An article on Justin Sun’s “ridiculous” banana-buying stunt published by CoinDesk was taken down by the crypto news outlet after Sun complained about the tone of the piece. 

Fortune reports that an objection from Sun’s team prompted an intervention from CoinDesk’s owner, crypto exchange Bullish. 

Bullish removed the December 2 opinion article titled “I Watched Justin Sun Eat the World’s Most Expensive Banana. I Don’t Get It.” A number of CoinDesk journalists subsequently attempted to get it reuploaded — while highlighting the need for editorial independence — at a meeting with Bullish CEO Tom Farley and CoinDesk CEO Sara Stratoberdha.

While the article is viewable on Yahoo, it’s currently not on the CoinDesk website. 

Read more: Justin Sun directed wash trading scheme from his US apartment, SEC claims

It was written by Callan Quinn and details his experience watching Sun eat the $6.2 million art piece. To recap, eating the banana doesn’t diminish the piece in any way. Quinn called the event “ridiculous,” and said that he couldn’t comprehend the artistic merit behind the art piece itself. 

What may have rubbed Sun the wrong way was the inclusion of last year’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charge that accused him of secondary market wash trading, fraud, and other securities law violations. Sun is fighting this case. 

In addition, Quinn touched on Sun threatening legal action against news outlets that are reporting on the use of his Tron blockchain by terrorists. Reuters reported that Tron is popular with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, and that Israel’s counter-terrorist agencies have frozen 186 Tron wallets since July 2021. 

CoinDesk editor resigned this week

Bullish bought CoinDesk last year for over $70 million and said it would operate CoinDesk as an “independent subsidiary.” It appointed the executive editor of the Washington Post, Matt Murray, as the chair of CoinDesk’s editorial committee.

However, Fortune reports that Murray resigned on Monday. He declined Fortune’s request for comment. 

The crypto exchange has a 24-hour volume of $2.5 billion and the 94 spot on CoinGecko’s top crypto exchange list. Tron was also a sponsor of CoinDesk’s Consensus event and was picked as one of CoinDesk’s most influential figures in crypto. 

For the record, Protos also thinks that Sun’s banana stunt was ridiculous and that he’s basically paid $6 million to have to replace a piece of fruit every seven to 10 days. Our newsroom is, however, completely independent, so we’ll be keeping our Sun articles up for the rest of time.

Protos has reached out to Bullish, CoinDesk, Matt Murray, and Callan Quinn for comment.  

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Coinbase has filed its response to BiT Global’s lawsuit over the delisting of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). 

Justin Sun-advised BiT Global’s original lawsuit centered around Coinbase’s decision to delist WBTC. The custody provider alleged that this was an unfair assault on its reputation that could potentially lead to it losing “more than $1 billion in its market valuation.”

It additionally alleges that Coinbase was attempting to monopolize the tokenized bitcoin (BTC) space to favor its own product, Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC).

BiT Global is seeking an order that would obligate Coinbase to relist WBTC.

Read more: Justin Sun-advised HTX has redeemed 7,300 WBTC it did not disclose

In its response to the lawsuit, Coinbase took aim at Sun. It pointed out that the decision to delist WBTC was centered around a belief that there was an “unacceptable risk that control of wBTC would fall into the hands of Justin Sun.” 

Coinbase’s filing also noted that BiT Global “refused to answer” questions “about who ultimately owned and controlled BiT.”

Furthermore, the exchange noted that it makes up “less than 1% of transactions involving wBTC,” suggesting BiT may have been exaggerating the potential harm to its business from this delisting.

Read more: Justin Sun has 99 problems and WBTC is two of them 

The filing also challenges the reputational harms suggested by BiT Global, pointing out that “long before Coinbase took any action,” the market already started to react to the change in WBTC. According to Coinbase, this means “any diminished trust in wBTC was caused by its association with Mr. Sun — not by Coinbase.”

Exhibits attached to the filings and declarations also directly asked BiT Global about Sun’s other tokenized BTC project, which is offered by Poloniex and for which he refuses to confirm collateral. 

BiT wasn’t able to verify the collateral of this other product.

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Justin Sun-affiliated BiT Global has filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Coinbase that alleges a variety of infractions centered around the exchange’s decision to delist Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). 

When Coinbase decided to delist WBTC, it claimed that as of its “most recent review,” WBTC no longer met its listing requirements.

This led Sun to launch a series of hypocritical complaints at the exchange, including implying that Sun-owned Poloniex has deep issues that prevent it from completing a proof-of-reserves process.

Read more: Justin Sun reveals Poloniex issues prevent proof of reserves 

BiT Global’s lawsuit claims that it risks suffering losses of “more than $1 billion in its market valuation” due to the assaults on its reputation from Coinbase. Furthermore, it tries to claim that Coinbase is motivated by a desire to monopolize the tokenized BTC space with its token, cbBTC.

It’s important to note that recently, Sun-advised HTX has been the largest redeemer of WBTC and the market capitalization of WBTC has grown more than its competitors. One of the HTX redemptions is even described in the lawsuit as evidence that Coinbase had hurt BiT Global, which is strange considering Sun advises both BiT Global and HTX. 

The lawsuit also attempts to use Coinbase’s other listing decisions, including PEPE and DOGWIFHAT, to claim that “Coinbase has virtually no standards for what can be listed.”

Strangely, the lawsuit claims that “bitcoin’s design was locked into place,” despite the Taproot soft fork that extended bitcoin’s functionality after the 2018 period described in the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit hopes to force Coinbase to once again list WBTC, as well as pay damages based on the hypothetical harm to BiT Global’s market valuation. 

A Coinbase spokesperson told Protos, “Coinbase is committed to maintaining the high integrity of our listing standards, and we regularly evaluate assets listed on our platform. Should an asset fail to meet those standards, it is delisted.”

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On August 9, BitGo announced that it was transitioning Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) to a new “strategic partnership between BitGo, Justin Sun, and the Tron Ecosystem.”

The announcement continued that this partner would would “continue to provide real-time proof-of-reserves.”

Despite specifically referencing the Tron ecosystem and promising that real-time proof-of-reserves would also continue, WBTC on TRON, as well as WETH on TRON, have been removed from the WBTC dashboard, meaning the proof-of-reserves for this token is no longer available.

The dashboard no longer includes WBTC on Tron but still features the versions on Ethereum, Base, Kava, and Osmosis.

An on-chain review of WBTC on Tron doesn’t show any substantial changes in the supply recently. However, it’s not currently possible to verify the BTC that is meant to collateralize these tokens.

Read more: Coinbase to delist WBTC months after Justin Sun controversy

These changes to WBTC come quick on the heels of Sun-advised HTX redeeming thousands of WBTC it hadn’t previously disclosed.

It’s not clear why WBTC made this change, especially as it continues to advertise on its homepage that it’s “Completely transparent. 100% verifiable.”

This change to not disclosing its backing brings WBTC on Tron in line with Sun-owned Poloniex’s BTC on Tron product. This product is approximately 1,000 times larger than WBTC on Tron, makes up a massive portion of all BTC on HTX, and doesn’t disclose where the backing is held.

Protos has reached out to BitGo, BiT Global, WBTC, and Justin Sun but none responded immediately to questions about why these products were removed from the website.

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HTX, the Justin Sun-advised crypto exchange, has been rapidly redeeming massive quantities of wrapped bitcoin (WBTC). This started on November 24 with HTX redeeming approximately 5,182 bitcoins and has continued with the additional redemption of 2,166 bitcoins on December 1.

Both of these transactions were unusual to observe, given that WBTC has no 24-hour volume on HTX. 

Additionally, there is no WBTC included in the proof-of-reserves for HTX. 

Furthermore, neither of the two bitcoin addresses that these redemptions largely ended up in, 1Fgpaz4kXyz35WKMGk2Yo19mR9pk3KC8zx and 1Apv2EuoHyCpKsxdFEPv5GSddqDMt3bTN6, are included in the proof-of-reserves.

Read more: Justin Sun’s USDD removes 12,000 BTC without DAO approval

Furthermore, the total amount redeemed, approximately 7,300 bitcoin, would represent approximately one-third of all bitcoin included in the HTX Proof-of-Reserves.

Despite these apparent issues with these redemptions, they have been processed quickly by WBTC, each in about five hours. Other WBTC users sometimes need to wait nearly two weeks for their redemptions to process.

This Sun-advised exchange redeeming assets it hadn’t previously disclosed may reignite the controversy around Sun’s involvement in the custody of WBTC. Especially as he has launched hypocritical criticisms at competitors. 

Sun, for his part, has been cozying up to the United States president-elect, purchasing a massive stake in World Liberty Financial, the project endorsed by the sexual predator. Sun is also currently the target of a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that alleges he engaged in wash-trading, price-manipulation, and hired celebrities without disclosure to sell securities he was selling without registration.

Protos reached out to HTX to clarify these issues, but at press, it had not responded. 

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Crypto founder Justin Sun ate his controversial $6 million artwork earlier today — a banana strapped to the wall with duct tape by artist Maurizio Cattelan. Under the conditions of the avant-garde sale, he can eat the banana as many times as he likes, so long as he replaces it.

Essentially, Sun has paid $6 million to be eternally strapped with a banana burden.

In fact, it’s recommended he replace it every 7-10 days due to decomposition. Justin Sun was even handed a roll of duct tape, along with instructions on replacement and, of course, a certificate of authenticity. 

That initial banana cost just $0.35 — marking a 1.7 billion percent price increase. But what if he were to spend the entire 86 billion supply of Tron (TRX), his own cryptocurrency, in eating and replacing his banana every week? 

Read more: Justin Sun buys more of Trump’s WLFI than it planned to sell

At press time, TRX is worth just over $0.20, and has a market cap of $17.5 billion. This sum could buy Sun 50 billion bananas. If eaten/replaced at one banana per week, it would take him 958 million years to burn through the TRX supply while buying bananas. 

It’s worth noting this figure does not account for the purchase of duct tape that is required to suspend the banana between his 50 billion snack times. 

Sun said that he would eat the artwork as a way of “honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”

Sun’s other escapades involve becoming the prime minister of a country yet to be recognized and buying more of Donald Trump-endorsed World Liberty Financial (WLFI) than there should be available.

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The post Justin Sun advised to change his $6M banana every 7-10 days appeared first on Protos.

HTX, the crypto exchange advised by controversial figure Justin Sun, recently redeemed 5,182 wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) worth approximately $500 million, according to the official WBTC dashboard.

This comes just over three months after Sun entered into a new joint venture with BiT Global and BitGo to manage the custody of bitcoin for WBTC.

On-chain data for WBTC suggests this is the sixth-largest redemption of WBTC of all time and is the largest redemption in the last 635 days.

Threshold Network delegate ‘mrsthreshold.eth.limo’ highlighted that this large redemption was processed in only a few hours, whereas other recent smaller redemptions often seemed to take several days to process.

However, despite that delayed CoinList redemption, other entities have been able to redeem more quickly, including a redemption today by Tokka Labs, a Wintermute burn yesterday, and a couple of earlier burns this month. However, last month Wintermute did have to wait 12 days for a small mint.

Protos reached out to WBTC to determine why the CoinList redemption and Wintermute mint took longer to complete but had not received a response by press time.

This HTX address appears to have been receiving significant quantities of WBTC from Binance recently, including an additional 590 bitcoin after this redemption. 

Read more: WBTC supply contracts this month following Justin Sun custody drama

Taylor Monahan also highlighted that HTX appeared to have changed its deposit address shortly before these redemptions.

HTX and WBTC

This redemption of WBTC by HTX is strange because it’s not a commonly traded asset on the exchange, with 0 volume over the last 24 hours. 

Furthermore, the HTX proof-of-reserves doesn’t include any WBTC at all. 

Additionally, the address that this redemption came from, 0xbE6d2444a717767544a8b0Ba77833AA6519D81cD, is not included in the HTX proof-of-reserves. Nor is 1Fgpaz4kXyz35WKMGk2Yo19mR9pk3KC8zx where the majority of these redeemed bitcoins ended up. 

Furthermore, the 5,182 bitcoins would represent more than one-quarter of all user bitcoins on HTX.

Protos reached out to HTX to determine why it had so much WBTC that was not included in the proof-of-reserves, but at press, it hadn’t responded. 

Justin Sun’s bitcoin problems

This redemption highlights some of the bitcoin-related problems that Sun has recently been struggling with. 

Read more: Coinbase to delist WBTC months after Justin Sun controversy

These include the fact that nearly half of all ‘bitcoin’ held at HTX is actually Bitcoin-on-Tron offered by Sun-owned Poloniex. This tokenized form of bitcoin doesn’t disclose where it custodies the bitcoins, provides no proof-of-reserves, and is far larger than WBTC on Tron. 

Additionally, Sun-linked pseudo-algorithmic stablecoin USDD recently removed 12,000 bitcoins from its reserves without any approval from the so-called decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that’s supposed to govern the stablecoin. 

Furthermore, the launch of Coinbase’s tokenized bitcoin competitor Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC) has led Sun to launch hypocritical attacks on this new competitor. Coinbase in turn has decided to delist WBTC. 

These various discrepancies highlight Sun’s willingness to freely move assets between entities he officially or unofficially controls. 

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Coinbase has announced that it intends to delist Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), claiming that as of its “most recent review,” it no longer meets the listing requirements for the exchange. This will go into effect on December 19.

This comes after Coinbase launched its own competitor to this token, Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC), a token that has drawn the ire of Justin Sun, who is now involved in the custody of WBTC.

Justin Sun and WBTC

The tokenized bitcoin space has seen great upheaval since August when BitGo announced that it was forming a new joint venture with Justin Sun and BiT Global to manage the custody of WBTC.

Read more: CHART: The growth of WBTC competitors

Sun’s involvement has provoked a great deal of consternation across the industry and led Coinbase and Kraken to launch tokenized competitors. It has also prompted an ill-fated proposal from Threshold Network to acquire the token.

The launch of these competitors has also led Sun to criticize cbBTC, claiming that Coinbase’s failure to complete a proof of reserves process is evidence that the exchange is “unable to meet the requirements.” It is important to note that Sun-owned Poloniex has also never completed a proof-of-reserves process and operates a tokenized version of bitcoin on Tron that is far larger than cbBTC.

Additionally, this Poloniex bitcoin on Tron makes up over half of all bitcoin on Sun-advised HTX.

Now, Coinbase has decided that the changes to WBTC are significant enough that it no longer meets Coinbase’s standards. It’s important to highlight that many assets of dubious quality do meet Coinbase’s standards, including: 

• Dogecoin
• Shiba Inu
• Pepe
• dogwifhat

This delisting seems likely to pour more fuel on the fires of the tokenized bitcoin space, especially the ongoing beef between Sun and Coinbase.

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In early August, a little over two months ago, BitGo announced that it was entering a new joint venture with Justin Sun and BiT Global, a Hong Kong-based custodian, to manage custody for Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).

Sun’s involvement was controversial, leading some DeFi projects to briefly consider whether WBTC would remain safe going forward. The most high-profile of these, MakerDAO, did eventually decide it was still safe to include WBTC.

This period of time even included a less than fully viable proposal for competitor Threshold Network to acquire WBTC. 

Additionally, both Coinbase and Kraken have launched competitors to WBTC following BitGo’s announcement.

Read more: How involved is Justin Sun with WBTC’s new custodian BiT Global?

Since then, Coinbase’s version, Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC), has seen the most rapid growth among the four charted competitors, vastly outstripping both Kraken Wrapped Bitcoin (kBTC) and Threshold Network Bitcoin (tBTC).

Despite the originally controversial change and an initial surge, burn requests have slowed for WBTC, and the appreciation in bitcoin’s price has allowed its market capitalization to grow more substantially than the growth of its competitors tBTC, kBTC, and cbBTC combined.

Additionally, BitGo has announced that two of the three keys will remain in its control, split between BitGo Singapore and BitGo Inc., with only a single key under the control of Sun-affiliated BiT Global.

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Protos took a close look at Poloniex’s last 100 listings and found that almost every single one of those tokens were memecoins.

We analyzed the latest 100 listings, from August 23 to October 29. Of these 100 tokens, 94 were memecoins; the remainder were tokenized assets, restaking, AI, and utility tokens.

Poloniex publicly claims that its “primary objective is to provide users worldwide with access to the finest crypto assets available.”

Well, the “finest” seemingly include such prominent examples as: slop, Fartcoin, Goatseus Maximus, PUSS, and Harambe.

Read more: Justin Sun reveals Poloniex issues prevent proof of reserves

There are also quite a few tokens that seem to represent intellectual property and likenesses that the teams do not actually control. Examples of this type of token include: Elmo, Wukong (the description for the coin makes clear its a reference to Black Myth: Wukong), Caprisun, and Changpeng Zhao. 

The descriptions for many of these tokens often just say ‘meme token,’ but when more details are provided, they often seem suspect. Elmo claims explicitly that it “is the legendary character from the classic TV Show ‘Elmo’s World’” and even goes further to say that “Elmo left behind his old world and arrived in TRON. He has become the red mascot of the red chain, TRON.”

As far as Protos has been able to confirm, there’s no agreement between TRON and the holders of the Elmo intellectual property, something Poloniex’s owner, TRON founder Justin Sun, should understand.

Poloniex has a long history of listing assets that other exchanges have avoided, and the current memecoin frenzy seems to have provided a way to further lower its standards.

Protos reached out to Poloniex’s listing team to glean any information about its listing process, but so far have not received a response.

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