QuadrigaCX Haunts DeFi

January 28, 2022by Mark Murdock

January 28, 2022       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

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Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

• Robinhood’s stock slumped 10%+ after a disappointing earnings call.

• Genesis Global is looking into expanding its crypto trading platform to NFTs.

• The SEC rejected Fidelity’s bitcoin ETF application.

• dYdX is launching a collection of 4,200 NFTs called Hedgies.

• Goldman Sachs is not planning on launching its own cryptocurrency or stablecoin.

• OpenSea changed its NFT minting smart contract to limit the ability of creators to mint NFTs, and then reversed course.

• Cardano’s blockchain has been used at 90% capacity for nearly an entire week.

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Today in Crypto Adoption…

• Anheuser-Busch launched an NFT project for Bud Light.

• Reddit is testing a feature to allow users to connect NFTs to their profile pictures on the platform (much like Twitter).

• Warner Music Group is partnering with Sandbox to create a musical theme park in the metaverse.

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The $$$ Corner…

• Fireblocks, a crypto infrastructure firm, raised $550 million in a Series E valuing the company at $8 billion.

• CoinTracker, a crypto tax software company, raised $100 million in a Series A.

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What Do You Meme?

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What’s Poppin’?

Wonderland, an Avalanche-based DeFi protocol fork from Olympus, was allegedly cofounded by the former cofounder of QuadrigaCX, Michael Patryn, who goes by 0xSifu on Twitter (and has 57K followers).

QuadrigaCX is a now-defunct crypto exchange whose cofounder Gerald Cotten died mysteriously in 2019. It was eventually discovered that, before his death, he’d removed $150 million of customer funds from the exchange. Patryn, in addition to starting QuadrigaCX, has a shady past and has been criminally convicted multiple times, under multiple names.

The allegations against Patryn were brought by on-chain analyst Zachxbt via screenshots yesterday that showed a conversation between himself and Wonderland founder Daniele Seste where Daniele admitted to knowing about his co-founder’s dark history. MyCrypto founder Taylor Monahan also tweeted evidence of Patryn’s relationship to 0xSifu through a Patryn-labeled Ethereum address purchasing the domain name 0xSifu.

In a blog, Daniele confirmed the rumor and reported that he had asked 0xSifu to step down until a vote could be put in place.

“To summarize what has happened, word came out that Sifu who has been running the Wonderland Treasury, previously was a cofounder of QuadrigaCX, and has had other occurrences in the past. I found out about this 1 month ago, I am of the opinion of giving second chances, as I have mentioned on Twitter….Now having taken some time to reflect, I have decided that he needs to step down till a vote for his confirmation is in place. Wonderland has the say to who manages its treasury not me or the rest of the wonderland team,” wrote Daniele.

On that note, a governance vote has already been initiated on Wonderland’s SnapShot forum. As of press time, over 80% of Wonderland’s votes are in favor of replacing Sifu.

Wonderland’s native token, TIME, has been hit hard by the founder upheaval. The token is down 30%+ over the past 24 hours (as of 5:30 p.m. ET). Other tokens led by Daniele (known as Frog Nation tokens in DeFi), which include SPELL and ICE, are down 15%+ in the last 24 hours as well.

Notably, this comes at a time when Frog Nation is set to take over leadership responsibilities for SushiSwap after the departure of Joseph Delong.

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Recommended Reads

1. Decrypt on the Biden administration’s crypto strategy (hint: it has everything to do with stablecoins):

2. Lex Node’s Gabriel Shapiro on how a recent SEC proposal could see AMMs and other DeFi features categorized as security exchanges (and why the crypto industry only has 30 days to respond):

3. Joel John on the launch of Ronin, the token powering Axie Infinity’s sidechain:

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On The Pod…

Aarika Rhodes is running for Congress in Rep. Brad Sherman’s District – and she is pro-Bitcoin. On Unchained, she discusses her views on BTC, financial education, and why anyone who holds crypto should vote for her instead of the notoriously anti-crypto Sherman, famous for his rant about Mongoosecoin. Show topics:

• why Aarika, a teacher by profession, decided to run for Congress

• why Aarika believes that being pro-Bitcoin will put her on the right side of history

• whether she is only pro-Bitcoin or whether she is for other cryptocurrencies too

• how Aarika’s outlook on crypto differs from her opponent, Congressman Brad Sherman

• why Aarika believes that being pro-Bitcoin is the same thing as being pro-innovation

• how accepting Bitcoin for her campaign works on the back-end

• why she thinks personal finance should be taught in schools

• why Aarika thinks Bitcoin will have a significant impact on midterms

• why she believes Bitcoin is a bipartisan issue

• what Aarika thinks about Bitcoin’s energy usage

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Book Update

You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians