This is a weekly feature that will review your week in crypto, blockchain, and Web3, offering insights and analysis. Check out our previous column here.

Apologies, layoffs and crypto prices dominated this week as FTX-induced contagion continued to spread through the industry.

Late last week, the Sam Bankman-Fried apology tour kicked off, with the former FTX boss saying he was sorry, but adding that he wasn’t aware of some of the accounting issues on the exchange, like the $ hole. 8 billion on the balance sheet. and blame other companies for their downfall.

His apologies have not impressed everyone, or probably no one.

market effects

Of course, apologies are necessary because Bankman-Fried’s actions, or inactions (it really doesn’t matter which), have caused real-world damage. Not only have FTX clients perhaps lost all their investments, but even those outside of FTX are feeling the pinch. One need go no further than to look at the layoffs in crypto over the past week.

Cryptocurrency exchanges Kraken, Bybit, and Swyftx announced that they would lay off 30% or more of their staff.

In a letter to employees, the Swyftx chief executive cited the possibility of more “black swan events” and trading volumes likely to drop in the first half of 2023 as the reasons for the cuts, according to Bloomberg.

Also this week, Boston-based Circle Internet Financial canceled its proposed merger deal with special-purpose acquisition firm Concord Acquisition Corp., ending a year-and-a-half-long SPAC saga that would have valued the company at $9 billion.

It’s not too risky to think that Circle thought this might not be the best time for a stablecoin issuer to hit the public markets.

To top it off, this week also saw Standard Chartered issue a note outlining a scenario where Bitcoin could drop as low as $5,000.

That would be a 70% drop from the price of around $17,000 that it has stayed at since the FTX debacle came to light, which was a drop from the $20,000 it was at in early November.

While others are much more optimistic, even outlandishly, it is not hard to imagine a further drop in cryptocurrency prices, especially considering all that has happened in the industry.

That could well mean more business changes at crypto companies and more layoffs and, of course, more apologies from those who helped cause it all.

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Illustration: Dom Guzmán