Today's news tips:
Bloomberg analyst: The US SEC may approve the 19b-4 filing of the spot Ethereum ETF as early as Wednesday local time
Crypto lender Genesis reaches $2 billion settlement with regulators
Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson slams OpenAI for plagiarizing her voice for ChatGPT
Web3 gaming platform Gala Games was suspected to be hacked, with losses exceeding $200 million
Grayscale has appointed Goldman Sachs' Peter Mintzberg as its new CEO
Bitcoin hits all-time highs against local currencies in Japan, Argentina and the Philippines
CoinShares: Digital asset investment products saw a net inflow of $932 million last week
Sun Yuchen currently holds 665,000 ETH, equivalent to about US$2.447 billion
Regulatory News
Bloomberg analyst: The US SEC may approve the 19b-4 filing of the spot Ethereum ETF as early as Wednesday local time
Bloomberg senior analyst Eric Balchunas tweeted that he heard that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hopes to return the revised 19b-4 document for the spot Ethereum ETF to them by 10 a.m. local time (based on the large number of comments they just received today), and it may be approved as early as Wednesday. In addition, according to Cointelegraph, citing Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart, the approved 19b-4 must be accompanied by a signed S-1 registration statement before the spot Ethereum ETF can be launched. Even if the 19b-4s are approved this week, the signing of the S-1 may take weeks or even months.
Earlier news, Eric Balchunas said that the probability of Ethereum spot ETF approval has increased from 25% to 75%. Later news, Galaxy research director said that the SEC may recognize that ETH itself is not a security, but the pledged ETH is a security. In addition, Fidelity also submitted an update to its Ethereum spot ETF S-1 application today.
Crypto lender Genesis reaches $2 billion settlement with regulators
According to CNBC, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a $2 billion settlement with cryptocurrency lender Genesis to compensate for the losses of defrauded investors. Genesis was once one of the core businesses of Digital Currency Group (DCG). Due to the industry chain reaction caused by the collapse of FTX, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2023. James filed a lawsuit against DCG, its subsidiary Genesis and Gemini Trust in October, accusing them of misleading investors on the Gemini Earn project, resulting in more than $1 billion in losses. The settlement prohibits Genesis from operating in New York and establishes a victim fund, whose beneficiaries include more than 29,000 New York residents who invested in Genesis through the Gemini Earn product.
Brazil’s Central Bank plans to regulate the crypto industry in stages and will submit a regulatory proposal by the end of this year
According to Reuters, the Central Bank of Brazil is gradually advancing the regulation of crypto assets and virtual asset service providers, and is expected to put forward specific regulatory proposals by the end of this year. Although the process has been delayed, the central bank has adopted a phased implementation approach to ensure the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of the regulations. Through the new public consultation, the Central Bank of Brazil aims to collect more opinions to develop a more reasonable and feasible regulatory framework.
AI&NFT
Yuga Labs co-founder: The company will no longer touch Cryptopunks, it will be completely decentralized
Yuga Labs co-founder Garga.eth said on the X platform that Yuga Labs will no longer touch Cryptopunks, and Cryptopunks will be completely decentralized and stored on the blockchain. When the company acquired collections such as Cryptopunks a few years ago, it intended to preserve the legacy of these collections. The only thing Yuga Labs intends to do is to support some museums and institutions to obtain Cryptopunks. In addition, the current plan is to randomly airdrop Nina's latest NFT collection to SuperCoolWorld holders.
Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson slams OpenAI for plagiarizing her voice for ChatGPT
Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson has issued a fierce statement, claiming that OpenAI has unscrupulously imitated her unique tone after she refused to provide a voice for ChatGPT. Last week, OpenAI demonstrated a synthetic voice that was extremely similar to the artificial intelligence assistant played by Scarlett Johansson in the sci-fi movie "Her", but suddenly disabled the new voice over the weekend. Before OpenAI released its latest AI model GPT-4o and launched the more conversational ChatGPT mode, the company's founder Sam Altman sparked a series of rumors that the company would launch a virtual assistant similar to the AI operating system voiced in the 2013 romantic drama movie "Her", with a voice similar to Scarlett Johansson. He liked a user's post on the X social platform, saying that he was watching the movie to prepare for OpenAI's spring update event, and tweeted during the event to mention the word "her". One of the AI-generated voices used in the event was called "Sky", and some users thought it was similar to Scarlett Johansson's voice in the movie "Her". However, as of 2:33 a.m. EST on May 19, OpenAI released a statement on the X social platform, revealing that the company was "suspending the use of Sky" and answering questions about their choice of ChatGPT voice. Later that day, at 11 p.m. EST, Scarlett Johansson's representatives issued a statement to multiple media outlets, including NPR, publicly slamming OpenAI and Sam Altman in particular, accusing them of contacting her nine months ago to provide a voice, but she refused. The statement said that Johansson was "shocked, angry and incredulous" that Altman had used her voice, to the point that her closest friends and news organizations could not tell the difference between the two. According to the statement sent to NPR and other media, Johansson said she had to hire a lawyer, who wrote to Altman and OpenAI, and this communication triggered the suspension and removal of the Sky voice.
Project News
Web3 gaming platform Gala Games is suspected to be hacked, with losses exceeding $200 million
According to The Block, the vault of the Web3 gaming platform Gala Games was suspected to have been hacked on Monday. Someone minted 5 billion GALA tokens, worth more than $200 million. As a result, GALA fell nearly 15%.
Later in the news, the founder of Gala Games said that the GALA Ethereum contract is safe and is working with the FBI and other agencies to track down the attacker. The Gala Games attacker has sold 592 million GALAs for 5,952 ETH, equivalent to about 21.8 million US dollars.
Arthur Hayes: If the US-Japan currency swap policy is implemented, it will drive the currency market up, and Bitcoin is expected to hit $1 million
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, pointed out in his latest article that the pace of yen depreciation may accelerate in the fall. In order to curb the depreciation of the yen, the Federal Reserve may reach an unlimited dollar-yen swap agreement with the Bank of Japan. Hayes believes that this move is equivalent to the Fed's implementation of yield curve control, which will cause a sharp depreciation of the US dollar. Hayes believes that the depreciation of the US dollar means a sharp increase in global US dollar liquidity. This will benefit the cryptocurrency market led by Bitcoin. He predicts that if the US and Japanese central banks really adopt a "simple and crude" currency swap policy, it will trigger a new round of cryptocurrency gains. By then, the price of Bitcoin is expected to hit the $1 million mark, or even set a record high. Hayes recommends that cryptocurrency traders pay close attention to future changes in the US dollar-yen exchange rate, and at the same time, they can appropriately increase their cryptocurrency allocation. He emphasized that once the market finds that the US and Japan are conducting large-scale currency swaps and the scale of swaps continues to expand, it is likely to mean that a cryptocurrency bull market is coming.
The Sei V2 upgrade governance proposal has opened on-chain voting. If it passes the mainnet upgrade, it will be held next Monday.
Jay, co-founder of Sei Labs, said on the X platform that the Sei V2 upgrade governance proposal has opened on-chain voting. If passed, the mainnet upgrade will be carried out next Monday, May 27. After checking, the current voting support rate of the proposal is 100%, and the voting will end on May 26. Earlier news, Sei announced that it will launch the V2 upgrade plan in three stages, aiming to launch the first highly scalable parallel EVM. The V2 upgrade will be divided into three stages: governance, Alpha release and V2 readiness.
io.net: Grant eligibility checker now live on the IOG Foundation website
Solana Ecosystem DePIN Protocol io.net said on the X platform that the reward eligibility checker is now online on the IOG Foundation website. Users can enter the Solan address to verify whether their wallet address is eligible for Season 1 rewards.
Prometheum's Ethereum Custody Service Renews Concerns About SEC Labeling ETH a Security
Controversial crypto platform Prometheum's move to offer Ethereum custody services has sparked a backlash from a cryptocurrency advocacy group that claims it's colluding with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Decrypt reported. Prometheum launched its Ethereum custody service on Friday, offering to safeguard assets on behalf of clients after months of anticipation. The problem: Prometheum's service classifies Ethereum as a security under the SEC's purview. The SEC has yet to make that declaration, though the agency has been accused of relying on it internally in its expanding crackdown on the crypto industry. Last month, Consensys filed a lawsuit against the SEC on this point, seeking court confirmation that Ethereum is not, in fact, a security.
The Cedar Innovation Foundation said in a statement about Prometheum's announcement: "This announcement is just the latest attempt by the SEC to orchestrate the cryptocurrency market out of the United States. Both the SEC and Prometheum have separately declared that ETH is a security." According to reports, while the company has not yet launched trading of Ethereum as a security, providing custody services to customers is considered a prerequisite step. The Cedar Innovation Foundation claims that Prometheum's business is part of a "desperate attempt to misclassify ETH as a security," and the foundation believes that this plan will be stifled through litigation. The organization named SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and said, "It's time for Congress to end Gary Gensler's political conspiracy.
Earlier in May last year, Prometheum announced that it had obtained the first special-purpose broker-dealer license under the US SEC guidelines, which will allow it to custody digital asset securities.
Warning: Fraudulent service provider Inferno Drainer has resumed operations, the crypto community needs to be more vigilant
According to a screenshot posted by Web3 security researcher @Plumferno on the X platform, multi-chain fraud service provider Inferno Drainer announced in its community that it was reopened to the public, and said that after more than 6 months of private operation, it now has new employees, new ways of working, new support and new features, and has stolen $125 million for its customers during this period, bringing the total amount of theft to more than $250 million. Previously, Inferno Drainer announced its closure at the end of November last year, claiming that the amount stolen was more than $80 million. @Plumferno said: "This is not good news, in case someone doesn't know about this... (Yes, I know they have never really closed, so I know many people will not be surprised by this at all)." Web3 anti-fraud platform Scam Sniffer commented: "This also explains why phishing websites using Inferno have recently surged after the hacker fraud gang Pink Drainer announced its withdrawal."
Grayscale has appointed Goldman Sachs' Peter Mintzberg as its new CEO
According to the Wall Street Journal, Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein announced his resignation. Peter Mintzberg, currently the global head of strategy for Goldman Sachs' asset and wealth management division, will become Grayscale's new CEO on August 15 this year. He will join Grayscale's board of directors while serving as CEO. During this period, Grayscale CFO Edward McGee will lead the company as interim CEO until August. According to people familiar with the matter, Grayscale's board of directors and parent company Digital Currency Group began looking for a new CEO for the asset management company at the end of 2023. The search for a new CEO has nothing to do with GBTC's performance or capital outflows.
Vitalik praises crypto-economic experiment ‘Orb Land’ as really cool
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said on Warpcast: "The crypto-economic experiment 'Orb Land' is really cool." It is reported that "Orb Land" is a crypto-economic experiment launched by Eric Wall, the initiator of Taproot Wizards, which aims to tokenize personal consulting services into NFTs. Holders who purchase Orb will gain the right to ask questions to the creator of Orb and resell it. Technically speaking, Orb is an improved ERC-721 that supports the ERC-721 interface, and all transfer-related functions are restored. Although Orb can be displayed on OpenSea, it cannot be listed for sale on NFT trading markets such as OpenSea, Sudoswap or Blur. In addition, Orb manages ownership functions through auctions and the Harberger tax system.
Binance announces open recruitment plan for coin listing projects
According to the official announcement, Binance has recently observed tokens being issued at high valuations and low initial circulation. In order to cultivate a healthy industry ecosystem, Binance will take the lead in supporting small and medium-sized cryptocurrency projects. Binance sincerely invites high-quality teams and projects to apply for listing, including direct listing, Launchpools and Megadrops. Binance hopes to promote the development of the blockchain ecosystem by supporting small and medium-sized projects with good fundamentals, organic community foundation, sustainable business model and industry responsibility. If the project meets the requirements, you can fill out the application form and the Binance team will contact the team that passes the initial screening. Binance reserves the right to make the final decision.
Vitalik: An open, decentralized protocol for transferring assets between L2s is needed
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said on the X platform: "We need an open decentralized (no operator, no management) protocol for quickly transferring assets from one L2 to another L2, and integrate it into the default sending interface of the wallet. But before getting too obsessed with any fancy toys, do the basics first. The biggest user experience problem at the moment is that L2-verse doesn't feel 'like a unified Ethereum' enough. It's much better than it was a year ago, but it's still far from perfect."
Later in the news, Vitalik said that the previously mentioned decentralized protocol association needs to be supplemented by the "Infrastructure Association". In addition, Vitalik praised ENS as the most successful non-financial application in the Ethereum ecosystem, and ENS's 24-hour increase expanded to 36.7%.
Dragonfly Partner: Regulators’ Changing Attitudes toward Ethereum ETFs Predict Biden Administration Will Soften Crypto Policy
Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi said on the X platform: "The regulatory change in attitude towards the Ethereum ETF indicates that the Biden administration will soften its crypto policy because they don't want to lose votes in the election competition over "small things" (referring to crypto regulatory issues). The market will see other regulators change their attitudes in the coming months." In addition, Variant Fund Chief Legal Officer Jake Chervinsky said on the X platform: "If the spot ETH ETF is really approved, everyone I know who understands the regulatory situation in Washington will be shocked, but this does not mean it will not happen. This means that the approval of the ETF may indicate that the US cryptocurrency regulatory policy has undergone a major shift after the SAB 121 vote, which may be more important than the ETF itself." Earlier news, the bill to overturn SAB 121 was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate on May 8 and May 17 of this month, and Biden will make a final decision on the bill before May 28.
Potential US TikTok buyer plans to decentralize TikTok, may rely on Polkadot parachain
According to CryptoSlate, American billionaire Frank McCourt is leading a consortium to acquire TikTok and decentralize it using Project Liberty's decentralized social network protocol (DSNP). McCourt's initiative is called "people's bid" and represents one of several American corporate interests in the platform. He is working with investment bank Guggenheim Securities and law firm Kirkland & Ellis on this business. McCourt emphasized in a press statement that the bid aims to empower users by migrating TikTok to an open source protocol. The move is intended to restore control over digital identity and data, giving Americans a significant voice and interest in the future of the network. McCourt plans to rebuild TikTok with DSNP, which will use the Polkadot parachain social platform Frequency.
Coinbase Derivatives Trading Platform to Launch Oil and Gold Futures Products on June 3
According to Crowdfundinsider, Coinbase Derivatives is expanding its futures product range to include oil and gold. On June 3, 2024, the platform will launch retail-scale "oil and gold" futures contracts to help traders further diversify their investment strategies. The new products will complement the "existing CFTC-regulated BTC, ETH, BCH, LTC and DOGE crypto futures series."
Financing News
DePIN project Blockless completes $8 million in financing and plans to launch mainnet in the third quarter of this year
Blockless, a DePIN project that focuses on providing computing power support, announced that it has raised $8 million in two rounds of early financing. Blockless said that NGC Ventures led the pre-seed round of financing worth $3 million, and M31 Capital and Frachtis co-led the seed round of financing worth $5 million. Other investors in these two rounds of financing include No Limit Holdings, MH Ventures, Interop Ventures and Plassa Capital. Blockless co-founder Butian Li said that it plans to launch a testnet in the next few weeks and launch the mainnet and native BLESS tokens in the third quarter.
Important data
Bitcoin hits all-time highs against local currencies in Japan, Argentina and the Philippines
As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin hit new all-time highs in several countries in Asia and South America with a 7% gain on the day. Bitcoin prices reached an intraday and six-week high of $71,650 on May 21, up more than 7% in the past 24 hours. According to Coingecko data, the asset has recovered to within 3.4% of its all-time high of $73,738 set on March 14. However, this big move pushed Bitcoin to new peaks against several other fiat currencies as well. In Japan, Bitcoin reached an all-time high of 11.2 million yen in early trading on May 21, according to CoinMarketCap. This is the first time the asset has been worth more than 11 million yen. The yen has depreciated against the U.S. dollar in recent months, losing 10% against the dollar since the beginning of the year. Bitcoin also peaked in Argentina on May 21, with the asset touching 63.8 million Argentine pesos, slightly above its peak in mid-March. The South American country has been struggling with inflation and currency depreciation of up to 290% over the past few years. Other countries where bitcoin prices are at or very close to their mid-March peak prices include the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Israel, Norway, India, South Korea and Turkey, industry watcher Thomas Fahrer noted on X.
Market: Bitcoin breaks through $71,000, Ethereum breaks through $3,600
OKX market data shows that the price of Bitcoin has exceeded $71,000 and is now at $71,250, a daily increase of 5.69%. In addition, the price of Ethereum has exceeded $3,600, once reaching $3,693.6, and is now at $3,678.39, a daily increase of 17.94%.
CoinShares: Net inflow of digital asset investment products reached $932 million last week
According to the latest weekly data from CoinShares, digital asset investment products have seen inflows for the second consecutive week, totaling $932 million. This inflow was mainly affected by the CPI report, with the last three trading days accounting for 89% of the total flow. The US market dominated this inflow, totaling $1.002 billion. Grayscale, which has suffered an outflow of $16.6 billion since the launch of the ETF in January, also saw a small inflow for the first time, totaling $18 million. Bitcoin has inflows of $942 million, indicating that investors are optimistic about its prospects. There have also been inflows of funds for a variety of altcoins, including Solana, Chainlink, and Cardano, with inflows of $4.9 million, $3.7 million, and $1.9 million, respectively. In contrast, Ethereum continued to outflow $23 million this week due to the poor prospects of the SEC approving spot ETFs. In addition, blockchain stocks continue to suffer outflows, with only six weeks of inflows so far this year, and total outflows of $512 million so far this year.
The open interest of Ethereum futures contracts across the network is nearly $14.7 billion, a record high
Coinglass data shows that the open interest of Ethereum futures contracts across the network has risen to 4.01 million ETH (about US$14.69 billion), an increase of 25.48% in the past 24 hours, setting a record high in terms of US dollars (calculated in ETH, it is still far from the peak of 5 million ETH in 2022). Among them: Binance Ethereum contract open interest is 1.5 million ETH (about US$5.48 billion), ranking first; the increase in position in the past 24 hours has reached 32.37%. Bybit Ethereum contract open interest is 840,490 ETH (about US$3.08 billion), ranking second, and the increase in position in the past 24 hours has reached 38.82%.
EigenLayer TVL exceeds $18 billion, setting a new record
DefiLlama data shows that the total locked value (TVL) of the liquidity re-staking protocol EigenLayer has exceeded US$18 billion and is currently US$18.116 billion, a record high.
Sun Yuchen currently holds 665,000 ETH, equivalent to about US$2.447 billion
According to on-chain analyst Ember’s monitoring, Justin Sun currently holds 665,000 ETH (approximately US$2.447 billion), of which 390,000 (US$1.435 billion) were purchased at an average price of US$2,984 between the end of 2023 and the end of April this year.
From 2023/12/26 to 1/5, 17,883 ETH (US$40.45 million) were withdrawn from CEX through the address 0x9fc...9fe, with an average price of US$2,262;
From February 8 to February 25, 173,863 ETH (US$525.24 million) was purchased through the method of withdrawing from CEX + on-chain purchase at the address 0x7a9...095, with an average price of US$2,869;
From 4/1 to 4/25, 176,117 ETH (US$552 million) were purchased through the address 0x435...7cb by using Binance withdrawal + on-chain purchase, with an average price of US$3,138;
From 4/27 to 4/29, 22,316 ETH (US$72.38 million) were withdrawn from Binance through the address 0x205...621, with an average price of US$3,244.
Of these 665,000 ETH, 247,000 are stored in wallets, and 417,000 are on pledge and re-pledge platforms: 215,217 ETH are pledged on EigenLayer; 120,139 ETH are pledged on Swell; 58,558 ETH are pledged on Puffer; 23,225 ETH are pledged on Lido; 454 ETH are pledged on etherfi.
Later in the day, Justin Sun said that he did not think he held more Ethereum than the Ethereum Foundation, and that the community was still the largest holder of ETH.
Miners found an empty block at Bitcoin block height 844293
According to Mempool data, at Bitcoin block height 844293 (about ten minutes ago), miners mined an empty block that contained only one transaction, the block reward (Coinbase). The time interval between this empty block and the previous block was only 23 seconds.
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