Arrangement: Fairy, ChainCatcher
Important Information:
The Ethereum Foundation Research Team will hold an official AMA at 21:00 tomorrow night
DeFi project Penpie has lost $27 million in hacker attack
Trump-related crypto project World Liberty Financial will be built on Aave and Ethereum
a16z Gaming Fund launches $30 million investment program, application deadline is September 30
Polygon developers have converted MATIC tokens to POL
Today in History: It has been 7 years since the Chinese government stopped ICOs on September 4th
Source: a16z closed its Miami office in May
Zurich Cantonal Bank, With $290 Billion in Assets, Launches Bitcoin and Crypto Products
“What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?”
Source: a16z closed its Miami office in May
According to Bloomberg, venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has closed its Miami office in May 2024, citing people familiar with the matter. The company established a branch in Miami Beach in 2022 with the aim of promoting the city as a technology center in the tropics.
The move by a16z highlights the cooling of Miami's tech boom. The local cryptocurrency industry has been hit hard since the collapse of FTX in 2022. A16z representative confirmed that the company no longer has an office in Miami, but declined to comment further. People familiar with the matter said the closure was due to insufficient frequency of use by employees.
Zurich Cantonal Bank, With $290 Billion in Assets, Launches Bitcoin and Crypto Products
According to Bitcoin Magazine, Zurich Cantonal Bank, which has assets of $290 billion, has launched bitcoin and cryptocurrency products.
Zurich Cantonal is a universal bank that provides financial products such as savings and mortgages to individuals and institutions in the Zurich area. In 2017, the total assets of Zurich Cantonal Bank reached 162.71 billion Swiss francs, ranking sixth in the Swiss banking industry.
The Ethereum Foundation Research Team will hold an official AMA at 21:00 tomorrow night
Justin Drake, a core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, posted on X that at 21:00 Beijing time on September 5, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) research team will hold an official AMA event on Reddit, and EF researchers will answer various questions raised by the community on the relevant homepage.
It is reported that this is the 12th official AMA in the team's history. The team last held an AMA in January this year (before the Cancun upgrade).
DeFi project Penpie has lost $27 million in hacker attack
Penpie, an independent decentralized financial protocol built on Pendle, was hacked this morning, losing approximately $27 million in customer funds.
Previously, Penpie had suspended all deposit and withdrawal operations, and a Pendle spokesperson confirmed that its customer funds were safe and suspended all contracts until the problem was resolved.
According to the Immunfi report, more than $1.2 billion has been stolen through 154 hacking and vulnerability exploitation incidents so far in 2024. Mitchell Amador, founder and CEO of Immunefi, said that while most vulnerabilities occurred in the DeFi field, vulnerabilities in CeFi infrastructure caused the greatest economic losses.
The PeckShield report shows that the losses caused by hacker attacks in August 2024 exceeded US$313 million, of which two major attacks stole approximately US$238 million in Bitcoin and US$55 million in Dai respectively.
Scam Sniffer's report states that losses from phishing attacks surged 215% in August 2024, with $55 million stolen from a single attack.
Trump-related crypto project World Liberty Financial will be built on Aave and Ethereum
Trump's crypto project World Liberty Financial will be based on the decentralized financial platform Aave and the Ethereum blockchain, using a non-transferable governance token WLFI and a credit account system. The project is said to be inspired by the DeFi protocol Dough Finance, although it has not yet been confirmed whether its codebase will be used. Dough's co-founders Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro are also involved in the operation of the project. Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Barron Trump, are involved in the planning of the project. The Trump family has alerted the public to potential scams and said that official announcements will be released through their channels.
Today in History: It has been 7 years since the Chinese government stopped ICOs on September 4th
Seven years ago on September 4, 2017, seven central ministries called a halt to ICO activities. The closing price of Bitcoin that day was US$4,100. It then fell to US$2,817 on September 15, 2017.
On September 4, 2017, as many as seven Chinese government departments issued the "Notice on Preventing the Risks of Token Issuance and Financing", calling a halt to ICOs and defining them as illegal financial activities. All domestic virtual currency trading platforms were ordered to close within a time limit and stop registering new users.
a16z Gaming Fund launches $30 million investment program, application deadline is September 30
Andrew Chen, head of Games Fund One at a16z, said in a post on X platform, “We will invest $30 million in the next 30 days. I will co-host our new program in San Francisco in January 2025 with members of the a16z SPEEDRUN team, which will include guest speakers, personalized coaching, and a lot of financial support.
Applications are now open and the deadline is September 30. a16z focuses on new startups that are just getting started, including B2B/infrastructure startups focusing on AI, 3D, game engines, etc., game studios focusing on Web3, VR, AI, Discord, etc.
Each selected startup will receive $750,000 in investment and 12 weeks of mentoring (from January 6 to March 21, 2024) including live speakers, office hours, personalized coaching, and events.”
Former Mt. Gox CEO to launch new cryptocurrency trading platform EllipX this month
Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles plans to launch his new cryptocurrency trading platform later this month, with a focus on transparency and user-friendliness. The upcoming platform, called EllipX, is scheduled to launch in Europe later this month and will be based in Poland.
Karpeles said the new exchange will be structured like the New York Stock Exchange, but for cryptocurrencies. To ensure transparency, Karpeles plans to separate the different working bodies of the exchange. Karpeles is also preparing to launch a non-profit organization, Ungox, that will provide a rating system for cryptocurrency projects and exchanges.
Justin Drake, an important member of the Ethereum Foundation: It is a good thing that EF’s role in the entire ecosystem is decreasing
Recently, Justin Drake, an important member of the Ethereum Foundation, was a guest on the "Developer Story" column launched by OKX Web3 and ChainCatcher, and discussed in depth the technical improvements, consensus mechanisms, scalability, security, DeFi, user experience, ecosystem, environmental impact, and future development and strategy of Ethereum 2.0. He said that in promoting ecological development, EF (Ethereum Foundation) is often regarded as "ruling by doing nothing", and this style has also faced some controversy. He believes that it is a good thing that EF's role in the entire ecosystem is decreasing. Justin Drake said that now, EF's responsibilities are mainly limited to:
1) Devcon or Devconnect are held every year. They are now just one of many conferences, and there are many peripheral activities that are more important than the main venue.
2) An execution client: Geth is one of the 5 execution clients, but EF does not maintain any consensus client.
3) Grants: Providing tens of millions of dollars in unconditional grants to the wider community each year has led to a reduction in EF's ETH financial reserves. In the long run, it is a good thing for the Ethereum Foundation to hold less ETH. EF currently controls 0.23% of the ETH supply, and it is healthy to keep this number close to 0% in the next few decades because it promotes the decentralization of the Ethereum ecosystem.
4) Telephone coordination: Many conference calls are hosted by EF members, such as All Core Devs (ACD) hosted by Tim Beiko, All Devs Consensus (ACDC) hosted by Alex Stokes, RollCall hosted by Ansgar Dietrichs and Carl Beekhuizen, Sequencing and pre-meetings hosted by myself, MEV-boost conference calls hosted by Alex Stokes,
5) Research: This may be one of the areas that remains centralized, but it is possible that parts of the EF research team will become independent.
6) Roadmap Development: Vitalik updated the roadmap diagram, and then dozens of tasks were developed in parallel by different teams.
Polygon developers have converted MATIC tokens to POL
According to The Block, the Polygon development team announced that the MATIC token has been converted to POL. POL is now the native gas and staking token on the Polygon PoS chain, and major exchanges are expected to be launched one after another. This migration is a key step for Polygon to develop into a ZK chain and integrate with AggLayer, aiming to integrate liquidity and status between multiple chains.
POL will maintain the original token economics model, distribution method and total supply of 10 billion of MATIC. MATIC holders on the Polygon PoS chain do not need to take any action, and the token will be automatically upgraded to POL. However, MATIC holders on Ethereum, Polygon zkEVM or centralized exchanges need to actively convert their tokens to POL through the migration contract.
Justin Sun: Completed the destruction of $8 million of SUN tokens
TRON founder Justin Sun said that SunPump has completed the destruction of $8 million worth of SUN tokens, and there are still $4 million worth of tokens to be destroyed.
Samsung's fund announced that it has invested in Soneium development team Startale Labs
Samsung Next, an investment company under Samsung Electronics, officially announced today that it has invested in Startale Labs, the development team of Sony's Layer2 network Soneium.
Insider: OpenAI will raise tens of billions of dollars to build US AI infrastructure
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's plan to attract global investors to support the construction of artificial intelligence AI infrastructure is becoming clearer, with a focus on starting in U.S. states first and expected to cost tens of billions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter. The types of projects being discussed include building data centers, increasing energy capacity and transmission through turbines and generators, and expanding semiconductor manufacturing. Supporters may include investors in Canada, South Korea, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Other private companies are also expected to participate in the project. Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor, may be a potential partner, although Microsoft did not comment specifically on the project, but said it was aware of and involved in any of the company's broad infrastructure-related efforts.
Over Protocol has launched the mainnet and will conduct an airdrop at the end of September
According to BeInCrypto, the L1 blockchain lightweight node protocol Over Protocol has activated its mainnet and will update the ecosystem applications OverFlex (an application that combines OverWallet with the RWA market) and OverScape (a renamed version of OverNode) at the end of September. Ben Kim, founder of OverProtocol, said that a large-scale airdrop will be carried out after the update at the end of September, which will reward community members who have contributed to the ecosystem in the past year.
"What are the interesting articles worth reading in the past 24 hours?"
Arthur Hayes' new article: The bull market will be delayed, and the Fed's policy shift may trigger market changes in September
Like Pavlov’s dog, we all think the correct response to a rate cut is to “buy the f***ing dip” (BTFD). This behavioral response stems from the memory of low inflation during the Pax Americana era. Whenever there is a threat of deflation, which is bad news for financial asset holders (i.e. the rich), the Fed will decisively start printing money. As the global reserve currency, the US dollar creates an easy monetary environment for the world.
The global fiscal policy response to the COVID pandemic (or the hoax you believe it is) ended the era of deflation and ushered in an era of inflation. Central banks belatedly acknowledged the inflationary impact of COVID-19, adjusted monetary and fiscal policies, and raised interest rates. Global bond markets, especially in the United States, believed in the central banks' resolve in controlling inflation and therefore did not push yields to extremely high levels. However, it is assumed that central banks will continue to meet bond market expectations by raising interest rates and reducing money supply, which is very uncertain in the current political environment.
I will focus on the US Treasury market because the US dollar is the world's reserve currency, making it the most important debt market in the world. Debt instruments issued in any currency will be affected by US Treasury yields. Bond yields reflect the market's expectations of future economic growth and inflation. The ideal economic state is economic growth with low inflation, while the worst state is growth with high inflation.
Compared with WeChat, how long will it take for TON to achieve Mass Adoption?
Mass Adoption has always been the core challenge of Web3. However, the market tends to focus on short-term wealth effects and ignore the sustainability of projects and the key factors for achieving Mass Adoption. Since the launch of BTC in 2009, only centralized exchanges such as Binance have exceeded the 200 million mark in the number of users, becoming the first typical product in the Web3 field to achieve Mass Adoption.
With the approval of BTC ETF, the market ushered in a bull market that belongs exclusively to BTC OGs and believers. In contrast, due to insufficient liquidity, the performance of new coins is unsatisfactory, and altcoins are far from showing the phenomenon of flourishing in the last bull market. Most Web3 users have not enjoyed the prosperity of the bull market. In the last bull market, the number of crypto users increased rapidly from less than 50 million users in 2019 to 420 million in 2022, an increase of about 10 times. However, from the beginning of 2024 to date, the number of global crypto users has only increased by 30 million users, a much lower growth rate than the last bull market.
Open letter from the founder of zkSync: Why are we laying off employees?
I just sent a message to the Matter Labs team:
Today, I’m announcing the most difficult change in Matter Labs’ six years. We are restructuring our organization and have to say goodbye to many of our amazing team members (about 16% of the team). We have communicated individually with each impacted employee.
As founder and CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision and all the ones that came before it. To those of you who are leaving: I’m sorry we have to take this step. It hurts to say goodbye to talented employees for reasons unrelated to performance. I’ll explain why we made this decision, how we will care for the team members who are leaving, and what this means for the future of Matter Labs.
