes it easier to track share ownership, lower costs and settle transactions faster— like a hundred million dollar bond being settled in hours rather than days.

Using blockchain to settle transactions looks different on wall street, where networks are permissioned—controlled by a central party. Leave it to traditional finance to make blockchain news a little less exciting.

Here we are, in the first leg of the bear market and although price action is getting a dull, crypto serves up something new every day. We’ve got some discouraging price movement ahead of us still, whether it’s another drop or we stay relatively flat, like any big adventure, we will have to travel miles before we get to our final destination.

Crypto is better stored cold, especially over the long term. Click my affiliate link for a great deal on ledger hardware devices!

That’s all I got! Be Blessed, Bitboy out.