Top 10 News of the Week
1. Mt. Gox official: The bankruptcy trustee has repaid BTC and BCH to some creditors link
Mt. Gox said that on July 5, 2024, the bankruptcy trustee had repaid Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash to some creditors through some designated cryptocurrency exchanges in accordance with the reorganization plan. The repayment of other creditors will be carried out quickly after the following conditions are met: confirmation of the validity of the registered account and other matters; the intention of the designated cryptocurrency exchange to accept the agency reception agreement; the bankruptcy trustee and the designated cryptocurrency exchange have completed discussions on repayment; and confirmation that repayment can be carried out safely. We ask eligible creditors to wait for a while. According to Arkham monitoring, the Mt. Gox wallet in Mentougou transferred 47.229k BTC, about 2.71 billion US dollars, on July 5.
According to Lookonchain, the German government, the US government and Mt. Gox have transferred a total of 17,788 bitcoins (about $1.08 billion) since June 19. In particular, the German government has been transferring bitcoins every day since July 1. Currently, they hold 396,210 bitcoins (about $22.78 billion). The specific data is 41,226 bitcoins (about $2.28 billion) for the German government, 213,297 bitcoins (about $11.72 billion) for the US government, and 141,687 bitcoins (about $7.78 billion) for Mt. Gox.
2. The United States announced that the number of people who continued to apply for unemployment benefits in the week ending June 22 was 1.858 million link
The United States announced that the number of people who continued to apply for unemployment benefits in the week ending June 22 was 1.858 million, which was expected to be 1.84 million and the previous value was 1.839 million. The number of initial unemployment claims in the United States in the week ending June 29 was 238,000, which was expected to be 235,000 and the previous value was 233,000. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits in the United States has risen for the ninth consecutive week, which is the longest period since 2018. As of the week ending June 22, the number of people continuing to apply for unemployment benefits increased to 1.86 million, the highest level since November 2021.
3. Powell: Hope to see more progress before having enough confidence to start cutting interest rates link
On July 3, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of its June 12 meeting, which showed that Fed officials were generally satisfied with their wait-and-see stance. Due to high inflation, Fed officials did not have enough confidence to cut interest rates, but some policymakers at last month's meeting called for close attention to signs that the labor market may weaken faster than expected. The vast majority of participants believed that the growth of economic activity seemed to be gradually cooling down.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a central bank forum hosted by the European Central Bank that the Fed has made considerable progress on inflation. However, he also said that he hopes to see more progress before he is confident enough to start cutting interest rates. When asked what keeps him awake at night, Powell pointed to the delicate balance between controlling inflation and avoiding a significant deterioration in the labor market. Powell was satisfied that US inflation has resumed its downward trend after rebounding at the beginning of the year, highlighting a cautiously optimistic mood.
4. The U.S. Marshals Service selects Coinbase Prime as its partner link
The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) has selected Coinbase Prime as its partner to provide custody and advanced trading services for its "Category 1" digital assets to protect and trade its large digital asset portfolio. The USMS is the asset forfeiture arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) paid Coinbase $32.5 million to use its custody and trading services to dispose of confiscated cryptocurrencies.
5. Bloomberg analyst: Ethereum spot ETF may be listed and traded on July 15 link
Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart tweeted that Bitwise Invest has again submitted a revised Ethereum ETF S-1 form, and more issuers are expected to submit the form this week. Analysts believe that Ethereum spot ETF products may be listed later next week or the week of July 15. Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas commented: "No one really knows why the SEC took so long to process these forms. Given so few comments, the listing should be quick. But it may be that some problem slowed down the process, or people are just on vacation in the summer. But all signs point to the listing this month, and more details will be revealed next week."
In a July 3 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bitwise amended its Form S-1 registration statement for its Ethereum spot ETF ahead of schedule, including a waiver of sponsor fees for the first $500 million of trust assets in the first six months. The filing did not include a specific launch date for listing and trading on NYSE Arca, but said it would happen “as soon as possible” after the registration effective date.
6. German lawmakers urge the German government to stop selling Bitcoin link
On July 5, German MP Joana Cotar strongly criticized the government's decision to sell $195 million worth of Bitcoin, arguing that the move exacerbated market volatility and could have a long-term negative impact on the stability of the cryptocurrency market. The Bitcoins came from an investigation into the illegal website Movie2kto, which confiscated about 50,000 Bitcoins. Cotar said on Twitter that the German government should reconsider this strategy and discuss Bitcoin as a strategic reserve currency in comparison with the United States.
The German government has recently frequently transferred Bitcoin to cryptocurrency exchanges. On July 4, the German Government transferred a total of 1,300 BTC to Bitstamp, Coinbase and Kraken at 16:25 UTC+8, worth about $75.53 million. This is the largest transfer to CEX in recent times. The German Government also transferred 1,700 BTC to address 139Po, worth $99 million. These funds may be transferred to institutional services or over-the-counter deposits. The German government still holds 40,359 BTC ($2.3 billion).
7. Circle will issue USDC and Euro stablecoin EURC link in the EU based on MiCA
Circle announced that it has obtained an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license, and its USDC stablecoin and EURC stablecoin have complied with the EU's new stablecoin regulations MiCA, and will be officially issued to European customers from July 1. Circle claims to be the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with MiCA. Previously, some exchanges have removed the euro stablecoin EURT and others. Binance said that USDC now complies with MiCA standards, making USDC the first major regulated stablecoin in the EEA (European Economic Area), which means that USDC will continue to be available in most of Binance's products.
8. Grayscale: optimistic about the outlook for cryptocurrency valuations for the rest of the year link
Grayscale said in a post that Bitcoin and crypto markets were under pressure from multiple selling pressures in June, but asset fundamentals did not change much. Grayscale expects spot Ethereum exchange-traded products (ETPs) to begin trading in the third quarter of 2024, and believes that crypto market valuations are expected to recover in the coming months. In June, Bitcoin's selling pressure came from multiple sources, including the Mt Gox bankruptcy legacy, German government liquidation, U.S. government sales, and Bitcoin miners' reductions. At the same time, Microstrategy purchased nearly 12,000 bitcoins in mid-June, which may have supported prices. Although short-term liquidity has affected Bitcoin prices, Grayscale believes that asset fundamentals have not changed significantly. Grayscale Research is optimistic about the outlook for cryptocurrency valuations for the rest of the year, believing that the macro backdrop remains supportive of the crypto asset class.
In addition, Geoffrey Kendrick, head of foreign exchange and digital asset research at Standard Chartered Bank, predicted that Bitcoin could hit a record high in August, and the price of Bitcoin could reach $100,000 by the US election day. The analyst's prediction depends on whether President Biden can continue to participate in the presidential campaign, which the market believes will increase the chances of former President Trump's re-election. This result is considered to be favorable for Bitcoin because Trump's victory may bring more favorable policies to the crypto market. In addition, the Standard Chartered analyst also shared his predictions for other presidential campaign scenarios, the most unlikely of which is that Biden withdraws from the campaign at the end of July, which could cause the price of Bitcoin to fall to $50,000 to $55,000. Previously, Standard Chartered predicted that Bitcoin's target at the end of the year would be $150,000 and $200,000 in 2025.
9. Sony Group has acquired Amber Japan link
Sony Group, one of Japan's largest companies, has acquired Amber Japan for billions of yen. Singaporean market maker Amber Group acquired Japan's regulated cryptocurrency trading platform DeCurret in early 2022 and changed its name to Amber Japan. Later, due to the collapse of FTX, Amber Group fell into trouble and was suspected of a complete debt-for-equity transaction with Distributed. Amber Group investors include Temasek, Sequoia China, Pantera, Tiger, Coinbase, etc. Yijin Li has resigned as the representative of Amber Japan, and Jun Watanabe, as the chairman of Sony Network Communications Inc., serves as the representative of the company after the acquisition.
Sony has renamed the acquired Amber Japan (WhaleFin) to S.BLOX Co., planning to work with other Sony Group businesses to enhance its cryptocurrency trading services. The revamp includes a redesigned user interface and a new mobile app to provide a more user-friendly experience. However, the specific launch date of the S.BLOX cryptocurrency exchange has not yet been announced. The cryptocurrency trading entity was originally the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DeCurret, which was acquired by the Japanese subsidiary of Singapore's Amber Group in 2022. In August 2023, Sony's wholly-owned subsidiary Quetta Web Co. acquired the platform.
10. Vitalik publishes a paper discussing ways to provide Ethereum users with faster transaction confirmation times link
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an article titled "A Deep Look into the Slot-and-epoch Architecture to Provide Ethereum Users with Faster Transaction Confirmation Times". In the article, Buterin introduced the practical options that Ethereum explored to speed up transaction confirmation, focusing on single-slot finality in existing technologies. Currently, Ethereum's Gasper consensus mechanism uses a slot-and-epoch architecture, but this mechanism is complex and the finality confirmation time is too long (12.8 minutes). SSF uses a mechanism similar to Tendermint to terminate the block before the next block is generated, while retaining the "inactive leakage" mechanism to ensure the stable operation and recovery ability of the chain.
Key financing events
UniSat announced that it had completed its Pre-A round of financing led by Binance in May link
ZK technology verification company Pi Squared completes $12.5 million seed round of financing link
Bitcoin re-staking protocol Lombard completes $16 million seed round of financing link
Modular blockchain oracle provider RedStone completes $15 million Series A funding link
Open source AI platform Sentient completes $85 million seed round of financing link
Distributed cloud computing company Prodia completes $15 million seed round of financing link
Shared sequencer network Astria announces $12.5 million in strategic financing link
Decentralized Oracle Network Developer AnchorZero Announces $8 Million Seed Round Link
Web3 multi-chain MMORPG game Swords and Dungeons completes $5 million in financing link
Solana-based GPU tokenization protocol Compute Labs completes $3 million in financing link
Bitcoin scaling protocol QED Protocol announces $6 million seed round link
Blockchain data management startup SendBlocks announces $8.2 million in seed funding link
Blockchain company OpenLedger announces completion of $8 million seed round link
Web3 security company Mamori announces $5 million in seed funding link
For more industry funding events, please visit crypto-fundraising.info.
