his week's Crypto Biz examines a number of topics, including Worldcoin's operator payment system enhancements, BlackRock's recent moves regarding Bitcoin ETFs, and BlockFi's comeback from bankruptcy.

This week, cryptocurrency lender BlockFi declared its bankruptcy, after FTX's announcement a few days earlier that it had successfully retrieved assets valued at almost $7 billion. 

FTX debtors, which include both FTX and its affiliates, believe that $8.7 billion in client funds have been embezzled. One of the exchange's biggest creditors,

BlockFi has financed FTX more than $650 million, therefore the success of its customers' repayments is dependent on FTX's capacity to reclaim its assets.

The new management of FTX is also carefully weighing its alternatives for the future, which include selling the exchange as a whole (along with its large customer base of over nine million) or joining up with another organisation to bring the exchange back to life. 

There is also a chance for an independent resurgence.Conversely, BlockFi has no choice.

This week's Crypto Biz examines the rise of BlockFi from bankruptcy, the evolution of BlackRock's spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), and modifications to Worldcoin's payment system.

For the creditors of some of the bankrupt enterprises from the 2022 crypto bear market, there is finally hope. A year or so after declaring bankruptcy, businesses like FTX and BlockFi have begun to reimburse their clients for their money.

Bloomberg analyst: BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF is now available on the Nasdaq trading clearing company.

The BlackRock-sponsored iShares spot Bitcoin ETF is now listed on the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), indicating that the US Securities and Exchange Commission may approve it.

Eric Balchunas,a Bloomberg ETF analyst, stated in an Oct. 23 X (formerly Twitter) thread that the DTCC listing was all part of the process" of launching a cryptocurrency ETF. "There are no other ETFs listed on DTCC as of yet; this is the first spot ETF," Balchunas stated.

Balchunas conjectured that BlackRock might have already gotten the go-ahead from the SEC to list the ETF or was "getting everything ready assuming so."

The SEC has until January 10, 2024, based on the date of BlackRock's application, to make a final determination about approval or denail  of the ETF.

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BlockFi files for bankruptcy and allows withdrawals from wallets.

According to a blog post on October 24, cryptocurrency lending firm BlockFi has declared bankruptcy and is prepared to reimburse some of its debtors.

According to the statement, withdrawals "are currently available to nearly all Wallet customers." Users of BlockFi Interest Accounts and Loans will also be able to take out portion of their assets in early 2024. 

With its bankruptcy filing, BlockFi is now able to pursue asset recovery from companies it believes owe it money. This covers defunct cryptocurrency exchanges like FTX and Three Arrows Capital. Among other things, the final amount of money
disbursed will depend on how well BlockFi performs in the FTX bankruptcy proceedings.

A cloud-based private key recovery tool is released by Ledger hardware wallet.

Ledger, a hardware wallet company, is releasing its cloud-based private key recovery solution in spite of harsh criticism from the cryptocurrency community. 

Users can back up their secret recovery phrase using a premium subscription service offered by blockchain protection platform Coincover. The launch occurs several months after Ledger, 

In response to criticism from the community, put a halt to the recovery service in May 2023. 

Following this, Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier declared that the company would not release the device unless its open-source code was made available. You may now find the Ledger Recover's code on GitHub.

As early as next month, Worldcoin plans to phase out USD Coin (USDC) and start paying its Orb Operators (those who are paid for scanning people's eyes) with its native Worldcoin (WLD) currency.

Most jurisdictions will be impacted by the change. Following the project's formal debut on July 24, Worldcoin indicated that the decision to pay orb operators only in WLD was a part of a "transitional phase. 

According to data from Worldcoin's official Dune Analytics dashboard,

there are currently over 134 million WLD tokens in circulation, up from about 100 million upon launch.

DISCLAIMER: We don't provide any investment advice.