Blocker Weekly: The scarcity of ETH will be comparable to gold; the well-known DeFi product Balancer is attacked
2020.6.29 Issue 27
Keywords in this issue: Balancer flash loan attack, five major risks of DeFi, PayPal provides encrypted currency services, Telegram repays more than 1.2 billion US dollars, Filecoin is expected to go online in August, DeFi lock-up exceeds 1.6 billion US dollars, DeFi introduces real assets, ETH scarcity, Bithumb IPO, Ethereum 2.0 test network, Yibang International listing, Curve, Uniswap.
According to the news on June 22, according to the data on DAppTotal.cn’s DeFi special page, the 38 DeFi projects that have been counted have a total locked-up fund of more than 1.6 billion US dollars, of which Compound’s locked-up value is 486 million US dollars, surpassing Maker’s 419 million US dollars, becoming a new Jin's DeFi brother. The main reason for the sharp increase in the locked value of Compound is that due to the influence of "borrowing is mining", the number of core locked tokens has shown a substantial increase, of which ETH locked rose from 293,000 to 963,000, an increase of More than 2 times, BAT locked positions increased from 7.9 million to 88.04 million, an increase of more than 10 times.
2. Sources say that payment giant PayPal is expected to provide cryptocurrency trading services in the next three months
On June 23, Coindesk cited three sources as saying that payment giant PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo plan to provide cryptocurrency buying and selling services for its 325 million users. A person familiar with the matter said that PayPal and Venmo will provide users with cryptocurrency storage services through some kind of built-in wallet function, and allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly on PayPal and Venmo. It is expected that PayPal will cooperate with several exchanges to obtain liquidity. Another person familiar with the matter said that PayPal's cryptocurrency buying and selling service is expected to launch within the next three months, if not sooner.
3. Bithumb operator Bithumb Korea seeks IPO through Samsung Securities
On June 24, according to local Korean media Moneytoday, Bithumb Korea, the operating entity that operates the South Korean encryption trading platform Bithumb, is seeking an IPO through Samsung Securities. Bithumb Korea was established in January 2014. The largest shareholder is Bithumb Holdings (formerly known as BTC Holding Company), holding 74.1% of the shares.
4. Ethereum 2.0 Altona v0.12 test network is expected to be launched next week
On June 26, Danny Ryan, the head of the Ethereum 2.0 project, wrote an article announcing the progress of Ethereum 2.0: 1. The new Solidity deposit contract has been officially verified and added to the bounty program; 2. The Ethereum 2.0 Altona v0.12 testnet is expected to Launch next week; 3. Continue to fund Sigma Prime, the development team of the Ethereum 2.0 client Lighthouse, to find bugs in all clients in the system.
5. Ebang International will be officially listed on Nasdaq today, with a final issue price of US$5.23 per share and a total issue size of approximately US$107.5 million
On June 26, according to Lianwen News, Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer Ebang International announced the details of its IPO, as follows: 1. It plans to sell 19,264,337 common shares at a price of US$5.23 per share, with a total issuance size of approximately US$100.75 million. Lianwen previously reported that Yibang International has a smooth road show and will be officially listed on June 26, becoming the "second mining machine stock" after Canaan. Ebang International's revenue in 2019 was US$109 million, a 66% decrease from US$319 million in 2018; Ebang International's loss in 2019 was US$41.07 million, an increase from the net loss of the same period last year.
6. Filecoin will determine the final parameters at the end of July, and the mainnet is expected to be launched before August 21
On June 26, Filecoin officially stated at the AMA event: 1. The 4 million testnet reward plan will start on July 20; 2. The team is working on implementing the NSE algorithm, proving that the upgrade will arrive and coexist after the mainnet is launched. AMD may be the best choice for SDR; 3. Before going online, there is no change in the algorithm and logic layer of Lotus and go-filecoin, just bug fixes, performance improvements, and UX improvements through new APIs and documentation; 4. SDR has been confirmed Available for mainnet launch, and we have no evidence of malicious construction. The algorithm is also undergoing internal and external security audits; 5. Will continue to make good progress towards mainnet launch with a view to closing our mainnet launch window (July 20, 2020 - August 21, 2020); 6. It is planned to determine the economic parameters close to the mainnet launch at the end of July.
7. Telegram founder claims to have repaid more than $1.2 billion to buyers directly or in the form of loans
On June 26, Lianwen News, Telegram founder Pavel Durov (Pavel Durov) said in response to the "settlement with the US SEC", "The proposed settlement reconfirms our commitment to repay the remaining funds to investors in accordance with the purchase agreement." Commitment of funds. We have repaid more than $1.2 billion to buyers directly or in the form of loans. We will continue to work on the development of our other projects and hope that the regulatory environment for blockchain technology in the United States will be more friendly to other projects in the future. "
8. Two liquidity pools on Balancer were attacked by flash loans and lost $500,000
On June 29th, Lianwen reported that the Balancer liquidity pool was attacked by a flash loan and lost 500,000 US dollars. The two token pools on Balancer that suffered losses were STA and STONK. At present, the liquidity of these two token pools has been exhausted. , it should be noted that both STA and STONK tokens are deflationary tokens, which means that this attack only affects the liquidity pool of deflationary tokens.
Before November 2019, MakerDAO only accepted ETH as collateral, and then successively accepted BAT, USDC, and WBTC as collateral. This time MakerDAO expanded the lending boundary to real assets, which seems to be ahead of other lending protocols. Why introduce real assets into DeFi? What problems can DeFi solve, and can it bring liquidity to real assets? Will breaking the barriers between the encrypted world and the real world become the way forward for DeFi? This article will attempt to answer these questions.
2. Known as "the Uniswap of the stable currency version", why is Curve important?
In just a few months, Curve.fi has become one of the biggest players in DeFi. As of June 20, its transaction volume has exceeded 47 million US dollars, a record high, and its total deposits have exceeded 25 million US dollars. Getting started with Curve is not easy, it requires a lot of knowledge, and this particular UI is also difficult to use. This article is for Curve beginners learning about DeFi and Crypto. It tries to answer a series of questions about how to get started with Curve and how it works for users.
3. 5 major risks that DeFi must know!
The development of DeFi is extremely hot. In a short period of time, a large amount of funds have poured in and gained a lot of attention. However, participating in DeFi is still a high-risk behavior. This article explains in detail the five major risks that DeFi must know.
4. Scarcity will be comparable to gold, investors bet on Ethereum 2.0
With the launch of Onyx, a test network version for the latest ETH 2.0 specification, and the arrival of Altona, a test network for end users, the first phase of ETH 2.0 seems to be coming to a close. Although the price of Ethereum has risen weakly recently, the overall market trend is still dominated by sideways; but at present, many basic indicators on the chain, including the growth of main network addresses, the adoption rate of tokens, etc., all show a relatively strong growth momentum . This article will combine the major economic transformation that ETH 2.0 is about to usher in, and analyze the underlying reasons why the market is highly optimistic about the upgrade of Ethereum.
In 2017, the price of Bitcoin ushered in an all-time high, reaching $20,093 on BitMex and breaking through $23,000 on the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange market. However, various data show that compared with two and a half years ago, although the current price of Bitcoin has shrunk by 52% from its peak, institutional investors' investment in BTC has increased significantly.
The cryptocurrency industry is flooded with a large amount of leverage provided by centralized and non-centralized platforms, and the accompanying problem is that once the market fluctuates, exchanges, custodians, and smart contracts will require people to call for margins in large numbers, resulting in liquidity. In short supply. Are these cryptographic leveraged products the same as the leveraged products that triggered the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis? Why do people need so much leverage? What caused the liquidity crunch? To explore these questions, this article will focus on leveraged DeFi protocols and PoS token leverage provided by the network.
3. Understand the economics of Ethereum 2.0: ETH will be scarce
Many investors believe in the investment rationality of BTC "digital gold", but they do not understand the investment rationality of ETH. The technical upgrade of Ethereum accompanying ETH 2.0 will have an important impact on its economy. For example, it strengthens the scarcity of ETH, further consolidates its monetary policy, reduces the issuance rate of ETH, burns transaction fees, or makes the inflation rate of ETH approach 0 earlier than Bitcoin.
1. Encrypted lending platform Celsius received a $10 million investment from Tether, with a post-money valuation of $150 million
On June 22, the encrypted lending platform Celsius Network announced that it has received a US$10 million investment from the stablecoin issuer Tether, which means that the post-investment valuation is close to US$150 million. Earlier this month Celsius Network launched a $15 million equity funding round with BnkToTheFuture, an online investment platform focused on fintech and crypto companies, at a valuation of $120 million at the time.
2. Cryptocurrency exchange CrossTower received $6 million in seed round financing
On June 22, cryptocurrency exchange CrossTower received $6 million in seed round financing, led by Gerard Lopez. Launched in May of this year, CrossTower currently supports ten of the most widely traded cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, USDC, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Stellar Lumens, Chainlink, Basic Attention Token and ZCash. CrossTower stated that its co-founder and CEO Kapil Rathi has held senior leadership positions in institutions such as the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). COO.
3. On-chain options platform Opyn completed a financing of US$2.16 million, led by Dragonfly Capital
On June 22, according to Lianwen News, the on-chain options platform Opyn announced the completion of a financing of US$2.16 million, led by Dragonfly Capital. Other investors included Version One Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures, 1kx, a_Capital, DTC Capital, CoinFund, and Individual investors Balaji Srinivasan, Robert Leshner (CEO of Compound), Dylan Field and Linda Xie, among others. Opyn said it will use the funds to expand its team, hire core staff, and further develop the protocol and improve security.
4. Options trading platform Sparrow received US$3.5 million in Series A financing, led by HDR Group, the parent company of BitMEX
On June 23, Lianwen News, the options trading platform Sparrow announced that it has received US$3.5 million in Series A financing. This round of financing was led by its owner and BitMEX parent company HDR Group, and Signum Capital, Du Capital and FinLab EOS VC participated in the investment . Sparrow CEO Kenneth Yeo said, "Sparrow has tripled its transaction volume since the beginning of this year. We will use this round of financing to develop more products."
5. Braintrust, a freelance market, completed a $6 million seed round of financing to build workforce solutions through blockchain
On June 25, Lianwen News, the freelance market Braintrust announced that it has received US$6 million in seed round financing. Investors include True Ventures, Homebrew Ventures, Uprising Ventures, Galaxy Digital, IDEO CoLab, Kindred Ventures and Vy Capital. A number of angel investors also participated in the round, including Adobe CEO Scott Belsky, Instagram CTO James Everingham and TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown Philpot.
Braintrust's purpose is to help employers find highly skilled technical talent that is difficult to hire and retain in traditional markets. Braintrust's talent pool is rigorously vetted and includes people who have worked for years at top companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Google, or who have recently left from AirBnB, Uber, and other major tech companies. For enterprise customers, Braintrust can dramatically reduce costs and pair with vetted talent that can be onboarded quickly and create value so businesses can reinvest in innovation.
6. W3BCloud, a joint venture between chip giant AMD and ConsenSys, completed an initial financing of US$20.5 million
On June 25th, Lianwen News, according to the Irish Times, W3BCloud, a joint venture between chip giant AMD and Ethereum developer ConsenSys, has completed $20.5 million in financing, which will be used to launch a decentralized data center network globally. Wael Aburida, co-founder and chief information officer of W3BCloud, said the company plans to have 40 data centers in operation within four years, at least one of which is located in Ireland. W3bCloud said it has raised an initial $20.5 million in convertible notes from its parent company and plans to raise another $9.5 million soon.
W3BCLOUD uses ConsenSys' software development experience in the blockchain field to develop a blockchain data center solution based on AMD hardware. The partners said that the blockchain data center solution developed by W3BCLOUD will mainly address the needs of enterprises and governments for cloud computing blockchain infrastructure.
7. AVA Labs completed $12 million token private placement financing, led by Galaxy Digital, NGC, Bitmain, etc.
On June 25, AVA Labs, a decentralized service platform, completed a $12 million private placement of AVAX tokens. Five institutions including Galaxy Digital, Bitmain, Initialized Capital, NGC Ventures, and Dragonfly Capital led the investment this time. Continue Capital, Fundamental Labs, SNZ, Youbi and other institutions and individuals also participated in this investment.
AVA Labs co-founder and chief operating officer Kevin Sekniqi said the new funds will be used for further development of the AVA blockchain network, whose mainnet will launch in July. So far, AVA's financing amount has reached 18 million US dollars. Last year, AVA received 6 million US dollars in financing from a16z, Polychain Capital and other institutions. AVA's public token sale will begin on July 8 and will last at least two weeks.
Disclaimer: The Blockchain Institute is organized based on public information and does not represent the position of the Blockchain Institute (official account), nor does it constitute any investment opinion or suggestion.
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Disclaimer: The Blockchain Institute is organized based on public information and does not represent the position of the Blockchain Institute (official account), nor does it constitute any investment opinion or suggestion.
