Mining companies partner on lithium


Mon, January 30, 2023 

BURGEO — From Matador Mining and the Cape Ray Gold Project to Atlantic Minerals Ltd. and the Lower Cove Mine on the West Coast, the mining industry has been growing in Newfoundland and Labrador, and it appears that trend will continue. A joint venture near Burgeo has uncovered another significant mineral outcropping – lithium.

Andrew Parsons, Minister of Industry, Energy and Technology, said there are two companies presently involved in the discovery.

“One of them being Sokoman (Minerals Corp.) and Benton (Resources Inc.). It’s a joint play and they have what is called the Golden Hope Project. They are just west of the Burgeo highway and just north of Burgeo, and they’ve actually made an initial discovery, and they are very excited about what they’ve found, but it’s really early on,” said Parsons. “Since that time I’ve been made aware of another company called MLK Gold who are looking for the same thing in the same vicinity.”

Timothy Froude, President, CEO and Director of Sokoman Minerals Corp. said the companies are equal partners on the project.

“It’s a very large property and we staked it in the spring of 2021. It covers about 750 square kilometres and it straddles the Burgeo Highway. It doesn’t quite go down to Burgeo,” said Froude via phone interview. “It covers a pretty big swath of ground and it’s going to take us a little bit of time to get our heads around it.”

While the project, which consists of over 3,000 claims, was initially staked for gold with the Hope Brook Mine in the same area, prospectors happened to discover lithium.

“We were prospecting for gold when we discovered a series of lithium bearing dykes (the Kraken Prospect) about 12 kms west of the Burgeo Highway, 30 kms or so north of the town of Burgeo. In late 2022, we discovered a dyke (named Hydra) which is highly enriched in cesium, along with significant lithium, rubidium and tantalum, 12 kms to the northeast of the Kraken."

These dykes, called pegmatite dykes, are an igneous rock type that carry significant levels of obscure minerals like lithium, cesium, and tantalum.

“We’ve moved up to the next level and put a camp in. There is a camp there now, but we’re not occupying the camp because winter is a difficult time to explore down there with the windy conditions and white outs. It’s not very safe, so field work will probably start again down there around April. The snow won’t all be gone, but the days will be longer and it will be warmer.”

These minerals are a critical aspect of the greener economy the country and province are currently focused on.

“This is still really early on. At the end of the day, mining is a boom and bust industry and it very much depends on factors that are out of our control, such as the price of the commodity, and it comes down to demand. But right now, these are minerals that are very much in demand for what they call the ‘green economy,’” said Parsons.

Even though the resources themselves are non-renewable, the impact they have on the economy is significant.

“When you’re talking about a non-renewable resource, you have to ensure you get the best value for it that you can because once you take it, it’s gone,” explained Parsons. “No different than producing oil. The thing is that it has a value. It’s a resource that belongs to the people, and it’s these resources that pay for our social systems that we rely heavily on, our healthcare system, education, all these other things that we’ve grown to rely on, and it’s got to be paid for somehow. Resources are what pay for it.”

As with any large undertaking, environmental impacts are always a concern.

“Anything they do still goes through an environmental process, same as any other natural resource development, so there’s nothing that I’ve been made aware of that’s any different from any other extraction or natural resource processes,” said Parsons. “Anybody who wants to do anything in this province has to go through an environmental application process and, depending on what you’re trying to do, there are different levels to that. If anything, given the need for lithium as a critical mineral, I think you’re going to see more of it, not just in Newfoundland and Labrador, but worldwide.”

Froude said the project is still considered a grass roots project and is a low-impact exploration.

To date there have not been any formal Indigenous consultations, but both companies employ Indigenous workers, including Benton Resources, whose President and CEO, Steve Stares, is a Qalipu member.

“Yes, there will be local ground disturbances for the camp and drill setups, but we reclaim and backfill sites we feel are low potential as we go. We also operate under a series of guidelines and requirements that are mandated each year in our work permits that have to be renewed each year,” said Froude. “We don’t do things unchecked.”

The project, which are actually two separate entities – the gold project and the lithium (and other critical minerals) project – will remain under the same umbrella, and the hope is for multiple strike sites.

“We already have two prospects 12 kms apart (Kraken and Hydra) so the potential is high for others,” said Froude.

Currently the camp in place is a 10-person camp, but there is much indirect and contract work that contribute to the necessary manpower, which would undoubtedly increase if and when a mine is put in place.

“We are a long way from a mine yet, many years in fact. The results of the work this year will go a long way towards giving us the information we need to determine whether or not the project has a chance,” said Froude.

The project will also carry a hefty budget.

“We are budgeting between $3 and $5 million this year for the project, of which nearly all will go to NL-based workers and businesses. This will include businesses in Burgeo, Springdale, Clarenville, Stephenville, with employees coming from all over the island.”

Froud said they source locally whenever possible, which means significant benefits to the surrounding communities.

“We also have a joint venture project with Benton just north of the tiny village of Grey River, where we’ve been drilling for gold there for a couple of years, and we’re part of the family down there now I think,” said Froude.

“We’ve grown attached to the place and for the past two Christmases, in fact, we’ve bought a turkey for every household in Grey River just to ease the burden. Anything we can do to help out, and right now I’m in the process of trying to scratch up some funds because we got a request from the principal of the school in Grey River to help fix up the playground for the kids who are there. So we’ll be donating to that and helping out as much as we can. We do try to help out and we will continue to do that. It’s part of our corporate responsibility as a good corporate citizen.”

Even though the company itself is primarily a gold company, Froude said they are also an exploration company.

“We don’t throw stuff away that we’re not looking for. It’s part of my mission and mandate as CEO to evaluate any and all possible commodities to the benefit of the local community first and the shareholders second, so I’m really excited,” said Froude. “I’ve worked in these types of rocks before, a long time ago up in Ontario, and I never considered Newfoundland as a go-to spot for these sort of things, but Newfoundland is obviously full of surprises. We’re one of the busiest gold exploration areas in the country right now and there’s a lot more gold out there then people realize, I think. We are also trying to prove to the world that Newfoundland and Labrador is a destination of choice, not just for copper, zinc, iron ore, and nickel, but things like lithium and cesium that I’m still learning about."

Jaymie White, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wreckhouse Weekly News

Burgeo

Burgeo is a town in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is located mainly on Grandy Island, on the south coast of the island of Newfoundland. It is an outport community. Wikipedia

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M;FTX

UPDATED

Former FTX US President Accuses SBF of ‘Gaslighting and Manipulation’

André Beganski

Sun, January 15, 2023

Former President of FTX US Brett Harrison shared details of his tenure under Sam Bankman-Fried on Saturday, distancing himself from the disgraced crypto mogul who’s been charged with a series of financial crimes.

In a flurry of Twitter posts, Harrison accused Bankman-Fried of “gaslighting and manipulation,” claiming he was isolated as a leader while working to build out the defunct cryptocurrency exchange’s presence in the U.S.

Harrison stepped down from FTX’s U.S. division in September, just weeks before Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire began to crumble—but says his relationship with the former CEO had begun to fall apart long before that.

“My relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried and his deputies had reached a point of total deterioration, after months of disputes over management practices at FTX,” he wrote.

Former FTX US President Promises to Share More Information ‘In Time’

While Harrison led FTX US for a total of 17 months, the former high-ranking employee said he threatened to leave the company in April of last year—just 11 months into his role—over “organizational problems” that he identified with FTX’s structure.

Harrison said one issue he flagged was the separation of FTX’s legal, development, and executive teams, which had influence over both FTX US and the company’s international exchange, according to Harrison.

Harrison said Bankman-Fried ultimately disagreed with the suggested structural changes early on in his role at FTX US, describing the FTX founder as stubborn and spiteful when his authority was questioned.

Harrison added that he faced “tremendous pressure not to disagree with Sam” as president of FTX US, along with other employees who worked within the cryptocurrency exchange’s U.S. division. He said the team’s professional background was rendered “irrelevant and valueless.”

“I wasn’t the only one at FTX US who disagreed with Sam and members of his inner circle,” he stated. “FTX US was staffed with experienced professionals from US finance firms, law firms, and regulated exchanges.”

Other sticking points Harrison said he identified were “the delegation of managerial responsibility and controls,” which he said were handled by Bankman-Fried and other company executives based in the Bahamas, where FTX was based.

He also wanted to make more transparent the software development responsibilities of FTX co-founder Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, the former FTX engineering chief who is now seeking a cooperation deal with federal prosecutors in New York pertaining to Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial.

Attorneys in the Southern District of New York filed charges against Wang last month, as well as the former CEO Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, who led the trading firm founded by Bankman-Fried before FTX. Wang and Ellison are both cooperating with investigations into FTX. Singh and Harrison have not been accused of wrongdoing.

Prosecutors have charged Bankman-Fried with eight criminal charges, including fraud and money laundering. He is accused of siphoning billions of dollars worth of customer funds away from FTX to cover trades made by Alameda, donate to political campaigns, purchase private real estate, and expand his business.

After submitting a formal complaint about issues he identified with FTX’s structure, Harrison resolved to leave the company upon receiving backlash, stating he was “threatened on Sam’s behalf” that he would be fired and his professional reputation ruined.

FTX US President Brett Harrison Stepping Down, Shifting to Advisory Role

Harrison explained he was initially sympathetic towards Bankman-Fried’s unfavorable leadership, stating he thought “addiction and mental health problems” could’ve been a contributing factor.

The former FTX US president had come to know Bankman-Fried as a junior trader at New York-based trading firm Jane Street, where Ellison also got her start in finance as an intern. Harrison had worked there for over seven years prior to roles at Citadel Securities and Headlands Technologies.

In addition to the proficiency Bankman-Fried displayed in a programming class he taught, Harrison developed a positive perception of Bankman-Fried as a “sensitive and intellectually curious person who cared about animals,” and senior traders “indicated he had promise.”

During Harrison’s time at FTX US, the company was hit with a cease-and-desist-letter from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation over a false and misleading statement made by Harrison. In a now-deleted Tweet, Harrison had claimed “direct deposits from employers to FTX US are stored in individually FDIC-insured bank accounts in the users’ names.”

When asked about the statement via Twitter on Saturday by EZPR founder and CEO Ed Zitron, Harrison blocked Zitron’s account, according to a recent post made by Zitron. Zitrion told Decrypt that Harrison’s move was “laughable.”

FTX US Hit With FDIC Cease-and-Desist Over 'False and Misleading' Statements

Harrison did not respond immediately to requests for comment, but he replied to Zitron’s question stating “it’s impossible to have a good faith or fact-based discussion” about the incident on Twitter.

When Harrison departed from FTX US in September, he announced that he would be shifting into an advisory role with the firm over the next few months but wouldn’t be leaving the crypto space in his next role.

“I don’t doubt my experiences in this role will be among the most cherished of my career,” he stated. “I’ll be assisting Sam and the team with this transition to ensure FTX ends the year with all its characteristic momentum.”

Harrison is currently launching a crypto software company, for which he recently sought funding at a valuation of up to $100 million, Bloomberg reported last month. In a reply to Harrison’s thread on Saturday, American financier and former White House director of communications Anthony Scaramucci identified himself as an investor.

Scaramucci's investment firm Skybridge Capital received $40 million from Bankman-Fried's FTX Ventures in September in exchange for a 30% stake in the investment firm. FTX was also featured prominently as a sponsor at SALT New York last year, a networking event affiliated with Skybridge.

“I am proud to be an investor in your new company,” Scaramucci stated. “Go forward. Don’t look back.”

 

Meet Sam Trabucco, the Alameda exec who oversaw the development of the crypto hedge fund's ultra-risky trading strategies

Morgan Chittum
Sun, January 15, 2023 

Sam Trabucco was the co-CEO of Alameda Research.

Sam Trabucco was Alameda Research's co-CEO. He left the crypto hedge fund a few months before its collapse.


Before he left Alameda, he reportedly went on a $10 million all-cash property buying spree and bought a 52-foot yacht.


US prosecutors have not alleged Trabucco with any wrongdoing.

Sam Trabucco stepped down as the co-CEO of trading firm Alameda Research in August, just months before Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire filed for bankruptcy and lost $8 billion of customer money.

Around the time of his departure in late August, he tweeted, "But if I've learned anything at Alameda, it's how to make good decisions – and this is the right one for me."

Whereabouts of Trabucco, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, are unclear. Here's what we know about one of the top executives at Alameda Research.

Bankman-Fried was the sole CEO of Alameda from its inception until October 2021 when Ellison and Trabucco took over. Trabucco was formally in his role as Alameda's co-CEO for less than a year, according to a court filing, from October 2021 to August 2022.

Trabucco, 30, hasn't publicly been accused of any wrongdoing. He stepped down from the company in August, shifting Caroline Ellison into the role of Alameda's CEO.

Trabucco significantly reduced his role at Alameda in this months leading up to his departure. He couldn't "personally continue to justify the time investment of being a central part of Alameda," he tweeted, adding that he would be staying on as an advisor to the company but would not have a "strong day-to-day presence."

Trabucco wanted to "prioritize other things."

"What other things? I'm really not sure, exactly. Lately I've been really happy, spending a lot of time traveling, visiting friends and family, working on 'myself' and whatnot," he said. "Also I bought a boat, that's been cool. I needed to relax, and I'm really, really happy."

Before he left Alameda, it was reported that Trabucco a went on a $10 million all-cash property buying spree, purchasing two luxury apartments in San Francisco, according to Protos. He also bought a 52-foot yacht, which he called "Soak my Deck." The Financial Times reported that Trabucco even paid a freelancer on Fiverr to design the boat's logo.

A little over a month after his departure from FTX, Trabucco tweeted: "Why are journalists so excited to make my stepping down about something other than a desire to go fast over the nice water."

Bankman-Fried and Trabucco have known each other for over a decade. They met at a five-week math camp at Mount Holyoke College in 2010, where Trabucco said Bankman-Fried rarely slept during his stay, Insider reported.

The two later reconnected in college at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Trabucco studied math and computer science. Before joining Alameda as a trader in 2019, he had a stint as a quant trader on Susquehanna's bond exchange-traded fund desk, according to his LinkedIn.

In a press release announcing Trabucco and Ellison's move to become co-CEOs, the company said the two will "oversee all operations at Alameda while also collaborating to execute on the strategy the organization" and "focus on managing the trading desk."

The former exec was an aggressive crypto trader, employing risky bets in Alameda's business. Trabucco has indicated in a series of public comments that he also employed poker and blackjack strategies in trading, Bloomberg reported.

"Bigger is Bigger (when Betting is Better)," he tweeted in January of 2021, explaining how his gambling experience shaped his trading methods. "Getting it in good is a poker term referring to the idea that, when your odds are best.... you wanna bet more."

When crypto exchange OKX suspended user withdrawals on its platform in January of 2021, Alameda began buying out positions of investors wanting to reduce exposure.

"Not only are we not sellers, we're HUGE buyers -- even though it's risky -- because, in fact, we can take the risk and this trade is GREAT according to what we know -- was crucial, and it's something we're always aiming to do," he tweeted.

As for his involvement in FTX's downfall, US prosecutors have not said Trabucco was involved in any wrongdoing even as he worked in Alameda's C-suite with several execs who are now facing a slew of charges.

"[Sam] is not really involved in day-to-day operations in Alameda," Trabucco told CoinDesk in October of 2021. "Caroline and I have been leading the charge [at Alameda] for quite some time."

Despite his claims to the news outlet over a year ago,"Bankman-Fried remained the ultimate decision-maker at Alameda, even after Ellison and Trabucco became co-CEOs," the US Securities and Exchange Commission said in its complaint against the fallen FTX CEO.

The court document reads: "Bankman-Fried directed investment and operational decisions, frequently communicated with Alameda employees, and had full access to Alameda's records and databases."

Trabucco did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

FTX Collapse: Bankman-Fried Takes On a Powerful Law Firm

The disgraced former crypto king continues to tell a version of events that ignores regulators' allegations against him.

LUC OLINGA
JAN 14, 2023 

Sam Bankman-Fried faces a series of criminal and civil charges, including alleged fraud.

The trial of the disgraced founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its sister company Alameda Research, a hedge fund and trading platform, is scheduled for October.

Bankman-Fried was released on bail on Dec. 21 after being extradited from the Bahamas where he lived and where FTX's headquarters were based.

The former trader pleaded not guilty on Jan. 3 during a hearing in New York.

Facing the court, he remained silent but since Bankman-Fried, known by the initials SBF in the crypto space, has resumed speaking on social networks. He tries, as during his apology tour at the end of November/beginning of December, to exculpate himself. In doing so, he tries to blame others.

He has just done this in a blog post in which he points the finger at the powerful law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. To be clear, Bankman-Fried is not accusing Sullivan & Cromwell of any wrongdoing related to FTX or Alameda Research.


Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty

'I Would Sometimes Work Out of S&C's Office'

He accuses Sullivan & Cromwell of conflicts of interest. He also claims that the law firm forced him to file for bankruptcy and to choose John Ray, the new CEO of FTX, as liquidator of FTX and Alameda Research. Basically, if his empire is in disarray it is the fault of Cromwell & Sullivan because there were other options than bankruptcy, says Bankman-Fried.

"Senators have raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest from Sullivan & Crowell (S&C)," the former crypto emperor wrote. "Contrary to S&C’s statement that they 'had a limited and largely transactional relationship with FTX', S&C was one of FTX International’s two primary law firms prior to bankruptcy, and were FTX US’s primary law firm."

He continued: "FTX US’ GC came from S&C, they worked with FTX US in its most important regulatory application, they worked with FTX International on some of its most important regulatory concerns, and they worked with FTX US on its most important transaction. When I would visit NYC, I would sometimes work out of S&C’s office."

GC stands for General Counsel. FTX US is the American subsidiary of FTX. Consumers residing in the United States wishing to buy or sell cryptocurrencies and other digital assets (NFTs) via FTX could only do so through FTX US, an entity based on American soil.

"S&C and the GC were the primary parties strong-arming and threatening me into naming the candidate they themselves chose as CEO of FTX -- including for a solvent entity in FTX US -- who then filed for Chapter 11 and chose S&C as counsel to the debtor entities," Bankman-Fried asserted without providing any evidence.

Sullivan & Cromwell did not respond to a request for comment.

The law firm is FTX's lead counsel in its bankruptcy.

'Pressured'

Four U.S. senators -- Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) -- recently wrote to Delaware Judge John Dorsey to point out that, given the past relationship between FTX and Sullivan & Cromwell, the law firm was not in the best position to deal with the current bankruptcy proceedings.

The bipartisan group of senators wrote that the law firm has "advised FTX for years leading up to its collapse and one of its partners even served as FTX’s general counsel."

As a result, "the firm is simply not in a position to uncover the information needed to ensure confidence in any investigation or findings."

"The firm had a limited and largely transactional relationship with FTX and certain affiliates prior to the bankruptcy,” Sullivan & Cromwell responded in a statement according to Bloomberg. A "broad team of sophisticated professionals, including conflicts counsel,” is advising FTX in bankruptcy.

The law firm has already said in court documents that it collected $8.5 million from FTX for work related to regulatory requests and transactions.

Dorsey found the senators' letter 'inappropriate' but said he will "make my decisions on the matters referred to in the letter based only upon admissible evidence and the arguments of parties and interest presented in open court."

Bankman-Fried says there was another option other than bankruptcy.

"Despite its insolvency, and despite processing roughly $5b of withdrawals over its last few days of operation, FTX International retains significant assets – roughly $8b of assets of varying liquidity as of when Mr. Ray took over," he asserted without providing evidence.

"In addition to that, there were numerous potential funding offers – including signed LOIs (letters of intent) post chapter 11 filing totaling over $4b. I believe that, had FTX International been given a few weeks, it could likely have utilized its illiquid assets and equity to raise enough financing to make customers substantially whole."

Bankman-Fried is not optimistic.

"Since S&C pressured FTX into Chapter 11 filings, however, I worry that those pathways may have been abandoned."

Why the IRS Has an Interest in the FTX Bankruptcy Case


Stacy Elliott
Sat, January 14, 2023

Of all the crypto bankruptcies over the past year, the FTX Chapter 11 proceeding is the only one that’s had a Department of Justice attorney assigned to represent the Internal Revenue Service.

Deputy Attorney General David Hubbert filed notice for Department of Justice trial attorney Elisabeth Bruce (replacing attorney Warren Benson, who was assigned in December) to appear in the FTX bankruptcy proceedings on Thursday.

There’s been no indication of the IRS’s exact interest in the case. A call to the IRS’s press office from Decrypt yielded a decline to comment. It’s also not clear if the agency plans to pursue its own litigation against the bankrupt crypto exchange. But the fact that it's involved at all is notable, especially given the IRS's prior interest in the customer data of major crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken.

FTX, founded by ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, filed for bankruptcy on November 11. In the days leading up to its voluntary filing, the company saw billions worth of assets pulled off its crypto trading platform, was almost acquired by competitor Binance, and then froze withdrawals in a last-ditch attempt to stay afloat.

It was a sudden and spectacular downfall that caught the attention of U.S. regulators and law enforcement. Sam Bankman-Fried has since been arrested and charged with eight financial crimes. Members of his inner-circle Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang have already pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors as Bankman-Fried awaits trial.

Meanwhile, the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and Office of the Comptroller put out a joint statement two weeks ago, warning that crypto isn’t “safe and sound.” The White House has ramped up its call for regulation (while fielding questions about meetings between Bankman-Fried and President Joe Biden).

As for the IRS, Miles Fuller, TaxBit’s director of government solutions, told Decrypt that it seems the agency has more than a passing interest in the case.

Normally when debtors file for bankruptcy, those cases get assigned to an insolvency unit within the IRS, he said. The unit keeps tabs on the case and, if the IRS becomes a creditor in the proceedings, they file a proof of claim without getting lawyers involved.

He would know. Fuller spent 15 years working as an attorney at the IRS before joining TaxBit last year.

“If there was some very administrative thing that just needed to be handled, the Department of Justice's tax division is like, ‘Yeah, we don't care about that. We'll let you guys handle that,’” Fuller said. “But for any sort of really substantive tax related matter or high profile tax matter, they say, ‘No, no, we want to do that.’”

TaxBit, a tax software and crypto account firm, raised $130 million last year at a $1.3 billion valuation. That made it one of the rare startup unicorns in the middle of a not so great year for most of the crypto industry.

DOJ, IRS Target Tax-Evading Clients of Crypto Broker SFOX

Fuller said it’s possible, but a long shot, that the IRS is trying to get its hands on the customer list that FTX was given permission to keep private for another three months. If that were the agency’s interest, it wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. The IRS has issued John Doe summons seeking information on potential tax evaders to crypto firms Coinbase, Kraken, Circle, and SFOX.

Fuller suggested the IRS could also be working on guidance for how customers who have lost money in FTX, or other crypto collapses, can claim their assets at a loss without having to wait for the full bankruptcy proceeding to play out. The agency created a rule for victims of theft and Ponzi schemes in 2009 following the Bernie Madoff case.

Lisa Zarlenga, a tax attorney and partner at Steptoe & Johnson in D.C., said she’s not as optimistic about the IRS making accommodations for FTX victims.

Court Greenlights IRS Access to Kraken’s Customer Data

“You're probably still in limbo because you're gonna have to wait for the bankruptcy to play out. You could recover something, and so it's not really a closed transaction yet. They haven't actually incurred the loss,” she told Decrypt. “Some people have talked about triggering a loss by abandoning something, but can you even abandon a crypto account?”

She’s gotten the sense that most customers would prefer to wait and see what they can get from the bankruptcy, even if it means they forgo any immediate benefit. As for the IRS sending a Justice Department attorney to represent it in the case, she said her initial thought was that the agency is getting in line to file its own claim. Why? FTX—or one of its 130 entities—could owe the government money, she said.

COVID REMAINS THE CAPITALI$T CRISIS

‘Kraken’ COVID symptoms: What to know about the strain sweeping through the U.S. and now in at least 28 other countries



Eleanor Pringle
Fri, January 6, 2023 

COVID hospitalizations in the U.S. have spiked 16.1% in the past week as a new "escaped" variant of the virus has continued to sweep across the country.

XBB.1.5— dubbed 'Kraken' by Canadian biology professor Dr. Ryan Gregory and his following in the Twitterverse—is the most transmissible COVID variant yet, according to the World Health Organization.

A risk assessment is currently being drawn up for the new mutant strain by WHO's technical advisory group on virus evolution, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead for COVID-19 response at the authority, said on Wednesday.

XBB.1.5 began alarming scientists at the tail end of last year after the number of Kraken cases in the U.S. rose from 1% of all cases at the start of December to 41% just three weeks later.

This week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projected that it comprised around 75% of infections in regions 1 and 2, which include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The strain is believed to be in at least 28 other countries—including Europe—with cases of XBB.1.5 now thought to make up 4% of COVID cases in the U.K.

What are the symptoms of 'Kraken' COVID variant XBB.1.5?

Dr. Allison Arwady, the Chicago Department of Public Health commissioner, said in a press conference on Tuesday that Kraken "basically just a combination of two of the earlier subtypes, two variants" from the Omicron strain.

She added that although XBB.1.5 is a new mutation its symptoms have not hugely changed because it is a descendant of the variant that was discovered in mid-2020.

Arwady explained: “We're seeing more people actually just have cold-like symptoms”—such as a runny nose, sore throat, cough and congestion—“but are less likely to have those flu-like, really feeling very sick [symptoms such as] the high fevers."

This is especially the case in people who are fully up to date on vaccines or who have preexisting immunity built up from having a COVID infection in the past.

More widely, the CDC's COVID symptoms to look out for are fever or chills, difficulty breathing, fatigue, body aches and headaches, loss in taste or smell, nausea, and diarrhea.

WHO researchers are currently focusing on the variant’s ability to quickly spread and overtake other strains of Omicron, but Van Kerkhove added that disease severity was also being explored.

There is not yet any evidence to suggest that Kraken prompts a more severe reaction, she said.

XBB.1.5 is causing concern as it binds tightly to the cells it infects, WHO officials added, which means the virus replicates easily in a host.

Does being vaccinated help protect against 'Kraken' COVID?

 Dr. Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., previously told Fortune that the best form of protection from mutations is to get a booster vaccination.

Speaking following the Omicron spawn BA.2.75, dubbed Centaurus, Rajnarayanan confirmed that escaped mutations such as Centaurus and Kraken are "immune evasive" to some extent—but won't be able to defy all of the human body's resistance.

https://twitter.com/mvankerkhove/status/1570752012660412416

Professor Paul Hunter, of the U.K.-based National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit, added that the extent to which Kraken can bypass immunization is not yet known.

Pavitra Roychoudhury, the director of COVID-19 Next Generation Sequencing at the University of Washington, told Forbes there are no "spectacular" measures members of the public should be taking bar the bivalent vaccine, which Roychoudhury described as the “best defense against severe illness”.
What has the impact been on health services?

The seven-day average to January 3 of COVID hospitalizations has increased 16.1% compared to the prior weekly rolling average, according to data from the CDC.

From Dec. 21 to 27, 2022, 5,613 people were admitted with positive COVID tests, compared to 6,519 from Dec. 28 to Jan. 3.

However this is still a far cry, down 69.7%, from the peak seven-day average in mid-January 2022 when 21,525 were admitted with COVID.

The WHO also reported a 20% increase in global COVID deaths Thursday over the past month; however, Van Kerkhove was quick to confirm that the trend—or variant—behind the deaths is unknown.

She added it could be due to more people meeting indoors around the public holidays as opposed to threats from a new and more dangerous strain.

Meet the biology professor who named the surging ‘Kraken’ COVID variant. He has more to help make sense of Omicron’s ‘alphabet soup’



Erin Prater
Thu, January 5, 2023 

Everyone knows the names of the major COVID variants Alpha, Delta, and Omicron. But last year, viral evolution shifted, muddying the waters as well as the names of the major variants. Instead of spawning new variants, COVID began evolving within Omicron itself—at a breakneck pace, no less. The organization responsible for figuring out what to call the latest variants of concern—the World Health Organization—stopped using Greek letters after Omicron, arguing that all the new variants weren’t different enough to warrant nicknames.

Do you remember the previously ubiquitous COVID strains BA.4, BA.5, or BQ.1.1? Have you heard of the currently surging XBB.1.5, and do you understand what the tangle of letters and numbers mean? You probably don't—and some experts say it's because of the names. You could be forgiven for thinking another strain of Omicron poses no new threat—especially if you’ve already had Omicron or received the new Omicron booster.

New strains of Omicron are becoming increasingly more transmissible and evasive, with the ability to dodge immunity from prior vaccination and infection. And using the term “Omicron” or something like XBB.1.5 to describe them just isn’t cutting it anymore, Dr. Ryan Gregory, a biology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, told Fortune.

“Kraken” is what he calls XBB.1.5, which the WHO just declared the most transmissible Omicron variant yet. For months, Gregory has worked to offer up “street names” for complicated COVID strains, in a bid to better communicate the evolving Omicron threat to the public.

And as pseudonyms go, he’s got a lot more where the kraken came from.

With input from both professional and “citizen” scientists around the globe, Gregory has compiled a list of memorable monikers from Greek mythology and other realms— Chiron, Argus, Basilisk, and Typhon—for the Omicron spawn that medical experts believe pose the greatest threats in the near future. He told Fortune he was inspired by a Twitter user who dubbed the Omicron strain BA.2.75 “Centaurus” this summer, and saw the media and some experts pick that up.

Since Gregory began using "Kraken"—an aggressive sea monster from Scandinavian folklore—shortly after Christmas, it's quickly gained steam, as reported by Bloomberg. The term has been picked up by a host of other international and national news outlets including Insider and Sky [hotlink ignore="true"]News. Centaurus was named in journal articles and used by the likes of Nature and the Guardian. And some variant trackers are now using the proposed names as hashtags on Twitter.

Gregory likened Omicron and its variants to different species within the mammal family of vertebrates.

“If you said, ‘Oh, what’s that thing in my yard?’ and I said, ‘It’s a mammal,’ you’d say, ‘Is it something that will eat me? Will it steal my vegetables? Does it carry disease? Is it somebody’s pet?'” he explained.

"Omicron" remains a useful descriptor, he maintained. But more than a year after the highly transmissible Omicron strain burst onto the global scene, someone needs to name new, concerning variants.

If the WHO won’t, he's decided, he will.

Gone are the days of Greek letters?

When COVID variants began materializing, the WHO devised the strategy of naming them after Greek letters, skipping some that might be confusing—like Nu, which sounds like “new,” which would apply to all variants at some point—or offensive to some, like Xi, the first name of China’s president.

Generally, the approach worked, Gregory said. But Omicron muddled matters.

Dr. Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., is on Gregory’s informal team to develop nicknames for particularly troublesome Omicron spin-offs.

Even as a seasoned scientist and professor, Rajnarayanan said he’s found it difficult to effectively communicate with nonscientists regarding the tangled mess of variants scientists are monitoring.

“When you keep calling 200 different lineages of different potential the same name, it becomes a problem,” he recently told Fortune.

Experts like Gregory and Rajnarayanan worry that a lack of a new and specific names for Omicron variants could lead members of the public to draw false conclusions—like that the virus isn’t evolving, or that a months-ago infection with Omicron will confer protection against newer strains of Omicron, which isn’t necessarily true.

‘The public can’t keep these numbers straight’

So far, the WHO has declined to give particularly concerning Omicron variants a Greek letter. Fortune reached out to the international health organization to ask why and didn’t receive a response.

Its resistance is based in science, since new Omicron variants can be traced back to older Omicron variants. But it’s not practical, Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research and founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told Fortune last fall.

“And it’s not a good defense for not naming them,” he added. “I would implore them to do so. The public can’t keep these numbers straight.”

Topol says he would have called BA.5, dominant globally until recently, Pi or Sigma because it’s “so distinct” from the original Omicron, BA.1, as well as the so-called stealth Omicron, or BA.2.

Two particularly worrying recent variants—BQ.1.1 and XBB—should also be assigned Greek letters because researchers have called them “extreme in terms of immune-evasiveness and resistance to monoclonal antibodies,” he said at the time.

“They could be given new Greek letter names instead of the ones some people invent,” he said of the new strains. “If different people are going to make up names, it’s going to be just as confusing as the numbers or letters.”

Basilisk here, Hydra there

When describing potentially threatening variants, the WHO currently uses so-called Pango lineages—combinations of letters and numbers you’ve likely heard of, like BA.2.75.2 and BA.4.6.

Pango labels have maintained their specificity as the virus mutates unrestrained, Gregory said. But such labels are almost too precise for the general public. And aside from being forgettable, they’re easily confused.

“When I talk to people, I say BA.1, they think I’m saying BL.1—and that’s a different variant,” Rajnarayanan said. “Even the two-letter system causes confusion.”

Gregory equates Pango names to technical species names, like Mus musculus for mouse or Rattus norvegicus for rat. Such technical names aren’t often used by the general public. Some species of animals, however—like Oncorhynchus mykiss, or rainbow trout—get a common name because “we encounter them a lot, they’re important to us, they’re dangerous or useful or delicious or whatever,” he said.

And so it should be with COVID variants, he contends. Particularly rampant, “high-flying” variants like XBB, a blend of BJ.1 and BM.1.1.1, should get a nickname—Gryphon, per his system—for ease of communicating the threat to the general public.

It’s especially important, he says, as a menagerie of Omicron spawn spike in different locations around the world in a fashion unlike any seen in the pandemic so far.

“If we want to make it clear that what’s rising in the U.K. is not the same as what’s rising in the U.S.—the ‘alphabet soup’ is going to be very difficult for that,” he said. He's convinced that if his system was adopted, with, say Basilisk and Cerberus in the U.K., and Hydra and Aeterna in the U.S., "you can immediately recognize which names are the same and which are not.”

If COVID keeps spawning new mutations, there are other lists of names to tap—planets, stars, constellations, galaxies, Gregory said.

What in the world will he think of next?

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Factbox-From BlockFi to Genesis, crypto firms reel from exposure to FTX


Thu, January 5, 2023 

(Reuters) - After the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the industry has felt a ripple effect due to the exposure of many companies to FTX and its affiliated trading firm Alameda Research. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on Jan. 3 pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that he cheated investors and caused billions of dollars in losses.

Here are some firms that have given information about their exposure to FTX.

BLOCKFI

BlockFi filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 28, weeks after the crypto lender said it was pausing client withdrawals. In July, FTX had signed a deal with an option to buy BlockFi for up to $240 million.

GENESIS

Genesis is working to preserve client assets and strengthen liquidity, it said in a letter to clients in December, adding that it would take "weeks rather than days" to form a plan.

The crypto lending arm of U.S. digital asset broker Genesis Trading suspended customer redemptions last month, citing the sudden failure of FTX.

Genesis said in a tweet on Nov. 10 that its derivatives business has approximately $175 million in locked funds on FTX.

However, Genesis had no material exposure to FTX's native token FTT, or any other tokens issued by centralized exchanges, the firm said in a tweet on Nov. 9.

BINANCE

Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao sparked concerns among investors on Nov. 6 when he said in a tweet that the crypto exchange would sell its holdings of FTT.

Zhao told a Twitter spaces event that Binance had previously held $580 million worth of FTT, of which "we only sold quite a small portion, we still hold a large bag."

Binance said on Nov. 13 that it had stopped accepting deposits of FTX's FTT token on its platform, urging other rival exchanges to do the same.

CELSIUS NETWORK

New York's attorney general filed a civil lawsuit accusing Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky of scheming to defraud hundreds of thousands of investors by inducing them to deposit billions of dollars in digital assets with his cryptocurrency company.

Between 2020 and 2022, under Mashinsky’s watch, Celsius made loans totaling roughly a billion dollars to Alameda Research, according to a filing.

COINBASE

Coinbase Global Inc said in a blog post on Nov. 8 that it had $15 million worth of deposits on FTX. It said it had no exposure to FTT or Alameda Research and no loans to FTX.

COINSHARES

Crypto asset manager CoinShares has $30.3 million worth of exposure to crypto exchange FTX, it said in a statement on Nov. 10.

CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti said the group's financial health remains "strong."

CRYPTO.COM

Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto.com said on Nov. 14 it had moved about $1 billion to FTX over the course of a year, but most of it was recovered and exposure at the time of FTX's collapse was less than $10 million.

CEO Kris Marszalek said the firm would prove wrong all naysayers who thought the platform was in trouble, adding it had a robust balance sheet and took no risks.

GALAXY DIGITAL

Crypto financial services company Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd said in its third-quarter earnings statement on Nov. 9 - the day after FTX froze withdrawals - that it had $76.8 million worth of exposure to FTX, of which $47.5 million was "in the withdrawal process."

GALOIS CAPITAL

Hedge fund Galois Capital had half its assets trapped on FTX, co-founder Kevin Zhou told investors in a recent letter, the Financial Times reported on Nov. 11, estimating the amount to be around $100 million.

The firm on Nov. 13 confirmed that it had up to $45 million in exposure to the now collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Bloomberg News reported.

KRAKEN

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken said on Nov. 10 that it held about 9,000 FTT tokens on the FTX exchange and was not affected "in any material way".

SILVERGATE CAPITAL CORP

Silvergate Capital Corp reported a sharp drop in fourth-quarter crypto-related deposits as investors spooked by FTX's collapse pulled out more than $8 billion in deposits.

The company said on Nov. 11 FTX represented less than 10% of $11.9 billion in deposits from all digital asset customers as of Sept. 30.

The financial solutions provider to digital assets also said Silvergate has no outstanding loans or investments in FTX.

VOYAGER DIGITAL

Bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, which was set to sell its assets to FTX after a $1.42 billion deal bid by the exchange in September, had a balance of approximately $3 million at FTX.

GRAYSCALE

Crypto asset manager Grayscale, whose flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is the world's largest bitcoin fund, told investors that the recent market events have had no impact on its product operations or the security of the holdings in its funds.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in London, Mehnaz Yasmin, Medha Singh Niket Nishant, and Manya Saini in Bengaluru and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Jan Harvey and Matthew Lewis)

U.S. prosecutors launch website for Bankman-Fried alleged fraud victims

Fri, January 6, 2023 
By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government plans to launch a website for victims of FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried's alleged fraud to communicate with law enforcement.

In court papers filed on Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan for permission to use the website to notify victims, rather than contacting each individually.

FTX could owe money to more than 1 million people, making it "impracticable" to contact each, the papers said.

Federal law requires prosecutors to contact possible crime victims to inform them of their rights, including the rights to obtain restitution, be heard in court and be protected from defendants.

Kaplan has yet to rule on the request, but the website had gone live by Friday afternoon.

"If you believe that you may have been a victim of fraud by Samuel Bankman-Fried, A/K/A/ 'SBF,' please contact the victim/witness coordinator at the United States Attorney's office," the website read.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bankman-Fried, 30, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of wire fraud and conspiracy over November's collapse of FTX.

Prosecutors have said he stole billions in FTX customer deposits to pay debts for his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and lied to investors about FTX's financial condition.

The onetime billionaire has acknowledged risk management shortcomings, but said he did not consider himself criminally liable.

Bankman-Fried's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York Editing by Leslie Adler)