Crypto markets melt amid Binance-FTX deal

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao’s proposal to rescue its competitor from a potential liquidity scare led to a brief recovery in the crypto market, soon after which, there was a widespread meltdown, signalling that the market did not believe the deal to go through.
Following the announcement, BNB shot up 20 percent and was trading at $362 levels. It later pared all of its gains to trade around 3 percent lower at $325 levels. After a brief rally where Bitcoin climbed beyond $20,000, the world’s largest digital currency nose-dived 15 percent and a low of $17,200 before settling around $17,500 levels.
FTT, the exchange token for FTX also briefly recovered after the announcement, but plunged soon after, to trade around $7.1 levels, down 65 percent in the last 24 hours. Solana's SOL was down 25 percent on November 8 on rumours that Bankman-Fried's company, Alameda Research, could have to sell some of its holdings to increase liquidity. Read full here

Crypto exchange Binance acquires rival FTX amid liquidity concerns

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, announced that the cryptocurrency exchange has tentatively agreed to buy rival Sam Bankman-FTX Fried's for an unknown amount.
He added that the final decision will take some time because there is a lot to discuss, and called it “a dynamic issue, that Binance was monitoring it as it develops”.
Zhao warned that Binance reserved the right to terminate the agreement at any moment and as events unfold in the upcoming days, he anticipated that FTT, the native token of crypto exchange FTX, will be very volatile.
The FTT token rose to $19.86 on the announcement after plummeting as low as $14.57 on November 8 due to speculations that FTX had stopped allowing withdrawals. Read details here

FTX halts withdrawals, according to On-chain Data

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX, whose token was reeling under intense selling pressure following Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao’s announcement to offload all its holdings, has temporarily halted withdrawals, according to data from Etherscan. Data shows that the last withdrawal took place over two hours ago at 6.37 am Eastern Time. FTT, the native token of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX plunged over 35 percent overnight and made a low of $14.86, from a high of $23.15 over the last 24 hours. The token then recouped some of its losses and stabilized around $17, before plummeting once again to make a fresh low of $15.2 at the time of writing this article. Take a look

Coinbase ordered to rectify "business organization" practices by Germany's financial authority

In compliance with the nation's banking legislation, the BaFin, or Federal Financial Supervisory Authority of Germany, has issued an order pertaining to the business organization of Coinbase's local branch. Coinbase was given the order for failing to comply with the German Banking Act's requirements for "appropriate business organization." The German division of Coinbase should have "suitable arrangements for managing, monitoring and controlling risks and appropriate arrangements by means of which the institution's financial situation can be gauged with sufficient accuracy at all times," according to a copy of the law made available by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It should also be able to provide certificates of audit related to appropriate reports on its annual accounts. Read more here

Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo intends to invest up to $4 billion in web3

Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo intends to invest up to 600 billion ($4.1 billion) over a number of years to concentrate on web3 technology, according to the company's second-quarter financial report. NTT Docomo anticipates investing between 500 and 600 billion yen in web3 over a five- or six-year period. The mobile service provider revealed that it also intends to establish a web3-focused company in 2023. It highlighted the following four crucial web3 enabling features: security, a cryptocurrency asset exchange, a blockchain wallet, and token issuance. Read more here

Binance will provide proof of reserves soon, says CEO Changpeng Zhao

Binance will soon initiate the process of providing proof of reserves soon, to ensure complete transparency, the firm’s CEO and co-founder Changpeng Zhao said on November 8, hours after he announced the acquisition of rival exchange FTX. All crypto exchanges should do Merkle-tree proof-of-reserves. Banks run on fractional reserves. Crypto exchanges should not Zhao stated. In a sudden twist to the FTX saga, which was on the verge of facing liquidity a liquidity scare after Zhao announced offloading tokens over the weekend, Sam Bankman-Fried on November 8 revealed that both powerhouses of crypto trading have reached an agreement, where Binance will acquire FTX. Read more here