1. BitForex announced that it will reopen for users to withdraw assets
Cryptocurrency exchange BitForex announced that it will reopen for users to withdraw assets, and other functions and services will be suspended. It also stated that the Bitforex team was detained and investigated by the police in Jiangsu Province, China on February 23, 2024. The unexpected incident caused the platform to be inaccessible and users were unable to withdraw assets that day. Due to the sensitivity of the situation, it was not possible to provide timely notification to users. In February of this year, about $56.5 million flowed out of the hot wallet of the cryptocurrency exchange BitForex. Shortly thereafter, withdrawals stopped being processed without any official announcement.
Read the original article
2. Vitalik: Blockchain can be used as a "truth machine", but other tools are still needed to assist in further truth discovery
Vitalik Buterin responded to a question on Twitter about "what is a universal blockchain" and said that the blockchain is a "truth machine" that, in a specific sense, provides a consensus approximation of the truth about when a message was sent, but will not tell you whether the moon landing was true. This greatly reduces the attack surface of the blockchain, but it does mean that we need other tools to actually perform (or assist) the latter truth discovery.
Read the original article
3. President of The ETF Store: US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs hold over 900,000 Bitcoins
Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, tweeted that currently, the spot Bitcoin ETF listed in the United States holds 900,000 Bitcoins, accounting for 4.3% of the total supply of Bitcoin. The assets are about 60 billion US dollars. Since its launch in January, the net inflow of funds has been 17 billion US dollars.
Read the original article
4. Ripple CEO: Expected to resolve lawsuit with SEC "soon"
XRP’s price has risen in recent weeks on speculation that a settlement could be announced next week following a closed-door meeting of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Activity on the Ripple ledger and the creation of new addresses have also reached their highest levels since March, according to data from analytics firm Santiment.
Read the original article
5. US Senator emphasizes that Bitcoin, as a digital currency, is not affected by large-scale network outages
U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis on Friday highlighted the stability of Bitcoin amid a major outage at cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. The outage caused connectivity issues across industries, highlighting the fragility of interconnected systems and the urgent need for strong cybersecurity measures. "You know what currency wasn't affected by the widespread outage? Bitcoin."
Read the original article
6. Wu's Weekly Selection: Ethereum spot ETF will start trading next Tuesday, Trump's support for Bitcoin sparks discussion, WazirX was hacked and the top 10 news
Top 10 News of the Week
1. SEC: Spot ETH ETF issuers can start trading on July 23 link
Sources revealed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) informed the issuer of the spot Ethereum ETF that trading can begin on July 23. The SEC has no further comments on the recently submitted S-1, and the final version needs to be submitted by Wednesday. Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, tweeted that the SEC finally responded to the issuer, asking them to submit the final S-1 form (including fees) this Wednesday, and then apply for effectiveness after the close of next Monday so that it can be launched on Tuesday (July 23). This is of course in the absence of unforeseen last-minute problems.
In an interview with Coinage founder Zack Guzmán, Hester Peirce, a member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said that there is still room for reconsideration on whether Ethereum ETFs can be pledged. She pointed out that "whether it is pledge or any function of the product, these are all open to re-examination." The interview also covered the future changes of Ethereum ETFs, the development path of Solana ETFs, the changes in the SEC's institutional culture, the terminated crypto investigations, and her views on the future direction of SEC regulation.
2. MtGox forum poll: 55% of participants will not sell Bitcoin link
A vote on the Reddit MtGox forum showed that among the 467 members who participated in the vote, 260 people chose not to sell any of the bitcoins after receiving them as compensation, accounting for the highest proportion of 55%; 88 people chose to sell all of them, accounting for 18%, ranking second highest among the voting options; 68 people chose to sell 1% to 25%; and 26 people chose to sell 25% to 50%.
3. Trump will attend the Bitcoin conference to strengthen security measures, the number of visitors may reach a new high link
After the assassination attempt on Trump, Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey said that he had communicated with the Trump team and that Trump was in good spirits and still promised to give a speech in person at the Bitcoin 2024 conference. The Bitcoin 2024 conference will be held in Nashville, Tennessee, from July 25 to 27. Coinbase's recent research shows that 50 million adults in the United States hold cryptocurrencies.
After attendance fell during the bitcoin bear market, attendance at the bitcoin conference could easily exceed last year's roughly 12,000 people, and could even rival 2022's record of more than 25,000. Brandon Green, chief of staff for the conference organizers, said ticket sales have accelerated since the announcement that Trump would attend the conference, predicting that the final audience could be between 20,000 and 45,000. The conference could offer a unique "symbiotic" opportunity for the bitcoin industry and politicians. According to the Washington Post, one of the conference's founders promised Trump that attending the conference could bring him $15 million in revenue.
4. Trump: Will issue the fourth NFT; The Federal Reserve should avoid cutting interest rates before November link
Trump said in the interview, "The previous series was very successful, selling out 45,000 cards in one day, and I plan to do it again because people want me to do it again." In May of this year, Trump's campaign team began accepting cryptocurrency donations. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing data from the Federal Election Commission, of the approximately $331 million raised by Trump's campaign last quarter, about $3 million was in cryptocurrency. Trump also said that if he wins, he will allow Jerome Powell to complete his term as chairman of the Federal Reserve until May 2026; the Federal Reserve should avoid cutting interest rates before the November election; the corporate tax rate will be reduced to 15%, and there is no plan to ban TikTok; JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is considered to be the Secretary of the Treasury.
5. Powell: The Fed will not wait until inflation drops to 2% before starting to cut interest rates link
In a speech at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Federal Reserve Chairman Powell said the Fed will not wait until inflation falls to 2% before starting to cut interest rates. He pointed out that if it waits until inflation fully falls to 2%, it may be too long. At present, the Fed needs more evidence of falling inflation to ensure the correctness of policy adjustments. Wall Street Journal reporter Nick Timiraos wrote that Federal Reserve Chairman Powell recently said that the recent slowdown in inflation and economic activity is roughly in line with the Fed's expectations, but he still refused to say whether this is a reason for the Fed to cut interest rates at its policy meeting later this month. The inflation report released last week showed a general improvement in the economy, which prompted some private analysts to wonder whether the Fed needs to wait until September to cut interest rates.
6. Vitalik: Oppose choosing political allies based on who “supports cryptocurrencies” link
Vitalik published an article titled "Against Choosing Your Political Allies Based on Who "Supports Cryptocurrency"". In the article, he said that although cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly important in modern politics, excessive focus on this may go against the values of entering the crypto field in the first place. He emphasized that cryptocurrency is not just currency and blockchain, but has a broader concept of technological freedom and personal freedom behind it. Freedom is not limited to payment, but also freedom of communication, digital identity and thought. Politicians who support cryptocurrency do not necessarily have the same stance on other freedoms and technological issues.
In response to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin's latest remarks "against making political votes based on whether to support cryptocurrency", Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson refuted that my first goal has always been to keep the government away from cryptocurrency as much as possible, but when this goal is not possible, the remaining options are very clear. If they will continue to over-regulate, then we should not vote for them. Voting for Biden is voting for the demise of the US cryptocurrency industry. For this reason, we should vote for candidates who support cryptocurrency.
7. a16z explains why it turned to support Trump link
a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen said that he has been a Democrat for most of his life, but he will support Trump in the 2024 presidential election because the Biden administration stifles startups through excessive regulation and potentially unnecessary taxes, while the Trump administration will help innovation flourish. They disagree with the White House's current plan for "over-regulation" of artificial intelligence. Unlike the Biden administration, Trump's cryptocurrency regulatory plan is a "comprehensive recognition of the entire field." Biden's proposal to tax unrealized capital gains forced him to vote for Trump.
8. BlackRock CEO: Bitcoin is a legitimate financial instrument link
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in an interview with CNBC: "My view five years ago was wrong. I believe Bitcoin is a legitimate financial instrument." He also said that Bitcoin is a legitimate financial asset that everyone should hold. BlackRock announced on Monday that its assets under management (AUM) reached $10.6 trillion in the second quarter. Currently, its BTC ETF IBIT holds more than 300,000 BTC, making it the largest public holder of Bitcoin.
Dell Group CEO Michael Dell retweeted a video of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's interview with CNBC and said that Bitcoin is fascinating (Fascinating Bitcoin).
9. Grayscale officially launches decentralized artificial intelligence fund link
Grayscale officially launched the decentralized artificial intelligence fund Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC, aiming to strengthen AI investment in the cryptocurrency industry. The fund is rebalanced quarterly, and initial investments include Bittensor (TAO) 2.92%, Filecoin (FIL) 30.59%, Livepeer (LPT) 8.64%, Near (NEAR) 32.99% and Render (RNDR) 24.86%. The fund focuses on three areas: chatbots, image generation and other decentralized AI applications; solving problems caused by centralized AI such as deep fakes, false information and certified robots; and AI-related infrastructure such as GPU computing, data storage and decentralized market services.
10. Indian crypto exchange WazirX may have been hacked, with losses exceeding $230 million link
Chain detective ZachXBT said in a post that the Indian crypto exchange WazirX may have been hacked, with losses of more than $230 million. The stolen assets include 5.43 trillion SHIB ($102 million), 15,298 ETH ($52.5 million), 20.5 million MATIC ($11.24 million), 640.27 billion PEPE ($7.6 million), 5.79 million USDT and 135 million GALA ($3.5 million). The attacker has begun selling SHIB and other tokens for a total of 9,956 ETH ($34.36 million). The WazirX hacker holds 56,813 ETH ($197.64 million), leaving only $25.29 million worth of altcoins unsold. WazirX has issued a post confirming the security vulnerability and temporarily stopped Indian rupee INR and cryptocurrency withdrawals.
Key financing events
Blockchain data network developer Chainbase completes $15 million Series A funding link
OKX Ventures announces investment in zkLink link
Bitcoin DeFi company Liquidium announces $2.75 million seed round link
Partior announces $60 million Series B funding round led by Peak XV Partners link
Token distribution protocol ZAP has completed $15.1 million in financing, with a valuation of $100 million link
Fintech company Tapi completes $22 million Series A financing, with participation from a16z and others link
Web3 social platform beoble announces $3 million in funding link
Haruko Completes $6 Million Series A Funding link
Fintech company Caliza completes $8.5 million in financing, led by Initialized link
Crypto AI startup Mira completes $9 million seed round of financing link
Allium Labs Completes $16.5 Million Series A Funding link
Real World Asset (RWA) Credit Agreement Zivoe Announces $8.35 Million Financing link
HashKey Capital announces investment in CatizenAI publishing platform Pluto Studio link
For more industry funding events, visit crypto-fundraising.info.
7. Hot project news of the week: Worldcoin extends token unlocking time, Scroll TVL exceeds 1 billion, Binance airdrop portal launches BANANA, etc. (0714-0720)
1. Worldcoin: TFH investors and team members’ WLD token unlocking period extended to 5 years link
According to the latest Worldcoin white paper, the unlocking schedule for about 80% of TFH investors and team members' WLD tokens will be extended from 3 years to 5 years, and the first year of the unlocking schedule will remain unchanged. TFH reserves have no plans to further extend the lock-up period. The new unlocking method will allow TFH investors and team members to unlock about 2 million WLD per day after July 24, equivalent to about 4.8 million US dollars, which is 40% lower than the previous daily unlocking of 3.3 million WLD.
2. Optimism announces Retro Funding 4 results link
Optimism announced the results of the fourth round of Retro Funding 4, which plans to provide 10 million OP rewards to more than 200 projects. Projects will be rewarded based on their performance on the indicators selected by the badge holders. The primary indicator is the gas fee generated by the project on the hyperchain from October 2023 to June 2024. The second indicator includes trusted users who join the hyperchain. Among them, Zora and Layer 3 each received 500,000 OP.
3. Scroll TVL grew 21.9% to $1.01 billion in the past 7 days link
According to L2Beat data, on July 15, Scroll TVL increased by 21.9% to $1.01 billion in the past 7 days, becoming the eighth Ethereum Layer2 network with a TVL of more than $1 billion. Of Scroll's $1.01 billion TVL, ETH accounted for 87.17%, stablecoins accounted for 11.22%, and others accounted for 1.61%.
Previously, L2 network Scroll launched its on-chain personality and reputation portal Scroll Canvas, where users collect on-chain achievements in the form of "badges" by interacting with projects across the Scroll ecosystem. Any project on Scroll can issue badges, and Scroll Canvas is now open for minting, and users can connect their Ethereum wallets to open it.
4. Scroll’s officially supported lending protocol Rho suffered an oracle attack link
On July 19, Scroll’s officially supported lending protocol Rho was attacked by an oracle. The root cause seems to be that malicious actors have access to and control over Oracle. USDC and USDT pools were affected. As of now, the attacker has held funds of approximately $7.6 million on multiple chains. Scroll has confirmed that the Rho Markets vulnerability is an application-specific issue, and Rho Markets is leading the response.
On the same day, the attacker sent an on-chain message to the Rho team saying that its MEV robot had profited from a misconfiguration of the Rho price oracle. "We understand that these funds belong to users and are willing to return them in full. But first, we want you to acknowledge that this was not a vulnerability or hack, but a misconfiguration on your part. In addition, please provide what steps you will take to prevent this from happening again."
5. Base Protocol Manager: Committed to making Smart Wallet the default wallet for the Base network link
According to @eekeyguy_eth's data panel, in the past week (July 8-14), the number of active smart accounts on Base reached 95.11k, of which 78.83k were newly deployed; the number of transactions executed by smart wallets (UserOps) reached 1.3 million, both of which set new records for two consecutive weeks. Jesse Pollak, head of the Base protocol, said that he is committed to making the smart wallet the default wallet for the Base network.
6. LayerZero Foundation: Final distribution of bounty hunters will be carried out on July 23 link
The LayerZero Foundation said that a provisional list of bounty hunters and other details have been uploaded to the Commonwealth platform. Bounty hunters have until 00:00 UTC on July 21 to review this provisional list. The final distribution will take place by the end of the day on Tuesday, July 23. The allocation is at the discretion of the LayerZero Foundation and is subject to change. This list should not be considered a final sybil list or reused as is. The list does not take into account unreviewed reports or reports that were later determined to be false positives.
7. HashKey platform token HSK announces cooperation with full-chain liquidity asset protocol StakeStone link
HashKey platform token HSK announced a strategic partnership with the full-chain liquidity asset protocol StakeStone. The two parties will first cooperate around HSK's airdrop activities, and plan to continue to deepen cooperation in the fields of joint marketing, ecological co-construction, and public chain construction in the future to jointly promote the development of the Web3 ecosystem. HSK is the HashKey platform token and is scheduled to be officially launched in the third quarter of 2024. HashKey Chain is the HashKey Layer 2 ecological chain. StakeStone aims to build a liquid ETH/BTC asset standard based on a highly scalable staking network.
8. Solana DEX Raydium captured a record weekly high in transaction fees last week link
According to DeFiLlama data, in the past week, Solana DEX Raydium captured $18 million in transaction fees, setting a new weekly record, surpassing Ethereum ($16.24m) and Solana ($9.31m), becoming the second highest protocol or application for fee capture after Lido. In the past week, Solana DEX transaction volume exceeded $13 billion, and Raydium's transaction volume share accounted for about 62%.
9. SHIB will change leadership and hand over project control to the community by the end of the year. link
Shytoshi Kusama and Kaal Dhairya, anonymous lead developers of the MEME project Shiba Inu (SHIB), were interviewed by Arabian Business and said they got into the crypto industry after being influenced by a super-rich passenger while working as an Uber driver, and then contacted Ryoshi, the anonymous creator of SHIB. Kusama and Dhairya plan to hand over control of the project to the community by the end of this year, and the project will have a dedicated committee to lead certain things by the end of the year.
10. Binance announces the launch of the first project on the airdrop portal: Banana Gun (BANANA) link
Binance announced the first project on the airdrop portal: Banana Gun (BANANA), the ecosystem token for the Banana Gun TG robot. Users who use BNB to simply earn coins will receive airdrop allocations. Binance will list BANANA on 2024–07–20 09:00 (UTC). Binance HODLer Airdrops is a program that rewards BNB holders with token airdrops based on historical snapshots of their BNB balances.
In September 2023, Banana Gun released BANANA Token. Despite claiming to have passed two audits, an unfixable vulnerability was found in the tax contract, which allowed users to have tax dividend tokens after selling BANANA. Since the project locked up LP, it had to sell the treasury wallet to exhaust LP.
