As usual, the crypto space never fails to get them headlines among the top mentions by news outlets every week. This week well saw an enormous amount of activities take place in space. From Bithumb’s ex-chair getting arrested in South Korea to Zuckerberg’s meta posting more losses according to the financial report, to FTX extending Japan’s and Europe’s subsidiary bills deadlines to massive SHIB burns, here are some of the top trends this week in the crypto space.
Bithumb’s ex-chair arrested
The first headline of the week was that the former chairman of the Bithumb exchange, Kang Jong-hyun, was taken into custody by Korean police on suspicion of involvement in an embezzlement scheme.
A warrant for the owner of Bithumb, who is 41 years old and faces several offenses related to fraudulent transactions, breach of trust, market manipulation, and dereliction of duty, was issued by the Seoul Southern District Court on January 25.
The prosecution alleges that Kang Jong-hyun and his brother, Kang Ji-yeon, conspired together to engage in unlawful trading and to influence stock prices.
Zuckerberg’s Meta posts losses once again in Q4 report
Meta also did not miss out on the headlines this week. According to the findings that were presented by Meta for 2022, Reality Labs incurred a loss of $13.7 billion that year. In the third quarter of 2022, the company had a loss of $9.4 billion as well. The company’s business of creating metaverses has never before disclosed an annual loss of this magnitude
Even if the branch’s investment in the metaverse resulted in a staggering loss of $13.7 billion, Mark Zuckerberg does not see any reason why Meta should deviate from its long-term objective for the metaverse.
The division had a loss of approximately $4.3 billion during the fourth quarter, making it the biggest substantial quarterly loss in the division ever since the financials for the company were first made public. The fourth quarter was also the most expensive quarter overall for the division.
Even though the company’s operational damages for its Reality Labs division are predicted to reach their peak in 2022, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have stated that the company has no plans to modify its long-term strategy for the metaverse. This is despite the fact that 2022 is anticipated to be the year in which operational losses are expected to peak.
FTX extending Japan’s and Europe’s subsidiary bills deadlines
FTX as always made headlines again since its collapse and the arrest of its former CEO. The day when bids are due to be submitted for the auction of the troubled exchange’s Japanese and European operations has been pushed back to March 8, 2023, according to FTX and the authorities supervising its bankruptcy case. In the event that all goes according to plan, the auction is scheduled to take place on April 26th, 2023.
FTX, which is owned by the disgraced Sam Bankman-Fried, has been given permission to request an extension of the bid deadlines for the sale of its Japanese and European firms. These businesses include LedgerX, FTX Japan, and others.
Last month, a bankruptcy judge in Delaware named John Dorsey granted FTX permission to seek buyers for four of its companies in order to generate capital and pay off some of the company’s creditors.
According to a court filing dated February 1, the new deadline for submitting preliminary bids for the assets of the exchange is March 8, 2023. This opportunity has already garnered significant interest from more than one hundred organizations located all over the world, including Japan’s Monex Group. The auction is scheduled to take place on April 26th, 2023, if all goes according to plan.
Especially noteworthy is the fact that John Ray III, the current CEO of FTX, who has been responsible for the recovery of more than $5 billion worth of the company’s assets, has suggested that the exchange may make a return. However, at this point in time, such a situation continues to be very improbable.
Binance re-enters South Korean markets
Binance, the largest provider of platforms for trading digital assets, has purchased a majority share in Gopax, a struggling cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea. By doing so, Binance is reentering a market it exited two years ago.
The terms of large stake agreements are not disclosed to the public. Yibo Ling, the chief business officer of Binance, claimed that the company had procured a significant stake in Gopax, which had stopped allowing withdrawals from certain goods in November. Gopax is an exchange that stopped accepting withdrawals from specific goods.
The industry recovery initiative, which is a co-investment project with BNB and is currently in charge, has made a commitment of one billion dollars to provide the financing for the acquisition. The companies continue to keep the amounts a secret from the public.
Streami Inc., the parent company of Gopax, is listed as one of the top ten largest known creditors of the bankrupt lending institution Genesis Global. In November, withdrawals from customers were halted for a yield product that GOPAX had launched in collaboration with Genesis as a partner.
A blog post published on GOPAX suggests that Digital Currency Group, the parent company of a US cryptocurrency lender, is the second-largest shareholder in the company.
SHIB records massive burns again
The Shiba Inu community, according to fresh data that has been disseminated by the Shibburn monitoring website, significant amounts of SHIB meme tokens have been burnt over the course of the week. In a single transaction that took place on January 3, 1,500,225 $SHIB was burned.
In the past hour, there have been a total of 1,500,225 $SHIB tokens burned and 1 transaction. #shibarmy
— Shibburn (@shibburn) February 3, 2023
Even though the percentage increase is significant, the number of meme coins that have been burned leaves a lot to be desired. This is true despite the fact that the increase is substantial. During this time period, SHIB has been exerting a great deal of effort to raise its price in the past few days. As of the end of January 2023, an astounding 1.12 billion SHIB tokens had been burned.
