| Uniswap launches cross-AMM protocol UniswapX; US House Financial Services Committee to vote on cryptocurrency and stablecoin legislation on July 26 (July 19).
Headline
Uniswap launches cross-AMM protocol UniswapX
Uniswap announces the launch of UniswapX, a permissionless, open-source protocol based on Dutch auction, for trading across AMMs and other liquidity sources. In the future, UniswapX will gradually achieve: better prices through aggregated liquidity, gas-free transactions, protection against MEV, feeless failed transactions, and gas-free cross-chain transactions within the next few months.
Cryptocurrency
CoinShares: $137 million net inflows into digital asset investment products last week
The latest weekly report by CoinShares shows a net inflow of $137.4 million into digital asset investment products last week, with a cumulative inflow of $742 million over the past 4 weeks, marking the largest inflow since Q4 2021. Among them, Bitcoin investment products saw a net inflow of $139.8 million, while Bitcoin short products recorded 12 consecutive weeks of outflows totaling $3.2 million. Ethereum investment products experienced a net outflow of $1.6 million, making it the largest capital outflow for digital assets so far this year.
The bankrupt cryptocurrency lending company, Celsius Network, and its creditors have reached a settlement agreement with the Series B financing shareholders, who will distribute the $25 million proceeds from the sale of GK8 to shareholders, with $24 million used to pay legal fees and $1 million to be internally allocated. As part of the Celsius bankruptcy proceedings, the self-custody platform GK8 has been sold to Galaxy Digital. Although the specific details of the sale were not disclosed, Galaxy spokesperson Michael Wursthorn previously stated that the price was significantly lower than Celsius' $115 million acquisition price. In addition, Celsius and its creditors will appear in a New York court on July 18th at 10:00 AM Eastern Time. (CoinDesk) According to previous reports by CoinDesk, Galaxy Digital completed the acquisition of self-custody platform GK8 in February this year. Galaxy purchased GK8 for approximately $44 million, at a discount of over 60%.
SEC approves Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF application, with the ticker symbol "BRRR"
Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, tweeted that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially acknowledged receiving the Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF application. Valkyrie has become the last confirmed applicant for a spot Bitcoin ETF in this batch of SEC filings. In addition, the Nasdaq trading code chosen for the Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF is "BRRR". According to previous reports, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart tweeted that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has officially acknowledged receiving Bitcoin ETF applications from Bitwise, BlackRock, VanEck, Invesco/Galaxy, Fidelity, and WisdomTree. This is just one step in the process and does not imply approval. It just means that the formal process has begun.
Top News
Solana EVM compatibility solution Neon now live on Solana Mainnet
Neon EVM has today released a compute environment that allows developers to write Ethereum applications on Solana. Neon's implementation is a smart contract built on Solana for deploying Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) code. The development team announced the completion of the tools required to migrate Ethereum developer projects to Solana. They stated that this move could reduce operating costs for applications. They are confident in the integration of their EVM solution with Solana's high-throughput capabilities and are currently conducting extensive testing. Marina Guryeva, Director of the Neon Foundation, said, "We are excited to see Neon EVM running on the Solana Mainnet. Once we replicate these tests in the production environment, we will present the results based on real data." In 2021, Neon Labs raised $40 million in funding, with participation from Jump Capital, IDEO CoLab Ventures, Solana Capital, and others. (The Block)
Founder of DefiLlama, 0 x ngmi, tweeted a reminder to MetaMask users to disable the "Batch Account Balance Requests" feature, as it is enabled by default and can potentially associate all addresses used with any RPC being used, leading to the leakage of the user's addresses. "To disable, follow these steps: Settings > Security & Privacy > Batch Account Balance Requests."
Hector Network will liquidate $16 million treasury assets due to the Multichain event
Hector Network has voted to liquidate its treasury fund of $16 million and distribute the proceeds to HEC token holders, with a final voting support rate of 83.31%. Hector DAO is a fork project of Olympus DAO based on the Fantom blockchain, and has suffered significant losses this month due to the Multichain incident affecting the Fantom ecosystem. According to an article on Discord, the liquidation and redemption process of HEC tokens will take 6 to 12 months, with upcoming steps including the appointment of liquidators, legal advisors, and auditors. Since July 6th, Hector's HEC token has lost 60% of its value; the trading price of its TOR stablecoin is 13 cents. According to one investor's estimate, Hector Network's treasury may suffer a loss of $8 million due to the instability of stablecoins related to Multichain. Hector DAO plans to redistribute its treasury earnings to holders based on their HEC positions as of July 14th, with the final distribution amount potentially less than $16 million. (CoinDesk) According to previous reports, Multichain stated that the team has been forced to cease operations and is currently unable to shut down its frontend website, urging users not to continue using its services.
Investment and Financing
Web 3 mobile game publisher Hexacore raises $3.5 million funding, led by Scalo Technologies
Web 3 mobile game publisher Hexacore raised $3.5 million in funding, led by Scalo Technologies, with participation from Xsolla and Estoty. Previously, Hexacore released games including Sushi Roll, Blend It 3D, and Merge Animals. (Zawya)
Futureverse raised $54 million in Series A funding, led by 10T Holdings
Futureverse, a metaverse infrastructure company, raised $54 million in Series A funding. This round was led by 10T Holdings, with participation from Ripple Labs Inc. Other investors include Futureverse co-founders Aaron McDonald and Shara Senderoff. Futureverse is composed of 11 different startups from the fields of blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual universes, and gaming. (bloomberg)
Global Policies
The US House Financial Services Committee will vote on cryptocurrency and stablecoin legislation on July 26th. This legislation aims to create a clearer path for digital assets to transition from securities to commodities, as well as a comprehensive framework for stablecoins. (The Block)
South Korea's Financial Services Commission plans to establish a new virtual asset agency
The Financial Services Commission of South Korea plans to launch a Virtual Asset Office (provisional name) in August. Currently, the Commission is in final discussions with the Ministry of Administration and Security regarding the establishment of the new department. If approved by the government, the relevant department will be established through the issuance of a decree to modify the organizational structure, followed by personnel deployment.
Currently, the Commission is advancing the plan to form the Virtual Asset Office, using the Virtual Asset Inspection Department under the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) as the framework.
It is reported that the Virtual Asset Inspection Department was established as a temporary organization under the revised Specific Financial Information Act (Special Financial Transaction Act) in 2021, and its operational period (until September 2023) is also approaching. Therefore, the Commission is expected to restructure the department as an opportunity for organizational restructuring and to assign new tasks such as establishing a system for unfair and abnormal transactions inspection and supplementing the virtual asset system.
According to new guidelines proposed by the UK financial regulatory authority, cryptocurrency companies and KOLs may need to start adding disclaimers to their meme posts to comply with UK advertising laws. On July 17, the FCA issued a proposed guidance on financial promotions on social media, specifically targeting meme promotions and KOLs. The FCA found that memes related to cryptocurrency were circulating online, and many people were not aware that these memes are subject to their promotion rules. Memes are particularly common in the cryptocurrency field, and any type of communication can be considered a financial promotion. Under the FCA's proposal, individuals found to be posting memes that do not comply with the financial promotion rules may face a maximum of two years imprisonment. The public comment period for the proposed guidance is open until September 11. (Cointelegraph) As previously reported, the UK FCA announced that all cryptocurrency firms marketing to UK users must comply with their financial promotions regime by October 2023. In a letter dated July 4, the FCA stated that from October 8, only four lawful ways will exist for companies operating in the UK to promote crypto assets to comply with the FCA's regime. These lawful ways include obtaining approval or permission from an authorized party, creating promotions by companies registered with the FCA, or engaging in promotional activities exempted under the UK Financial Services and Markets Act. According to the FCA, promotional activities include "websites, mobile applications, social media posts, and online advertisements" that "have an effect in the UK" and are not limited to companies headquartered in the UK.
People * Voices
The Financial Secretary of Hong Kong, Mr. Paul Chan, revealed in an interview that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is developing a regulatory framework for stablecoins and plans to conduct a second round of public consultation within this year. We expect to implement the regulatory arrangements in the fiscal year 2023/2024. Furthermore, Mr. Chan mentioned that there are over 800 enterprises related to the financial technology ecosystem in Hong Kong, covering areas such as mobile payments, cross-border wealth management, virtual assets, AI financial services advisors, wealth and investment management, and regulatory technology. Among them are 8 virtual banks, 4 virtual insurers, and two licensed virtual asset trading platforms. In the securities market, Hong Kong launched a popular special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) listing mechanism in March this year, which provides a convenient fundraising channel for domestic and foreign companies engaged in cloud services, AI, and other special-purpose technologies, while also supporting the country's core technology research and development. (China Fund News)
CFTC Commissioner: Path to Regulatory Clarity for Cryptocurrency in the U.S. has been Laid Out
CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham believes that the path to regulatory clarity for cryptocurrency in the United States has been laid out after Ripple's partial victory in the lawsuit. She stated that a recent significant court ruling on the classification of crypto assets will ultimately lead to regulatory clarity. "We'll first see regulatory clarity on the definition of securities in the courts, and I think we've seen some of that come out through some very important court opinions that have already been published." Pham expressed her expectation to participate in the regulatory working group and hopes that the SEC and other regulatory bodies will work together to propose a "holistic approach" to cryptocurrency regulation. (Cointelegraph)
