Best Twitter threads of the day – August 7th

1/16

So why is Tether selling off?

Likely Huobi insolvency.

-Binance started selling off USDT in bulk.
-We found out that Huobi execs (and Tron personnel questioned by police)
-This is not long after Sun's stUSDT launch
-And weird balance shifts at Huobi in the last month pic.twitter.com/f3HViYS93a

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

2/16

Just like with FTT Binance is often the first to know about risky assets or issues within the industry due to its scales and connections.

And if we look at the time stamps of Friday's rapid sell off of USDT, it's after the time Huobi employees would have been questioned.

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

3/16

And its after weeks of steady USDT decline in Huobi pic.twitter.com/MpVeA23Rhm

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

4/16

And after Sun launched "stUSDT" which is USDT he claims is sitting in government bonds gaining a 4.29% yield.

His website claims there are 351,380 stakers but… pic.twitter.com/J9uqIDE3sJ

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

5/16

Tron's own chain shows that 98% of the token is held by Sun or Huobi directly; and when you "stake" USDT into stUSDT it gets swept into a Huobi deposit address. pic.twitter.com/TK4d3n2Fzz

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

6/16

If stUSDT was real, we'd expect then $500M of redemptions from Huobi addresses on Tron, into redeemed Tether so they can buy bonds for yield.

But no such redemptions exist. The mint proxy sends to the main address: pic.twitter.com/hDNcHA9vaq

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

7/16

Which in turn sends it to other addresses which are all either Sun, Huobi or Sun's Binance address. pic.twitter.com/EptXktJQg6

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

8/16

But more importantly, a ton of it seems to go into Justin's own defi positions like JustLend. pic.twitter.com/PN9dQLlRtp

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

9/16

This means across USDT and USDC combined, Huobi only holds $90M of assets. pic.twitter.com/iY3o9XJWs4

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

10/16

But Huobi's own "Merkle Tree Audit" still lists that Huobi users have $630M of USDT held and a wallet balance of $631M USDT…

Of course this stopped updateing last month. pic.twitter.com/oo4CnBw76l

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

11/16

So users *think* they have balances of $631M in Huobi, but there is only $90M there.

The rest Justin Sun is using to prop up his other defi apps, and paying a yield on it to get users to deposit more into Huobi.

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

12/16

But it's not just that.

All the user ETH is missing as well, Sun has turned it into stETH. All of it.

Users think they hold 141,000 ETH on Huobi and instead Sun holds about half that total balance and its all in stETH. pic.twitter.com/AwKQ8ZOqKm

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

13/16

So I don't think Binance is selling their Tether for two reasons:

1) They want to topple USDT to push stables they can control and gain from.

2) They realize Sun doesn't have the USDT he claims to and if users find out they might mass dump to escape his exchange.

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

14/16

Even when you add up the money that Sun has funneled from Huobi into his defi apps – he only seems to have about half the total obligations for Huobi.

The only asset they are really healthy in is BTC.

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

15/16

Just like he did with Poloniex, Sun has been using Huobi as a personal piggy bank to earn from user deposits – and he can't honor the balances there on ETH or USDT if users try and withdraw or sell in bulk.

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

16/16

When Binance heard that Huobi/Tron employees were being investigated in relation to actions at Huobi, they started slamming the 3CRV USDT sell into DAI to mitigate their risk.

Because Huobi is deeply insolvent.

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

(Can we also just appreciate for a moment, how dumb it is, for Justin to maintain a balances "audit" page, and share wallet addresses with defillama when he is pulling shit like this? Unbelievable)

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 5, 2023

What happened in the NFT world this week?

Read this 1-minute recap to stay in the loop: pic.twitter.com/TcfSnfE7hS

— Moritz (@moritz_web3) August 6, 2023

👉 @DeGodsNFT Season III starting on Aug 9

👉 @opensea now supports @BuildOnBase

👉 @veefriends x @reebok shoe dropping on Aug 24 (Aug 17 for Series 1/2 holders)pic.twitter.com/XZ3cL8AMsi

— Moritz (@moritz_web3) August 6, 2023

👉 @0n1Force launches Beta of their Point System

👉 @amazon offers free @WeArePlanetMojo NFTs for Prime subscribers

👉 @beeple to host an exclusive CryptoPunks meetuppic.twitter.com/hPoQQgGx8Q

— Moritz (@moritz_web3) August 6, 2023

👉 @AuroryProject celebrating their @arbitrum integration

👉 @Memeland x @OnePieceAnime collab confirmed

👉 @doodles x @Crocs coming this Augustpic.twitter.com/luuvGf9k55

— Moritz (@moritz_web3) August 6, 2023

👉 @Pons_ETH launches a decentralized coffee company

👉 @Nakamigos with new teaser for next part of their story

👉 @animocabrands announces new hyped game @WreckLeagueHQpic.twitter.com/Eeb1OOhYiZ

— Moritz (@moritz_web3) August 6, 2023

Highest sales this week:

1⃣ 500 ETH – Punk #3307
2⃣ 235 ETH – Punk #6634
3⃣ 190 ETH – Autoglyph #511
4⃣ 113.69 ETH – Punk #4593 pic.twitter.com/yaFbJYyUh3

— Moritz (@moritz_web3) August 6, 2023

$113 million has now been bridged to Base.

I have a thesis. Things are about to explode.🧵(1/9) pic.twitter.com/cmv68EglEL

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023

Bookmark this, there's useful content here.

Coinbase announced "on chain summer" with a commemorative NFT.

This can be minted once you've bridged your ETH.

Disclosure: I minted 1,000.

/2https://t.co/1dUq5o38Md

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023

Bridging over to the new L2 has gone parabolic.

$113 million in just a few days.

The objective is clear:

"…bring the next million builders and billion users on-chain".

/3 pic.twitter.com/EDEfX9IQgl

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023

Many will have read the announcement and thought it's just another Layer 2, nothing to see here.

But those who paid closer attention will have noticed a few intricate details.

The stand-out partner is clearly Coca-Cola.

/4 pic.twitter.com/1Ldw37wY3X

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023

This is the most recognizable brand in the world.

∼94% of the world knows their logo. The remaining 6% may not have electricity.

Coca-Cola's Ad spend is $4 billion per year.

They have just reinstated their marketing arrangement with "X"/Twitter.

/5https://t.co/yfxJuX1kC8 pic.twitter.com/q8sj07t6M9

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023

So how does this relate to NFTs?

Well, let's take Jack Butcher's Opepen as an example.

A masterclass in demonstrating what can be done with NFTs to a mass audience.

Using metadata as a marketing tool.

Not many other companies have done this…Yet.

/6https://t.co/h6CEGywUvi pic.twitter.com/8Fkhg8D11o

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023

Nouns have partnered to offer 100+ ETH in grants for those to build on Base.

Has anyone checked the Metadata on the original Base "Introduced" NFT?

Let me save you the clicking👇

/7 pic.twitter.com/L8ZZvT7mEb

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023

Smart money is bridging decent amounts of ETH.@GMX_IO could diversify its operations again cross-chain. It accounts for ∼25% of the TVL on Arbitrum.

Altcoins are being bridged.

Activity is about to pop into a flourishing ecosystem.

/8https://t.co/8kJibG8xvC pic.twitter.com/FQV9uLjvQp

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023

The official launch is August 9th (3 days away).

Many are positioning themselves.

My bet is those altcoin gains flow into NFTs, but primarily on Base; It takes time to bridge back.

Brands are coming back for another crack at NFTs, this time with a different objective.

/9 pic.twitter.com/ruGfvXL2aJ

— S4mmy.eth (@S4mmyEth) August 6, 2023