Here are some of the major developments in the world of crypto over the past few days.
Despite recent almost sluggish momentum for Bitcoin, whales or addresses holding more than 1,000 BTC—have increased their holdings. According to Glassnode, in July alone, whales added 84,000 BTC and moved coins off exchanges at the fastest rate since 2015. This marks the largest net position change in nine years, with 64,000 BTC leaving whale exchange balances within the last 30 days.
Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, underlined that, on average whale wallets added 1.45 million BTC this year at more than 100,000 BTC a week. On the other hand, the number of whale addresses surged to 1,651 from 1,498 at the start of the year as of August 1.
According to analysts, Bitcoin has formed a new local bottom above $63,000 that was earlier acting as key support. The recent close above $61,600, an optimistic indicator, kept traders hopeful for further movements despite being rejected from $70,000 resistance. That is not all; the price of Bitcoin might be confined to this very range till September, but the oncoming months are going to be eventful.
Genesis Completes Chapter 11 Restructuring, Returns $4 Billion to Creditors
Genesis, an institutional lending platform that filed for bankruptcy in 2023, completed its Chapter 11 restructuring plan on August 2 and dispersed approximately $4 billion to affected creditors. Bitcoin creditors will get recoveries of 51.28% in BTC, while Ether creditors are due 65.87% in ETH. Most Altcoin Creditors to recover 87.65% of Digital Assets If the plan is executed to completion. On the other hand, Solana creditors are only expected to recover 29.58%. Stablecoin and cash creditors will recover the lost USD fully at 100%.
It was based on bankruptcy from the 2022 crypto contagion, where Genesis was a borrower from firms like Gemini and a lender to those including Three Arrows Capital. Its default caused such a fall-out that it spilled out in public between Gemini's Cameron Winklevoss and DCG's Barry Silbert accusing each other of fraud and mismanagement.
Genesis has reached a $21 million settlement with claims from the SEC that it had sold unregistered securities. The chairman of the SEC, Gary Gensler, highlighted that every crypto lending platform must adhere to already existing securities laws.
FBI Issues Warnings Over Crypto Exchange Impersonation Scams
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned of scammers who may act as representatives of crypto exchanges in an attempt to fleece money from users. Calling or messaging targets, scammers generally claim that something is wrong with their accounts or that an unauthorized person has access to their accounts. It creates a sense of urgency so that the users would give away their access codes to click the links or to share identification information to gain digital assets and steal them.
FBI is cautioning crypto users not to respond to such calls or messages, even if they seem official. If users receive any issues, they are warned to hang up and verify them by calling directly the official phone number of the cryptocurrency exchange. Moreover, users mustn't ever go to websites or click links supplied by the caller and should never give login details or download attachments from such messages.
FBI has also been asking victims of such fraud to reach out to them, detailing the transaction about the scam. On June 6, the FBI also observed an uptick in scam ads for fake work-from-home jobs in which users are conned into making crypto payments for earnings that never were.