​ | EU Council Unanimously Approves MiCA Act; Jump Trading Made $1 Billion in Secret Deal with Terraform Labs (May 17)

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EU Council Unanimously Approves Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation (MiCA)

Industry news

European Union (EU) finance ministers signed off on landmark new crypto rules on Tuesday. The Council of the European Union, representing the 27 member states, unanimously approved the Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation (MiCA), making it the first major jurisdiction to have a crypto licensing regime. It also agreed to new anti-money laundering measures on the transfer of encrypted funds. MiCA requires crypto firms such as wallet providers and exchanges to seek a license to operate, and requires stablecoin issuers to hold appropriate reserves. EU finance ministers are also due to formally agree on Tuesday new measures that would allow tax authorities to share data on people's holdings of cryptocurrencies. (CoinDesk)

Industry news

Bitcoin Realized Price and LTH Realized Price Are Approaching a Bullish Crossover

At press time, Bitcoin’s realized price was $20,129, just 3.5 percent below the realized price of $20,845 for LTH (long-term holders), according to data tracked by blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. The realized price of LTH has been steadily decreasing since November last year. In their weekly newsletter on May 12, Blockware Solution said, “Judging from the realized price of LTH and the realized price of Bitcoin (the aggregate cost basis of all market participants), they are approaching a bullish crossover, which was previously Accurate signal of a bear market bottom." Two previous crossovers in June 2019, May 2016 and September 2012 paved the way for a multi-year bull market. (CoinDesk)

Tether released a proof of reserves in the first quarter, holdings of U.S. debt exceeded $53 billion, a record high

Tether, the issuer of the stablecoin USDT, released a proof of reserves in the first quarter. USDT issuance increased from $66 billion to over $82 billion, of which the percentage of secured loans in Tether’s reserves decreased from 8.7% to 6.5%, and Tether’s holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds reached . An all-time high of more than $53 billion, or more than 64% of total reserves, with treasury bonds, along with other reserves in the cash and cash equivalents category (such as overnight repos, term repos, money market funds, cash, and bank deposits) accounting for nearly 85% , reaching the highest level in history. In addition, Tether also reduced its bank deposits from $5.3 billion to $481 million in the first quarter to reduce Tether's counterparty risk.

US SEC: Jump Trading once made $1 billion through secret transactions with Terraform Labs

According to the Wall Street Journal, court documents released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday showed that cryptocurrency market maker Jump Trading entered into a secret agreement a year before the TerraUSD cryptocurrency crash. as part of a fraud lawsuit against his company, Terraform Labs. The filings confirm that Jump Trading made about $1 billion in profits from its dealings with Terraform Labs, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Animoca Ventures is raising a second early-stage venture fund

James Ho, head of Animoca Ventures, the investment arm of Animoca Brands, revealed in an interview that Animoca Ventures is currently exploring raising a second early-stage venture fund, adding that some "major Japanese console makers" have expressed interest. Additionally, Ho noted that the next wave of crypto gaming pioneers must “establish sustainable tokenomics, in short, protecting the tokenomics and protecting the NFT strategy will be key.”

Security firm: Sui blockchain patched bug that could have put 'billions' at risk in late March

The Sui blockchain network has recently patched a vulnerability that could have put “billions of dollars” at risk, according to a May 16 announcement by security firm Zellic. Zellic is responsible for auditing the security of this network. If the vulnerability is not fixed, it could "allow an attacker to bypass multiple security attributes, resulting in potentially significant financial loss," the announcement said. Sui developer Mysten Labs fixed the vulnerability in commit 8 bddbe 65 on March 30, after Zellic informed of its existence. The vulnerability may also exist in other Move-based networks, including Aptos and Starcoin. According to the Zellic team, the vulnerability in the Aptos version was eliminated with a patch on April 10. (Cointelegraph)

Ledger responds to questions about the "key recovery function": there is no backdoor, and users can choose whether to use this function

Earlier news, hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger released the Ledger Nano X firmware (2.2.1) version update today, which introduces a service/function called "Ledger Recover", which can provide backups for users' private key recovery phrases. The Ledger Recover service splits the wallet recovery phrase (essentially a human-readable form of a private key) into three cryptographic shards and distributes them to three custodians: Ledger, cryptocurrency custodian Coincover, and code custodian EscrowTech. If someone loses their seed phrase, two of the three shards can combine (pending identity checks) to regain access to locked funds.

Project News

However, Ledger users expressed strong opposition to the feature because it would require secret seed phrases to be stored online and linked to passports or ID cards. The feature has faced criticism for requiring KYC registration. Some users say this goes against the privacy values ​​held by many in the crypto community and that it defeats the purpose of hardware wallets. (Blockworks)

Project News

Suia and Cetus will each airdrop 100,000 SUI to reward all SUIA IDO participants

Cetus, a liquidity protocol based on the public chain Sui, tweeted that Suia, the Sui ecological social protocol, plans to airdrop 100,000 SUIs to reward all SUIA IDO participants. Cetus decided to provide an additional 100,000 SUIs to support this plan. completed within days.

OpenSea is suspected to have a royalty loophole, and NFT projects cannot set or change royalties

Alexpf.eth, co-founder and CEO of NFT exchange EZswap, tweeted, "OpenSea is suspected to have a royalty loophole. Recently, OpenSea seems to have changed the owner's identification standard, which means that NFT projects cannot set or change royalties. This error is very serious. Seriously, it's been around for 2 days."

The Optimism mainnet Bedrock upgrade will take place on June 7th with a mainnet downtime of 2 to 4 hours

Lido V2 upgrade voted to activate Ethereum withdrawals

Investment and Financing

The Lido V2 upgrade was approved by the vote, and has been upgraded to the V2 version, which will allow users to withdraw the pledged ETH. The voting was completed at 1:15 am Beijing time today. Due to multiple security audits, Lido takes an additional month to process withdrawals. It is reported that the key functions of Lido V2 include supporting liquidity staking users to withdraw from Lido at a ratio of 1:1. Pledged ETH is an ETH derivative offered by Lido Finance. When users deposit ETH, they can get pledged ETH (stETH), which can then be used repeatedly in other DeFi projects as collateral.

Investment and Financing

Bitcoin Startup River Closes $35M Series B Funding Led by Kingsway Capital

Bitcoin technology and financial services company River has completed a $35 million Series B round led by Kingsway Capital, with participation from billionaires Peter Thiel, Cygni, Goldcrest and Valor Equity Partners. It is understood that River mainly provides a wide range of Bitcoin-related services for individuals and businesses, including brokerage companies that provide zero-fee fixed investment, mining, full reserve custody, and wallets that support on-chain transactions and Lightning Network transactions. Last October, the company launched River Lightning, an application programming interface (API) that will make it easier for companies to connect their applications to the Lightning Network. (coindesk)

Bitcoin mining company Cormint completes $30 million Series A financing, will use it to create a data center in Texas

Cormint Data Systems, a Bitcoin mining company, completed a $30 million Series A round of financing led by its president Jamie McAvity and semiconductor company Silicon Laboratories (SLAB) chairman Nav Sooch, with former chief technology officer Alessandro Piovoccari participating. The new financing will be used to create a 2.4 EH/s data center in Fort Stockton, Texas. It is reported that Cormint raised 400 BTC (valued at $10.8 million) through promissory notes in late 2022. Cormint plans to have 2.4 EH/s of self-mining hashrate up and running at the data center by the end of 2024. (CoinDesk)

Web3 Venture Capital Institution Red Beard Ventures Raises $25 Million, Animoca Brands, SuperRare Participate

Web3 venture capital firm Red Beard Ventures has completed a $25 million fundraising round, with participation from a16z's Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, Animoca Brands, and NFT platform SuperRare. The new funding aims to accelerate the adoption of Web3 technologies and support the launch of a tokenomics accelerator program called Denarii Labs. The project is a joint initiative with Horizen Labs Ventures and will focus on providing consulting services, weekly educational sessions, mentoring, launch support, and more to clients launching token projects. The accelerator, which is currently accepting its first applications, is set to begin in the third quarter of this year, and each company will receive $100,000 to build its brand. (CoinDesk)

Asymmetry Finance, a liquid collateralized derivatives agreement, raised $3 million in financing, with participation from Republic Capital and others

Asymmetry Finance, a liquid collateralized derivatives (LSD) protocol, completed a $3 million financing round, with participation from Ecco Capita, Republic Capital, GMJP, and Ankr. The project is led by co-founders Justin Garland and Hannah Hamilton. It is reported that Asymmetry’s main product is the safETH token, which represents a basket of liquid collateral derivative tokens, including Lido’s wstETH, Rocketpool’s rETH, Frax’s frxETH, Stakewise’s sETH 2 and Ankr’s ankrETH. Garland likens the token to an ETF for liquid collateralized tokens. (CoinDesk)

Crypto mining data center developer Soluna Holdings receives $14 million investment from Navitas Global

Anotherblock, a music NFT platform, completed a seed round of 4 million euros, led by Stride.VC

global policy

Anotherblock, a music NFT platform, completed a seed round of 4 million euros, led by Stride.VC, with participation from Swedish producer Axwell and Swedish House Mafia. Funds from this round of financing will be used to drive further development of the company globally. It is reported that anotherblock was founded in 2021 by entrepreneurs Michel D. Traore, Sebastian Ljungberg and Filip Strömsten. (Tech.eu)

global policy

EU Council Has Agreed on Amendments to Directive Focusing on Crypto Taxation

The Directive covers a broad range of crypto-assets, building on the definitions set out in the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) adopted by the Council today. In addition, those cryptoassets issued in a decentralized manner, as well as stablecoins, including electronic currency tokens and certain NFTs are also included in this scope.

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As previously reported, European Union (EU) finance ministers signed landmark new encryption rules on Tuesday. The Council of the European Union, representing the 27 member states, unanimously approved the Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation (MiCA), making it the first major jurisdiction to have a crypto licensing regime. It also agreed to new anti-money laundering measures on the transfer of encrypted funds. MiCA requires crypto firms such as wallet providers and exchanges to seek a license to operate, and requires stablecoin issuers to hold appropriate reserves.

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Fed's Mester: Fed committed to returning inflation to 2% target, lower neutral rate likely to return

The Fed's Mester said that current trends indicate slow long-term economic growth, and the Fed is committed to returning the inflation rate to its 2% target. High inflation has costs in both the short and long term, and price stability is the key to the long-term health of the economy. Monetary policy must consider long-term economic trends, without commenting on the outlook for near-term monetary policy, a lower neutral rate may return. (Golden Ten)

Li Lin responded: I hope that Huobi will provide relevant evidence, and if it is true, I will pay ten times the HT