Will The Crypto Rally Continue?

South Korean Authorities Raid Exchanges, Homes, and Offices In Terraform Labs Probe

South Korean investigators hit cryptocurrency exchanges Coinone, Bithumb, Upbit, and several more. The raid also included homes and offices. The raid’s purpose is due to reports that Do ‘The Con’ Kwon and others intentionally (allegedly) collapsed Luna ($LUNA.X )and TerraUSDT ($UST.X). 

We’ll keep you updated as this develops. 

When You Think 3AC Couldn’t Sink Lower, They Did

The missing founders of Three Arrows Capital, Kyle David and Zhu Su, just keep getting more and more punchable. The court-appointed liquidator, Teneo, put out a timeline of what happened to 3AC. 

It’s 1,157 pages long, but thankfully some poor soul at Yahoo! Finance went through the nitty gritty and found some real gems. 

• In April and May 2022, Three Arrows Capital spent between $200 to $600 million to purchase Luna ($LUNA.X). See, folks, even the ‘professionals’ buy the top. 
• In early May 2022, the lol-stablecoin TerraUSD ($UST.X) collapsed, taking Luna with it from $80 to less than $0.01. 
• Kyle Davies told creditors that 3AC didn’t have “too much” exposure to Terra’s downfall. 
• In the middle of June 2022, Voyager Digital ($VYGVQ) called out 3AC for defaulting on a $646 million loan. At the same time, Genesis and BlockFi ($BLOCKFI.P) began liquidating some of 3ACs positions due to margin calls.
• Ignoring calls and contact attempts, Teneo reported that Davies and Zhu made a down payment for a $50 million yacht. 
• According to the filing, Davies wanted the yacht to be better than the ones owned by “Singapore’s richest billionaires.” SUPER JERK STATUS ENGAGED.

As always, the Litepaper will keep an eye on this dumpster fire and keep you updated as it continues to develop. 

Crypto Exchange Vauld Owes $363 Million To Retail Clients

We last looked at Vauld in the July 6, 2022, Litepaper. Unfortunately, since then, Vauld’s problems have not gotten any better. However, customers did get some more clarity on what happened – as much good as that will do them. 

Vauld owes $402 million to its creditors; $363 million is from individual retail investors. In addition, they owe $35 million to an un-named counterparty and $4.1 million to cryptocurrency exchange FTX. 

It’s bad, but is it as bad as what happened to Voyager ($VYGVQ)? Vauld’s CEO Darshan Bathija said its listed assets are $287.7 million, but closer to $330 million because of bank balances – so $70 million short of what Vauld is responsible.

Nexo ($NEXO.X), a competitor to Vauld, still has the 60-day exploratory period exclusive to decide whether or not to buy Vauld – no updates on that yet. But we’ll keep you posted if there are any updates. 

US Lawmakers Spar over SEC’s activities

Politics suck, and we try and stay out of it. But this is the Litepaper, and it’s clearly biased towards crypto evangelism and advocacy. So, no matter your politics, if you’re opposed to crypto existing or want to regulate it to death, you suck. . 

But there are some lawmakers out there who are clear defenders of cryptocurrency. I have no idea who Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota’s 6th District is. But his recent takedown of the SEC’s Director of Enforcement, Gurbir Grewal, during a House subcommittee on financial services is pretty epic. 

🚨The SEC Director of Enforcement admits the SEC is cracking down on companies outside its jurisdiction. Absolutely unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/wRQU54Ov6v

— Tom Emmer (@RepTomEmmer) July 19, 2022

But there was at least one opponent of crypto in that meeting – and get a load of this dude’s title:

Congressman Representative Brad Sherman, Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets. That’s 156 characters long. 

Sherman is convinced that XRP ($XRP.X) is security and because he believes it is a security, any exchange transacting it was operating an illegal securities exchange, and he wondered why the SEC isn’t targeting big exchanges (Coinbase ($COIN), Kraken, Binance ($BNB.X), etc.).

In a typical unelected bureaucratic fashion, Mr. Grewal used the time-honored practices of vaguery, not recalling something or being unable to say anything to many of the questions. 

Gillibrand-Lummis crypto bill on hold until God knows when

During Bloomberg’s Crypto Summit yesterday, Senator Lummis warned that the “… total bill is more likely to be deferred until next year.” 

However, Lummis said Dem. Senator Debbie Stabenow and Rep. Senator John Boozman are proposing a bill that positions the CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) as the regulator of cryptocurrencies and defines cryptocurrencies as commodities.

There are more rumors than facts about the Gillibrand-Lummis bill, perhaps chopping the original up even further and pushing through parts of it through other avenues and committees. 🔐

Welcome to the Technically Speaking section of today’s Litepaper. Wednesday’s Litepaper will highlight detailed and in-depth technical analysis, and it’s broken down into three categories: Beginners, People Who Know Some Stuffs, and Full Blown Nerd Mode. 

And if you just want a quick summary of what that all means, there is a lovely TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) at the end. 

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