Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings has openly expressed regret for its ill-judged $275 million investment in the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, following the revelation of the deceitful practices that were being hidden from the exchange’s investors.

Non-fungible token marketplace giant Blur launched a peer-to-peer lending and borrowing platform called Blend earlier this month. It has now close to 16,000 loans, aggregating to an impressive sum of 123,500 ETH, or roughly $225 million.

The anonymous entity who seized control over the Tornado Cash decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) via a major governance attack has approved a proposal to reinstate the original state of governance and reduce their share of governance tokens to zero.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Temasek Puts Crypto Investments on Hold After FTX Debacle
• Blur’s NFT Lender Blend Attracts 16,000 Loans Worth $225M in Under a Month
• Tornado Cash Attacker Gives Up Control and Votes to Undo Damage
• TUSD Becomes Second Largest Stablecoin by Trading Volume

Temasek Puts Crypto Investments on Hold After FTX Debacle

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings has openly expressed regret for its ill-judged $275 million investment in the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, following the revelation of the deceitful practices that were being hidden from the exchange’s investors.

In a statement, Temasek clarified there was no evidence of any misconduct on the part of their investment team. In spite of this, the team, along with senior management who made the final call on the FTX investment, accepted collective responsibility and witnessed a reduction in their compensation.

Days after FTX's downfall in November, Temasek disclosed that it had written off its total investment. It further detailed that this investment, including a $210 million stake in FTX International, which equated to 1% of the exchange, and a $65 million share in FTX.US, representing 1.5% of the US operation, summed up to 0.09% of Temasek’s net portfolio value of $293.5 billion (SGD 403 billion) from the previous year.

Temasek said at the time an intensive eight-month due diligence process preceded its investment in FTX, including an examination of the exchange's audited financial statements, a thorough analysis of regulatory risks, and potential cyber-security threats.

In light of the FTX debacle, the sovereign wealth fund affirmed it plans to fine-tune its investment appraisal process, particularly with a focus on rapidly expanding enterprises. Temasek emphasized its plans to refrain from cryptocurrency investments and vowed to exercise caution in future dealings within the blockchain sector.

Blur’s NFT Lender Blend Attracts 16,000 Loans Worth $225M in Under a Month

Non-fungible token marketplace giant Blur launched a peer-to-peer lending and borrowing platform called Blend earlier this month. It has now close to 16,000 loans, aggregating to an impressive sum of 123,500 ETH, or roughly $225 million.

Blur came onto the scene in October of last year, and it didn't take long for the platform to leave its mark. Using an aggressive incentive program that attracted a wave of traders, Blur dethroned OpenSea to claim the title of the top NFT platform in terms of trading volume.

According to a recent report, Blend’s ascent has seen it witness activity from 1,200 unique borrows and 1,600 lenders. Per the report, Blend’s “rapid growth is no surprise since Blur is arguably the go-to NFT platform for crypto-natives and NFT degens.”

Blend provides lending options to owners of high-value NFT collections such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club. The lender has a dominant position in the market, with 85% of the total loan volume across platforms in this month attributable to it.

Tornado Cash Attacker Gives Up Control and Votes to Undo Damage

The anonymous entity who seized control over the Tornado Cash decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) via a major governance attack has approved a proposal to reinstate the original state of governance and reduce their share of governance tokens to zero.

The entity managed to take control earlier this month through a malicious proposal that allowed it to have 1.2 million counterfeit votes. As the fake vote exceeded the 700,000 legitimate votes, the attacker was able to gain full control of Tornado Cash’s governance.

The Tornado Cash protocol is governed by holders of its native governance token TORN, which allows them to vote for changes in the protocol. The attacker’s first move was to withdraw 10,000 votes as TORN and sell them, and have since exchanged over 480,000 TORN into ETH.

A proposal giving the DAO back control has passed with over 517,000 TORN tokens voting in the process. It's important to acknowledge, however, that the attackers themselves cast their votes in support of the proposal using the governance power they had assigned to themselves.

The US Treasury Department sanctioned Tornado Cash in August, accusing the service of helping North Korean hackers hide their illicit profits. The service was used by the Lazarus Group, a North Korean cyberattack group, to launder around $450 million, according to the officials.

TUSD Becomes Second Largest Stablecoin by Trading Volume

As of May 23, trading volumes for TUSD, or TrueUSD, on centralized exchanges amounted to a total of $29 billion, marking it as the second-largest stablecoin by trading volume.

For the first time, it outpaced BUSD and USDC. Earlier in the month, heightened demand and liquidity led to the stablecoin trading at a premium of $1.208 on the Binance exchange.

Get insight into the latest developments in the stablecoin and CBDC sector through CCData's Stablecoins & CBDCs Report.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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