| Poly Network is hacked; Bitcoin performed the best as a global asset in the first half of the year (July 3rd)
Headline
Poly Network tweeted that its service will continue to be suspended, and it appeals to cybersecurity professionals and individuals with relevant knowledge to provide assistance. The hacker attack has affected 57 types of assets on 10 chains, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, Optimism, Arbitrum, Gnosis, Heco, and OKX.
Poly Network stated that it has been in communication with CEX and law enforcement agencies seeking their assistance. It hopes that the attacker will cooperate and return user assets to avoid potential legal consequences. In order to minimize further risks, Poly Network has reached out to most project teams, urging them to withdraw liquidity from DEX; it also strongly advises users holding affected assets to withdraw liquidity and unlock their LP tokens as soon as possible.
According to yesterday's report, Poly Network tweeted that its services have been temporarily suspended due to the attack, and it is actively communicating with relevant parties and carefully evaluating the specific situation of the affected assets. Poly Network also welcomes cybersecurity professionals to help solve this problem and will timely report the latest developments related to this incident.
Industry News
According to the "2023 Global Major Asset Performance Ranking" released by Caixin, Bitcoin ranked first among global major asset targets, with a rise of 83.81%, far exceeding the second-ranked Nasdaq Index (with a rise of 31.73%).
The Hong Kong government announced the establishment of the third-generation Internet (Web3.0) development task force. The task force is chaired by Financial Secretary Paul Chan and includes 15 unofficial members from the relevant industry, as well as representatives from major government officials and financial regulatory agencies. The term of office for unofficial members will take effect from July 1, 2023, and last for two years.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan said, "The blockchain technology behind Web3.0 has the characteristics of decentralization, security, transparency, and low cost, which can solve many difficult and painful points in finance, transactions, business operations, and even daily life. As an international financial center and a metropolitan city that attaches importance to innovative technology, Hong Kong embraces the trend of Web3.0 development, actively leading and driving innovation exploration and development under the premise of balancing 'appropriate regulation' and 'promoting development', creating more new application models, and striving to gather top enterprises and talents in this field to build a vibrant ecosystem. The task force brings together outstanding figures and professionals from the relevant industry, and I believe their precious opinions will help Hong Kong develop into a hub for Web3.0."
According to a notice from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday, its official Caroline Pham announced new members and leadership for the GMAC and its Global Market Structure, Technology Issues, and Digital Asset Market Committee. Currently, the GMAC group and related committees have a total of 128 members.
According to the announcement, Amy Hong from Goldman Sachs will serve as the chairman of the group. Caroline Butler, the Global Head of Digital Assets at BNY Mellon, will co-chair the Digital Asset Market Committee with Sandy Kaul from Franklin Templeton.
CEO of Securrency, Nadine Chakar, as well as Kevin Kennedy from Nasdaq, have also joined the ranks. Chakar previously served as the Head of Cryptography at Deutsche Bank for over a year.
Other members of the Digital Asset Committee include executives from crypto companies such as Coinfund, Crypto.com, and Uniswap. There are also representatives from Wall Street, including asset management firm BlackRock, trading company DRW, and Goldman Sachs.
The establishment of GMAC aims to help regulatory agencies analyze issues related to the US capital markets and make recommendations on policies for derivative financial instruments, exchanges, and brokers that facilitate trading. (The Block)
The US SEC will respond to Coinbase's initial legal defense on July 13th
According to the court order on Thursday, the US SEC will respond to Coinbase's initial legal defense on July 13. The hearing date is now much earlier than expected, due to Coinbase adopting a "creative" defense strategy.
During the appearance on July 13, Judge Katherine Polk Failla will decide whether to allow Coinbase to proceed with its motion to dismiss that was filed yesterday.
It is reported that Coinbase submitted its initial response within 40 days before the August 7 deadline. Therefore, the court changed the pretrial conference to a motion conference and advanced the date from August 24 to July 13. A pretrial motion conference is an application made by a prosecutor or defense attorney requesting the court to make a decision on a specific issue before the trial.
Yesterday, Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase, tweeted that Coinbase has responded to the lawsuit filed by the SEC, submitted a motion to dismiss, and officially filed it with the Southern District of New York. Paul Grewal further pointed out that Coinbase is ready to engage in dialogue with any regulatory agency, including the US SEC, and believes that the establishment of new legislation and rules will be the right way forward. However, the claims made in this case go far beyond the scope of existing laws and should be dismissed. (CoinDesk)
Market Movement
Whale withdraws 8166 ETH from Binance, previously achieved 100% win rate in ETH swing trading
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, the whale address with a 100% success rate in swing trading ETH has withdrawn 8166 ETH ($15.69 million) from Binance at 9:35 AM today Beijing time.
Adding to the 8188 ETH ($15.26 million) withdrawn yesterday, the whale has now withdrawn a total of 16354 ETH ($30.96 million) after depositing 31.89 million USDT into Binance, with an average cost of $1893 per ETH.
Azuki NFT Series Prices Plummet, Azuki Floor Price Drops to Around 6 ETH
The prices of Azuki NFT series have taken a sharp downturn. According to NFTGo data, the floor price of Azuki is currently reported at 6.17 ETH, with a 24-hour decline of 22.69%. The floor price of Azuki Elementals is reported at 0.89 ETH, with a 24-hour decline of 22.65%. The floor price of Beanz is reported at 0.37 ETH, with a 24-hour decline of 15.06%.
Bitcoin mining revenue in June was $760 million, a decrease of about 17% month-on-month
Data from The Block shows that Bitcoin mining revenue in June was $760 million, a decrease of about 17% compared to the previous month. The majority of the revenue comes from block rewards, with transaction fees totaling $37.46 million.
In addition, Ethereum block validators' revenue in June decreased by 29% compared to the previous month, reaching $112 million, with transaction fees totaling $29.4 million.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, 5 hours ago, the whale address starting with 0x882 once again withdrew 8500 ETH from Binance (equivalent to $16.3 million). Yesterday at 14:06, the address withdrew 7000 ETH from Binance (equivalent to $13.14 million).
Since June 8, the whale has withdrawn 50100 ETH from Binance (equivalent to $91.2 million) and staked 34,560 ETH ($65 million).
CryptoSlam data shows that Bitcoin on-chain NFT sales reached $110,161,309.36 in June, with a total of 195,725 transactions.
Compared to May, June saw a sharp decline in data. In May, Bitcoin on-chain NFT sales were $195,975,372, meaning a decline of 44% in June.
BCH Contract Positions Reach a Two-year High of $615 million
According to Coinglass data, as of today, the mainstream trading platform's BCH contract positions have increased to approximately $615 million, reaching a new high since May 7, 2021 ($642 million). In addition, the BCH contract trading volume has reached $8.668 billion.
Project News
Paradigm Official Website Reintroduces Mentions of Cryptocurrency
Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang tweeted, "We previously removed all content about 'cryptocurrency' from our website's landing page, which was kind of ridiculous. That was a mistake. We never left, but now we're back." The Paradigm official website states, "We focus on cutting-edge cryptocurrency and related technologies." The top and bottom borders of the website's pages also display "CRYPTO" in a loop.
According to previous reports, on June 28th, Matt Huang tweeted that Paradigm has never been more focused on cryptocurrency, and will continue to invest in various stages, publish original research, actively promote the development of invested companies' mechanisms (such as Uniswap v2, v3, v4), release open-source projects (Foundry, Reth), and advocate for enlightened policies, etc.
In May of this year, according to insiders, Paradigm is expanding its focus from exclusively cryptocurrency to include "cutting-edge" technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). According to the official website, earlier this month, the company removed mentions of cryptocurrency/Web3 from its homepage and now refers to itself as a "research-driven technology investment firm." This indicates that the company is repositioning itself in response to some turbulence in the cryptocurrency field and the uncertainty of US regulations.
Cryptocurrency ATM company Bitcoin Depot will go public on Nasdaq on July 3rd through SPAC
Bitcoin Depot, one of the largest cryptocurrency ATM companies in the United States, announced the completion of a merger transaction that will allow the company to go public.
Financial technology company GSR II Meteora Acquisition Corporation announced in a statement released on June 30th that its shareholders have approved the merger of the company as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) for Bitcoin Depot. It is expected that Bitcoin Depot will go public on Nasdaq on July 3rd.
According to Brandon Mintz, the founder and CEO of Bitcoin Depot, the merger aims to support "numerous growth opportunities" and promote the adoption of Bitcoin in North America. The ticker symbols for Bitcoin Depot's common stock and publicly traded warrants are BTM and BTMWW, respectively. (Cointelegraph)
In August last year, it was reported that Bitcoin Depot, a Bitcoin ATM company, had reached an agreement with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) GSR II Meteora Acquisition, planning to go public on Nasdaq with an estimated valuation of $885 million.
Bitcoin Depot, established in 2016, is the largest Bitcoin ATM provider in North America with over 7,000 Bitcoin ATMs in the United States and Canada.
Data: zkSync Era on-chain independent addresses surpass 1 million
According to Dune data, the number of zkSync Era independent addresses has exceeded 1 million, currently standing at 1,086,771. The total TVL bridged on-chain is 562,299 ETH.
According to 0x Scope monitoring, on-chain data shows that Curve CEO Michael Egorov currently provides 337.6 million CRV on AAVE (39% of circulating supply, worth approximately 253 million USD) and lends out 81.6 million USD stablecoins (USDT/USDC/FRAX).
In the past two months, he has distributed 10.1 million stablecoins to Kraken and OTC platforms.
Lido Community is voting to decide whether to approve the pledge of all ETH in its treasury. The purpose of this proposal is to create productive assets in the Lido treasury to offset operational costs.
Based on the current annual yield (approximately 4% to 6%), it is estimated that if the Lido protocol pledges its current holding of 20,000 ETH, an additional $2 million will be earned each year. Members of the Lido financial management committee have all voted in favor of this proposal.
The main voting phase has already begun and will end at 1:47 on July 1st. As of the time of writing, 100% of the members have voted in favor of the proposal. (Blockworks)
People's Voices
According to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart, Fidelity has resubmitted its spot ETF application with additional materials, designating Coinbase as an SSA (Spot BTC Supervised Agreement) exchange.
Previously, according to sources cited by Wall Street, the SEC stated that the application materials for spot Bitcoin ETFs recently submitted by Nasdaq and Chicago Board Options Exchange, BlackRock, Fidelity, and other companies were insufficient.
Regarding the recent decline in token prices listed on Binance, He Yi responded that the market is sluggish, and both large and small tokens listed recently are experiencing a drop; most of the altcoins in the market have dropped by 80% - 90%, including all highly sought-after projects. The first transaction price for MAV is set at 0.05 USDT, taking into account the lackluster market conditions. Users are urged not to blindly follow community recommendations and chase after high prices. Based on the previous cycle's history, the IEO on the first day was only a few times higher and not in line with the current market situation, so please DYOR (Do Your Own Research). Binance has listed hundreds of tokens, but the token prices are not under Binance's control and are influenced by the buy and sell orders. Please be aware of investment risks.
Additionally, regarding the progress of compensating user funds transferred to Binance in the Rug Pull project XIRTAM, He Yi stated that they will handle it based on legal advice. Currently, the project party and the level one and level two investors have different claims. Users are advised to exercise their judgment when participating in future projects on the chain and should not hold others accountable for their own mistakes. If this case is not handled properly, no further actions will be taken against Rug projects.
According to previous reports, the Rug Pull project XIRTAM transferred the raised 1909 ETH to Binance, and Binance has assisted in freezing the funds. On June 20th, according to community news, Binance responded to the incident of XIRTAM depositing Rug Pull funds into Binance, stating that they are "working to enable victims of the XIRTAM project to claim their losses directly from the smart contracts deployed by Binance on the Ethereum and Arbitrum networks. Binance expects to have this initiative ready as early as today. In the meantime, Binance thanks users for their patience and understanding. Please continue to pay attention to announcements for further information."
Insider: Coinbase to provide services for Valkyrie and Bitwise Bitcoin spot ETFs
Insiders revealed that Coinbase will also provide services for Valkyrie and Bitwise's Bitcoin spot ETF. In a recent document, 21 Shares stated that Coinbase will also provide custody services.
Earlier today, it was announced that Coinbase will be a supervisory sharing agreement partner for Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, VanEck Bitcoin Trust, WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust, Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust, and ARK 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF. (Bloomberg)
Michael Saylor: Bitcoin spot ETF will be a milestone for institutional acceptance of Bitcoin
Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, stated that a Bitcoin ETF will be a major development for the industry, but it may not necessarily lead to a significant price increase.
In an interview with The Block, Saylor said, "This is a milestone on the path of institutional adoption. I think it's important, but I don't think it will overnight skyrocket Bitcoin to $5 million."
Furthermore, Saylor added, "I think an ETF is the regulatory recognition of Bitcoin as a legitimate asset, and it also provides an entry point where I can buy $10 million worth of Bitcoin in 30 seconds with a click of a button." (The Block)
Insiders: Citigroup reconsiders partnership with Metaco due to Ripple Labs' acquisition of Metaco
According to Bloomberg, Citigroup is reconsidering its cooperation with Metaco and has begun negotiations with several other custodial service providers after Ripple Labs agreed to acquire Metaco for $250 million.
Vitalik Buterin: Only Staked a Small Amount of ETH Due to Security Concerns
Vitalik Buterin stated in a Bankless Podcast that he did not stake all of his Ethereum, but only a "relatively small part" because staking securely on the network requires multisignature, which is still a tricky process.
Buterin noted that if you stake your ETH, the key to access it must be public on some online system. For security reasons, it must be multisignature, and setting up multisignature for staking still remains quite challenging. It gets complicated in many ways. (Cryptoslate)
NFT
BendDAO currently has 8 Azuki and 24 Doodles entering the auction process
As blue-chip NFT prices go down, multiple pledged NFTs by BendDAO face liquidation, and currently, 8 Azuki and 24 Doodles have been liquidated and entered the auction process.
In addition, BEND price has dropped below $0.0041, with a 24-hour decrease of over 7.5%.
AzukiDAO proposal sues project founder Zagabond to recover Elementals issuance of 20,000 ETH
On July 2nd, AzukiDAO released a proposal called "Hiring an Attorney to Assist the Community in Recovering 20,000 ETH from Zagabond". The main content of the proposal includes:
1. Hiring an attorney to sue Zagabond and accuse them of rug multiple projects;
2. Recovering the 20,000 ETH funds from the team and distributing them to the DAO for community development, incentivizing artists, content creators, and builders;
3. Azuki DAO providing financial support of 20,000 ETH for the establishment of a litigation research team.
NFT project Ether's total supply will be reduced from 10,000 to 5,555
The NFT project Ether tweeted that there will be changes to the Ether NFT mint arrangement. The remaining supply will be publicly available for sale one week after whitelist (WL) sales. The WL phase will end on July 2nd at 8:00 PM Pacific Standard Time (11:00 PM Beijing Time).
Ether stated, "Ether has always been and will continue to serve the community. Therefore, considering our direct relationship with the market, we are adapting to changes and continue to prioritize ensuring the success of holders. With this in mind, we will reduce the total supply from 10,000 to 5,555. The current market conditions and sentiment are at an all-time low. We recognize this and are taking action to create a smaller, tighter-knit community where our holders can achieve success through uniqueness. We will uphold our values and integrity, with the goal of becoming a luxury brand in the metaverse."
Dior launches new men's shoe collection B33 equipped with Ethereum-based 'digital twin' collectibles
French fashion brand Dior recently announced the launch of a new men's shoe collection, which includes a unique encrypted online identity verification system based on NFC chips and "digital twin" collectibles (i.e., NFTs).
This sports shoe, called B33, is designed by Dior's artistic director for menswear, Kim Jones, and is part of the fashion brand's Fall 2023 menswear collection. The first of the seven sports shoes combines canvas and Dior's iconic oblique pattern and will be exclusively released online on July 6th, limited to 470 pairs, with a price of $1350. Each pair of shoes will come with a corresponding "digital twin" collectible minted on the Ethereum blockchain.
Shortly after the exclusive NFT-matching sports shoes are launched, Dior will release six additional B33 sports shoe models. These models will also have an NFC chip placed on the right sole, but will not come with digital NFTs.
The NFC chip will be associated with an encrypted key that provides digital authenticity certificates and other undisclosed proprietary services. The prices of these shoes range from $1000 to $1100.
However, it is worth mentioning that Dior noticeably avoids any terms related to blockchain, such as Web3 and NFT, in its statement. So far, Dior has not used such terminology in the promotion of its B33 sports shoe collection. (Decrypt)
