| Paradigm participates in friend.tech seed round; SpaceX writes down $373 million in Bitcoin (August 21)
headlines
Wall Street Journal: SpaceX writes down $373 million in Bitcoin
According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk’s SpaceX wrote down a total of $373 million worth of Bitcoin in 2021 and 2022. This record may mean that SpaceX has sold Bitcoin. This data comes from SpaceX documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal, but the Wall Street Journal did not disclose the specific time or specific amount of Bitcoin sold by SpaceX. (wsj)
cryptocurrency
Bitcoin Magazine tweeted that an independent miner with a computing power of about 1 PH/s received a block reward of 6.25 BTC (worth over $160,000) on August 18. Typically, it takes an average of 7 years for a miner with this level of computing power to create a valid transaction to receive a block reward at the current mining difficulty.
Blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs released a special report stating that North Korean hackers have stolen $200 million in cryptocurrency this year, accounting for more than 20% of all stolen cryptocurrency in 23 years. Over the past five years, cybercriminals have stolen more than $2 billion. A TRM Labs spokesperson said that North Korean hackers use a variety of techniques to launder stolen funds, mainly using currency mixers after cross-chain, and then quickly cashing out through exchange accounts. These exchanges usually have lower KYC or anti-money laundering standards. . Sinbad was commonly used by North Korean hackers to mix coins after OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash. (Decrypt)
Crypto exchange CoinCatch parent company Linkbase intends to make strategic investment in CoinDesk
Linkbase Technology, the parent company of crypto derivatives exchange CoinCatch, expressed its intention to make a strategic investment in crypto media CoinDesk for an undisclosed amount. Linkbase Technology CEO said that although CoinDesk is undergoing an industry transformation, he believes that accurate and insightful news reporting can promote the development of the encryption industry, and is also optimistic about CoinDesks development potential. It is reported that in March 2023, Linkbase Technology launched its first cryptocurrency trading platform, CoinCatch, with branches in Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong, and Dubai. (Bitcoin.com) According to previous news on August 14, CoinDesk laid off 45% of its editorial staff as its parent company Digital Currency Group planned to introduce strategic investors.
Connext announces token economics, 10% used for airdrops
Layer 2 interoperability protocol Connext announced token economics. The total number of NEXT tokens is 1 billion. The token type is xERC 20, of which 30% will be allocated to DAO, 10.8% will be allocated to the Connext Foundation, and 10% will be used for airdrops. 22.34% is allocated to early supporters, 11.24% is allocated to ecosystem and strategic supporters, 11.68% is allocated to early teams and consultants, and 3.90% is allocated to Proxima Labs. Users must meet at least one of the following two criteria to qualify for the NEXT airdrop: 1. Transfer 3 or more times, the average value of each transaction is at least US$15, and the total transaction volume exceeds US$200; 2. Transfer to the Connext network Provide liquidity of at least $1500, no less than 1 day.
Project News
Scroll launches Scroll Beta testnet
Scroll announced the opening of Beta testing on the Scroll Sepolia test network. The version upgrade includes three aspects: zkEVM upgrade, bridge upgrade and infrastructure upgrade. Among them, the zkEVM upgrade improves EVM compatibility through precompiled upgrade and supports all EVM opcodes. In terms of bridge upgrades, Gas can be reduced by up to 50%, and a trustless message relay function is introduced between L1 and L2, eliminating dependence on trusted relayers. In terms of infrastructure upgrades, data integrity is improved, counter-proof overflow is achieved, and the coordinator function is enhanced. Scroll will run the Sepolia testnet alongside the mainnet in the future as the main testing platform for users and developers. Scroll Goerli will be discontinued after the mainnet is launched.
OpenSea will implement an optional mechanism for royalties on new series from August 31
OpenSea announced that it will implement an optional mechanism for royalties for new series of works starting from August 31, and cancel OpenSea’s mandatory creator royalty mechanism (Operator Filter). For existing series with Operator Filter implemented before August 31, OpenSea will enforce creator royalties specified on OpenSea until February 29, 2024, after which time creator royalties will be optional.
Ripple community releases proposal to introduce native on-chain oracles for XRP Ledger
Ripple software engineer Gregory Tsipenyuk released a proposal 0045 XLS-45 d Price Oracle on GitHub, aiming to introduce a native on-chain oracle for XRP Ledger to provide off-chain data and information to each dAPP.
Investment and Financing
Avalanche Foundation awards $3M worth of AVAX to Dexalot
The Avalanche Foundation is providing $3 million worth of AVAX tokens to Dexalot, a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Avalanche subnet. The program is part of the Avalanche Multiverse, an incentive fund to drive growth in new subnets. A subnet is a sovereign network that defines its own membership and token economic rules. Avalanches Multiverse funding will be released over 12 months through the Dexalot incentive program starting in the fall. (CoinDesk)
Arbitrum DAO launches Domain Round donation program totaling $100,000 (DAI) on Gitcoin protocol
Arbitrum DAO announced the launch of the first round of funding for the Domain Round donation program on the Gitcoin protocol, which will be conducted on the Ethereum mainnet with a total matching pool of $100,000 (DAI). In this round of financing, the Arbitrum community will decide on the allocation of fund pools between the following five areas: games, developer tools on the Nova chain, new protocol ideas, education, community development and activities, Open Pool (provided by community users decide what the field is).
Ellipsis Labs completes $3.3 million in seed round led by Electric Capital
DEX Phoenix developer Ellipsis Labs announced the completion of a US$3.3 million seed round of financing, led by Electric Capital, Robot Ventures, Anagram and other angels including Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron, Monad Labs CEO Keone Hon Investors participate. The financing will be used to accelerate the development of innovative DeFi protocols such as Phoenix.
Encrypted payment company CityPay has completed a seed round of more than 2 million euros, including a $500,000 cryptocurrency investment, with participation from Tether, Presto Ventures and other angel investors. The new financing will be used to expand the market and promote the development of the B2C platform. It is reported that CityPay was founded by Eralp Hatipoglu (CEO) and Beka Kemertelidze and is committed to helping corporate customers receive cryptocurrency payments and convert them into legal tender in four ways: network integrated payments, POS terminals, email bills and personal initial deposits. (Tech.eu)
global policy
The Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may approve multiple Ethereum futures ETF applications at the same time. The SEC has received multiple crypto ETF applications from investment firms since July and has not yet directed the firms to withdraw their applications, a change from 2021 when firms were directed to withdraw similar applications. This suggests regulators will not block the launch of ETFs in the short term, people familiar with the matter said. As of now, there are at least 16 Ethereum-related ETF applications awaiting regulatory approval. (WSJ)
According to people familiar with the matter: Ren Zhigang, a member of the Hong Kong Executive Council and former president of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, has become the main candidate to be the next chairman of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The insider said that based on internal discussions, Yam will succeed Laura Cha as chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited at the annual general meeting in April next year, but the next chairman has not yet been finalized. (Bloomberg) According to previous reports, Ren Zhigang stated in a public debate that he would not buy virtual assets and asked his opponents: How can virtual assets support economic development?
character * voice
Tether Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino said on Twitter that a new mobile application Keet is being tested. The application will provide true P2P voice calling, blind mirroring, and product stability. Once released, the team will focus on features, integrations, and the P2P plugin marketplace. He emphasized that the app will be permanently free and will not require central infrastructure. According to news in 2022, Tether, Bitfinex and the Hypercore open source protocol team collaborated to launch Keet, a point-to-point (P2P) encrypted communication application based on the underlying technology Holepunch. Keet can only share end-to-end encrypted data between call participants, and the video passes directly Connect to operate without using a performance-limiting server. Additionally, when Keet shares a file without waiting for upload, other peer-to-peer participants can immediately download from the source. Additionally, Keet has built-in Bitcoin Lightning and USDT micropayments.
Chief Executive of Hong Kong Cyberport: Helped Web 3 companies to open bank accounts
In a latest interview with Finance 730, Hong Kong Cyberport CEO Yam King-shin said that the Hong Kong government is actually making an exception to promote Web 3 and virtual assets. It can definitely be seen that the third generation of the Internet will bring disruptive changes to long-term technology, so it is quite interesting. Promoted with far-sightedness, Hong Kong Cyberport has become Hong Kongs Web 3 base. Most of the companies are from overseas, and there are already more than 200 companies doing Web 3 business. Ren Jingxin also said that financial institutions may need time to adjust policies and risk control measures, but Hong Kong Cyberport itself has two virtual banks and has helped Web 3 companies open bank accounts. In response to former Hong Kong Monetary Authority President Yam Chi-gangs statement that virtual assets are casinos, Yam responded that Yam mistakenly equated the governments promotion of Web 3 with encouragement to engage in virtual currency speculation, but many Web 3 applications are not cryptocurrencies, let alone speculation.
Eric Wall: Willing to double refund to all users who purchased Taproot Wizards NFT
X (formerly Twitter) user Coinicarus posted that Bitcoin Ordinals NFT trading volume has dropped 98% since May. Bitcoin supporter Eric Wall responded, admitting that Ordinals is a huge failure, and is willing to double refund anyone who purchased the Taproot Wizards project, and can keep the jpeg (no need to return the NFT), and has opened a private message. It is understood that Eric Wall is one of the initiators of Taproot Wizards. The project was launched in February this year. It is a wizard-themed Ordinals project with a total of 2,106 pieces. It pays tribute to the Bitcoin wizard element first launched by mavensbot ten years ago.
