| Fed raises interest rates by 25 basis points; Jack Dorsey's decentralized social media service goes live (February 2)

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Odaily News The Federal Reserve FOMC statement: the interest rate on reserve balances will be raised from 4.40% to 4.65%, and the rate increase will be 25 basis points. (Golden Ten)

Jack Dorsey: Nostr-based social products Damus and Amethyst are officially launched

Odaily News Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted that the social products Damus and Amethyst based on the distributed social media protocol Nostr have been officially released in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Jack Dorsey: Nostr-based social products Damus and Amethyst are officially launched

Odaily News Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted that the social products Damus and Amethyst based on the distributed social media protocol Nostr have been officially released in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Eligible users will also receive specific information on gas and transaction fees associated with withdrawal activities. Eligible users who do not have sufficient assets in their accounts to cover these fees will not be allowed to withdraw their assets. Eligible users can expect to receive an email from Celsius and notification of the Celsius app release around February 15th.

Industry news

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Industry news
CME Bitcoin Options Volume and Open Interest Record Highs in January

Odaily News The Block Research data shows that in January this year, the Bitcoin options trading volume and open interest of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) hit a record high. As of Tuesday, CME’s Bitcoin options volume for January reached $1.1 billion, with open interest exceeding $736 million.

Institutional trading firms are shunning unregulated or semi-regulated platforms in the wake of FTX's bankruptcy, and their caution may be one reason for the surge in trading volumes at CME, said Steven Zheng, head of research at The Block. CME offers Bitcoin and Ethereum options and futures trading. Compared with cryptocurrency futures, institutional investors prefer encrypted option products. (The Block)
UK Treasury to seek public comment on plans to regulate crypto trading platforms

Odaily News The UK Treasury will publish a consultation paper on Wednesday outlining plans to regulate cryptocurrency trading platforms and lenders. The new Treasury proposal would put cryptocurrency trading platforms in charge of defining detailed content requirements for admission and disclosure documents, ensuring that cryptocurrency trading platforms have “fair and robust standards” and implying regulation of financial intermediaries and custodians more stringent.

Additionally, the U.K. Treasury said it would introduce a "time-limited exemption" that would enable crypto-asset businesses registered with the U.K. financial watchdog under its anti-money laundering regime to temporarily publish promotional information while the regime is being introduced. The Treasury said the consultation would be open for public consultation until April 30. (CoinDesk)
India to Maintain Strict Crypto Tax Rules in Budget 2023
Odaily News India has kept strict encryption tax rules unchanged in 2023. In fact, the country’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, made no mention of cryptocurrencies, virtual digital assets, or central bank digital currency (i.e. the digital rupee) when she unveiled the state budget, which revealed the latest tax rules.

Last year, India introduced strict taxes on crypto transactions: a 30% tax on profits and a 1% source tax (TDS) on all transactions. After that, cryptocurrency trading volumes plummeted almost immediately. Interest in cryptocurrencies has plummeted after Indian investors moved more than $3.8 billion in trading volume from home to foreign cryptocurrency exchanges in the nine months after the announcement.

As previously reported, several people in the field of crypto regulation have publicly stated that they want tax cuts, but privately think this is unlikely. The main demand from the industry and the recommendation of policy think tanks is to reduce the TDS to 0.01%, or at least to 0.1%. (CoinDesk)
Foreign media: South Korea's Financial Commission requires the country's five major encryption exchanges to delist virtual assets with securities properties
Odaily News South Korea’s Financial Commission issued instructions to the relevant persons in charge of the country’s five major encryption exchanges (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax), requiring the “token securities” in the transaction to be classified and delisted.

According to the report, this may be because regulators believe that virtual assets with security properties, no matter what form they are issued in, are “token securities” rather than “security tokens.” If the instruction is implemented, a considerable part of the tokens traded on the existing virtual asset exchanges will likely be disqualified from listing, or may be transferred to securities companies.

The Korea Digital Asset Exchange Association (DAXA) plans to collect opinions from various companies through the Transaction Support Subcommittee, and plans to collect the first batch of opinions and inquiries by February 9 and submit them to the Financial Services Commission. (Korea Economic News Network)
Odaily News A New York judge has prohibited SBF from contacting any former or current employees of Alameda Research and FTX, and SBF has also been prohibited from using Signal or other temporary messaging applications.

Alameda seeks to recover $446M from Voyager, rejected by creditors and Voyager

As previously reported, last month, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said in a court filing that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried sent legal documents to the U.S. branch of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX he founded via email and the encrypted messaging app Signal. General Counsel Sends Message, Prosecutor Asks Judge to Tighten Bail Conditions.
Alameda seeks to recover $446M from Voyager, rejected by creditors and Voyager
Alameda Research's attempt to recover a $446 million loan from bankrupt Voyager Digital was rejected by a committee of creditors and Voyager, court documents show.

The rejection by creditors comes after Voyager itself used a veto. Voyager creditors argue that Alameda's claims should either be fairly subordinated to those of all other creditors or be redefined as equity.

Creditors said Alameda's "unfair and fraudulent conduct" cost Voyager and creditors between $114 million and $122 million. Citing prior case law, creditors said courts could "re-prioritize creditor interests and subordinate all or some of the wrongdoer's claims in order to achieve a just outcome."

MicroStrategy Reports Q4 Earnings Thursday, Expects Turnaround

Odaily News MicroStrategy will announce the fourth quarter financial results of last year after the market close on Thursday, February 2. MicroStrategy revenue is expected to exceed $131 million, down from $134.5 million a year earlier, according to the average of forecasts compiled by FactSet. But at the same time, MicroStrategy is expected to turn around, with net income expected to reach $10.7 million, making it the first time MicroStrategy has turned a profit since the fourth quarter of 2020. (The Block)
Report: Celsius spent at least $558 million to manipulate CEL transaction prices

Odaily News According to a report released by Celsius Bankruptcy Independent Examiner Shoba Pillay, Celsius sold a total of 203 million CELs in initial coin offerings and private sales in 2018, resulting in it raising only $32 million from ICO instead of the expected $50 million. Celsius also used a “flywheel” strategy of selling CEL tokens in private over-the-counter transactions and making offsetting purchases on the open market to influence their transaction price, which cost it at least $558 million to buy CEL.

Meanwhile Celsius has breached its own credit limit several times, including with a multibillion-dollar loan to Tether. By July 2021, Celsius' one-third of its agency loan portfolio will be fully unsecured, and more than half will be under-collateralized. Additionally, Celsius co-founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky misled about selling his own holdings of the company’s tokens. Celsius owes millions of dollars in taxes to date. (The Block)
Bitzlato plans to resume operations and allow withdrawal of some user funds

Odaily news Anton Shkurenko, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato, said that Bitzlato plans to resume operations and will allow withdrawal of some user funds.

According to Forklog, Shkurenko said police had seized the platform’s hot wallet, which contained about 35 percent of user funds. But Shkurenko said that Bitzlato will reopen at an unspecified time, promising that on the same day the exchange launches, users will be allowed to withdraw 50% of their Bitcoin assets held in Bitzlato wallets. For other cryptocurrencies, withdrawals will gradually resume thereafter. (CoinDesk)
In its report, Ripple said: “Ripple ends 2022 with its strongest year yet, focusing on crypto utility and expanding its ODL offering. Despite market volatility, Ripple sees growth from adoption as RippleNet continues to grow. Highest demand from new and existing clients of ODL."

Project News

BNB Chain Releases BNB Greenfield White Paper Aiming to Revolutionize Data Ownership and Utility Standards

Odaily News According to the official Twitter, BNB Chain released the BNB Greenfield white paper, which aims to revolutionize the new standard of data ownership economy and utility. According to the content of the white paper, BNB Greenfield is a decentralized data storage system with Web3 application smart contract integration, and will become the third chain in the BNB public chain system (the other two chains are BNB Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain) , BNB is still the native token of BNB Greenfield.
Using BNB Greenfield, anyone who has a BNB Chain address and holds BNB can use DropBox to seamlessly store data and deploy websites on BNB Greenfield. Manipulate its data programmatically using an interface similar to AWS S 3, or store BSC's historical data and other BNB ecosystem infrastructure data.

Ripple Report: $226M XRP Sold in Q4 2022; Strong Growth in ODL Products

Odaily News Ripple said in its XRP market report that in the fourth quarter of 2022, Ripple sold $226 million worth of XRP tokens (net of purchases). It is understood that while Ripple and XRP are separate entities, Ripple uses XRP and its public blockchain to power its various products.
Ripple reported that more than 106 million transactions occurred on the XRP Ledger, and 228,000 new unique user wallets were created.
Ripple said it continued to sell XRP only in ODL transactions, adding that the popular product continued to grow in the last quarter after its “strongest” year yet.
In its report, Ripple said: “Ripple ends 2022 with its strongest year yet, focusing on crypto utility and expanding its ODL offering. Despite market volatility, Ripple sees growth from adoption as RippleNet continues to grow. Highest demand from new and existing clients of ODL."
“Ripple’s crypto payment solutions are available in nearly 40 payment markets, up from just three in 2020,” the company said.
Meanwhile, Ripple noted that the XRP spot market has experienced a general downward trend, with an average daily volume of about $700 million, down from $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2022. However, it believes that in the near future, investment activity will return to tools that facilitate payments, transactions and custody.

The second phase of the zkSync 2.0 mainnet, Fair Onboarding Alpha, is about to go live, allowing developers to test code in a closed environment

Odaily News zkSync tweeted that the Fair Onboarding Alpha milestone of zkSync 2.0 is coming soon, allowing developers to test their code in a closed environment. The new fee model can ensure that transactions and block expansion consider the overall cost of the system, improve proof generation performance and fix All audit findings.
The duration of the Fair Onboarding Alpha will be determined in conjunction with ecosystem projects, and timing will follow system security and readiness. During the Fair Onboarding Alpha, the system will be closed to external users, and upon completion will enter the Full Launch Alpha phase and open access to external users.

Odaily News The Ethereum expansion project Scroll has deployed the front-end of Uniswap V3 on the test network for users and developers to participate in the experience.

Odaily News The Ethereum expansion project Scroll has deployed the front-end of Uniswap V3 on the test network for users and developers to participate in the experience.

ImmutableX plans to launch Immutable Passport, a Web3 game pass system

Odaily News ImmutableX, the NFT layer-2 extension solution, plans to launch a one-stop pass system, Immutable Passport, in April this year, aiming to provide Web3 gamers with non-custodial wallets, player data and identity verification solutions, and to help Web3 game studios attract new player.
It is reported that Immutable Passport is similar to Xbox Gamertag or Apple ID. It does not require a password when logging in, does not retain the user's private key, and does not participate in signing transactions. Players will be able to access tools integrated into Immutable Passport, including digital wallets, fraud protection and seamless identity verification across Web3 games. (CoinDesk)

MakerDAO’s Proposal to Establish a Special Fund (Defense Fund) Was Voted Approved

Odaily News The MakerDAO community's proposal to establish a special fund (Defense Fund) to pay for legal defense has been voted through. It is reported that the fund will provide an emergency budget of 5 million DAI to pay for legal defense costs in the event of legal or regulatory action against specific MakerDAO participants. In addition, the fund will be managed by an external technical committee composed of insurance and risk management experts, who will make recommendations for approval or denial of payments based on applications.

MakerDAO’s Proposal to Establish a Special Fund (Defense Fund) Was Voted Approved

According to an official announcement from Odaily, Mars Protocol, the original Terra ecological decentralized lending protocol, announced that it has launched the Cosmos application chain Mars Hub mainnet. Currently, the Mars Hub is only accessible on-chain, it has no UI, but there is a governance proposal to incentivize liquidity providers on Osmosis.

zkSync Ecological DeFi Protocol Increment Releases Governance Token INCR Airdrop Proposal

Odaily News Increment, a decentralized exchange rate perpetual contract based on zkSync 2.0, released a proposal for the creation and distribution of the governance token INCR. If the community votes in favor of the proposal, INCR tokens will be created and a portion of the tokens will be retroactively distributed to members of the Increment ecological community.
According to the proposal, at the beginning of INCR’s creation, 20 million tokens will be minted on the Ethereum mainnet, of which a total of 2.4 million tokens will be airdropped to community users in three stages, a total of 3 million tokens will be airdropped to core contributors, and a total of 3 million tokens will be airdropped to the ecosystem. Grants, partners, etc. will allocate 800,000 tokens, 1.48 million tokens will be allocated to developer funds, 3.12 million tokens will be allocated to seed investors, and 9.2 million tokens will be allocated for the release of future agreement users.

Mars Protocol announced the launch of the mainnet and has airdropped 64.4 million MARS governance tokens

According to an official announcement from Odaily, Mars Protocol, the original Terra ecological decentralized lending protocol, announced that it has launched the Cosmos application chain Mars Hub mainnet. Currently, the Mars Hub is only accessible on-chain, it has no UI, but there is a governance proposal to incentivize liquidity providers on Osmosis.
64.4 million MARS governance tokens have been unlocked, and those holding MARS tokens on Terra Classic received an airdrop based on two historical snapshots. MARS tokens are now only available on the Mars Hub chain, which has no DEX, so it is not possible to exchange MARS for other cryptocurrencies. (CoinDesk)

NFT marketplace Blur bypasses OpenSea blacklist restrictions via Seaport protocol

After using Dooplicator, users will receive up to 9 wearables, plus a Beta Pass for early access to Doodles 2, new wearables will be available during the private beta of Doodles 2 (coming soon) Wearables can be created with Dooplicator There will be other functions later.

Doodles are live on Dooplication, users will be able to mint wearables used in Doodles 2

Odaily news NFT project Doodles announced that Dooplication has been launched. The Dooplicator's first use, or "recharge," will allow users to create wearable devices out of OG Doodles.
After using Dooplicator, users will receive up to 9 wearables, plus a Beta Pass for early access to Doodles 2, new wearables will be available during the private beta of Doodles 2 (coming soon) Wearables can be created with Dooplicator There will be other functions later.
According to previous reports, Doodles co-founder poopie tweeted that the Dooplication self-hosting guide has been released, aiming to provide support for users who want to fully self-host and self-control wearable NFT, helping users not rely on third-party hosting solutions Scheme to house Doodles 2 assets.
According to the guide, the main steps are as follows: 1. Download and set up the Lilico wallet. 2. Use the smart contract to initialize the account to receive the wearable equipment NFT. 3. Send a Dooplication transaction on the Ethereum chain via Etherscan. 4. Receive and view wearable NFTs on the Find.xyz marketplace. 5. Explore other NFT marketplaces with lending functionality.

According to previous reports, Doodles co-founder poopie tweeted that the Dooplication self-hosting guide has been released, aiming to provide support for users who want to fully self-host and self-control wearable NFT, helping users not rely on third-party hosting solutions Scheme to house Doodles 2 assets.

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Investment and Financing

Magic Eden has completed a new round of financing of 16.85 million US dollars

According to Odaily, according to SEC documents, Tan Lu, CEO of Magic Eden, the Solana ecological NFT market, filed with the SEC on January 24 to complete a new round of financing for the project. A total of US$16,859,571 was raised in this round of financing.
As previously reported, in June last year, Magic Eden completed a $130 million Series B round of financing at a valuation of $1.6 billion, led by Electric Capital and Greylock. The funds were used to expand its primary and secondary markets and explore multi-chain opportunities.

Nexus, a platform for game content creators, closes $10 million in funding led by Griffin Gaming Partners

Nexus, a platform for game content creators from Odaily, announced the completion of $10 million in financing, led by Web3 venture capital firm Griffin Gaming Partners, with participation from Sony Innovation Fund, Valhalla Ventures, Pace Capital, and S 3 Ventures.
It is reported that Nexus game built-in software enables developers to build fully native content creator support programs through API drivers. The leading investor of this round of financing, Griffin Gaming Partners, focuses on the global game and Web3 market, and currently has an asset management scale of more than US$1 billion. (PRNewswire)

Cohort, a provider of NFT loyalty solutions, completed a seed round of financing of 3.2 million euros, led by IRIS and others

According to the startup, with Cohort, companies can leverage a range of integrations (including Salesforce and Shopify) within hours, enabling brands to launch NFT-driven campaigns through existing sales channels. (Tech.EU)
According to the startup, with Cohort, companies can leverage a range of integrations (including Salesforce and Shopify) within hours, enabling brands to launch NFT-driven campaigns through existing sales channels. (Tech.EU)

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ARK Invest Report: Predicts Bitcoin Price to Reach $1 Million by 2030
Odaily News ARK Invest said in its "2023 Big Ideas" research report that despite the severe recession, public blockchains continue to breed multiple revolutions, one of which is Bitcoin.
In ARK's view, despite the turmoil in 2022, Bitcoin's fundamentals are good, so it is expected to reach $1 million before the end of 2030.

ARK wrote: “The contagion caused by centralized counterparties has boosted Bitcoin’s value proposition: decentralization, auditability, and transparency. Its network fundamentals have strengthened, and its holder base has become more long-term focused. ARK supports this claim by pointing to a higher hash rate, supply of long-term holders, and non-zero balances compared to previous recessions.

Due to this fundamental soundness, Bitcoin continues to outperform traditional asset classes, according to ARK. Looking at the five-year compound annual growth rate, bitcoin is up 272% on average, while global stocks are up 6.1%, global bonds are yielding 1.4% and gold is up 2.2%. (CoinDesk)
Tether CTO clarifies: Tether never borrowed from Celsius
Odaily News In response to the statement that "Tether is one of Celsius's borrowers" mentioned in the Celsius bankruptcy examiner's report, Tether Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino responded that Tether never borrowed from Celsius, and the investigators mistakenly wrote the loan from Celsius as Borrowed from Celsius.