Planet Daily | ZKSync may airdrop at the end of June; LayerZero witch report restarts and introduces bond mechanism (May 20)
Headlines
Ethereum Layer 2 Network ZkSync Hints at Airdrop in Late June
Ethereum's second-layer network ZkSync hinted that it will conduct an airdrop at the end of June. It is reported that ZkSync posted on the X platform that it is expected to "hand over governance" at the end of June. The upcoming v2 4 upgrade will be the last upgrade before handing over network governance to the community. The "remaining missing parts" are expected to be in place by the end of June. (Coindesk)
LayerZero co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino posted on the X platform that the Bounty process will be reopened in the next day or two, and the report submission method will be changed to solve the problem of Sybil reports being deleted on Github. In addition, a "bond" mechanism will be introduced (the amount may be about 0.02 ETH).
SEC policy director resigns, SEC expected to remain skeptical of cryptocurrencies
The U.S. SEC announced in a statement that Heather Slavkin Corzo, a well-known critic of cryptocurrency, will resign from her position as policy director. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler appointed Corzo in April 2021. During his tenure, Corzo played a key role in implementing market fund reforms, accelerating securities settlement cycles, and strengthening corporate disclosures of cybersecurity incidents. These measures have been praised for strengthening investor protection and simplifying the capital formation process. SEC financial advisor Corey Klemmer will succeed Corzo, and the SEC is expected to remain skeptical of cryptocurrencies. (Coin Edition)
Industry News
Turkey’s ruling party has submitted a draft crypto bill to parliament, focusing on licensing and registration of crypto service providers in line with international standards.
According to Reuters, the draft bill aims to update existing laws to comprehensively regulate the nascent cryptocurrency market. The bill's main areas of focus include consumer protection, platform transparency, and compliance with financial regulations. The proposed regulations intend to regulate cryptocurrency trading platforms and other service providers in the field, requiring them to obtain a license from the Turkish Capital Markets Board.
The draft law aims to regulate crypto asset service providers, crypto asset platform operations, crypto asset storage, and crypto asset purchase, sale, and transfer transactions that Turkish residents can participate in. The legislation also addresses the classification of cryptocurrencies and projects to ensure compliance with existing financial regulations. (Cointelegraph)
Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, accused Nigerian officials of soliciting a $150 million bribe from the company, but was refuted and denied by the relevant agency, the Nigerian Ministry of Information, which said that Richard Teng's accusation "lacked substance". It is reported that relevant officials have expressed their intention to investigate the accusation. (DL News)
The U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote on the 21st Century Financial Innovation and Technology Act (FIT 21 Act) next week. Digital asset organizations and companies including Coinbase, Kraken, Andreessen Horowitz, DCG and about 50 others have written to House Speaker Mike Johnson through the Cryptocurrency Innovation Committee, hoping that the bill can be passed smoothly.
The letter stated: "Through this legislation, the United States can accelerate the development of blockchain technology and digital assets, promote financial inclusion and protect national security. It is critical for the United States to maintain its leading position in financial innovation." (Coindesk)
Laos faces power shortages due to crypto mining and erratic rainfall
Increased electricity demand in Laos due to cryptocurrency mining and erratic rainfall has led to power shortages, Somboun Sangxayarath, an adviser to state-owned Electricity of Laos (EDL), said, pointing to challenges to the country’s prospects as a Southeast Asian hydropower exporter.
Laos has been dubbed the “battery” of Southeast Asia for its hydropower export potential, providing the cheapest and most stable clean energy, which is crucial to decarbonizing the region as it works to scale up solar and wind power.
Sangxayarath said a 2021 policy push to build data centers has led to a boom in cryptocurrency mining, which now accounts for more than a third of Laos’ electricity demand, while reduced rainfall has curbed hydropower output, leading to blackouts. Hydropower accounted for 80% of Laos’ electricity generation over the past decade, most of which was sold by independent power producers through cross-border deals with Thailand and Vietnam.
Sangxayarath added that in the domestic market, EDL is a supplier of electricity that has become a net importer since 2021, requiring up to 600 megawatts (MW) of additional capacity during peak demand hours, which has more than doubled the company's costs.
Laos said last year it would not supply electricity to cryptocurrency projects that had not yet begun operations. Sangxayarath said that while the order remains in effect, it is still actively considering new investment proposals and seeking to increase electricity supply. [Reuters]
Project News
On May 17, Ethereum's second-layer network Linea announced its first points plan Linea Surge, which encourages users to hold assets in Linea and deploy them to DeFi protocols to obtain LXP-L tokens.
The initial plan supports a total of 34 assets, of which 6 are listed as mainstream assets: ETH, WETH, WBTC, nextwETH, M-BTC and SolvBTC.
Among them, M-BTC is the second-layer mapping token of Bitcoin's second-layer network Merlin Chain, with a total circulation of 19,000 pieces, about $1.2 billion. SolvBTC is a multi-chain interest-bearing token of the DeFi protocol Solv Protocol, with a TVL of more than $1 billion, 80% of which is in Merlin Chain.
It is reported that M-BTC has been launched on multiple public chains including Merlin Chain, Linea, B^2, Mode, Manta, zkLink, and Nova, and will continue to expand in the future to provide a wider range of liquidity.
Tevaera announced that it will distribute 90% of the LayerZero shares it receives to the community
ZK blockchain gaming ecosystem Tevaera announced the distribution plan of the obtained LayerZero token shares on X, of which 45% will be distributed to the top 5,000 Rep score ranking members, 30% (weighted) will be airdropped to Guardian ONFTs Bridge users; 15% (weighted) will be airdropped to Magical Phoenix NFT holders, and 10% will be airdropped to Tevaera developers.
Blur: Season 3 will also follow Blast on June 26
In response to the announcement by Ethereum’s second-layer network Blast that its airdrop activity will be launched on June 26, the NFT trading platform Blur stated on the X platform that since it has been confirmed that Blur Season 3 is supported by Blast, and given that the current airdrop schedule has been updated to June 26, Blur Season 3 will also end on that day.
In addition, Blur founder Pacman also said that he has noticed some confusion in the community about whether the airdrop allocation has increased and whether Gold has been increased, and the actual size of the airdrop is increasing at a rate that adapts to the delay.
Synthetix plans to migrate to V3 in June and will launch sUSD incentives next week
Synthetix announced the V3 migration plan. The migration will be divided into two phases. SNX holders of the Ethereum mainnet will migrate in June, and SNX holders of Optimism will migrate later.
Synthetix also stated that in order to expand the scale of sUSD, sUSD incentives will be launched next week, including providing at least 10,000 OP incentives per week for the sUSD/USDC liquidity pool on Optimism's VelodromeFi, and at least 20,000 SNX incentives per week for the sUSD liquidity pool on Ethereum Curve.
Arbitrum DAO plans to launch an 8-week M&A pilot program to use $3 billion in funds to implement M&A
Arbitrum DAO recently approved an eight-week M&A pilot program proposed by Bernard Schmid, a founding partner of Areta, a company that provides investment banking services to crypto companies. This lays the foundation for Arbitrum DAO to learn from the strategies of large technology companies. It is reported that Arbitrum DAO has $3 billion in funds. They wrote in the proposal: "In addition to in-depth strategic research on the upside of M&A value, the pilot phase should also serve as a platform for in-depth discussion based on data rather than opinions." If the pilot is successful, Schmid plans to put forward a more ambitious proposal: to establish an M&A department with a pool of $100 million to $250 million and identify and acquire potential targets within two years. The report commented that although large technology companies have long used mergers and acquisitions to drive their rapid growth, this is relatively rare in the crypto field. (DL News)
Notcoin plans to launch its first event early next week
Notcoin announced future plans on the X platform:
-The products and offers for the first event are almost ready and will be launched at the beginning of next week. After the staking period ends, users will get one week of offered Level for free;
- Gold and Platinum players can receive allocations from other launched events;
-Users can unstake Notcoin at any time and withdraw it on-chain. Yes, you will lose your Level benefits and access to the pool.
Coinbase Support posted on X that the platform experienced a brief outage earlier this week, which was caused by a bug related to the Coinbase Card rewards service. Due to this bug, some Coinbase Card users saw incorrect points displayed in their accounts.
All customer funds are safe. This was not caused by any security issues. The team will continue to work hard to mitigate such issues in the future.
Mode Ecosystem project Ionic recently announced the opening of the first round of ION airdrop qualification inquiry website (open until May 30), specifically:
-30 million ION for airdropping SZN 1, with a snapshot on May 15. 16% of the total first round of airdrops will be distributed on May 30, and the remaining airdrop tokens will be distributed over the next 3 months; unclaimed tokens will be returned to the treasury and redistributed to loyal users in community initiatives and future incentive programs.
-Another 20 million ION will be used for the SZN 2 airdrop, which will start on May 15 and end on September 15. Users who participated in the SZN 1 airdrop and continue to participate in the SZN 2 airdrop will receive bonuses, and new pools and features will generate Ionic points. The second round of airdrops is designed to reward users who contribute to the development of the protocol and ION tokens, including but not limited to market supply, ION liquidity provision on Velodrome, bootstrapping new features, etc.
It is reported that the total supply of ION is 1,000,000,000, and the initial circulation is 19,000,000.
Infinex, a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform launched by Synthetix, announced on the X platform that it will issue 20 million governance points to Mad Lads and Pudgy Penguins holders respectively. Users can be eligible for the distribution by creating an Infinex account and depositing 50 USDC. The snapshot will be taken on June 13.
Gemini Earn to start returning crypto to customers in kind by end of May
Gemini, one of Genesis’ creditors, announced that it will begin returning the first 97% of crypto assets to customers of its Earn program by the end of May, which will be paid in kind.
This means that customers who previously deposited one bitcoin into Gemini Earn will receive bitcoin instead of being compensated with the dollar value of bitcoin on a specific date (as of November 16, 2022). (The Block)
Earlier news, cryptocurrency lending institution Genesis Global obtained court approval on Friday to return about $3 billion in cash and cryptocurrency to customers in bankruptcy liquidation.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane approved Genesis’ Chapter 11 liquidation plan and rejected an objection from its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG), which argued that Genesis should not pay customers and creditors more than the value of its crypto assets at the time of its bankruptcy filing in January 2023.
Cryptocurrency prices have risen significantly since Genesis filed for bankruptcy, and DCG and Genesis have disagreed over which party should benefit from the price increase.
Lane overruled DCG’s objections, ruling that even if customer claims were capped at the lower price, Genesis would have to pay many other creditors, including federal and state financial regulators that are said to be seeking $32 billion, before it could pay its shareholder, DCG.
“Under these circumstances, there are insufficient assets to provide any compensation to DCG,” Lane wrote.
Aevo Announces Aevo Airdrops Program, with Swell and Zerolend as the First Projects
Aevo announced the launch of Aevo Airdrops in a post on the X platform. Aevo Airdrops is a new program that works with some of the Pre-Launch projects listed on Aevo and airdrops their tokens to the most active Pre-Launch traders and AEVO stakers.
The first two projects launched in the Aevo Airdrops are Swell and Zerolend. Another three projects will be launched in the coming weeks. Aevo said it will start airdropping ZERO tokens to eligible wallets next week.
In addition, Aevo has improved Aevo's staking rights. Aevo stakers' rights are divided into 4 levels: bronze, silver, gold, and diamond, providing different benefits according to the level.
Character*Voice
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that 1 billion USDT had been issued on the Tron Network early this morning Beijing time, and it has been authorized but not issued, which means that the amount will be used as inventory for the next issuance request and chain exchange.
LayerZero CEO: More than 338,000 addresses have self-reported as witches
LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino posted on the X platform that more than 338,000 addresses have self-reported as Sybils, far exceeding expectations, and the self-reporting process will end within 24 hours.
Justin Sun: TRON is committed to becoming the preferred platform for stablecoin growth
The latest news is that Wiki Finance Expo Hong Kong 2024 was held today at Sky 100 in Hong Kong. Justin Sun, the founder of TRON, participated in the conference online and delivered a keynote speech entitled "The New Era of Web3: Innovative Cooperation to Drive New Development".
Justin Sun said that in the Web3 era, stablecoins have always played an important role in cross-border payments, currency exchange, investment and other financial business fields. TRON will continue to promote the development of the stablecoin field and continue to work hard on the road of promoting the compliance and internationalization of stablecoins, aiming to become the preferred platform for the growth of stablecoins with a stablecoin market value of 100 billion US dollars. At present, the total market value of stablecoins on the TRON chain exceeds 59.8 billion US dollars, and the number of holding accounts exceeds 43.28 million. Among them, the circulation of the TRON version of USDT has exceeded 58.8 billion US dollars, surpassing the Ethereum version of USDT since April 2021, ranking first.
Telegram founder: Notcoin shows the strong appeal of TON ecosystem to application developers
Telegram founder Du Rove wrote: “Notcoin is a small program on Telegram that has reached 35 million active users in just a few months.
Yesterday, the cryptocurrency Notcoin was minted on the TON blockchain and listed on all major cryptocurrency exchanges. Notcoin users, who originally played the game just for fun, can exchange their in-game currency for real money.
Imagine that Telegram users created hundreds of millions of dollars in value in just a few months in this mini program. This amazing success story shows the strong appeal of the Telegram/TON ecosystem to application developers. Telegram provides application developers with more freedom than any other platform, providing opportunities to leverage social interactions to achieve virality. And TON provides scale and flexibility for any blockchain project built on it.
We are now seeing a wave of new mini-apps being developed on Telegram and TON. As a pioneer, Notcoin is paving the way for many upcoming applications with its strong capabilities.”
Blast founder Pacman YuX said: "I have seen some people speculating that Blast postponed the airdrop plan to match the market. Overall, I think it is meaningless to try to grasp the market timing. The schedule was postponed only because we need more time for development. The delay is bad, and we have invested a lot of energy in finding a solution, but the final conclusion is that we have to do this. We believe that doing so will bring more value than cutting corners (going online ahead of time). "
According to previous news, Blast has announced that the airdrop activity will be launched on June 26.
Fed Governor Bowman: Willing to support restarting rate hikes if inflation stagnates or rebounds
Federal Reserve Board member Bowman said that the progress of labor market rebalancing has slowed down, the policy is restrictive, and it is being monitored whether it is sufficient. Inflation will remain high for some time. If inflation stagnates or rebounds, he is willing to support the Fed to restart interest rate hikes. (Jinshi)
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a blog post stating that the vision of Ethereum in 2021 is very simple. As long as there is some market mechanism or zero-knowledge proof system to force centralized participants to act honestly, such a system usually works well in general, but will cause catastrophic failure in the worst case. The current Ethereum protocol proposal has deviated significantly from that model and takes the need for a truly decentralized network more seriously.
In the near and medium term, the Ethereum network will focus on improving its permissionless and decentralized features, and around concepts such as stateless nodes, MEV mitigation, and single-slot finalization, Ethereum has taken a further step in the direction of decentralization. In the future, efforts will also be made in light client technology and decentralized cross-L2 bridges to ensure that Ethereum L1 becomes a strong foundation layer for decentralization and security.
Ethereum needs to require RPC providers to provide proofs when providing results so that these results can be verified and extend light client technology to Layer 2 protocols. If Ethereum is to scale through a Rollup-centric roadmap, Layer 2 needs to obtain the same security and decentralization guarantees as Layer 1.
Skybridge Capital founder: Institutions will accelerate Bitcoin adoption in the coming quarters
Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, believes that institutional adoption of Bitcoin has begun across the board and will rapidly accelerate in the coming quarters. Scaramucci made this statement in an interview with CNBC, where he highlighted the growing acceptance of Bitcoin among major financial institutions and pension funds.
He pointed to Wisconsin’s recent announcement of an investment in Bitcoin and suggested that other pension funds might follow suit. He attributed the growing institutional interest in Bitcoin to regulatory approval, which addresses a key hurdle for large institutional investors.
Scaramucci also talked about the broader impact of Bitcoin adoption, describing it as "digital gold" rather than a universal currency, and emphasizing Bitcoin's role as a hedge against massive money printing and inflation. (CryptoSlate)
Vitalik: Ethereum does not have a culture of trying to stop people from speaking their minds
Vitalik posted on the X platform, “I’m really proud that Ethereum doesn’t have any culture of trying to stop people from speaking their minds, even if they have very negative feelings about major things in the protocol or ecosystem. Some people wave the ideal of ‘open discourse’ just as a banner, while others take it seriously.”
Former CFTC Chairman: Trump is the first crypto president in the United States
Chris Giancarlo, former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), recently highlighted the key role of former U.S. President Donald Trump in the cryptocurrency industry. At the Crypto Policy Summit in Washington, D.C., Giancarlo called Trump “America’s first crypto president.” The title stems from the Trump administration’s approval of Bitcoin futures in its first year in office.
He also stressed the importance of approving Bitcoin futures during the Trump administration: “The enduring success of this regulated futures market helps ensure that the world’s first digital commodity — Bitcoin — is priced in U.S. dollars,” he said, emphasizing the importance of Bitcoin to the future of digital assets.
Giancarlo further noted that in 2017, cryptocurrency was not a political issue because he and other CFTC commissioners were “unanimously supportive of regulatory innovation.” However, it has now become a political topic.
Earlier this month, Trump met with cryptocurrency enthusiasts and announced his decision to accept cryptocurrencies as campaign donations. He also claimed that President Joe Biden "doesn't even know" what cryptocurrencies are and declared that "if you support cryptocurrencies, you better vote for Trump." (Bitcoin.com)
Investment and Financing
DePIN Layer 1 Protocol Peaq Completes $20 Million Fundraising Through CoinList
DePIN Layer 1 protocol Peaq completed a $20 million fundraising through CoinList. More than 14,500 community members contributed more than $36 million in funds, oversubscribing peaq's token issuance on CoinList, making it the largest fundraising event and the issuance event with the highest donation amount on CoinList in more than two years.
The new funds will be used primarily to ensure that peaq-based DePIN becomes a category leader, as well as to accelerate the development of peaqosystem and promote various ecosystem and community initiatives.
Web3 football fantasy game FANTAGOAL completes $3 million financing, led by IDG capital
Web3 football fantasy game FANTAGOAL has completed a $3 million round of financing with a valuation of $25 million. Led by IDG Capital, KuCoin Ventures, Chain Capital, and OptaJoe also participated in the investment. Previously, FANTAGOAL also received a total of $400,000 in sponsorship from Sportsbet and whale.io.
It is reported that FANTAGOAL's goal is to closely integrate the football world with Web3 through the "European Cup" + "Fantasy" + "AI" approach, integrate blockchain NFT with real-world football matches, bring potential and commercial value to web3 football fans, and ultimately build the world's largest football ecosystem.
CoreWeave, an artificial intelligence startup backed by Nvidia, announced the completion of a new round of financing, with investors such as Blackstone, Carlyle Group and BlackRock participating. This financing is one of the largest private debt financings in history. Two weeks ago, CoreWeave just completed a round of equity financing of US$1.1 billion, with a valuation of US$19 billion. As of the end of last year, the company had 14 data centers and planned to double their number by the end of this year. (Wall Street Journal)
Web3 productivity app Focus Tree completes $2 million seed round led by Sfermion
Web3 productivity app Focus Tree announced on X platform that it has completed a $2 million seed round of financing.
Sfermion led the investment, and VoltCapital, PsalionVC, Foresight Ventures, StarkWare, Typhon Ventures, Sebastien Borget, GiulioX, Ramzi Laieb, Th 0 rgal, Chen Zituo, Christophe Lassuyt, Benjamin Flores, Elias, Tazartes, Mentor Reka and other institutions and individuals participated in the investment. According to official news, the project is building the first social focus application to help millions of people put down their mobile phones. Earlier news, Focus Tree founder Gabin Marignier was selected to the game committee appointed by the board of directors of the Starknet Foundation.
The Block Pro monitoring data shows that there have been more than 90 financing transactions related to the Bitcoin ecosystem so far in 2024, setting a record for the highest number of financing transactions in a single year in Bitcoin history.
Kyle Samani, managing partner of Multicoin Capital, pointed out that with the emergence of Bitcoin Taproot upgrade and Ordinals protocol, the Bitcoin ecosystem is experiencing a "developer renaissance". For some developers, building financial instruments on Bitcoin is more attractive because it is the oldest and most secure blockchain.
The Block found that Multicoin Capital's investment trend is shifting from Solana to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The venture capital firm has invested in projects such as Solana Labs and StarkWare, but recently participated in the investment in Bitcoin native music platform Arch Network and Bitcoin expansion network Mezo.
