At least four prominent extremist or white supremacy groups, including election influencer Turning Point USA (TPUSA), have used Cash App to attract donations — despite the payment platform’s anti-hate and bullying policies.

Cash App’s terms of service contain a specific clause prohibiting users to upload content that is “hateful or harmful to you, our customers or us.” However, it doesn’t specify what kind of groups would be prohibited from using Cash App services.

This may or may not be ambiguous on purpose — but it hints at how TPUSA and white supremacist groups Red Ice, Occidental Dissent, and Goyim Defence League (GDL) have been able to use Cash App to fund their activities.

Cash App crypto donations used by right-wing extremists Turning Point USA

Turning Point USA is a right-wing activist group co-founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012. It focuses on training and organizing students to promote conservative values. The group has played a pivotal role in Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns from 2016 to present.

Though Kirk maintains that TPUSA does not follow the tenets of white supremacy, its membership has been extended to an alarming amount of racists, anti-Muslims, and white supremacists.

To TPUSA’s credit, it has a history of banishing members caught making racist remarks — but the sheer number of these incidents speaks for itself.

Read more: Block whistleblower says firm ignored compliance, allowed terror groups

TPUSA does, however, openly advocate some extreme policies. It has actively promoted conspiracy theories about election fraud and COVID-19, as well as transphobia and Christian supremacy.

In the run-up to this year’s presidential elections, TPUSA has appeared to drum up significant support for Donald Trump among children and college students. According to political scientist Cas Mudde, it’s alarming groups like TPUSA that have allowed this generation to normalize the association of ‘Republicanism’ with ‘extremism.’

“In the past years, Kirk has not only fully embraced the authoritarian and nativist agenda of Trump, he and his organization have pivoted to full-on Christian nationalism,” Mudde noted in The Guardian after attending a TPUSA rally at the University of Georgia.

Thousands of dollars to anti-Semites, white supremacists via Cash App

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found at least six extremists using Cash App.

Anti-Semitic group Goyim Defence League (GDL) and its founder Jon Minadeo were at the top of the ADL’s list. The small organization’s main goal, according to the ADL, is to expel Jews from the US. It uses outrageous stunts to rile up communities and sells hundreds of t-shirts, mugs, and other merch with vitriolic anti-Semitic slogans and symbols.

According to the ADL, supporters of the GDL sent approximately $3,114.19 in bitcoin donations from Cash App in 2023. A total of $2,148.41 worth of bitcoin was sent from GDL to Cash App.

It’s unclear if the GDL continues to use Cash App, but it does encourage donors to purchase bitcoin using the platform at the top of its donations page. The GDL also accepts bitcoin, monero, ether, bitcoin cash, litecoin, doge, ripple, and… Amazon gift cards.

Read more: ‘YouTube alternative’ is paying terrorists and hate groups in crypto, report

Additionally, the ADL report highlights that Richard Houck, a white supremacist and anti-Semite who writes for Counter-Currents, received a donation of over $2,000 from a supporter that was acquired via Cash App, and he subsequently transferred those funds back to Cash App.

The white supremacist news outlet Red Ice TV also uses Cash App to fund its activities, openly promoting it as a donation method on its website. It promotes ideals of white nationalism, antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and believes in white genocide.

The outlet made headlines in 2016 when it covered a National Policy Institute conference, where 200 attendees Nazi saluted the institute’s founder, Richard Spencer. The group was celebrating the election of Donald Trump.

The head of the now-disbanded American Identity Movement, formerly known as Identity Evropa, used to appear on Red Ice as a host. These groups also used Cash App to solicit donations.

Protos was also able to verify that Cash App donations are welcomed by Occidental Dissent, a prominent white supremacy blog run by Brad Griffin, who’s credited by the Southern Poverty Law Center for being “both a gatekeeper for the racist ‘alt-right’ and the chief exporter of its most effective tactics to his ideological passion project — Southern nationalism.”

Why Cash App when other platforms stay away?

Red Ice TV was banned from YouTube and Facebook back in 2019, following investigations that showed the platforms were rife with hate speech. Jon Minadeo was similarly de-platformed in May 2020, leading him to launch GoyimTV… so why has Cash App continued to allow these extremist, white supremacist groups to use its services, effectively facilitating their funding?

Apart from its vague terms of service, the firm has a history of serving dodgy customers. It’s currently under investigation by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) after two whistleblowers alleged the app doesn’t perform adequate know-your-customer (KYC) checks — opening the door to money laundering, financing terrorism, and more criminal activity.

Protos has reached out to ask why Cash App continues to support these groups and will update this piece should we hear back.

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As Tether has grown exponentially over the years, it has also altered the composition of what provides backing for every one of its tokens. In some quarters, this has been perceived as positive, particularly the fact that the company has moved away from commercial paper of unknown quality into US treasuries and repo markets.

However, Tether also has a variety of ‘other investments’ — many of which have been shared publicly on its Crunchbase profile.

Celsius Network

Tether’s first investment was in the now-defunct crypto lending platform Celsius. Run by Alex Mashinsky and his cronies, the lending company declared bankruptcy after collapsing under the weight of its own poorly enacted market manipulation and fraud.

Tether made an announcement in 2022 that stated, “Tether’s portfolio does include an investment in Celsius,” but added that the investment was actually for shareholder equity and that there was “no correlation between this investment and Tether’s own reserves or stability.”

Tether also revealed a loan provided to Celsius in the announcement. Celsius raised nearly $1 billion in funding before it collapsed and Tether is listed as one of only a handful of lead investors.

Exordium

Exordium is the web3 gaming company created by the former CSO of Blockstream, Samson Mow. Exordium’s investors include Disrupt Ventures — a fellow investor in Celsius Network. Their only IP is a video game called Infinite Fleet, which is a Star Citizen-esque game that incorporates its own token. The company has only raised $5.4 million so the amount Tether put into the company is minimal, even as lead investor.

Bitrefill

Bitrefill is an early website devoted to selling gift cards and other products for cryptocurrency. Investors include Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, Tim Draper’s Draper Associates, and Fulgur Ventures. Similar to Exordium, Bitrefill has only raised $9.5 million, a minuscule amount from Tether’s reserves.

NAKA

NAKA is a financial services company almost exclusively working with individuals and organizations involved with crypto. The CEO and co-founder of NAKA is Dejan Roljic, a Slovenian who’s been involved with crypto for many years now — including a 2018 ICO called Eligma, which raised $7.2 million.

While Eligma had bold goals of merchant adoption, AI-driven item discovery, and other absurd claims, it appears to simply do software development work now. Meanwhile, NAKA has raised nearly $50 million, with over $20 million of that coming from Tether and Bitfinex.

Volcano Energy

With only one investor — Tether — Volcano Energy, an El Salvadoran geothermal energy company with support from the Bukele government, looks to have raised approximately $250 million from Tether. This makes it one of Tether’s larger investments, which makes a lot of sense considering its close ties to Nayib Bukele and the Salvadoran government.

The company aims to take advantage of the volcanic hotspots in El Salvador to mine bitcoin, with some miners beginning to run in October of last year — there have been no real updates since. Laughably, the CEO, CSO, and chairman (well-known Bitcoin maximalist and former Russian TV star Max Keiser) have no experience in the energy industry — though help from numerous international conglomerates, including ChinaPower, will likely help with that.

In a reply to Ethereum World News, a spokesperson for Tether apparently claimed that the company’s reserves wouldn’t be used for this investment, but how that would be possible is unclear.

Read more: Explained: El Salvador’s contentious bitcoin-backed Volcano Bonds

Northern Data Group

Northern Data is a bitcoin mining company that has also pivoted to trying to use its energy contracts and data centers for artificial intelligence. It has been reported that Tether owns the majority of this firm. Former executives have alleged the firm engaged in securities fraud and tax evasion.

Northern Data is reportedly considering an IPO of its AI unit, though Northern Data stated it could neither confirm or deny those rumors.

Read more: Tether-owned Northern Data accused of fraud by former execs

Academy of Digital Industries

A Georgian education company that received almost no money from Tether, with the stablecoin only investing $40,000 in it according to Crunchbase. Tether appears to have used this investment as more of a PR coup than anything else: the minimal investment allowed it to post an announcement stating it was supporting blockchain and cryptocurrency education globally, while also advertising ‘Mastering the Blockchain’ courses that were being held at the conference it co-hosts in Lugano.

Tickets to the conference range in price from $170 to $1,700.

Oobit

A Lithuanian-based company that was founded by Israelis, Oobit raised $3 million in 2020, followed by a $25 million raise in February of this year. Investors in the company include big names in the crypto industry, from Tether to Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and 468 Capital.

The company is looking to make crypto easier for both consumers and merchants to use by converting it to cash as soon as it’s transferred to a merchant. This is likely something that Tether plans to help with and benefit from.

Read more: Is Tether becoming Bitcoin’s most influential miner?

Satellogic

Satellogic is a Caribbean-Uruguayan company that has gotten into the satellite launch business. Between 2013 and 2020, launches for the company almost exclusively took place in China and Russia, but since then, the company has been working with SpaceX to launch from the US.

Additionally, Satellogic laid off workers last year, lowered expectations around the number of forthcoming launches, and sought out new investors because of financial difficulties. After this announcement, Tether came to the rescue by allowing the company to essentially borrow money.

The company currently trades on the Nasdaq exchange for around a dollar.

CityPay.io

CityPay.io is a Georgian company specializing in crypto payments. Of the $2.8 million that it has raised, $2.1 million has come from Tether.

The drive to bring more users to Tether in countries with higher poverty and unemployment than Western nations has likely led to it prioritizing investment in CityPay.io. Georgia has not seen an unemployment rate below 10% since the early ’90s and its poverty rate hovers persistently around 15-20%.

Bitdeer Technologies Group

Run by (in)famous early bitcoin miner Jihan Wu, who came on board as CEO of the company in January of this year, Bitdeer Technologies Group is a NASDAQ-listed cryptocurrency mining group.

Tether invested an impressive $100 million into the company a few months ago, pouring many times more value into it than it had ever received before. Unfortunately, since that raise, the publicly traded company has remained incredibly volatile and its stock has traded anywhere between $14 and $3.20 over the past year.

XREX

XREX identifies as ‘a blockchain-enabled financial institution’ that offers ‘enterprise-grade banking to SMBs and novice-friendly financial services to individuals globally.’ Tether invested $18.75 million in the firm, with the announcement stating it hopes this partnership will “facilitate USDT-based cross-border payments in emerging markets.”

Further, the announcement highlights that XREX can apparently lead to new “solutions to detect and prevent illicit use of stablecoins.”

In sum, these investments show how Tether has expanded its role in the ecosystem, funding a variety of different projects across many different verticals, all while receiving fewer audits than FTX.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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HTX, formerly Huobi, is an exchange deeply connected to controversial crypto entrepreneur and trader Justin Sun, and its activities raise concerns about solvency and Sun’s effective control of user assets.

Ownership

While Sun denies controlling HTX, he’s previously admitted to being an ‘advisor’ and the business itself has previously described him as its leader. 

It appears that the acquisition of Huobi by About Capital Management in 2022 — a move that coincided with Sun’s appointment to the Huobi Global Advisory Board — marks the point at which his relationship with the exchange started to deepen.

Even the rebranding of Huobi to HTX may have been connected to this change in ownership, with the former owners, New Huo Tech and HBIT, openly denying connections to Huobi online and threatening lawsuits against the exchange for continuing to use the name. 

Additionally, Sun has reportedly attempted to sell his stake to Binance, and he claims that he owns a majority stake. 

stUSDT

Staked Tether (stUSDT) is a Sun-connected project that purports to invest USDT into yield-generating activities like purchasing United States treasuries.

Read more: Justin Sun’s empire may be on the verge of collapse

This asset’s marketing claims that it’s controlled by an entity called the Real World Asset Decentralized Autonomous Organization; however, Protos has been unable to find any decentralized or autonomous governance structures for this project.

We’ve reached out to stUSDT to determine if there’s a governance structure we missed and to ask for comment on whether it feels that it’s adequately decentralized and autonomous to refer to itself as a DAO. At press, it has not responded.

On Tron, 88% of this token is held in TDToUxX8sH4z6moQpK3ZLAN24eupu2ivA4, an HTX address.

On Ethereum, over 96% of the total supply of this token is held in 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132, an address labeled as ‘Justin Sun’ on Etherscan.

More troublingly, a review of the HTX proof-of-reserves reveals that much of the USDT on the exchange has been replaced with stUSDT. HTX claims in its proof-of-reserves (which it falsely describes as an audit) that it has $610 million worth of USDT. 

However, utilizing the tool HTX distributes to verify its proof-of-reserves, we can determine that the category described as ‘USDT’ actually contains other assets, including $460 million worth of stUSDT, representing approximately three-quarters of all USDT on the exchange.

Additionally, the USDT category includes $79 million worth of Aave Ethereum USDT, representing funds deposited into the Aave lending protocol.

Even more troubling may be the nearly $12 million USDT held as jUSDT, which is USDT deployed into the JustLend protocol on Tron.

These activities raise serious concerns about the quality and safety of USDT reserves on HTX.

USDD

USDD is a Sun-affiliated protocol that describes itself as an ‘algorithmic stablecoin’ despite the lack of any real algorithm or way to redeem the token once issued.

It’s supposedly governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), the TRON DAO Reserve; however, Protos has only been able to identify a single proposal that the DAO has voted on. 

Read more: Justin Sun’s empire crumbles as USDD depegs again

Even more troubling is the fact that a significant portion of the reserves, approximately $125 million worth of TRX, are stored in TZ1SsapyhKNWaVLca6P2qgVzkHTdk6nkXa, which is also included as an address involved in HTX’s proof-of-reserves.

This means the TRX tokens in this address are counted both as assets for HTX and as collateral for USDD. Furthermore, there are no governance proposals in the TRON DAO Reserve discussing the decision to store these assets at Sun-affiliated HTX.

WBTC on Tron

Wrapped Bitcoin on Tron (WBTC) is a product that was offered by Sun-owned Poloniex, that purported to transform bitcoin into a token that can be used on Tron.

Poloniex doesn’t publicly disclose where it stores the reserves for this product and it’s been unwilling to share them with Protos when we have reached out previously. Furthermore, Poloniex has since delisted the asset after a depeg, making it unclear if anyone can redeem it through Poloniex.

Despite the many issues with this asset, a review of the HTX proof-of-reserves reveals that of the 25,735 bitcoins stored on HTX, a total of 14,108 — more than half of the total — are this wrapped version with no transparency.

Read more: Binance banned Tron Foundation for market manipulation, report

Ethereum

A significant portion of the Ethereum on HTX is actually Lido Staked Ether (stETH) and ether bridged to the HTX-affiliated HECO Chain.

HTX’s proof-of-reserves reports a total of 92,630 ether on the exchange, but the vast majority of that is the 52,103 stETH and the 37,043 ether bridged to HECO Chain. There are a paltry 3,484 traditional ether on HTX.

HTX Token

Even when Sun was trying to downplay his influence over HTX, he was still willing to admit that he owned a large quantity of the Huobi Token.

Recently, the Huobi Token was somewhat converted to the HTX token, with a partial conversion being offered to Huobi Token holders. This conversion frustrated many holders, especially since it seemed to fulfill many of the same functions as the previous token but wasn’t offered as a direct 1:1 upgrade.

Less than 20% of the total HTX token supply was reserved for previous Huobi Token holders.

HTX token is purportedly governed by the HTX DAO. However, the ‘community autonomy’ for the DAO is still listed as ‘coming Soon.’ Weakening the argument that this will be the case is the fact that portions of the documentation and FAQ for HTX DAO are hosted on HTX. 

Furthermore, tokens were previously ‘unlocked’ by performing various activities on HTX, including hitting certain trading volumes.

Other concerns

HTX was hacked last year but is still lying about it, falsely claiming to Protos that “the platform has never had any security incidents in the past 10 years.” Even when pressed, and previous disclosures of the hacks were highlighted, HTX continued to lie and falsely claim that no security incidents had occurred. 

Additionally, HTX-affiliated Heco Chain was also previously hacked. Sun claimed that HTX would be able to fully cover these losses.

Assets from HTX are being used across a wide variety of Sun-connected protocols and entities, and the vast amounts of USDT and BTC removed raise concerns about both the quantity and quality of assets at HTX.

These issues with the assets at the beleaguered exchange are only one part of the picture, with Sun additionally facing a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission that alleges he engaged in wash-trading and market manipulation.

Protos has reached out to HTX with questions about its reserves but at press it has not responded.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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While many early LUNA investors have made no secret of their links to the infamous Ponzi – Mike Novogratz literally got a tattoo of the scheme on his arm — others have preferred to fly slightly more under the radar.

Unfortunately for them, despite their best efforts, in April a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) expert witness managed to compile an exhaustive list of everyone who was able to acquire LUNA at a discount — most for $0.10 a token.

Here, Protos has collected details about some of the better and lesser-known individuals involved in this early sale. All of the purchases listed below occurred between July and September of 2018 until otherwise specified.

It’s important to understand why Protos is publishing details about these early investors in LUNA.

We’re not suggesting that any of these individuals are guilty of anything nor implicating them in Do Kwon and Daniel Shin’s spiderwebs of lies and fraud. Instead, it’s more to shine a light on who was approached to be an early part of LUNA and who was so taken by Do and Shin’ pitch of an algorithmic stablecoin offering insane yields that they did little-to-no real due diligence.

It’s also important to realize that many of these individuals aren’t victims at all — likely selling their tokens long before the collapse of the scheme. They’re likely highly educated and/or wealthy people who were blinded by a fear of missing out on the next big crypto opportunity.

Hwisang Kim

At the time Hwisang Kim invested $3 million for 30 million LUNA tokens, he was chief investment officer of Hashed, a blockchain fund that received over $30 million from SK Group (the second largest conglomerate in South Korea after Samsung).

Polychain Fund 1 LP

Polychain Fund 1 was the first fund created by Polychain Capital, an investment firm started by Olaf Carlson-Wee, who was the first employee of Coinbase and its head of risk management. Investors in Polychain include a16z and the Founders Fund. The firm acquired 30 million LUNA tokens.

Binance Marketing Services Ltd.

In what was likely less of a purchase and more of a ‘quid pro quo,’ Binance Marketing Services Limited was able to acquire 30 million LUNA tokens for $3 million dollars — but whether any money exchanged hands or the tokens were instead for Binance to market make is unclear.

Dunamu & Partners

The investment arm of Dunamu, the Korean company that created UpBit, an early cryptocurrency exchange established in 2017, acquired 20 million LUNA tokens.

TransLink Capital Partners IV, L.P.

A fund operated by TransLink Capital, a VC fund located in Palo Alto, CA. The IV LP fund raised $180 million, of which $2 million went toward LUNA. The fund acquired 20 million LUNA tokens.

Read more: Here’s how crypto’s third largest stablecoin Terra (UST) collapsed

Kakao Investment Co., Ltd.

The investment arm of South Korean company Kakao — largely known for being the most popular social media and chat app in South Korea — acquired 10 million LUNA tokens.

P2PPE

A now-dissolved UK company that was run by two Chinese nationals, Shuoji Zhou and Jingda Yan. Shuoji Zhou is co-founder of FBG Capital which was described as a ‘flipper‘ meaning it got quickly into and out of numerous ICO investments in 2017.

Jingda Yan is a finance professor in Beijing. The duo paid $1 million for 10 million LUNA tokens.

Arrington XRP Capital Cayman SPV, LTD.

The Cayman Islands arm of Arrington XRP Capital is operated by Michael Arrington, who became well-known in the ’90s for starting TechCrunch and who has since become a vocal proponent of XRP. His Cayman investment arm acquired 10 million LUNA tokens.

Cherubic Ventures Advisors Ltd.

An investment arm of Cherubic Ventures, a VC firm established by Matt Cheng and based out of Taiwan. The firm acquired 10 million LUNA tokens.

Nirvana Capital Ltd.

A Beijing-based cryptocurrency investment firm started by Alfred Jiang. Jiang was able to acquire 10 million LUNA tokens.

HOF Capital GGI Fund Tokens, LLC

The Cayman Islands investment arm of HOF Capital listed Daniel Shin, co-founder of LUNA/Terra, as a Venture Partner until the collapse. The firm acquired an auspicious 9.999 million LUNA tokens.

Read more: Jump Crypto chief pled Fifth over alleged backroom Do Kwon deal

Huobi Capital

Now known as HTX Ventures following Justin Sun’s involvement, Huobi Capital acquired 7.5 million LUNA tokens.

1kx LP

1kx is a German VC fund that’s been a massive investor in cryptocurrency and web3 companies since 2017. It acquired 5 million LUNA tokens.

Kenetic Capital SP1 Unlimited

Kenetic Capital SP1 Unlimited is a fund operated by Kenetic Capital, a Hong Kong-based proprietary trading and VC investment firm that made numerous investments into BlockFi and also invested in FTX. It acquired 5 million LUNA tokens.

Monex Group, Inc.

Monex Group is a Japanese financial services company that purchased a popular crypto exchange called Coincheck in 2018. Coincheck is currently seeking a listing on NASDAQ. Monex Group acquired 4.6 million LUNA tokens.

BONGGUN BAE

Likely a misspelling of Bongun Bae, a South Korean executive currently working on web3 gaming through a company called NPIXEL. Bongun Bae was able to acquire 4.4 million LUNA tokens.

Divergence Digital Currency LP

The founder of Divergence Digital Currency (DDC) — now a part of Struck Capital — Adam Struck, sued one of his employees at DDC, Yida Gao, for defrauding him. The fund acquired almost 4 million LUNA tokens.

Read more: A complete timeline of Celsius’ relationship with Terra LUNA and Tether

Jack Abraham

Abraham is well known for founding telehealth company Hims & Hers but was also a loud proponent of LUNA/Terra — especially in an interview with Anthony Pompliano. He also stated in the Pompliano interview that from a regulatory standpoint, he’s worried about pursuing crypto. Abraham acquired 3.5 million LUNA tokens.

Digital Asset Capital Management Inc.

LUNA was one of the first investments made by BVI-headquartered Digital Asset Capital Management (DACM), an investment firm that almost exclusively invests in crypto.

Run by co-founder Richard Galvin, the CEO bragged in a video interview with Cointelegraph about how well his firm was able to trade LUNA. DACM acquired 2.5 million LUNA tokens.

BGT Issuer Ltd.

A BVI-domiciled fund with headquarters supposedly in Singapore. It entered into voluntary liquidation in the BVI in 2022. BGT Issuer acquired 2.5 million LUNA tokens.

Coefficient Group Holding Ltd.

It’s unclear what Coefficient Group does and its internet footprint — including a website that doesn’t explain anything — is minimal. The company is UK-based and was apparently founded by a chartered financial accountant. Coefficient Group acquired 2.5 million LUNA tokens.

Read more: Jump Crypto profited from Terra Luna as investors lost billions

WXY Consulting Pte. LTD.

The apparently now-defunct consulting agency was based out of Beijing but had a business address in Singapore. Other clients involved with the firm include FTX and KuCoin, with Huobi (now HTX) being listed as an investor.

Its former website is now blank but states it’s connected to Xinzhou Jiuzhong Medical Technology Co., Ltd. In all likelihood, WXY received 1.7 million LUNA tokens as a form of sweat equity.

Karisa Anne Sukamoto

A former Singaporean beauty queen and fashion designer who acquired 1.5 million LUNA tokens.

Masa Kakiya

Currently the head of business development in Japan for web3 gaming company Immutable, Kakiya once worked for cryptocurrency company ConsenSys. He acquired 1.5 million LUNA tokens

The Tenev Living Trust

The Tenev Living Trust is a private investment holding for Vladimir Tenev, the CEO and co-founder of Robinhood Markets, a major brokerage firm. Tenev had Do Kwon on his podcast Under the Hood to discuss ‘a brave new system‘ of spinning up FinTech apps like websites — the episode has since been deleted. Tenev acquired 1 million LUNA tokens.

Loi Luu

Singaporean founder of a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange called KyberNetwork and now working on a web3 VC fund called Caliber. Luu received 1 million LUNA tokens.

Read more: Do Kwon can’t leave Montenegro, but owes the US millions

GBIC LLC

A New York-based crypto investor with a footprint in South Korea and China. GBIC was also an early investor in FTX and was able to acquire 1 million LUNA tokens.

Stefano Schiavi

An investor and entrepreneur focused on blockchain and cryptocurrency solutions, Schiavi used to run a now-defunct Seoul-based ‘not-for-profit’ called Not For Sale. He acquired 1 million LUNA tokens.

David Lee

A professor at Singapore University of Social Sciences and a one-time visiting scholar at Stanford University who acquired 1 million LUNA tokens.

Milojko Spajić

According to regulators in Montenegro, the country’s current prime minister never submitted the required paperwork declaring that he had purchased 750,000 LUNA tokens in 2018. He repeatedly lied to the public, claiming that the tokens were purchased for a Singaporean firm he was employed by called Das Capital.

Rumors of Spajić’s close connections to the founders of LUNA have abounded since Do Kwon chose to flee to Montenegro after being issued a red notice by Interpol and being wanted by South Korean and US authorities.

Read more: Somebody extradite Do Kwon already

Oh Eng Bin

A senior partner at Dentons, the largest global law firm. Oh Eng Bin operates out of Singapore, leads Dentons’ blockchain focus, and acquired 600,000 LUNA tokens.

Jon Choi

Choi is a Harvard graduate who was involved with the Ethereum Foundation and created a now-defunct app to share outfits. He acquired 500,000 LUNA tokens.­

QCP Capital

The investment arm of Singaporean digital asset trader and market maker QCP Group acquired 500,000 LUNA tokens.

Read more: Montenegro court set to decide on Do Kwon extradition… again

Dongwon Kim

A South Korean former director at Bithumb and cryptocurrency consultant. He acquired 2 million LUNA tokens.

There were also many early investors named by the SEC that weren’t included in our list. Some of these individuals were difficult to identify and others contributed less than significant amounts to the pre-sale.

The most puzzling name listed was Northgatestars, which acquired 2.5 million LUNA tokens in July of 2018, while the individuals who contributed the most that we were unable to positively identify were Younghoon Moon (acquired 4.5 million LUNA tokens), Sung hun Park (acquired 4.48 million LUNA tokens), Siwon Lee, (acquired 4.4 million LUNA tokens), and Jonyong Park (acquired 3 million LUNA tokens).

Late Stage

Below are a number of large-scale investors who put money into LUNA between late 2019 and June of 2021. It isn’t known what kind of discount they received on these purchases or what contractual agreements were signed:

Galaxy Digital Trading HK Ltd.

Mike Novogratz’s company famously dumped $4 million into LUNA in 2020.

Pantera Digital Asset Fund LP

Pantera Capital is one of the more well-known cryptocurrency funds in the industry, famously struggling due to its investment in FTX. It poured $1.7 million into LUNA in 2020.

Blockchain Ventures Fund I LP

This is the venture arm of Blockchain (dot com). Blockchain spent $1.3 million on LUNA in 2021.

Accomplice Blockchain Two Ltd.

Accomplice Blockchain is a Boston-based crypto investment firm run by Jeff Fagnan. It spent $600,000 on LUNA in 2020.

ACCII Offshore Blocker Ltd.

This fund created by Balancer Labs, a non-custodial portfolio manager, liquidity provider, and price sensor, put $600,000 into LUNA in 2020.

DZG Investment Trust

This is a fund controlled by a ‘David Z. Galpin,’ who put just under $300,000 into LUNA between 2019 and 2020.

Read more: Do Kwon appeal claims lawyers had 20 mins to review docs before hearing

Be careful, it turns out everyone — from the most sophisticated venture capital investors, professors at world-class universities, and political luminaries, to CEOs of some of the largest companies on Earth — can easily be fooled by charisma, big numbers, and hype.

Currently, Do Kwon remains in a Montenegrin existential crisis, a Schrödinger’s Kwon that means despite the multi-billion-dollar financial criminal tied to the current prime minister, he can’t be extradited to both South Korea and the US.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post The high-profile LUNA investors — from prime ministers to beauty queens appeared first on Protos.

Justin Sun is one of the richest and most important individuals in the cryptocurrency ecosystem; however, his tendency to spread his vast wealth between a variety of different interconnected entities and addresses can make identifying the full extent of his activities very difficult.

Protos has reviewed many of the addresses we believe to be controlled by Sun and found a variety of different assets on Tron and Ethereum being rapidly moved between protocols and exchanges.

Ethereum

0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132 is an address labeled as ‘Justin Sun 4’ on Etherscan. The address holds over 1,000 ether (ETH) worth more than $4 million, as well as over $50 million each of wrapped staked ether (wstETH) and staked USDT (STUSDT).

It regularly interacts with Aave, Sun-owned Poloniex, and Binance and is still regularly used, with the most recent transactions happening less than a week ago. 

0x3ddfa8ec3052539b6c9549f12cea2c295cff5296 is an address labeled ‘Justin Sun’ on Etherscan that has over $1 million worth of ETH as well as significant positions on Aave. It has interacted with Binance, Poloniex, and Uniswap and has sent over 566,000 ETH to the previously mentioned 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132.

0x611f97d450042418e7338cbdd19202711563df01 is an address labeled as ‘Justin Sun 3’ on Etherscan and has very few assets still in it; the majority of the remaining assets were withdrawn near the end of last year. This address, like many Sun addresses, interacted with HTX, Binance, Poloniex, and a variety of smart contracts.

0x621fe33ccf74038db90b18365cb450d677d4b3d8 or ‘Justin Sun 2’ was drained of its remaining assets about a year ago. It previously held massive quantities of staked ether (stETH) and withdrew funds from Sun-owned Poloniex.

An additional address believed to be Sun that we identified using Breadcrumbs seems to have been abandoned earlier this year, with most remaining assets moved out in February. This address interacts with both Binance and Kraken.

Tron

Sun is the founder of the Tron blockchain and has his hands in many of the protocols and projects spread across it.

As part of our previous reporting on Sun’s relationship with Tether, we were able to identify several addresses that were controlled by him. However, most of those addresses are abandoned at this point, nearly entirely drained of assets and no longer regularly used to transact.

It’s possible to observe millions of the USDT issued by Sun flowing to an address labeled as Binance by Breadcrumbs. Another address, which was abandoned in 2023, also interacted with then Huobi, now HTX, a Sun-affiliated exchange. 

There is one address that we were able to identify from the Tether Papers investigation that’s more recently used, holding nearly 24 million TRON (TRX) worth nearly $3 million. This address hasn’t been used in several months but has seen activity this year, and a closer review of its counterparties on Breadcrumbs reveals that it transacts with both Kraken and Binance. 

Read more: Justin Sun’s empire crumbles as USDD depegs again

TT2T17KZhoDu47i2E4FWxfG79zdkEWkU9N is an address that many folks believe is Sun. It’s an important redeemer of TrueUSD, a stablecoin deeply connected to Sun. Arkham Intelligence also lists this address as one of its ‘AI-identified potential Sun addresses.’ This address currently holds over 1 billion TRX worth over $138 million.

It also holds a variety of other assets closely connected to Sun including over $225 million worth of USD Coin (USDD), over $60 million worth of TrueUSD, over $50 million worth of BitTorrent, $20 million SUN, over $5 million USDT, and over $40 million of JUST stablecoin (USDJ).

It interacts with entities across the crypto ecosystem including Binance, KuCoin, Bitfinex, Gate, JustLend, HTX, and SunSwap.

In total, these addresses, which likely only represent a portion of Sun’s activities on Tron, contain nearly a billion dollars worth of assets.

Bitcoin

Protos had previously identified one of Sun’s bitcoin (BTC) addresses that he issued USDT to. This address has not been used in over four years and has no meaningful assets in it.  

Earlier reporting has suggested that Sun has stored a significant portion of his BTC at Valkyrie Investments, where in 2022 it was reported that he had stashed approximately $580 million worth there, at the time representing over 90% of the assets at Valkyrie Digital Assets LLC.

Sun also has a variety of connections to Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) on Tron, a Poloniex-offered product that accounts for massive portions of the reserves at HTX, despite the fact that it will not disclose where it stores the backing assets.

Recently, Poloniex delisted this asset, making it unclear if anyone can possibly redeem it, a troubling aspect considering the solvency of two exchanges that depend on this product.

Other Justin Sun Projects

Many other projects linked with Sun also have strange connections or massive problems. 

USDD, the algorithmic stablecoin (that lacks a true algorithm) founded by Sun stores its collateral at Sun-affiliated HTX, including it in the calculation of HTX’s proof-of-reserves.

TrueUSD, a stablecoin where Sun is a partner market maker (and likely more), recently has seen its market cap collapse as one of its banks was forced into bankruptcy. 

stUSDT, which Sun often interacts with, is stored almost entirely in wallets or entities that he’s believed to control or influence.

The Sun-owned cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex had previously stated that it would demonstrate a ‘proof-of-reserves’ before ostensibly breaking that promise. 

HTX, formerly Huobi, the Sun-affiliated exchange, relies on both stUSDT and WBTC on Tron to maintain its reserves, both assets with problematic issues tied directly to Sun.

These problems together present a picture of a man desperately flinging money around while hoping the ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that alleges he engaged in market manipulation and wash-trading disappears.

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Lifeboat Foundation claims that it’s dedicated to ‘safeguarding humanity’ and has ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Vitalik Buterin, Charles Hoskinson, Tether founder J.R. Willett, and many other prominent names.

Besides its safeguarding claim, it also says it has non-profit 501(c)(3) status. This is despite the fact that it’s been on the auto revocation list for the IRS since 2020. 

Protos reached out to Lifeboat Foundation to request verification of this status, but at press time it hadn’t responded. 

This failure to clarify its non-profit status isn’t evidence that this ‘foundation’ has been abandoned, as it frequently posts updates about its members and who has been added to which of its many boards. 

Read more: Lifeboat Foundation can’t explain where its crypto donations go

Cryptocurrency counterparties

Lifeboat Foundation continues to solicit crypto donations, and unlike many groups that immediately convert all crypto they receive into fiat, it actually continues to hold significant holdings.

Previously, the foundation listed the addresses where it held its crypto. A review of those addresses also gives us insight into its counterparties. 

Lifeboat Foundation has been accepting crypto donations since 2013 when the fund kicked off with a 500-bitcoin donation from Brian Cartmell. While his bio on the foundation’s website focuses more on his work on Spam Arrest, he is perhaps better known for his work at Internet Entertainment Group, an oft-sued adult entertainment company that once distributed Pamela Anderson’s infamous sex tape.

Because of how long Lifeboat has been accepting donations, we see donations coming from long-failed exchanges like Mt. Gox and QuadrigaCX. We even see a small donation from Laxo Trade, a high-yield investment program that tried to promote itself by sending dust amounts of bitcoin to many addresses. 

We also get some insight into where Lifeboat Foundation sends its assets. These addresses, labeled as ‘Coinbase,’ ‘Binance,’ ‘Bitfinex,’ ‘Cryptsy,’ often consolidate into other Lifeboat Foundation Addresses.

Bitcoin is by far the crypto asset that has seen most activity from Lifeboat but it does accept donations on a variety of other chains, including many you may never have heard of like anoncoin, bytecoin, CryptogenicBullion, Dash, noblecoin, NXT, peercoin, and solarcoin.

The websites for many of these assets have been taken down.

The Ethereum address received approximately 190 ether from an address labeled as ‘Bitfinex’ and sent some out to Bitfinex and Coinbase. 

There are also some individual donors listed who ended up being important to the cryptocurrency ecosystem, including Jaan Tallinn, who was one of the individuals who helped originally fund Alameda Research, and Charlie Shrem, who gained true notoriety for his role in Mt. Gox, and was eventually sentenced to prison for a charge of aiding and abetting unlicensed money transmission

Tether founder J.R. Willett is listed as a very small donor who gave less than $5, but he has previously told Protos that he was not a donor. 

Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin, was also a donor who gave 10 Litecoins. 

In total, the Lifeboat Foundation received over 1,100 bitcoins and 190 ether, representing the lion’s share of the cryptocurrency donations received.

Non-crypto donors

Most of the donors to the foundation at this point seem to be businesses taking advantage of the opportunity to get their names, links, and logos featured on the website, presumably to improve their ranking in search engines.

The list is littered with divorce lawyers, personal injury attorneys, casinos, dispensaries, and some suspicious firms that advertise things like ‘credit reward perks.’  

It used to be more common for Lifeboat to get donations from more prominent individuals like futurist Ray Kurzweil, but those seem to have slowed to a trickle, which makes sense when you consider the Lifeboat Foundation can’t even maintain its non-profit status.

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USDD is a massive stablecoin that describes itself as ‘algorithmic’ and has a market capitalization of approximately $730 million. However, despite this size and seeming importance, it has a variety of issues, from its design to its reserves and its partners.

Changes to USDD

When USDD was launched, it was intended to inherit an algorithmic design reminiscent of the Luna-Terra system. The original whitepaper described how, by the end of 2022, Tron version 5.0 was going to be released, which would integrate USDD minting and redemption directly into the core of the protocol. However, as of press Tron version 5.0 has yet to be released. 

This version was meant to actually ‘burn’ the tron (TRX) used to issue new USDD; currently, the TRX that is ‘burned’ isn’t burned but instead held in a wallet and counted as collateral for the token.

Following the collapse of the Luna-Terra system, more recent whitepapers for USDD no longer mention being integrated into the core of Tron in this way. Additionally, USDD currently has no documented mechanism to redeem USDD.

Protos has reached out to Tron Network and USDD to see when version 5.0 will be released and whether or not it will integrate USDD in the manner described in the original USDD whitepaper. 

Is it even a DAO?

USDD is managed by the Tron DAO Reserve (TDR), which you would assume is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), but unfortunately, it doesn’t meaningfully fulfill that role. 

The governance page shows only a single proposal in the entire history of this protocol. This proposal allowed for the TDR to use the ‘burned’ TRX, despite that appearing to be inconsistent with what the word ‘burned’ means. 

There are no proposals that describe how the reserves are held, no proposals that explain why the direction of the protocol has changed, and no proposals that explain why certain partners have been added or removed for TDR. 

Does HTX have the funds it is supposed to?

USDD lists TZ1SsapyhKNWaVLca6P2qgVzkHTdk6nkXa as one of the addresses that hold the collateral for USDD. This address holds approximately 972 million TRX, worth approximately $120 million. It is also important to note that almost all of these tokens are staked. These funds, which are nominally managed by TDR, are also included in the HTX proof-of-reserves, which suggests that they’re currently held at HTX. 

There are no governance proposals that explain why these funds are being held in this way. Protos reached out to HTX and TDR but they didn’t provide clarification on why these funds are held in this way. HTX did claim that “the platform has never had any security incidents in the past 10 years,” despite this not being true. When asked for clarification about the previously disclosed security incidents, HTX reiterated that no security incidents had occurred. 

Issues with partners

USDD relies on the partners in the TDR to manage issuance of the token, a role that has become more important as USDD has seemingly abandoned its goal of integrating issuance directly into the core of Tron.

Alameda Research, the now-bankrupt trading firm that was embezzling billions of dollars worth of customer funds from FTX and was owned by financial criminal Sam Bankman-Fried, was just one of the partners for this product who have experienced significant issues. 

Justin Sun, an ‘advisor’ to HTX and a frequent promoter of USDD, owns Poloniex, an exchange that is one of the other partners. Poloniex has yet to finish a promised proof-of-reserves and has refused to disclose the reserves for its WBTC on Tron product, a significant portion of the ‘bitcoin’ on HTX.

Read more: Justin Sun’s empire crumbles as USDD depegs again

Multichain was a bridge before it was hacked, its chief exec was arrested, and the remainder of the team has lost access to the web presence and most of the other materials. Despite these issues, it’s still listed on the USDD website.

TPS Capital (also known as Tai Ping Shan) is listed as a partner, despite its website no longer being available. TPS Capital was an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk that was deeply connected to Three Arrows Capital. 

FalconX is listed as a partner and also recently settled with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over charges of failure to register as a futures commission merchant. 

Other partners include Mirana Ventures, Amber Group, and Ankr. 

Protos has reached out to all of the current partners except for TPS Capital and Multichain to determine if they are concerned about collateral for USDD being stored at HTX and whether or not they participated in any type of governance process to choose to store the assets there. At time of publication, none of them have responded.

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Following the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s trading empire, Cumberland has emerged as arguably the most important trading firm in cryptocurrency.

Protos analysis showed in 2021 that Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research and Cumberland had received the majority of all tether (USDT) ever made. Since then, Alameda has gone bust and its largest shareholder, Bankman-Fried, has been convicted of multiple felonies.

When we published the Tether Papers in late 2021, Alameda was responsible for at least $36.7 billion in USDT issuance; Cumberland for $23.7 billion at minimum.

Read more: Tether gives FBI peek behind the curtain

What’s Cumberland?

Cumberland is a subsidiary of Chicago-based DRW, named after its founder Donald R. Wilson. DRW is an important commodities trading firm that has previously jousted with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The CFTC filed a lawsuit in November 2018 alleging that DRW manipulated illiquid markets, and in an unusual twist, DRW won the case with the court ruling that “it is not illegal to be smarter than your counterparties in a swap transaction.”

Cumberland has focused on the cryptocurrency markets ever since it launched in 2014. Its long history with the industry means that when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) needs a better understanding of “the nature of trading in the over-the-counter market for bitcoin” or other questions in the cryptocurrency market, the agency will turn to Cumberland for a better understanding.

Cumberland serves a wide variety of purposes in the cryptocurrency industry, including market-making, over-the-counter (OTC) trading, venture capital investing, and proprietary trading.

Cumberland’s interactions with big names and shadowy firms

Cumberland was an incredibly important market maker on Binance; the vast majority of USDT issued to Cumberland was sent directly to Binance — approximately 79%. Smaller amounts were sent to other exchanges, including Poloniex, FTX, Bitfinex, Huobi (now HTX), and OKEx.

Cumberland primarily issued USDT on Ethereum, though also issued on Omni and Tron; Alameda Research primarily issued USDT on Tron, though also issued on Ethereum.

Cumberland interacted with a variety of other trading firms as well, including transacting with a web of companies we dubbed ‘Shilong’s Web’ comprised of Paretone Capital, Aoide Capital, Max Victory Wealth Management, and ZB Trade.

Read more: Tether froze $225M but $70M slipped the net

Cumberland was also engaged with cryptocurrency lenders, noting in a tweet that it previously borrowed from Genesis.

The crypto firm has begun sending significant amounts of USDT to Coinbase addresses since the publication of the Tether Papers, following Coinbase’s listing of USDT in May 2021. Cumberland has also started interacting more frequently with Kraken, especially using its Tron-based wallets.

FTX Debtors sent Cumberland stablecoins

Cumberland and Alameda Research have a series of interesting interactions.

0xF02e86D9E0eFd57aD034FaF52201B79917fE0713 is an address believed to be Alameda Research and is thus labeled by Breadcrumbs and Arkham Intelligence.

Arkham posted on X (formerly Twitter) the following month that this address appears to be used by liquidators to consolidate assets.

So, what’s up with the $1.82? At first glance this seems to be a strange amount for one trading firm to send to another; it’s not even enough for a Big Mac.

However, this amount closely mimics other stablecoin transactions between these firms:

• On March 17, 2023, Alameda Research sent $1.83 in BUSD, $1.82 in DAI, and $1.81 in Paxos Standard (USDP) to Cumberland.
  • Unlike the November 8th transaction, these were followed by larger transactions, including $2,896,700 in BUSD, $2,107,100 in DAI, and $138,000 in USDP.
• On March 13th, 2023, Alameda Research sent Cumberland $1 in USDT.
  • This was followed on the same day by another $49,929,000 in USDT and $379,078 in USDT the next day.

The earlier transactions almost seem like test transactions, but no larger transaction ever followed the small transaction on November 8th. These transactions are presumably the FTX debtors in possession working on converting and consolidating assets.

A love for algorithmic stablecoins

Cumberland was one of the firms that provided input on the President’s Working Group Report on Stablecoins, making clear that it believes stablecoins should be regulated by banking regulators, reserves should be limited, and stablecoin issuers should be publishing proof-of-reserves.”

In the document An Overview of Stablecoins in the Marketplace, the firm also makes clear that it still believes that Terra does not prove algorithmic stablecoins are dangerous.

“The incentives paid by UST overwhelmed the utility that existed for the Luna taken by itself,” Cumberland wrote. “This was unique to UST and is not representative of the structure of most algorithmic stablecoins.”

Read more: Explained: How Binance’s stablecoin BUSD can be a security

Cumberland is also a very active participant with other stablecoin issuers, including USDC, and previously interacted with Binance-peg BUSD before its end.

It’s important to note that none of this behavior is evidence of malfeasance by Cumberland, and a major market-making and OTC desk would be expected to use a variety of stablecoins as a function of its role in the ecosystem.

Update December 7th, 2023 18:38 UTC: A previous version of this article misstated the timeline of interactions between Alameda Research and Cumberland. These transactions all occurred in 2023.

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The post Examining Cumberland, Tether’s biggest client left standing appeared first on Protos.

Genesis Block was an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk in Hong Kong that was deeply integrated with Alameda Research and FTX, serving as a way for people to convert bags full of fiat to cryptocurrency and vice versa. The firm has a Cayman Islands-based related entity, Genesis Block Ventures, sometimes called GBV Capital, which is also deeply connected to FTX and Alameda Research.

Crypto researcher Dirty Bubble Media has previously highlighted how wallets associated with Genesis Block’s trading activities were often funded by, and deeply interconnected with, Alameda Research wallets. At some level, this was acknowledged by Genesis Block when it detailed how “Alameda Research will also provide the technology that acts as the backbone for Genesis Block’s new OTC portal.” 

Analysis by Protos now confirms wallets associated with Genesis Block Ventures are deeply connected to FTX and Alameda Research.

Genesis Block Ventures on the blockchain

Genesis Block Ventures provides website visitors with a virtual ‘NFT Gallery’ to show off the ‘quality’ of its investments. This gallery seemingly allows multiple users to view the ‘art’ and interact with each other, though we were alone throughout conducting our analysis.

If you select ‘show details’ while visiting the gallery, it will helpfully provide you with the Ethereum addresses associated with the art in the gallery. We set out to investigate those addresses.

Read more: Genesis Block: FTX had more than prostitutes in Thailand

0x8fc112b770baC7AAF030A0148504dd15561BA86a: This address owns rareverse.eth and vault.rareverse.eth and is called RareVerse on OpenSea. It was initially funded with ether from an FTX exchange address. It holds many of the most valuable NFTs in the collection and is evidently a big Yuga Labs fan: the address owns two Mutant Apes, two CryptoPunks, a Meebits, and an Artblocks. 

0xe085327c5AD2F77147F10973Fed45Fb19d734F7e: This address owns 0xminion.eth and is called 0xminion on OpenSea. Minion identifies its responsibilities as “Research & Data” for Genesis Block Ventures. Initial funds in this address came from Binance, but the address does repeatedly interact with FTX. The most valuable NFT owned appears to be a Pudgy Penguin. 

0x6ce31a42058F5496005b39272c21c576941DBfe9: Smart contract apparently related to Pixel Vault staking. 

0xF2c06f90FB58844C09220e01E3116A2293Df6960: This address owns sungjae.eth and mintingrehab.eth, and is called realmlord on OpenSea. 

0x32ae912d4abfde382eb5cd4eadd2a3daab914d67: This address owns 0xernest.eth. Initial funds in this address came from FTX. 

0xa9cdf0542a1128c5caca1e81521a09aec8abe1a7: This address owns some Azuki NFTs and some Pudgy Penguins. This address also appears to be the 19th largest holder of LORDS, a token Genesis Block Ventures invested in. This address was initially funded by 0xc9610be2843f1618edfedd0860dc43551c727061.

0x41033ecaf9216aabe4404eceeef6fdb684811667: This address owns some Loot NFTs, as well as some assorted ones which are even less valuable. It was funded with ether from a FTX address. 

0xb0ca892ae0d911e74314496690c974e852b25184: This address is called 0xIKZ on OpenSea. It was initially funded by FTX.

0x719e487866d415a4ca9c7f760e71de9ca3d2507c: This address own gbvcapital.eth. It was initially funded by FTX.

0xd1e25f6e985e1a9d18693dd6345a3f5f677b808e: This address owns boredapeyatchclub.eth. It was originally funded by 0x7d69f417C92363FB1328E412AA704addA5E85f9f which was originally funded by Alameda Research. The only transaction 0x7d69f417C92363FB1328E412AA704addA5E85f9f did was passing along funds from Alameda Research to Genesis Block Ventures.

Read more: FTX firm had agreement with Bitfinex for ‘fiat integration’

0xdec0547b77bdad8ce7ca1f0cec8f8e07db610537: This address is called 0xPorsche on OpenSea. It was initially funded by FTX and received funds from FTX, Binance, and Gate.IO. 

0xb8da256c53fe3dd3fe2748bdb1a3add8b4c236da: This address is called coinradish on OpenSea. It was initially funded by FTX.

0x9dd9f1d221c79d162a553c0509f490dac1e79e78: This address was initially funded by FTX. 

0xc72d57b880a988d120141f09328f7daef527a8b0: This address owns mr8559.eth and is called mr8559.eth. It owns a Bored Ape, a couple of Bored Dogs, and a smattering of other NFTs. It was originally funded by 0xc4778d211bf5b272850e97aa8bf653e33c818f66 which was funded by 0xbf1e30f933abe76d3e6ed927e128b595960af80c which was funded by FTX.

0xa782840225e05867066ba271d7e8246549320e5e: This address is called RareVerseCat on OpenSea. It owns a Mutant Ape and was initially funded by FTX.

0x68b724511ad47f24b0e233022a1e94de8311248d: This address owns collection.rareverse.eth and is called RareVerseCollection on Opensea. It owns a Mutant Ape, some Azuki Elementals, and some of the other Azukis which look basically the same. This address was initially funded by FTX.

0xdFC4F3C9a2954A6307d842e8d46b1Fa4FdE2E14D: This address was initially funded by 0x8dc41F0BDFe880767002e664158152c868a187D9 which was initially funded by FTX and interacted with ByBit. 

0x317379256fddcb3ec5a5eb00b044fd9575038b7f: This address owns kootszhin.eth. It was initially funded from FTX and regularly interacted with FTX. 

0x83e979f716ec70b3ef51c8631acf61a8a4c4d133: This address owns ckfng.eth and owns some Azuki elementals. It interacts with FTX and Binance and was originally funded by 0x00ceD6fDbD2e80D327759dA2B41fF47876aE0D03. 

0xaff902692b9d3f00b727e13dbee661ac306c4abe: This address is called MegaLucario on Opensea. It was initially funded by 0x9FdA94D8C1Ce0EE5f773Da1D1546bc717a69BB6E which was initially funded by FTX. 

0xede66bb2a75c5e5708d1359de9b854b9f844bd79: Called Shiny Greninja on OpenSea. Initially funded by MegaLucario.

0x8f2b19ec85c273731ba099b47286afc62e6ae811: This address was initially funded by 0x41A47Ff6026F36773B145f40D7c735B0a633Cee9 which was originally funded by FTX. It interacted with ByBit, Binance, and KuCoin as well.

People connections

GBV Capital in the Cayman Islands has a single director, according to records reviewed by Protos, named Clement Joshua Ip. He was also a co-founder of Genesis Block and a director of FTX Hong Kong. 

Genesis Block Ventures’ website also showed a “Charles,” presumably Charles Yang of Genesis Block, who at times went to events as an Alameda Research Ventures “Principal.” A Leslie was also featured, believed to be Leslie Tam, co-founder of GBV Capital.

Interestingly, and perhaps coincidentally, FTX’s bankruptcy detailed a “Loan Agreement Dated 2/11/2019” and a “2020 Equity Incentive Plan (NON-U.S.) Dated 11/22/2021” for a Tam Nai Him Leslie. Separately, Tam Nai Him Leslie was marked as a USD lender to Alameda Research.

Furthermore, the bankruptcy documents detail a “Loan Agreement Dated 10/20/2021” and a “Loan Agreement Dated 11/30/2020” with GBV Capital. 

GBV Capital, like the rest of Genesis Block, appears to have been deeply and fundamentally connected to Alameda Research and FTX.

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The post Genesis Block Ventures was entangled with FTX appeared first on Protos.

Justin Sun is one of the most important people in cryptocurrency, with incredibly varied investments and holdings across the ecosystem. A crypto billionaire who effortlessly moves between launching new blockchains (usually forks of existing blockchains), launching new DeFi protocols (usually forks of existing DeFi protocols), and purchasing or advising any exchange, stablecoin, or company that will have him.

However, despite — or perhaps because of — this extremely active strategy, it’s impossible to determine exactly how wealthy Sun is. Here, Protos has attempted to detail Sun’s known holdings to demonstrate their size and interrelated nature.

Sun’s bitcoin

Sun may be a bitcoin whale but Protos was nevertheless unable to identify his holdings on-chain. He issued tethers on Bitcoin’s Omni layer before the stablecoin launched on Tron but addresses associated with that activity don’t lead to substantive bitcoin holdings that can be clearly attributed to Sun.

CoinDesk has previously revealed that Sun held $580 million of his bitcoin with Valkyrie Investments, a firm in which he’s one of the biggest shareholders. At the time, his bitcoin represented over 90% of the assets at Valkyrie Digital Assets.

Significantly, this also represents the largest holding of a single cryptocurrency that Protos was able to identify for Sun.

Read more: Tether Papers: This is exactly who acquired 70% of all USDT ever issued

Sun’s Ethereum wallets

There are several addresses tagged as connected to Justin Sun on Etherscan.  

The first is 0x3DdfA8eC3052539b6C9549F12cEA2C295cfF5296 which at the time of writing contains 133 ether valued at approximately $246,000. This wallet also holds more than $40 million worth of Sun’s own stablecoin USDD, several million dollars worth of CRV tokens, and 11 WBTC.

The wallet also regularly interacts with Aave and holds aTUSD, aWBTC, and aUSDT. Sun owns hundreds or tens of thousands of dollars worth of many other tokens in the wallet. Blockscan highlights that the address is also in use on a variety of other chains, notably BSC, where it holds around $5 million worth of TRX, an additional $32 million USDD, and $2 million in BTT.

On the BitTorrent chain, this address holds somewhere in the region of $1.5 million USDD. 

The second address associated with Sun is 0x621Fe33CCF74038dB90B18365cb450d677D4b3D8. It contains a de minimis amount of ether and other tokens and hasn’t been used in over 50 days. This wallet used to hold roughly 15,800 stETH, which have been submitted into the withdrawal queue.

Blockscan highlights that the address is in use on other chains, but there are no more meaningful assets associated with it.

The third address is 0x611F97d450042418E7338CBDd19202711563DF01, which contains slightly less than a single ether as well as some small amounts of assorted other tokens. Notably, it also has 20,000 staked ether in the Lido withdrawal queue. This address is also in use on a variety of other chains, but none of them have significant amounts of assets. It recently sent 45 million USDD to 0xBCb742AAdb031dE5de937108799e89A392f07df1, which used wrapped staked ether to take advantage of the increase in the DAI Savings Rate.

The fourth address, 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132, holds over 3,000 ether valued at nearly $6 million alongside a variety of other tokens, including nearly $1 million worth of ZRX.

It also has 13,000 staked ether in the Lido withdrawal queue and uses stETH to borrow DAI in order to take advantage of the DAI Savings Rate. Predictably, it’s in use across other chains, but none of them have significant assets.

Sun’s Tron wallets

After finishing his stint at Ripple where he led the development of their Chinese business, he eventually decided he should start his own blockchain.

Tron, which raised approximately $70 million in its initial coin offering (ICO), started as a fork of Ethereum, with minor changes and a plagiarized whitepaper.

He has since drained or abandoned most of the Tron addresses we were able to confirm he issued tether to, making it harder to identify his current holdings.

However, one that has been used more recently, TGddFQCnL913P6tpKdcwXxQTb3tgx5SAsp, contains about $2 million worth of TRX, as well as a de minimis amount of other tokens.

Another address, TT2T17KZhoDu47i2E4FWxfG79zdkEWkU9N, is commonly associated with Sun but he’s denied controlling it. It holds over $100 million in TRX, a massive quantity of stUSDT, interacts with Huobi and Poloniex, and was the first user of TrueUSD on Tron.

Beyond the large quantities of TRX, this wallet also has $16 million worth of USDD, $5 million worth of TrueUSD, $16 million worth of JUST, $2 million worth of BTT, and a variety of other tokens.

A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Sun alleges that he and the entities he controls engaged in wash-trading and market manipulation of the TRX token, which they allege is a security.

Read more: The crypto bromance of Binance’s CZ and Tron’s Justin Sun

WBTC may be unbacked

WBTC on Tron, like other forms of wrapped bitcoin, involves tokens being issued on a blockchain by an entity that is supposed to be responsible for custodying the assets backing the tokens.

Just Cryptos, a product advertised on JustStable, describes these tokens and notes that Poloniex holds the backing. However, it provides no clarity on how to verify that sufficient bitcoin is held to reserve these tokens.

Protos has reached out to Poloniex, but they were not willing to provide the addresses which store the bitcoin for this product. Protos hasn’t identified any backing for these tokens at this point.

stUSDT has no DAO

Staked tethers (stUSDT) are a new product that claims to be governed by the RWA DAO in collaboration with the JustLend DAO. Tethers are invested by the DAO in various yield-generating assets in the real world and this yield is paid back to users.

Unfortunately, there are a few problems.

• Protos has been unable to identify any decentralized or autonomous organization associated with this project; as far as we can tell, the RWA DAO doesn’t exist.
• The JustLend DAO has no governance proposals or discussions we were able to identify related to the launch of stUSDT and the RWA DAO.
• There’s no disclosure provided on what assets this project is currently investing in.
• Around 85% of this token is held at Huobi, with much of the remainder held in addresses assumed to be Sun.

Read more: ‘Someone’ is spamming thousands of addresses with stUSDT

Poloniex won’t disclose reserves

An investor group that includes Sun owns Poloniex. Back in November, Poloniex promised to provide a Merkle Proof of Reserves to demonstrate that it holds the assets it’s supposed to. Unfortunately, this has yet to occur, though Poloniex claims it’s still in progress.

As mentioned above, Poloniex also holds the backing for WBTC on Tron, as well as other ‘Just Cryptos,’ but doesn’t provide the addresses where users would be able to verify those holdings.

Huobi’s confusing mix of assets

Sun is an advisor to Huobi and seems likely to be its majority owner.

Huobi previously promised that it would probe third-party verification of its ‘proof-of-reserves,’ but it hasn’t. When Protos reached out, it explained that “after the release of the relevant announcement, we have connected with a third party, but then no third party can do this. So there are no third parties.” 

Huobi has provided a Nansen dashboard, which it says shows the assets it holds. However, this dashboard raises additional concerns about the reserves. The exchange currently holds around $280 million worth of USDT; but it has much more stUSDT, totaling over $400 million.

Huobi claims to have 24,500 BTC, but unfortunately, 6,500 of those are WBTC on Tron, and no disclosure is provided on where those backing bitcoins are.

It was surprising that so many Huobi clients have apparently decided to convert their tethers into stUSDT and their bitcoin into WBTC, especially considering the problems surrounding both products.

DeFi protocols

SunSwap is basically UniSwap but on Tron. It’s governed by the SUN token, which currently has a market cap of roughly $50 million, according to CoinMarketCap. It’s not immediately clear how much of SUN Sun owns.

Similarly, JustLend is much like Compound but on Tron. It’s governed by the JUST token, which has a market cap of roughly $200 million, according to CoinMarketCap. Again, the precise amount of JUST Justin owns is not clear.

Then there’s JustStable. Similar to MakerDAO (but on Tron), it operates the USDJ stablecoin, which has a market cap of approximately $300 million. CoinMarketCap has shown that the token has consistently traded at a premium since FTX declared bankruptcy. 

Sun bought the company that played a role in developing the BitTorrent protocol so that he could use the name for a multi-chain cryptocurrency bridge. This protocol is connected to the BTT token, which has a current market cap of around $440 million. This is down from a high of $2.6 billion.

An SEC lawsuit against Sun alleges that he engaged in wash trading and market manipulation of the BTT token, which they allege is a security. Again, it’s not immediately clear how much BTT Sun owns.

Read more: SEC sues Justin Sun over TRX, BTT, market manipulation

TrueUSD’s murky ownership

TrueUSD is a stablecoin that over the past year has seen its market cap more than double, from approximately $1.2 billion to somewhere in the region of $2.8 billion. This growth has been driven by new adoption, including Binance adopting TrueUSD as one of its zero-fee trading pairs.

Analysis by ChainArgos suggests that Sun was the single largest burner of TrueUSD.

Since Techteryx acquired TrueUSD in late 2020, there have been persistent rumors that Sun is its owner. However, it has regularly denied this claim. These denials have grown more complicated since the former CEO of TrustToken, now Archblock, has alleged in a pro se lawsuit that Sun attempted to acquire TrueUSD.

Additionally, it seems that there may be significant overlaps between the leadership of TrueUSD and other Sun-connected entities like BitTorrent.

Sun admits he’s a ‘partner market maker‘ for TrueUSD but has denied owning it. 

USDD’s nonsense design

USDD is basically Terra, but on Tron. It currently has a market cap of $725 million. The reserves for this $725 million are made up of $415 million worth of BTC and approximately $150 million worth of TRX. Additionally, its peg stability module contains about $240,000 worth of TrueUSD.

These reserves are notably less than the current market cap of USDD.

Roughly $725 million TRX sits in addresses described as ‘burning accounts.’ The Tron DAO Reserve considers these to be collateral for USDD, despite being burned. 

Burned TRX for USDD comes from those burning it in order to issue new USDD and seemingly could be re-issued if the partners wanted to redeem USDD.

The original version of the whitepaper said that by November 2022 it would release Tron v5, which would integrate USDD natively in a manner much closer to Terra, where anyone would be able to issue and redeem USDD for TRX.  

The current whitepaper has completely abandoned this plan and instead relies on the USDD partners.

Read more: Justin Sun’s stablecoin USDD quietly loses peg amid FTX chaos

Animoca Brands and NFTs

Sun was an investor in Animoca Brands, a large web3 and NFT company. Crunchbase lists this as an exited investment for Sun. 

He has also invested in a variety of notable NFTs, both directly and for the APENFT Foundation and the JUST NFT Fund. JUST NFT Fund focused on creating NFT records for existing high-value pieces of art, including a Picasso.

Conclusion

Sun is one of the most important figures in crypto, with fingers in numerous pies. He has exchanges, stablecoins, layer-1s, market-making firms, and a litany of protocols named after himself. This broad involvement has attracted attention, as Sun has been accused of market manipulation by the SEC and many of his holding fail to provide promised transparency, raising questions about how assets have been stored and used.

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