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Digital Currency Group Pushes Back Against NYAG Lawsuit

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The below is an excerpt from a recent edition of Bitcoin Magazine Pro, Bitcoin Magazine’s premium markets newsletter. To be among the first to receive these insights and other on-chain bitcoin market analysis straight to your inbox, subscribe now.

Digital Currency Group, a venture capital firm, has filed a motion to dismiss a criminal suit filed against them by the New York Attorney General’s office.

The legal battle between DCG and the NYAG has been ongoing for several months, and is directly entangled with a dispute between two other prominent crypto firms: Genesis, a now-defunct brokerage firm, and Gemini, exchange and bank. These groups have been entangled in a series of disputes that trace back years, involving dramatic relationship changes and serious fraud accusations. A particularly relevant twist in the whole situation is the fact that the bankrupt Genesis is and has been a subsidiary of the substantially powerful DCG, which holds billions’ worth of assets under management and counts ETF issuer Grayscale as another subsidiary.

In other words, untangling the background for all the different players involved here is a fairly significant undertaking, especially considering the fraught environment that currently exists. Not only is the attorney general’s suit directed against DCG, Genesis and Gemini in equal measure, but Genesis and Gemini have also faced off in civil suits independent of this. The NYAG accused these firms in October 2023 of collectively defrauding investors out of more than $1 billion, and the mutual recriminations involved have created a messy atmosphere. To begin, as good a place as any is a recent revelation found in court filings surrounding this dismissal. Specifically, court documents this March have made it public knowledge that Genesis and Gemini considered a merger in 2022.

In 2022, DCG CEO Barry Silbert conducted a meeting with Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss over lunch, to discuss some of the motivations and logistical issues with merging the two corporate entities together. At the time, Genesis was in serious danger of bankruptcy, and its substantial partnerships with Gemini meant that the fallout would likely damage the other company’s business. Gemini had lent substantial funds to Genesis as part of the Gemini Earn program, which Genesis had proceeded to lose. The hedge fund Three Arrows Capital was in charge of this money when it went belly-up in the aftermath of the FTX collapse, and Genesis was faced with a $1 billion dilemma. As for the original source of these lost funds, the NYAG has accused the firms of defrauding this money from investors.

At the meeting, Silbert made the sales pitch that the two firms should combine, and that they “would be a juggernaut and would be competitive with Coinbase and FTX”. He added that, even if Genesis and Gemini couldn’t reach an agreement on these terms, “there is a ton more Gemini and Genesis can do together and the two companies should be leaning in together, not pulling apart”. Although Winklevoss was allegedly “intrigued” by the proposed deal, it did not happen. Frictions, alongside Genesis’ declaration of bankruptcy, arose in the immediate aftermath.

A particular point of friction is found in the aforementioned Gemini Earn partnership, which made headlines this February when Genesis won a court ruling against Gemini. Essentially, Genesis owned a tranche of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) shares that were promised to Gemini as collateral for an exchange of money between the two companies, but Genesis declared bankruptcy before the shares could actually change hands. Since GBTC is unique among the Bitcoin spot ETFs as a pre-existing fund that was converted into an ETF, this tranche of shares had ballooned by early 2024 to be worth more than $1.2B. DCG’s ownership of both Grayscale and Genesis put an extra complication over the issue. Gemini objected to Genesis’ legal right to sell the shares it was promised years prior, and this began a lengthy civil suit.

Although the issue was resolved through a series of settlements that allowed Genesis to make the sale and kept both it and Gemini from admitting culpability, the NYAG still filed a complaint alleging that the parties involved were all jointly guilty of substantial fraud. There were more than a billion dollars missing, and the attorney general’s office was growing tired of the mutual recriminations between the relevant parties. Even if Genesis could make enough money from their sale to recoup their investors, that still doesn’t address the issue of criminal activity. A particular illustration of the hostile environment came up when DCG, Genesis’ parent company, disputed Genesis’ own settlement with the NYAG.

So, this brings us to the present day. On March 7, Silbert and DCG filed a motion to dismiss the attorney general’s suit, claiming that the allegations against these companies were entirely baseless. In the motion, DCG’s legal team claimed that “The allegations against DCG in this case are a thin web of baseless innuendo, blatant mischaracterizations and unsupported conclusory statements. In search of a headline-worthy scapegoat for losses caused by others, the OAG [Office of the Attorney General] wrongfully seeks to portray DCG’s good-faith support of a subsidiary as participating in fraud”. They specifically claim that DCG acted in good faith by funneling money towards Genesis after the Three Arrows collapse, investing “hundreds of millions of dollars of additional capital into its subsidiary during the months leading up to its bankruptcy, even though DCG had no obligation to do so”. The attorney general took a different view, that DCG’s net contributions conceal a large drain of Genesis’ money at one crucial moment: DCG took their money back, Genesis declared a “liquidity crunch” and did not allow users to withdraw their crypto, Genesis went bankrupt immediately. The burden of proof is on them, however, to demonstrate that this was a deliberate fraud tactic.

As of yet, there is no way of knowing what a judge will think of DCG’s proposed defense or motion to dismiss, or if a settlement is feasible in the event that the motion to dismiss is denied. However, one unambiguously good sign has come out of the morass: Gemini announced its plans to fully reimburse the allegedly defrauded users of the Gemini Earn partnership with assets in kind. In other words, these users had Bitcoin stolen from them in 2022, and Gemini has made commitments to pay them back, accounting for Bitcoin’s price jump since then. This has tacked on another $700M to the price tag of reimbursing over $1B in assets, and is a clear sign of confidence from the company.

Source

If nothing else, this decision to reimburse users like this is an impressive display of sincerity and good intentions from Gemini. Gemini is named as a co-defendant on all the legal documents submitted by Silbert’s legal team about the NYAG suit, and would also benefit greatly from seeing the suit dismissed. This gesture of good faith might not be enough to clear the air for DCG and Genesis, but it certainly couldn’t hurt anyone’s chances of escaping the whole fiasco without a criminal conviction. Although Gemini failed to halt Genesis’ attempt at getting the money from GBTC sales, Gemini is still a successful and prominent exchange. Apparently, it was able to float a compensation of this size without relying on the GBTC tranche.

It’s anyone’s guess as to how the suit will proceed in the coming months. When the NYAG first filed a complaint after the first round of settlements, it seemed clear that the prosecutors were quite fed up with the acerbic attitude of these former business partners. Nevertheless, Gemini’s restitution plan will surely go a long way in proving their intention to do right by their users. If nothing else, it shows that they’re proactive in taking the issue seriously. We’ll have to observe the situation carefully as it develops, but it does seem clear that the mutual loathing and underhandedness displayed so far has not been rewarded. The broader digital asset space has periodically been filled with shaky businesses and outright scams, but eventually they all fall apart. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has come by its success legitimately. When the dust settles, the biggest winners might actually be the defrauded users, who collectively will see their expected payout nearly double thanks to Bitcoin’s own strength. Compared to those kinds of gains, it’s hard to imagine a scam working much better.

​ Digital Currency Group files motion to dismiss NYAG criminal suit. This move comes after prolonged civil disputes between DCG subsidiary Genesis and a former business partner. 

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BitVM Just Got A Massive Upgrade

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The introduction of BitVM smart contracts has marked a significant milestone in the path for scalability and programmability of Bitcoin. Rooted in the original BitVM protocol, Bitlayer’s Finality Bridge introduces the first version of the protocol live on testnet, which is a good starting point for realizing the promises of the Bitcoin Renaissance or “Season 2”.

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Unlike earlier BTC bridges that often required reliance on centralized entities or questionable trust assumptions, the Finality Bridge leverages a blend of BitVM smart contracts, fraud proofs, and zero-knowledge proofs. This combination not only enhances security but also significantly reduces the need for trust in third parties. We’re not at the trustless level that Lightning provides, but this is a million times better than current sidechains designs claiming to be Bitcoin Layers 2s (in addition to significantly increasing the design space for Bitcoin applications).

The system operates on a principle where funds are securely locked in addresses governed by a BitVM smart contract, functioning under the premise that at least one participant in the system will act honestly. This setup inherently reduces the trust requirements but has to introduce additional complexities that Bitlayer aims to manage with this version of the bridge.

Source: https://blog.bitlayer.org/introducing_finality_bridge/

The Mechanics of Trust

In practical terms, when Bitcoin is locked into the BitVM smart contract through the Finality Bridge, users are issued YBTC – a token that maintains a strict 1:1 peg with Bitcoin. This peg is not just a promise but is enforced by the underlying smart contract logic, ensuring that each YBTC represents a real, locked Bitcoin on the main chain (no fake “restacked” BTC metrics). This mechanism allows users to participate in DeFi activities like lending, borrowing, and yield farming within the Bitlayer ecosystem without compromising on the security and settlement assurances that Bitcoin provides.

While some in the community might find these activities objectionable, this type of architecture allows users to get some guarantees that they previously could not hope to get with traditional sidechain designs, with the added bonus that we do not need to “change” Bitcoin to make it happen (although covenants would make this bridge design completely “trust-minimized, which would effectively make it a “True” Bitcoin Layer 2). For more details about the different levels of risks associated with sidechains designs, take a look at Bitcoin Layers assessment of Bitlayer here.

However, until such advancements come to fruition, the Bitlayer Finality Bridge serves as the best realization of the BitVM 2 paradigm. It’s a testament to what’s possible after the dev “brain drain” from centralized chains back to Bitcoin. Despite all the challenges that BitVM chains will face, I remain exceptionally excited at the prospect of Bitcoin fulfilling its destiny as the Ultimate Settlement Chain for all economic activity.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

Guillaume’s articles in particular may discuss topics or companies that are part of his firm’s investment portfolio (UTXO Management). The views expressed are solely his own and do not represent the opinions of his employer or its affiliates. He’s receiving no financial compensation for these Takes. Readers should not consider this content as financial advice or an endorsement of any particular company or investment. Always do your own research before making financial decisions. 

 The BitLayer Finality Bridge is Delivering On The Promises of BitVM – While still far from a fully trustless system, the progress made over the past year is remarkable 

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Bitcoin Banks: We Should Build Them Ourselves

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Bitcoin banks are going to happen. We already have a few of them. We’re going to have more of them. Existing legacy banks are going to start offering services. New banks are going to be founded around Bitcoin. This is completely unavoidable at this point. Bitcoin doesn’t scale. Even absent that, people value other services that inherently require other parties. Debt being the chief one.

This is an inescapable reality.

Even if we could snap our fingers and roll out every well specified opcode and covenant proposal at once, it would still take a lot of time to begin building out self-custodial layers that could compete with something like credit unions and banks offering bitcoin accounts at scale. That is not a problem that can be trivially solved overnight.

So what can we do? We need to embrace a localist attitude around making interaction with your bitcoin easy. This requires a two pronged approach, one involving technical development and the other involving, I hate to say it, lobbying.

There already exist pieces of software like LNDHub or LNBits that allow people to offer custodial accounts for Lightning. We need a lot more software like this, and we need it to be miles better. It needs to not involve tinkering around on the command line and hooking up independent software, or perusing Github to follow manual installation instructions, or fumbling around trying to fix dependencies mismatches.

It needs to just work.

Click, sync to the network, done. It needs to be something that power users who are still not very tech savvy can run safely, and not lose other people’s money. It needs to support more than basic accounts for Lightning. Ecash offers privacy, which would be something important when it comes to small groups of people who know each other. You don’t want your friend seeing what you spend your money on. It needs to support things like Unchained or Nunchuck style on-chain self custody. People aren’t going to want to hold all their friends and family’s life savings, but holding a recovery key to safeguard them from their own mistakes is another matter.

We need the software that will actually scale this type of user interaction beyond a bunch of activist nerds online.

We also need a regulatory carve out. There needs to be a clear acknowledgement that running this type of software for friends and family with trivial amounts of money, say thousands of dollars, and without charging anything for it, is an unregulated activity. Helping friends and family interact with Bitcoin safely and easily, and for free, does not make you a bank. The idea of a few thousand dollars needing to comply with the regulations banks managing billions of dollars do is frankly absurd.

This is the path forward given the current constraints of Bitcoin, and the reality of growing and accelerating adoption, that leads us away from a system that eventually becomes completely captured and neutered by legacy financial institutions.

Instead of depending on them to deal with the current scaling limitations of Bitcoin, we depend on each other. 

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

 Bitcoiners shouldn’t sit around and wait for fiat banks and financial companies to offer services built on Bitcoin, we should do it ourselves. 

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Galoy Launches Bitcoin-Backed Loan Software, Sets Groundwork For Open-Source Banking

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Founder: Nicolas Burtey

Date Founded: September 2019

Location of Headquarters: United States

Number of Employees: 11

Website: https://www.galoy.io/

Public or Private? Private

Last week, Galoy launched Lana, software that enables banks to accept bitcoin as collateral for loans.

Lana helps community and challenger banks (the banks with which Galoy is looking to work) to offer bitcoin-backed loans to various types of customers.

“Some banks might want to use it to sell to retail, and some might want to use it to sell commercial customers or high-net-worth individuals,” Burtey told Bitcoin Magazine.

In offering such loans to a wide array of customers, Burtey believes that the high cost of borrowing currently associated with such products will come down.

“Today’s interest rates are 12% to 15% if you want to get a loan using your bitcoin as collateral,” said Burtey.

“The rates are high because there are so few financial institutions offering this type of product. We see an opportunity now that the regulations are allowing banks to do things with bitcoin,” he added.

“We think a lot of banks will want to enter this market.”

If Burtey is correct in his prediction that banks are keen to offer bitcoin-backed loans, this will not only lower rates for such loans, but it will also introduce open-source Bitcoin software into the world of banking, which could initiate a new trend in the industry.

But more on that in just a minute. First, some background on Galoy.

Galoy’s History: From Blink Wallet To Lana

Founded in September 2019, Galoy had intentions to enable banks to use bitcoin from the start, but it had to hold off on doing so due to an unfriendly regulatory environment.

So, instead, it focused its efforts on creating and supporting Blink wallet (which was originally called the Bitcoin Beach wallet and which Galoy recently sold), a custodial Bitcoin and Lightning wallet predominantly used at first in El Salvador and then in Bitcoin circular economies globally.

“Galoy’s mission was to onboard banks to Bitcoin five years ago,” said Burtey.

“But the regulatory environment was so bad during the last five years that we decided to create Blink. The reason we are now focusing on our original mission is because with the end of Choke Point 2.0 and the repeal of SAB 121, we think now is the perfect time to help banks adopt Bitcoin.”

Burtey spoke about his work in creating and growing Blink fondly and shared that he had to stop working on the project only because it would be too difficult to continue managing it while also aiming to serve a new type of clientele.

“Blink is a B2C (Business-To-Customer) play, and it’s hard as an early-stage startup to focus on too many things,” explained Burtey.

“Galoy is a B2B (Business-To-Business)-driven business, and we want to work with banks and financial institutions,” he added.

“It’s good to be focused on just one thing.”

And, as mentioned, that one thing will now be Lana.

How Lana Works

Lana is software that Galoy helps banks integrate and manage for a subscription fee. With this software, banks can issue bitcoin-backed loans under the terms they create.

“We’re not the ones deciding how much interest will be charged or anything like that,” explained Burtey.

“We give banks the platform to do this, and then they can figure out their cost of capital, the duration of the loan, the liquidation price for the bitcoin in the loan and the rate at which they want to lend,” he added.

“We’re giving you software, and helping you run and automate that software.”

Something else that Galoy doesn’t do for banks is custody the bitcoin provided as collateral for the loans they issue. Each of the banks with whom the company works is responsible for selecting their own custodian.

“You can go to BitGo or Fireblocks or each loan can have its own multisig,” said Burtey. “We’re agnostic on custody.”

With that said, Lana helps banks monitor the bitcoin in custody so that banks can be aware of whether or not collateral is nearing liquidation levels.

“A key piece of this product is risk management,” said Burtey.

“Bitcoin is volatile, and the bank will need a tool to show that it’s taking calculated risk. So, we’ll provide banks with a dashboard to monitor this risk,” he added.

An example of the risk-monitoring dashboard for bitcoin-backed loans that Galoy has created

Who Will Use Lana?

Galoy is targeting community banks and other smaller financial institutions with this new product mostly because they think these smaller players will benefit most from it — and because the big banks likely won’t need such a product.

“We don’t think JP Morgan will really want to work with us,” said Burtey. “They’re probably building something like this themselves, whereas a smaller bank, a credit union or small company probably isn’t.”

Burtey also understands that smaller lenders’ incorporating Lana as opposed to building something comparable themselves can save these financial institutions a significant amount of time and effort.

“Our goal is to say, ‘Look, you can develop this internally, and it will take you six months, a year or longer depending on how much you know about Bitcoin,’” said Burtey. “‘Or we have a lending product as a service for you, and you can launch it much more quickly.’”

And as Burtey and his team onboard their first round of smaller banks, they’ll not only be making history in enabling more banks to accept bitcoin as collateral for loans, but they’ll potentially be altering the trajectory of banking in general by introducing open-source software to it.

Open-Source Bitcoin Banking

Burtey’s long-term vision for Galoy is to do much more than just help banks issue bitcoin-backed loans. He’s looking to introduce open-source software into banking as more banks begin to embrace Bitcoin.

However, it’s important to note that Lana isn’t open-source just yet. It’s fair-source software, and, under such a license, code becomes open-source after two years.

“It’s a delayed open-source system, but it’s all available on GitHub,” said Burtey. “You can go and try it, test it, and play with it on your own.

Under the fair-source license, no company other than Galoy can sell the product to a bank right now, allowing Galoy to profit while still building with auditable code.

“We sell the deployment, and we help banks to plug in to their custodian,” explained Burtey. “We’re building in the open — but we also want to generate revenue.”

Beyond helping banks implement Lana, Burtey’s wants to develop open-source “core banking software,” as he’s looking to disrupt the “core ledger” oligopoly.

“The core ledger is where banks store the account data, customer information and transaction details,” said Burtey. “It’s the source of truth for banks.”

And only three companies — FIS, Fiserv and Jack Henry — have the core ledger market cornered.

“These are all like hundred billion dollar companies that you’ve probably never heard about because all they do is focus on selling software to banks,” said Burtey.

“Our long-term goal is to disrupt this industry by making something that is open source,” said Burtey. “Today, there is no company that does core banking with the idea of open source, and so we’re working towards this.”

Burtey envisions a world in which open-source software can make it much easier for someone to start a Bitcoin bank. (For those who wince at the words “Bitcoin” and “bank” being used in tandem, might I remind you that it was the legendary Hal Finney himself who wrote that bitcoin-backed banks would serve as a scaling solution.)

“To start a bank today is a very expensive and complicated process,” said Burtey. “You have to pay $100,000 plus just to purchase the core ledger technology.”

Burtey then referenced his own experience in starting Blink wallet, essentially a bitcoin bank run on open-source code, before continuing.

“I just went to El Salvador and started what was effectively my own bank because I wanted to,” said Burtey.

“We need to reinvent how core banking software is being made in the world of Bitcoin, and I think this is where open-source becomes relevant,” he added.

“This is really why I think the world of banking and Bitcoin will be very different from the world of banking with fiat, and I think we’re one of the companies at the forefront of this.”

 Galoy founder and CEO Nicolas Burtey wants to help more borrowers use bitcoin as collateral for loans while introducing open-source software into the traditional banking stack. 

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