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Dec 8 (Reuters) - Total funding at crypto startups this year is set to exceed investments in 2021, research firm Pitchbook said on Thursday though the pace of capital deployment is slowing as a series of crypto blowups sapped private equity investment appetite. Crypto projects globally attracted $19.9 billion in venture capital (VC) investments in the first nine months of 2022, 41% higher than a year ago, according to Pitchbook data. In total, last year drew in a record $21.2 billion. "The lack of clear regulation and guidance remains one of the crypto industry's greatest concerns and limiting factors," said Robert Le, crypto analyst at PitchBook. VCs infused $1.5 billion in the so-called Web3 companies in third quarter, a 44.5% growth sequentially, according to Pitchbook.
Binance's CEO says FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is "one of the greatest fraudsters in history." "FTX killed themselves (and their users) because they stole billions of dollars of user funds," the CEO said. Bankman-Fried chalks up FTX's collapse to accounting errors and denied allegations of the misuse of customer funds. "SBF is one of the greatest fraudsters in history, he is also a master manipulator when it comes to media and key opinion leaders." Bankman-Fried chalks up FTX's collapse to accounting errors and maintains he never intentionally misused funds or defrauded anyone.
The panel has for weeks been deliberating how it should tax online gaming companies -- and whether federal tax should be imposed on only the profits of firms or on the value of the entire pool of money collected from participants. The panel is unlikely to reach a consensus this month, the official told reporters in New Delhi. Real-money online games have become hugely popular in India, prompting foreign investors like Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital to back local gaming startups Dream11 and Mobile Premier League, popular for their fantasy cricket games. India is also separately working on federal regulations for the gaming sector that research firm Redseeer estimates will be worth $7 billion by 2026, dominated by real-money games. A separate government panel tasked with rationalisation of GST rates is also discussing the 18% tax levied on health insurance, amid calls seeking a lower rate, said the official.
The much-awaited regulations are seen shaping the future of India's gaming sector that research firm Redseeer estimates will be worth $7 billion by 2026, dominated by real-money games. Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital have in recent years backed Indian startups Dream11 and Mobile Premier League, popular for fantasy cricket. Chance games - considered akin to gambling, which is mostly banned across India - were set to stay under the purview of individual state governments which would be free to regulate them, Reuters has previously reported. Modi's office and the IT ministry, which is drafting the rules, did not respond to a request for comment. One of the government sources said Modi's administration continues to be concerned about potential addiction of such platforms.
The answer is simple, according to more than a dozen Washington insiders, FTX employees, and crypto industry observers who spoke with Insider. I don't think anyone believed that he was going to fund candidates who were, quote unquote, committed to ending pandemics who were also hostile to the crypto industry." Alex Wong/Getty ImagesRebuffed by the SEC, Bankman-Fried turned his attention to Congress. "It's not that he was welcoming regulation," says the senior figure in the crypto industry who attended meetings with Bankman-Fried. But while Bankman-Fried was busy wooing Washington, FTX was about to become Exhibit A in the case for more effective oversight of the crypto industry.
A source familiar with Andreessen Horowitz's content strategy confirmed to Insider that Future is shutting down. An Andreessen Horowitz spokesperson declined to comment on the record. Joe LonsdaleIn this new climate, many tech and venture firms' media strategy has shifted from glorified marketing to a more full-fledged editorial operation. In 2021, an army of more than two dozen marketers at Andreessen Horowitz doubled down on this approach. Disclosure: Melia Russell's husband is a former employee of Andreessen Horowitz.
NEW YORK, Nov 30 (Reuters) - BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) Chief Executive Larry Fink said on Wednesday that there appear to have been "misbehaviors" by the now-bankrupt FTX crypto exchange, but that the technology behind crypto is relevant for the future. "We're going to have to wait to see how this all plays out (with FTX)," Fink said. "I mean, right now we can make all the judgment calls and it looks like there were misbehaviors of major consequences." BlackRock invested $24 million in FTX through a billionaire fund it manages, he said. Despite all the problems around FTX, Fink said he considers the technology behind crypto "will be very important."
[1/3] A Temasek logo is seen at the annual Temasek Review in Singapore July 7, 2016. But Singapore's leader-in-waiting told parliament the loss was "disappointing" and had caused reputational damage to Temasek. After pumping about $275 million into FTX, Temasek decided to write down the investment following the spectacular collapse of the exchange. The review will be conducted by an independent internal team reporting directly to the board and will not involve those who made the investment, Wong said. Wong told lawmakers the individual loss did not impact returns to Singapore's reserves, which are tied to long-term returns.
Singapore's Temasek reviews $275 mln FTX-related loss
  + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com   time to read: +1 min
[1/3] A Temasek logo is seen at the annual Temasek Review in Singapore July 7, 2016. REUTERS/Edgar SuSINGAPORE, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Wednesday that Temasek Holdings [RIC:RIC:TEM.UL] has initiated an internal review of its investment in the now-bankrupt FTX crypto exchange. Temasek had invested about $275 million in FTX, which it said it has decided to write down after the spectacular collapse of the exchange. The loss was "disappointing" and had caused reputational damage to Temasek, Wong said in parliament. "The fact that other leading global institutional investors like BlackRock and Sequoia Capital also invested in FTX does not mitigate this," he said.
In a new presentation, the VC firm IVP tells startup leaders to batten down the hatches. Insider has exclusive access to the firm's deck, titled, "Thriving in a Bear Market: A CFO's Guide." That has ripple effects for venture-backed, private companies that rely on outside investment to operate and grow. In the first half of 2022, venture firms raised $83 billion in new funds — the highest amount over a six-month period for the industry, according to a recent report by Silicon Valley Bank. "The market environment is definitely going to favor companies with real market differentiation," Vashee said.
HELSINKI, Finland — The boss of European digital insurance startup Wefox offered a damning response to tech companies that have laid off workers en masse. Swedish fintech firm Klarna was among the first major employers in tech to slash jobs this year, cutting 10% of its workforce in May. Several companies have followed suit, from those in Big Tech to venture-backed startups like Stripe. Julian Teicke, CEO of Wefox, told CNBC he is "disgusted" by what he views as a disregard by some of his peers for their employees. Venture capitalists have been advising startups in their portfolios to cut costs and freeze hiring as economists warn of an impending recession.
Strategists at Morgan Stanley on Nov. 17 compiled a list of 63 institutions that may be exposed to losses or have their capital stuck on FTX's platform. The below table shows 19 of the companies identified by Morgan Stanley as having significant exposure to FTX. Of the 19 companies listed, 15 have confirmed some exposure to FTX (although figures may differ from Morgan Stanley's estimates). Temasek, the Singaporean state-owned holding company, said it had invested more than $200 million in FTX and FTX's U.S. subsidiary. Morgan Stanley also named Ledn, BlockFi, Amber Group, Skybridge Capital and Selini Capital as among the funds with potential exposure to FTX, but where values had not been disclosed.
The collapse of FTX has placed Sequoia Capital in an unfamiliar position: damage control mode. The early backer of Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Airbnb Inc.—and one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture-capital firms—apologized to its fund investors in a conference call Tuesday for its $150 million loss on the crypto exchange FTX and vowed to improve its due diligence process for future investments, said people familiar with the matter.
Sequoia Capital apologized to its fund investors for the $150 million it lost on crypto exchange FTX, said people familiar with the matter, a rare moment of contrition for the storied venture-capital firm. On the call, Sequoia’s partners told the fund investors that the firm would improve its due-diligence process on future investments and that it believed it was misled by FTX based on its recent bankruptcy filing, the people said.
“While both Binance and FTX are not licensed here, there is a clear difference between the two: Binance was actively soliciting users in Singapore while FTX was not,” the MAS said. “With regard to FTX, there was no evidence that it was soliciting Singapore users specifically.”Regulators are expected to step up their oversight of the industry as a result of its worst-ever turmoil. Unlike other industry players, Binance has emerged relatively unscathed during what some are calling a “crypto winter,” which refers to the sector’s ongoing global liquidity crisis. FTX, by comparison, recently filed for bankruptcy after failing to secure a lifeline from Binance over its own money troubles. In recent weeks, investor Sequoia Capital and Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, Temasek, have each written down the value of their respective FTX stakes down to $0.
FTX, the crypto exchange once worth $32 billion, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov 11. FTX, the crypto exchange reportedly worth $32 billion in February, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11. A regulatory crackdown and the bull case for DeFiInsider asked five venture investors about their biggest takeaways from the fallout. "First, the crypto market is being de-leveraged, which paves the way for the next upturn. Risks of FTX's downfall could have been mitigated with a "hands on approach" by venture investors.
The Myth of the Tech God Is Crumbling
  + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Christopher Mims | ) www.wsj.com   time to read: +1 min
Tech is full of smart people who build, run and invest in successful companies that have produced a tremendous amount of innovation. But the industry’s recent spate of failures and reversals has made one thing clear: Many of its leaders aren’t as smart as they thought they were. Just this month, a pair of the world’s mightiest tech names, Amazon.com and Facebook parent Meta Platforms, announced broad layoffs after years of breakneck hiring. Another giant, Google parent Alphabet , came under pressure from an activist investor to slash its costs. And Elon Musk, who perhaps more than anyone embodies the idea of the polymath tech genius, has made a mess of Twitter after paying $44 billion to buy it.
Doug Leone, managing partner at Sequoia Capital LLC, speaks during the Bridge Forum conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. The event brings together leaders in finance and technology from Asia and Silicon Valley to connect and share insights. HELSINKI, Finland — Billionaire venture capitalist Doug Leone said there wasn't much his firm Sequoia Capital could do to predict the solvency crisis at FTX. Without mentioning FTX by name — though strongly hinting at it ("I'm not going to mention any acronyms") — Leone, Sequoia's global managing partner, said Sequoia had done "careful due diligence" on FTX. Sequoia was one of numerous blue-chip funds that backed FTX before its demise.
As Walter Bagehot wrote in “Lombard Street” in 1873, “The good times too of high price almost always engender much fraud. As cryptocurrencies declined in value, FTX provided a line of credit to BlockFi, a stricken crypto-lender. He talked about Three Arrows Capital, the failed crypto hedge fund, as engaged in “punting”. His firm launched a product based on a basket of crypto assets that it called Shitcoin Index Perpetual Futures, with the unsubtle ticker SHIT-PERP. He commissioned an advertisement, aired during the Super Bowl, in which the comedian Larry David casts doubt on the viability of FTX.
New CEO says FTX had 'complete failure of corporate control'
  + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com   time to read: +4 min
Nov 17 (Reuters) - New FTX CEO John Ray said there was flawed regulatory oversight and a lack of corporate control of the bankrupt crypto exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried in a U.S. court filing on Thursday. "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here," Ray said in the filing, which was lodged with the District of Delaware bankruptcy court. Bankruptcy specialist Ray, who took over from Bankman-Fried as CEO when FTX filed for protection on Friday, did not name any specific overseas regulator in that part of the 30-page filing. FTX founder Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations contained in the filing. Vox on Wednesday published an interview with Bankman-Fried in which he said he regretted his decision to file for bankruptcy protection and criticized regulators.
New Delhi CNN Business —Singapore has become the latest backer of crypto exchange FTX to admit being burned by its spectacular collapse. FTX Group abruptly filed for bankruptcy in the United States last Friday when its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned as CEO. This “write down of our investment in FTX will not have significant impact on our overall performance,” Temasek said in the statement. Last week, investor Sequoia Capital said it had marked the value of its FTX stake down to $0. Last week, crypto lending platform BlockFi said it was pausing customer withdrawals.
Singapore's state-funded investment firm is writing down its entire investment in FTX following the crypto exchange's implosion. Temasek invested $275 million in FTX over two funding rounds. It called its belief in FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried "misplaced." Venture capital heavyweight Sequoia Capital said last week it's writing down the full value of its roughly $214 million investment in FTX's US and global businesses. "There have been misperceptions that our investment in FTX is an investment into cryptocurrencies.
Sequoia was shocked at the amount of money Bankman-Fried needed to save FTX, according to the sources, while Apollo first asked for more information, only to later decline. The booklet flagged the risks of crypto trading, particularly how sudden sales of tokens could trigger a "domino effect" that would lead to a "cascading set of liquidity failures." Using profits from Alameda, Bankman-Fried launched FTX in 2019. From almost nothing in 2019, FTX handled about 10% of global crypto trading this year, a September document shows. At one point, he lived in a penthouse overlooking the Caribbean, valued at almost $40 million, according to two people who worked with FTX.
SINGAPORE, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings said it would write down the value of its entire investment of $275 million in collapsed crypto currency exchange FTX, in the latest move by FTX's investors. "In view of FTX's financial position, we have decided to write down our full investment in FTX, irrespective of the outcome of FTX's bankruptcy protection filing," Temasek said in a detailed statement on Thursday. "The cost of our investment in FTX was 0.09% of our net portfolio value of S$403 billion ($294.3 billion) as of 31 March 2022," it said. Temasek said its early stage investments made up about 6% of its total portfolio. ($1 = 1.3693 Singapore dollars)Reporting by Anshuman Daga in Singapore; Additional reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher CushingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
In October, Mark Kvamme said he was stepping down at Drive Capital, the venture firm he founded. The so-called Ohio Fund will raise money mostly from Ohio institutional investors, sources said. The new fund — whose working title is "Ohio Fund" — has drawn comparisons to a sovereign wealth fund, because Kvamme plans to raise capital from mostly Ohio institutions. Unlike the venture firm he founded, the Ohio Fund will invest in multiple asset classes, including other funds, public stocks, private companies in Ohio, and infrastructure, sources said. He stayed one year before striking out on his own with ambitions to start a venture firm.
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