Report: Crypto.com backed out of a five-year sponsorship deal worth $495M with the UEFA Champions League due to regulatory concerns in the UK, France, and Italy (Oliver Knight/CoinDesk)

Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
Source: after looking at FTX’s data and loan commitments, Binance is highly likely to scrap its acquisition; FTX was turned down by Coinbase, OKX, and others  —  Backing out would be one more stunning development in the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire.

Oliver Knight / CoinDesk:
On-chain data: Wintermute, recently hacked for $160M, has $200M in outstanding DeFi debt, including a $92M Tether loan to TrueFi that matures on October 15  —  The firm’s CEO described the company as solvent following the $160 million hack.  —  Cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute …

Oliver Knight / CoinDesk:
Chicago-based Strike, a bitcoin payment service that uses the Lightning network for faster transactions, raised an $80M Series B led by Ten31  —  Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Wyoming were among the investors in the Series B funding round.

Oliver Knight / CoinDesk:
The US DOJ seizes 50,676 bitcoin, worth around ~$1B, defrauded from the Silk Road in 2012 by James Zhong, who pled guilty to wire fraud  —  50,000 bitcoin was obtained unlawfully in relation to the Silk Road marketplace in 2012.  —  Damian Williams, the United States Attorney …

Oliver Knight / CoinDesk:
An independent audit shows the Luna Foundation Guard spent $2.8B in crypto and Terraform Labs spent $613M trying to defend the UST stablecoin in May 2022  —  Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon dismissed similarities with the collapse of FTX.  —  Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) …

Hannah Miller / Bloomberg:
Singapore-based Amber Group, one of Asia’s largest crypto exchanges, cuts 40% of its staff, scraps retail operations, and terminates its Chelsea FC sponsorship  —  Amber Group, one of Asia’s leading crypto trading and lending platforms, is cutting jobs, scrapping retail operations and terminating …