The FTX fallout continues to ripple across the crypto space and sadly it has started to affect coins/tokens that really really had nothing to do with it. Crypto Reddit exploded today when the first people saw that Gemini was down after initial panic wore off Gemini's team released details about what had happened. While Gemini itself is not the issue what is in trouble is their lending partner for the Earn program Genesis (Genesis Global Capital, LLC) has paused withdrawals resulting in Gemini not being able to redeem their Earn balances within the service-level agreement of 5 business days.
It is important to note that as of this writing the impact does not affect any other Gemini products or services including Gemini Staking which is separate from the Earn product. For U.S. users though this isn't a great thing as a ton of people in the Brave Community page had lent their BAT via the Earn function on Gemini. Due to laws and regulations users across the world still have to collect their BAT via these centralized exchanges often with Uphold or Gemini being the only two options.
Previously, the Brave team addressed this issue and was very transparent about having to go above and beyond rules and regulations to ensure they were clear, especially since regulation is still often lacking in most jurisdictions. While I would typically say this would hopefully speed up Brave moving to allow users to claim with something like a Ledger cold storage wallet or Metamask the rules and regulations have yet to change in the last year so I do not see how that would be possible. It is an unfortunate development and might lead to me actually disconnecting my Gemini and Uphold accounts to accumulate as an unverified wallet in hopes that they come up with some sort of solution.
Given the current situation with centralized exchanges and my job on Capital Hill, it is primed to be addressed at the beginning of next year. Sadly there is just not enough time this Congress/year to get this addressed however this is something that both sides are looking to address at the beginning of next year and to move on. For everyone out there though this serves as a warning that centralized exchanges are not our friends and hopefully this can be addressed via legislation soon to allow Brave users like myself to not have to rely on them.
Please know I am not a financial advisor and make sure you do your own research! If you enjoyed this article and would like to support me further below are a few referral links that if you used when signing up I would appreciate it! Also, follow me on Twitter @Cje95_
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