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Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, speaking at a 2018 Bloomberg event in Hong Kong, China.

Paul Yeung | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The boss of cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com took to YouTube Monday to reassure users of his platform after the stunning collapse of rival firm FTX sparked fears of a market contagion.

In an “AMA” (ask me anything) on YouTube, the platform’s CEO Kris Marszalek said that his company had a “tremendously strong balance sheet” and that it wasn’t engaged in the kinds of practices that led to the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX last week.

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“Our platform is performing business as usual,” Marszalek said in the AMA. “People are depositing, people are withdrawing, people are trading, there’s pretty much normal activity just at a heightened level.”

FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday after concerns over the company’s financial health resulted in a run on the exchange and a plunge in the value of its native FTT token. FTX tried to reach a deal to be acquired by Binance, the largest venue for trading digital assets, but this fell apart after Binance backed out citing reports of mishandled customer funds and alleged U.S. government investigations into FTX.

Alameda Research, FTX’s sister company, borrowed billions in customer funds from the exchange to ensure it had enough funds on hand to process withdrawals, CNBC reported Sunday. Bankman-Fried declined to comment on allegations of misappropriating customer funds but said its recent bankruptcy filing was the result of issues with a leveraged trading position.

“We never engage as a company in any irresponsible lending practices, we never took any third-party risks,” Marszalek said Monday. “We do not run a hedge fund, we do not trade customers’ assets. We always had 1-to-1 reserves,” he added.

Binance, Crypto.com CEOs race to reassure customers funds are safe

His comments come after the revelation Sunday that Crypto.com mistakenly sent $400 million worth of the ether cryptocurrency to Gate.io, another crypto exchange, in October, a mishap that raised fears Crypto.com users’ funds may be at risk.

Crypto.com and Gate.io said they were sent by mistake and were quickly returned to Crypto.com after the error was identified. Marszalek tweeted Sunday that the firm had meant to send the funds to its “cold wallet” — meaning an offline cryptocurrency wallet — but were instead moved to a whitelisted corporate account with Gate.io. In its own statement, Gate.io said the transactions were the result of an “operation error transfer” and that all assets have since been returned to Crypto.com.

“In this particular case the whitelisted address belonged to one of our corporate accounts in a 3rd party exchange instead of our cold wallet,” he added. “We have since strengthened our process and systems to better manage these internal transfers.”

That did little to assuage investor concerns, however, with traders speculating Crypto.com may be facing liquidity issues of its own and dipping into customer funds after the FTX collapse. Marszalek pushed back on claims it was misappropriating users’ funds Monday, stating in the AMA that “we do not trade customers’ assets.”

“We will just continue with our business as usual, and we will prove all the naysayers – and there is many of these right now on Twitter in the last couple of days – we’ll prove them all wrong with our actions,” Marszalek said.

“We’ll continue operating as we have always operated to continue being a safe and secure place where everybody can access crypto.”

Analysis of public blockchain data shared with CNBC by data firm Argus shows that, from 7 p.m. ET Saturday through 6.30 a.m. ET Monday, a net $68 million in ether and $120 million in other tokens was withdrawn from Crypto.com by its users. Over that same timeframe, Crypto.com added $62 million in ether and $140 million of other digital assets to meet the withdrawals, according to Argus.

“To its credit, Crypto.com continues to have the funds to meet these withdrawals, lending further credence to its CEO’s claims that their assets are backed 1:1,” Owen Rapaport, co-founder and CEO of Argus, told CNBC via email.

Crypto.com is one of numerous exchanges that have committed to providing a breakdown of the reserves that back customer assets to reassure users after the bankruptcy of FTX.

Marszalek said he expects Crypto.com to publish an audited “proof of reserves” within the next 30 days. He said he understands users’ wish to see the audit released sooner, but that auditing firms “don’t operate on crypto speed.”

“The objective of the audit is to verify independently that every single coin on the platform is matched by our reserves,” he said.

Last week, an unaudited proof of reserves handled by blockchain analysis firm Nansen showed that Crypto.com held 20% of its assets in shiba inu, a so-called “meme token.” Asked about this Monday, Marszalek said this was just a reflection of the assets Crypto.com customers were buying.

“We store whatever our customers buy and it so happens that last year doge and shib were two extremely hot meme coins,” he said. “As long as our users are holding it, we will be holding it. We have no control over what you guys buy.”

He added that Crypto.com has never used its CRO token as collateral for any loans in its history. A source told CNBC previously that Bankman-Fried’s Alameda was borrowing from FTX and using the exchange’s FTT token to back those loans.

Marszalek admitted that Crypto.com had transferred $1 billion to FTX over a year but that this was aimed at “hedging” customers’ orders. Crypto.com “only had exposure of under $10 million when FTX shut down,” he added.

“The way the brokerage part of our business works is that, every time a customer places an order to buy or sell, we have multiple venues where we could hedge this order and we pick the most cost efficient one with [the] best liquidity, lowest cost so we can pass on these savings to our customers,” Crypto.com‘s CEO said.

“This means that we are not taking any market risk, we are always market neutral. But it also means there must be fund flows between our venue and other venues in the industry and FTX was one of them.”

Crypto.com has 70 million users globally and made revenues of $1 billion annually in both 2021 and 2022, according to Marszalek. The company made headlines in 2021 for some mega marketing deals, including the rebranding of the Staples Center sports stadium to Crypto.com Arena and a commercial featuring celebrity actor Matt Damon.

– CNBC’s Kate Rooney and Paige Tortorelli

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Etsy touts ‘shopping domestically’ as Trump tariffs threaten price increases for imports

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Etsy touts 'shopping domestically' as Trump tariffs threaten price increases for imports

An employee walks past a quilt displaying Etsy Inc. signage at the company’s headquarters in the Brooklyn.

Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Etsy is trying to make it easier for shoppers to purchase products from local merchants and avoid the extra cost of imports as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs raise concerns about soaring prices.

In a post to Etsy’s website on Thursday, CEO Josh Silverman said the company is “surfacing new ways for buyers to discover businesses in their countries” via shopping pages and by featuring local sellers on its website and app.

“While we continue to nurture and enable cross-border trade on Etsy, we understand that people are increasingly interested in shopping domestically,” Silverman said.

Etsy operates an online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers with mostly artisanal and handcrafted goods. The site, which had 5.6 million active sellers as of the end of December, competes with e-commerce juggernaut Amazon, as well as newer entrants that have ties to China like Temu, Shein and TikTok Shop.

By highlighting local sellers, Etsy could relieve some shoppers from having to pay higher prices induced by President Trump’s widespread tariffs on trade partners. Trump has imposed tariffs on most foreign countries, with China facing a rate of 145%, and other nations facing 10% rates after he instituted a 90-day pause to allow for negotiations. Trump also signed an executive order that will end the de minimis provision, a loophole for low-value shipments often used by online businesses, on May 2.

Temu and Shein have already announced they plan to raise prices late next week in response to the tariffs. Sellers on Amazon’s third-party marketplace, many of whom source their products from China, have said they’re considering raising prices.

Silverman said Etsy has provided guidance for its sellers to help them “run their businesses with as little disruption as possible” in the wake of tariffs and changes to the de minimis exemption.

Before Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs took effect, Silverman said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in late February that he expects Etsy to benefit from the tariffs and de minimis restrictions because it “has much less dependence on products coming in from China.”

“We’re doing whatever work we can do to anticipate and prepare for come what may,” Silverman said at the time. “In general, though, I think Etsy will be more resilient than many of our competitors in these situations.”

Still, American shoppers may face higher prices on Etsy as U.S. businesses that source their products or components from China pass some of those costs on to consumers.

Etsy shares are down 17% this year, slightly more than the Nasdaq.

WATCH: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says sellers will pass cost of tariffs on to consumers

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: Sellers will pass increased tariff costs on to consumers

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Google hit with second antitrust blow, adding to concerns about future of ads business

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Google hit with second antitrust blow, adding to concerns about future of ads business

Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

Google’s antitrust woes are continuing to mount, just as the company tries to brace for a future dominated by artificial intelligence.

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Google held illegal monopolies in online advertising markets due to its position between ad buyers and sellers.

The ruling, which followed a September trial in Alexandria, Virginia, represents a second major antitrust blow for Google in under a year. In August, a judge determined the company has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search, the most-significant antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. 

Google is in a particularly precarious spot as it tries to simultaneously defend its primary business in court while fending off an onslaught of new competition due to the emergence of generative AI, most notably OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which offers users alternative ways to search for information. Revenue growth has cooled in recent years, and Google also now faces the added potential of a slowdown in ad spending due to economic concerns from President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs.

Parent company Alphabet reports first-quarter results next week. Alphabet’s stock price dipped more than 1% on Thursday and is now down 20% this year.

Why Google's antitrust woes endangers its AI momentum

In Thursday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said Google’s anticompetitive practices “substantially harmed” publishers and users on the web. The trial featured 39 live witnesses, depositions from an additional 20 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits.

Judge Brinkema ruled that Google unlawfully controls two of the three parts of the advertising technology market: the publisher ad server market and ad exchange market. Brinkema dismissed the third part of the case, determining that tools used for general display advertising can’t clearly be defined as Google’s own market. In particular, the judge cited the purchases of DoubleClick and Admeld and said the government failed to show those “acquisitions were anticompetitive.”

“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president or regulatory affairs, said in an emailed statement. “We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press release from the DOJ that the ruling represents a “landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square.”

Potential ad disruption

If regulators force the company to divest parts of the ad-tech business, as the Justice Department has requested, it could open up opportunities for smaller players and other competitors to fill the void and snap up valuable market share. Amazon has been growing its ad business in recent years.

Meanwhile, Google is still defending itself against claims that its search has acted as a monopoly by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance. Google said in August, immediately after the search case ruling, that it would appeal, meaning the matter can play out in court for years even after the remedies are determined.

The remedies trial, which will lay out the consequences, begins next week. The Justice Department is aiming for a break up of Google’s Chrome browser and eliminating exclusive agreements, like its deal with Apple for search on iPhones. The judge is expected to make the ruling by August.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai (L) and Apple CEO Tim Cook (R) listen as U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a roundtable with American and Indian business leaders in the East Room of the White House on June 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

After the ad market ruling on Thursday, Gartner’s Andrew Frank said Google’s “conflicts of interest” are apparent by how the market runs.

“The structure has been decades in the making,” Frank said, adding that “untangling that would be a significant challenge, particularly since lawyers don’t tend to be system architects.”

However, the uncertainty that comes with a potentially years-long appeals process means many publishers and advertisers will be waiting to see how things shake out before making any big decisions given how much they rely on Google’s technology.

“Google will have incentives to encourage more competition possibly by loosening certain restrictions on certain media it controls, YouTube being one of them,” Frank said. “Those kind of incentives may create opportunities for other publishers or ad tech players.”

A date for the remedies trial hasn’t been set.

Damian Rollison, senior director of market insights for marketing platform Soci, said the revenue hit from the ad market case could be more dramatic than the impact from the search case.

“The company stands to lose a lot more in material terms if its ad business, long its main source of revenue, is broken up,” Rollison said in an email. “Whereas divisions like Chrome are more strategically important.”

WATCH: U.S. judge finds Google holds illegal online ad-tech monopolies

U.S. judge finds Google holds illegal online ad tech monopolies

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Discord sued by New Jersey over child safety features

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Discord sued by New Jersey over child safety features

Jason Citron, CEO of Discord in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2024.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

The New Jersey attorney general sued Discord on Thursday, alleging that the company misled consumers about child safety features on the gaming-centric social messaging app.

The lawsuit, filed in the New Jersey Superior Court by Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the state’s division of consumer affairs, alleges that Discord violated the state’s consumer fraud laws.

Discord did so, the complaint said, by allegedly “misleading children and parents from New Jersey” about safety features, “obscuring” the risks children face on the platform and failing to enforce its minimum age requirement.

“Discord’s strategy of employing difficult to navigate and ambiguous safety settings to lull parents and children into a false sense of safety, when Discord knew well that children on the Application were being targeted and exploited, are unconscionable and/or abusive commercial acts or practices,” lawyers wrote in the legal filing.

They alleged that Discord’s acts and practices were “offensive to public policy.”

A Discord spokesperson said in a statement that the company disputes the allegations and that it is “proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer.”

“Given our engagement with the Attorney General’s office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today,” the spokesperson said.

One of the lawsuit’s allegations centers around Discord’s age-verification process, which the plaintiffs believe is flawed, writing that children under thirteen can easily lie about their age to bypass the app’s minimum age requirement.

The lawsuit also alleges that Discord misled parents to believe that its so-called Safe Direct Messaging feature “was designed to automatically scan and delete all private messages containing explicit media content.” The lawyers claim that Discord misrepresented the efficacy of that safety tool.

“By default, direct messages between ‘friends’ were not scanned at all,” the complaint stated. “But even when Safe Direct Messaging filters were enabled, children were still exposed to child sexual abuse material, videos depicting violence or terror, and other harmful content.”

The New Jersey attorney general is seeking unspecified civil penalties against Discord, according to the complaint.

The filing marks the latest lawsuit brought by various state attorneys general around the country against social media companies.

In 2023, a bipartisan coalition of over 40 state attorneys general sued Meta over allegations that the company knowingly implemented addictive features across apps like Facebook and Instagram that harm the mental well being of children and young adults.

The New Mexico attorney general sued Snap in Sep. 2024 over allegations that Snapchat’s design features have made it easy for predators to easily target children through sextortion schemes.

The following month, a bipartisan group of over a dozen state attorneys general filed lawsuits against TikTok over allegations that the app misleads consumers that its safe for children. In one particular lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia’s attorney general, lawyers allege that the ByteDance-owned app maintains a virtual currency that “substantially harms children” and a  livestreaming feature that “exploits them financially.”

In January 2024, executives from Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X were grilled by lawmakers during a senate hearing over allegations that the companies failed to protect children on their respective social media platforms.

WATCH: The FTC has an uphill battle in its antitrust case against Meta.

The FTC has an uphill battle in its antitrust case against Meta: Former Facebook general counsel

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