This Week on Crypto Twitter: SBF Pleads Innocence via Excel, Twitter Reacts with Memes

It was the third full week of 2023, the third full week of consecutive gains for all leading cryptocurrencies, and the third week of the ongoing spat between crypto exchange Gemini and its creditor Genesis. Naturally, there was a lot to talk about on Crypto Twitter. 

On Monday, National Geographic took its first steps in the NFT world with the launch of its Genesis collection ‘GM: Daybreak Around the World.’ Judging by the comments, it was not a terribly smooth minting process. 

The following day, Maria Shen, an investor at crypto venture firm Electric Capital, shared key takeaways from the company’s fourth annual Developer Report. Topline takeaway? The blockchain developer space has continued to grow both throughout and despite the bear market. 

Crypto prices briefly dipped on Wednesday in anticipation of a U.S. Department of Justice announcement concerning a “major international cryptocurrency action.” Even Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao appeared to be spooked, but it ended up being about a little-known Chinese exchange called Bitzlato, prompting many memes and much hilarity on Twitter. Crypto prices quickly recovered on the reveal. 

One lucky solo Bitcoin miner with a humble operation won a sizable block reward that day. 

German automobile titan Porsche announced the mint price of its new 7,500-piece NFT collection celebrating its iconic flagship sports car, the 911. 

FTX…

On Wednesday, Sam Bankman-Fried,  the disgraced former CEO of FTX, who is currently under house arrest charged with eight financial crimes in connection to the exchange’s collapse, insisted that the FTX bankruptcy team is wrong about the insolvency of FTX US. 

Bankman-Fried tweeted his latest Substack post, where he says FTX U.S “was and is solvent, likely with hundreds of millions of dollars in excess of customer balances.” Although replies were turned off, many quoted SBF’s tweet to meme his spreadsheet, or remind him that he really shouldn’t be tweeting anymore. 

Bloomberg crypto journalist Muyao Shen that day tweeted a handy flowchart connecting the key players at the top of FTX’s former empire. 

The following day, SBF reacted to a bit of news from his successor, bankruptcy lawyer John J. Ray III. Ray most notably chaired Enron Creditors Recovery Corp., a company that returned nearly a billion dollars ($828.9 million) to Enron’s creditors after the energy company in 2001 filed for what was, back then, the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy in history. 

FTX’s collapsed native token FTT also jumped at the news of a possible FTX reboot. 

On Thursday, a crypto-loving lawyer who tweets as @MetaLawMan shared a ten-tweet thread highlighting stark differences in John J. Ray III’s handling of the FTX and Enron bankruptcies.

Gemini vs Genesis: Week 3

It’s now the third week of a feud that started at the beginning of the year when news surfaced that crypto lender Genesis allegedly owes users of Gemini’s Earn product $900 million. 

Gemini exchange co-founder Cameron Winklevoss and Digital Currency Group (DCG) chief Barry Silbert—who wholly owns Genesis—locked horns over it again last week, before the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) got involved and filed a set of charges against both Gemini and Genesis alleging that Earn was an unlicensed security. 

On Wednesday, there were reports that Genesis was preparing to file for bankruptcy. 

Crypto trading company Cumberland, which operates under TradFi trading firm DRW, on Friday announced it had no exposure to Genesis.

Genesis’s parent company DCG also made an announcement. 

Finally, crypto news account @WatcherGuru posted the growing list of bankrupt crypto companies.