December started with the FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman Fried’s arrest in the Bahamas. Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) is facing several federal charges, including mail and wire fraud, money laundering, and other crimes. Collapsed crypto exchange FTX and its sister company Alameda Research used customers' money irresponsibly as they operate in an unregulated industry.
The FED raised the rates another half point on 15th December. The decision was parallel with the markets’ expectations but the speech tone was a little more hawkish this time. The crypto market reacted with down moves against the decision. In general, December was a stable month in terms of crypto prices. There was no big up or down move in Bitcoin’s price, especially in the last week of December. Charts were so flat during the week of Christmas and new year. Of course, FTX’s native token FTT and its supported blockchain's coin SOL were the biggest losers. Many alts are still bleeding.
The next big threat to the crypto exchange and finance industry is the concerns about the Digital Currency Group (DCG) and its relations with Genesis Global Capital and Gemini. DCG is the parent company of Genesis, and Genesis owes some funds to Gemini. Gemini’s Co-Founder Cameron Winklevoss accuses DCG’s CEO Barry Silbert of “bad faith stall tactics” because DCG’s Silbert hasn’t answered Gemini’s letters and questions. The amount that is subject to debate is $900 Million.
To make it more clear, Genesis Global Capital is the trading and lending platform of the Digital Currency Group and Grayscale is a crypto assets manager of the Digital Currency Group. Genesis Global Capital halted withdrawals on 16 November and since then customers can not withdraw their funds from the company. The situation is beyond the «if there is smoke, there is fire» stage. Grayscale is another subsidiary company under DCG. Grayscale is the company that issues cryptocurrency trust funds. The list of Grayscale crypto trust funds can be found on the company’s website.
Shares of Grayscale’s crypto trust funds are publicly traded and their prices are traded with a discount that is more than 50% now. It is expected to see more fighting between parties involved in this big game. Grayscale is the world’s largest crypto asset management company with $33 Billion under its management. The fight is expected to escalate between parties in January.