Compiled by: Luan Peng, ChainCatcher
Important Information:
South Korean digital asset platform Haru Invest CEO is out of danger
Immunefi report: Cryptocurrency hackers have stolen more than $1.2 billion this year
Kremlin: Telegram founder incident should not turn into political persecution
Coinbase International has launched RENDER, SAGA and T perpetual contracts
Crypto trading platform Neverless completes $6.7 million in financing
Cyber Capital founder: L2 is a "parasite" of Ethereum
Radix developer RDX Works cuts 15% of staff to cut costs
Hong Kong police smashed three virtual currency money laundering groups, involving more than HK$300 million
“What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?”
South Korean digital asset platform Haru Invest CEO is out of danger
Hugo Le, CEO of South Korean digital asset management platform Haru Invest, was stabbed while appearing in the Seoul Southern District Court for fraud trial. Hugo Le's injuries are not life-threatening and he has been taken to hospital for treatment. The attacker has been arrested by the police.
Earlier, in February this year, three executives of Haru Invest were arrested on suspicion of stealing about 1.1 trillion won (about 828 million U.S. dollars) in cryptocurrencies. It is reported that the company suspended withdrawal and deposit services in June last year and laid off about 100 employees.
Immunefi report: Cryptocurrency hackers have stolen more than $1.2 billion this year
According to a report by Immunefi, the cryptocurrency industry has suffered 154 hacking and "rug pull" incidents since the beginning of 2024, with total losses reaching US$1.21 billion, an increase of 15.5% from the same period in 2023.
Kremlin: Telegram founder incident should not turn into political persecution
According to Jinshi, the Kremlin said that Telegram founder Pavel Durov has all the resources needed for legal defense and said it is ready to provide help if necessary. The Kremlin also stressed that it will closely monitor the development of the matter and warned that the relevant events in France should not evolve into political persecution.
Coinbase International has launched RENDER, SAGA and T perpetual contracts
Coinbase International and Coinbase Advanced have launched RENDER, SAGA and T-term contracts trading, and limit, market, take profit and stop loss orders are now all available.
Crypto trading platform Neverless completes $6.7 million in financing
According to Chainwire, Neverless, a crypto trading platform launched by three former Revolut executives, has completed $6.7 million in financing, and the investors have not yet been disclosed. The application can conduct commission-free crypto transactions and invest in an automated investment account. Neverless allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with zero fees.
It is reported that the company registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) with the Bank of Spain a few months ago.
Cyber Capital founder: L2 is a "parasite" of Ethereum
Justin Bons, founder and CIO of Cyber Capital, said that the growth of second-layer projects is having a harmful impact on the health of the Ethereum ecosystem. There are several things wrong with the decision to use L2 to scale Ethereum instead of focusing on the main chain. L2 leads to underutilization of the main chain and pushes up ETH inflation because the burned fees cannot curb inflation. The liquidity of the L2 ecosystem is fragmented in several isolated islands that have not yet been connected.
Justin Bons said: “Scaling Ethereum will destroy all capital and fees earned by the second layer network, because venture capital (VC) cannot extract from the expansion of the first layer network. These “parasites” distort the public product and turn it into a rent-seeking platform for the VC chain.”
Additionally, Bons criticized the accumulation of value in these chains, which are not as decentralized or secure as the base Ethereum chain and could facilitate the theft of user funds and censorship of transactions.
Radix developer RDX Works cuts 15% of staff to cut costs
RDX Works, developer of the Radix decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, has laid off 15% of its staff due to the need to reduce costs. The company’s CEO Piers Ridyard confirmed in a statement to the company’s official Telegram group on August 29 that the layoffs were for “refocusing” and were part of “more comprehensive changes that need to take place.”
"One of those things is cost reduction. As part of that cost reduction, we at RDX Works have made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by approximately 15%, which we have completed today," said Piers Ridyard.
It is reported that the Radix network officially launched its mainnet in July 2023, providing development tools to build and run decentralized applications (DApps) and financial services on the blockchain.
Hong Kong police smashed three virtual currency money laundering groups, involving more than HK$300 million
According to Oriental Daily News, Hong Kong law enforcement agencies launched an anti-money laundering operation codenamed Wei Ge, Hei Nao and You Xia this month based on intelligence and analysis, smashing three money laundering groups and arresting 27 people. The total amount involved in the case exceeded HK$300 million.
The investigating police officer said that in March this year, the Hong Kong law enforcement department received an investigation request from the Singapore authorities, which pointed out that more than 30 fraud cases occurred in Singapore, of which about 30 million yuan of fraudulent funds were transferred into puppet accounts in Hong Kong after multiple transfers. The investigating police officer pointed out that in order to evade investigation, a certain group used a large number of account transfers and multiple cash withdrawals to go to the local virtual asset trading platform to buy virtual currency. The Hong Kong police also disclosed data that in the first half of this year, the law enforcement department arrested 5,693 people for money laundering related crimes, a 40% increase over the same period last year; 4,465 of them were puppet account holders, accounting for 78% of the arrested persons.
RootData: 32 Web3 VCs that disclosed LPs raised more than $5.18 billion in the past two years. Chris Dixon, Animoca Brands, etc. are the most active LPs
According to analysis by Web3 asset data platform RootData, a total of 32 VCs have disclosed LP information since 2022, with a total fundraising of over US$5.18 billion. The top three fundraising amounts are Haun Ventures ($1.5 billion), Polychain ($750 million), and Dragonfly ($650 million). LPs participating in the fundraising include well-known institutions and individual investors such as a16z, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Tiger Global, Temasek, OKX Ventures, KKR, and Sequoia Capital.
There are 17 VCs that have raised no less than 50 million USD. Among them, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon and Animoca Brands of a16z have participated in the fundraising of other funds as LPs many times. These 17 institutions have made a total of 394 investments in the past year, including 97 lead investments.
For projects seeking financing and funds in the process of raising capital, understanding these LP networks and investment trends is critical to building solid LP relationships and developing effective fundraising strategies.
Trump's second son announced the official launch of the encryption project WLFI
Eric Trump, the second son of former US President Donald Trump and current executive vice president of the Trump Organization, posted on social media that the encryption project WLFI has been officially launched.
ParaFi Capital Completes $120 Million Fundraising, Will Buy Stakes in Other Crypto Funds
New York-based digital asset manager ParaFi Capital has raised $120 million from investors including Theta Capital Management and Accolade Partners, Bloomberg reported.
Under a new strategy from ParaFi, the funds will be used in part to acquire stakes in other crypto funds that focus on specific market segments, strategies or regions. ParaFi founder Ben Forman said in an interview that the company plans to build a portfolio of 30 to 50 such funds over the next three to five years.
ParaFi is reported to have invested in nine different cryptocurrency management companies. As the number of crypto funds begins to grow again, the company is expanding this strategy to external investors. The company has been operating hedge fund and venture capital strategies for about six years and has a team of 22 people. In addition to KKR and Kravis, ParaFi's investors also include Bain Capital Ventures.
Telegram founder released on €5 million bail, not allowed to leave France
According to Xinhua News Agency, the Paris prosecutor's office in France announced on the 28th that Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the social media Telegram who was previously arrested in France, was prosecuted after his detention ended that day. He was released on bail under judicial supervision, but was not allowed to leave France.
Paris prosecutor Lore Betqueau said Durov was released on bail under judicial supervision subject to a 5 million euro bond, reporting to a police station twice a week and being banned from leaving French territory.
Relevant departments of the French government are investigating illegal activities on the Telegram platform, including fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, child pornography, and the promotion of terrorism. Durov was accused of not taking appropriate measures to prevent these crimes. The Paris prosecutor's office issued a press release on the 26th saying that the Paris prosecutor's office began a judicial investigation on July 8 this year, which included 12 charges and was not aimed at specific people, and Durov was arrested for this.
"What are the interesting articles worth reading in the past 24 hours?"
A quick look at Paradigm-led Ethereum MEV tool Sorella
MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) refers to the additional value that miners or validators obtain by manipulating the order and selection of transactions. In simple terms, MEV reflects the additional profit that miners obtain by adjusting the order of transactions. With the increasing popularity of smart contract platforms such as Ethereum, MEV has gradually become an important research area, promoting the development of multiple new solutions and protocols aimed at reducing its negative impact on users.
Recently, Sorella Labs, a crypto startup that aims to solve the Ethereum MEV problem, announced a $7.5 million seed financing led by Paradigm, with participation from Uniswap Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Robot Ventures and Nascent. However, this round of financing was completed in September last year. At the same time as announcing the financing, Sorella Labs also announced the launch of its product Brontes. In addition, another tool under development, Angstrom, is expected to be released later this year after Uniswap V4 goes online on the mainnet.
Will BTCFi become the biggest outlet in the second half of the year? A detailed explanation of Babylon Ecosystem Re-Pledge Agreement Lombard
Recently, BTCFi has set off a new wave, and more and more DeFi protocols are eyeing this $1.5 trillion fat product, thinking about how to make BTC more capital efficient.
On August 22, the first phase of the Babylon mainnet was officially launched, allowing BTC holders to lock tokens on the Bitcoin network. Babylon aims to use the security of Bitcoin to provide security for other PoS chains, while also introducing huge potential liquidity into DeFi.
Babylon’s re-staking protocol Lombard launched its beta version on the 21st and released it the next day after Babylon went live on the mainnet. Lombard’s flagship product LBTC is a yield-based, cross-chain, liquid Bitcoin backed by BTC at a 1:1 ratio. In July, Lombard completed a $16 million seed round led by Polychain Capital.
How does Lombard use LBTC to promote innovation in the Bitcoin re-staking ecosystem? This article is translated from Lombard’s official blog and explains in detail how LBTC works.
Why did SOON, invested by the Chairman of the Solana Foundation and others, choose to build SVM Rollup?
SOON (Solana Optimistic Network) is a general Ethereum Layer 2 that will be launched on the mainnet soon. It is worth mentioning that SOON will use tokens to incentivize new developers (especially those in the Asia-Pacific region) who develop on SVM.
Matt Levine, former Goldman Sachs vice president: How can stablecoins solve the problem of bank runs?
In the future, as financial markets become more digital and transparent, traditional banks may face similar challenges. Banks’ asset risks and market confidence may be more directly reflected in market prices than they are now, rather than relying on the guarantee mechanism within the banking system.
“The King of DeFi” AC’s new work: Why do we need DeFi?
Before we get into that, let's first ask a question: Why do we need finance? Before there was any money, there was barter. I raise chickens, you raise wheat. I give you chickens, you give me wheat. One year, my chickens don't do well, but I still need wheat, so I promise to give you more chickens next year. I owe you (an IOU). Now, maybe you don't need more chickens, but your neighbor does, so you can trade this IOU for something else. In its most basic form, this is what money is - a standardized IOU that anyone willing to accept agrees has some established value.
Eventually, we began to measure everything in terms of these IOUs.
Now, I had a bunch of IOUs and I started to worry about being robbed, so I needed a safer place to store them. Thus, the earliest banks were formed (initially, churches kept the books of these IOUs).
A respected man in the community wanted to start raising cattle, so he asked the church for some IOUs to start his farm. The church agreed, but he needed to pay more IOUs later, which was the interest he had to pay. To secure the IOUs, the man needed to put up the deed to the land he had purchased as collateral. The community members who deposited the IOUs with the bank were satisfied because their IOUs had increased, and the respected man was grateful because it enabled him to start his business.
