Despite a wave of heavy crypto layoffs to start the new year, employees in technical and engineering roles, as well as senior management, will likely continue to see “strong demand” for their skills, recruitment professionals believe. It’s been a tough first few weeks of 2023 for crypto businesses and their staff. Within just two weeks, the market has already seen more than 1,600 crypto-related job cuts as a result of continued market volatility and uncertainty. However, not all departments have seen the same level of cuts. SAFU: Senior-level tech and engineering Rob Paone, founder and CEO of crypto recruitment firm …

The debtors behind FTX have identified $5.5 billion in liquid assets but reported a “substantial shortfall of digital assets” at the bankrupt crypto exchange and its U.S. arm. In a Jan. 17 announcement, FTX said it had identified $1.7 billion in cash, $3.5 billion in crypto assets and $0.3 billion in securities following the firm filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November. The debtors added that they had identified roughly $1.6 billion in digital assets associated with FTX.com — including roughly $426 million being held by the Securities Commission of The Bahamas — and $181 million connected to FTX US. …

The beginning of 2023 has provided Bitcoin (BTC) with bullish indicators and the rally to a year-to-date high at $21,647 has crypto traders hopeful that the worst part of the bear market has ended. The surge effect of BTC’s bullish price action is also carrying over to Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin mining stocks. The reduction in Bitcoin Fear and Greed index to neutral is possibly driven by volume increases, Bitcoin on-chain data and BTC price decoupling from equities markets. While not all analysts believe a market bottom is in, let’s dive into the data. Trading volume and volatility return Bitcoin’s …

After 66 agonizing days, Bitcoin (BTC) price finally broke above the $20,000 psychological resistance on Jan. 14. At the same time, the current $400 billion market capitalization gives BTC a position in the top-20 global tradable assets, surpassing giants like Walmart (WMT), Mastercard (MA) and Meta Platforms (META). From one side, Bitcoin bulls have reasons to celebrate after its price recovered 34% from the $15,500 low on Nov. 21, but bears still have the upper hand on a larger time frame since BTC is down 52% in 12 months. However, two events are expected to determine traditional finance investors' fate. …

Risk assets have started the new year on a strong note. The S&P 500 (SPX) and the Nasdaq closed in the positive for the second successive week and also notched their best weekly performance since November. Bitcoin (BTC) led the recovery in the crypto markets with a sharp 21% rally last week. That sent the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index into the neutral territory of 52 on Jan. 15, its highest since April 5, 2022. However, the index has given back its gains and is again back into the Fear zone on Jan. 17. The strong rally in Bitcoin has …

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Thailand is working to better protect cryptocurrency investors by introducing new rules for crypto custody services. Thai SEC on Jan. 17 issued regulations requiring virtual asset service providers (VASP) to establish a digital wallet management system to guarantee efficient custody. The new rules target crypto custodians, or VASPs that provide crypto storage services. The regulations include three major requirements, including provision of policy and guidelines for overseeing risk management of digital wallets and private keys. The rules require VASPs to communicate with regulators regarding such policies and provide action plans to ensure compliance. …

The liquidators of Alameda Research have reportedly incurred at least $11.5 million in losses since taking control of Alameda's trading accounts. On Jan. 16, a Twitter thread from Arkham Intelligence reported that one wallet under the control of liquidators has seen a string of "significant losses" due to liquidations, some of which were "preventable losses." Over the past two weeks being under Liquidator control, the account incurred significant losses: Largest single liquidation: $4.85M Total liquidated amount: $11.5M Preventable losses: $4M+ — Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) January 16, 2023 As one example, Arkham noted that the account ending 0x997 initially had a short …

Digital assets will largely decouple from traditional equity markets in 2023, says Chief Investment Officer at Arca, Jeff Dorman. Discussing his outlook for 2023 in a recent interview with Cointelegraph, Dorman argues that as the global economy enters a recession this year, equities will be negatively affected while some crypto tokens will perform well: the value of the latter, he explained, is determined not only by macroeconomic factors but also by their utility within the respective ecosystems, which would remain unaltered in a recession. “You're going to see a lot of stocks get punished under the weight of restructurings and …

Founders of collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital Su Zhu and Kyle Davies are reportedly trying to raise money for a new cryptocurrency exchange in partnership with Coinflex cofounders Mark Lamb and Sudhu Arumugam. According to a pitch deck, they are looking to raise $25 million. The proposed new exchange is to be called GTX, according to the presentation. It promised to crack the claims market as well: "Our legal team will streamline and automate claims onboarding to GTX and make it the dominant marketplace for FTX and other bankrupt companies’ claims." Cryptocurrency exchange Coinflex halted withdrawals in June …

The ongoing saga of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb continues, this time with ruling from local courts. On Jan. 13 the South Korean Supreme Court finalized its ruling that the exchange must pay damages to investors over a 1.5-hour service outage on Nov. 12, 2017. According to a local news source, the damages are equivalent to $202, 400 - or 251.4 million in the regional currency won. Initially, a district ruled against the investors, though it was later overturned. The finalized ruling from the Supreme Court ordered damages to be paid ranging from as little as $6 to around …

With investor confidence seemingly at an all-time low thanks to the recent slew of insolvencies, a new saga seems to be now unfolding in real time. This one involves crypto exchange Gemini’s Winklevoss twins and Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCG) — the parent firm behind crypto market maker and lender Genesis. On Jan. 2, Cameron Winklevoss posted an open letter to Barry Silbert reminding him of the fact that it had been “47 days since Genesis halted withdrawals” while also providing a blunt, seemingly confrontational assessment of DCG’s existing business practices: “For the past six weeks, we …

The liquidators of Alameda Research continue to encounter obstacles in their efforts to recover funds for creditors. Crypto analytics firm Arkham disclosed in a thread on Twitter that Alameda Research liquidators lost $72,000 worth of digital assets on the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Aave while trying to consolidate funds into a single multi-sig wallet. Liquidators were attempting to close a borrow position on Aave, but instead removed extra collateral used for the position, putting the assets at risk of liquidation. Arkham reported that over nine days, the loan was liquidated twice for a total of 4.05 WBTC, which creditors …