Not everyone in crypto is white knuckles about the eventual crypto regulatory regime to come out of Washington, D.C., Brady writes.

What they're saying: "I do think the worst-case scenario was avoided. The worst-case scenario is a massive regulatory overreaction that sets crypto back to low lows," BEW, a founding member of Yunt Capital (more on them below) tells Axios in a phone call.

Why it matters: It appears that the Biden administration is knives out for the cryptocurrency industry as 2023 begins, but it was never the White House that scared the crew at Yunt. It was Congress.

• "I guess I'm less worried about agencies doing regulation by enforcement. My bigger worry was Congress actually passing a sweeping draconian bill in the aftermath of FTX," BEW says.

The latest: That anxiety was palpable on the fund's first podcast after FTX went bankrupt, but he now thinks it's been long enough that the industry has dodged that bullet.

The big picture: The overreaction that BEW feared was based on the prevailing narrative about crypto's disastrous year of 2022—which culminated in the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange, FTX: that its collapse reflected something about the fundamental nature of blockchain technology.

• "At the end of the day, people that wanna commit fraud are gonna commit fraud. It's not like Bernie Madoff needed crypto," BEW says.
• "Crypto will get blamed for what was ultimately a very TradFi crime."
• SBF pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges in New York last month and will face trial in October.

The bottom line: BEW disagrees with those who feel crypto is good for nothing. For example, he says NFTs have onboarded lots of new people to crypto because the digital items make them feel something.

• "There are still a lot of very smart people that I fundamentally believe are going to lay the foundations for a new way of using the internet," he says.

Go deeper.

"Yunt" is slang for, basically, embracing risk.

Yunt Capital came together as a bunch of anonymous accounts who found each other in various Discord chats and realized they aligned, Brady writes.

• They eventually started their own Discord server, and then the folks in that group started to realize that they could get deal flow together, so they made it official.

Details: BEW (from the 1 big thing), who is a founding member, describes Yunt as a fund that basically memed itself into existence.

• "I guess it was one of those things where if you pretend to do things long enough people believe, like, that you do it," BEW says.
• They started up an organization under Wyoming's DAO law. To preserve anonymity, each member joins as a standalone LLC, so the government knows who they are but other members mostly don't. That's in the DNA of the organization.
• Unlike some funds, Yunt is self-funded. BEW said they have no interest in outside money. Each member brings their own assets and joins the deals they want as opportunities arise.

Yunt was born out of 2020's DeFi Summer and 2021's crypto boom, when people started to get excited about decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). That era reflected a unique time, BEW says, one that might not come again.

• BEW says, "It was this genuine opportunity for anyone to show up and prove they had something of value to say or contribute and having that being rewarded."

The main characters involved in Genesis' Chapter 11 bankruptcy have agreed in principle to a tentative restructuring plan, Crystal writes.

Driving the news: Genesis, its parent Digital Currency Group (DCG), and creditors including its Earn partner Gemini, said the plan was a major step in the process to maximize what could be recouped.

Between the lines: For Gemini, the exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the plan still leaves a question of how much customers — specifically those with $900 million collectively frozen in the yield-generating Earn program — will recoup minus bankruptcy-related expenses.

• It would appear that Gemini is earmarking money for Earn customers, says Mark Pfeiffer, bankruptcy attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, which is not involved in the case.
• The agreement would be a "big step," he tells Axios.
• "Any customer who takes the money might be deemed to release Gemini [from further claims and lawsuits]. That’s a likely component of the deal."

Of note: Gemini has agreed to contribute up to $100 million in additional funds to Earn users as part of the plan.

Details: The infamous $1.1 billion promissory note due to mature in 2032 — previously held out to others as almost as good as cash — would be turned into convertible preferred stock issued by DCG.

• DCG would also refinance its existing 2023 term loans through a new, junior secured term loan in two tranches totaling roughly $500 million, the companies said.
• Once the lending book is closed down,  DCG will attempt to sell Genesis to a new owner.
• The finer details of the plan are expected to be filed soon.

What they're saying: Not much except congratulations for a plan that hasn't been completely approved yet.

The bottom line: While an agreed-upon plan is a big step for bankruptcy proceedings, there are still some steps between a plan and the distribution of funds.

• Genesis still has to present the plan and the disclosure statement.
• A court has to determine if it contains adequate information. If the court determines that it does, it will approve the distribution of the disclosure statement, a prospectus with estimates, to the creditors.

And lastly, creditors will be given an opportunity to be for the plan, or object to it.

💵 Binance temporarily suspends U.S. dollar bank transfers. (Axios)

⛏ Hut8 and US Bitcoin Corp. merge in an all-stock deal, falling just short of a billion-dollar market cap. (Bloomberg)

🤡 SBF is permitted by the court to contact some former FTX employees. (Decrypt)