Kalam Crypto #47: FTX vs Binance, Polygon Meta Partnership, & Ethereum L2 Rising

"We aim above the mark to hit the mark." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ahlan wa sahlan, and welcome to the 47th edition of CoinMENA's weekly newsletter, Kalam Crypto. This week, heavyweight clash between Binance and FTX as Binance announces they will liquidate all of their FTT Tokens, Polygon partners with Meta and executes its first DeFi trade for JP Morgan. All that and more, so let's dive into this week's letter, and talk crypto:

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Global News 🌍

FTX Vs. Binance: CoinDesk reported that a leaked balance sheet from FTX investment arm Alameda showed that as of June 30, the company’s assets amounted to $14.6 billion. However, the balance sheet had a large amount of FTT, the token issued by FTX. The single biggest asset is $3.66 billion of “unlocked FTT,” and the third-largest asset on the ledger is a $2.16 billion pile of “FTT collateral.” Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda, tweeted earlier today that the leaked information on Alameda's balance sheet misses billions worth of other assets. But that wasn’t enough to dissuade market fears of FTT’s liquidity. In response, Binance CEO tweeted that Binance will be liquidating $2.1 billion of FTT tokens. Ellison tweeted back at CZ, offering to buy FTT back at $22! CEO of FTX Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) also responded to CZ and tweeted that a “competitor is trying to go after us with false rumors”. Then CZ tweeted that the actions Binance is taking to liquidate FTT is from the risk management lessons learned during the Luna UST collapse! The gloves are off, and we have a heavyweight clash between two of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world, and all the main actors are tweeting about it! Keep track of all the updates on this thread on our twitter account. Grab your popcorn. This will be an interesting week.

JP Morgan Executes DeFi Trade: Banking giant JP Morgan executed their first ever Defi trade via Polygon blockchain. The bank issued tokenized 100,000 Singapore dollars as part of the Singapore central bank’s pilot programs exploring defi, then traded it for tokenized Yen with Japan’s SBI Digital Asset Holdings. “Today was the first step to show that we can actually trade on these public networks,” said Tyrone Lobban, head of Blockchain Launch and Onyx Digital Assets at JPMorgan, in an interview. “The future is really working toward scaling this pivotal moment.” 

Polygon announces multiple partnerships: This was a big week for Polygon as they announced partnerships with JP Morgan, Meta, and Mastercard. Users can now mint and sell NFTs directly through Instagram, a massive step for integrating Web 3 functionality into a Web 2 (Instagram) ecosystem. In addition, during an event held in Mumbai, Mastercard demo-ed how to buy NFTs on Polygon via card directly. These announcements came on the heels of a collaboration between Polygon and Reddit last month. FYI, Polygon’s token MATIC is listed on CoinMENA. Circle bringing Euro Coin to Solana in the first half of 2023: In June of this year, Circle launched Euro Coin, which is the European equivalent of the US$ stablecoin USDC, but pegged to the Euro. This week, Circle announced they are developing a cross-chain protocol and will launch it on Solana in the first half of next year. Currency Euro Coin exists on the Ethereum blockchain.

Did you know 🤔

Ethereum Layer 2 overtakes Ethereum Layer 1: According to the website L2 Beat, Ethereum Layer 2 is processing more transactions than Layer 1. This is in line with Ethereum’s roll up centric scaling roadmap.

The L2 flippening: Ethereum Layer 2 Arbitrum now has a higher total value locked (TVL) than Solana, an alternative Layer 1. Since launching an update in August, Arbitrum activity has surged and now accounts for 62% of Ethereum transactions.

CoinMENA News 🗞

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Tweet of the week 🐥

Twitter exchange between CEO of Binance, FTX, and Alameda 🍿. Here, in response to CZ announcing they will liquidate all their FTT tokens, the CEO of Alameda offers to buy back all of Binance’s FTT tokens at $22 per token.

https://twitter.com/carolinecapital/status/1589287457975304193?s=20&t=pevsTYB92TQ7fXuKk-gcsA

Quiz Corner ✅ 

Last week’s riddle:I was born out of a 9-page document. I provided the foundation for many others like me to be built, and my favorite color is orange. What am I?

Answer: Bitcoin 

This week’s question: The computers that process transactions for the Bitcoin network are commonly called:

1. CPU

2. Miners

3. GPU

4. Bitcoin Foundation Member Units

See the answer in next week’s newsletter.