Arrangement: Fairy, ChainCatcher
Important Information:
Trump family's new crypto project has hired Web3 Antivirus and PixelPlex founder Alexei Dulub as an advisor
Foreign media: Trump family crypto project plans to sell 30% of WLFI tokens at a valuation of $1.8 billion, expected to raise $537 million
Vitalik: The current budget strategy of the Ethereum Foundation is to spend 15% of the remaining funds each year
OKX will delist DMAIL, JPG, LITH, STC, and REVV spot trading
Binance CEO: It is true that Zhao Changpeng is permanently banned from managing or operating Binance, but still retains major shareholder rights
Vitalik: I don’t plan to invest in L2 or other token projects in the future, I will only donate to valuable projects
Trump plans to appoint Musk to lead the Government Efficiency Commission, and Musk responded, "If I have the opportunity, I look forward to serving the United States."
Hunter Biden to plead guilty to federal tax crimes today, faces up to 17 years in prison
Telegram founder Pavel Durov pledges to significantly improve platform regulation after arrest in France
“What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?”
Foreign media: Trump family crypto project plans to sell 30% of WLFI tokens at a valuation of $1.8 billion, expected to raise $537 million
According to DL News, a code test identified by X user Dumpster DAO showed that the Trump family crypto project World Liberty Financial plans to sell 30% of its WLFI token supply at a valuation of $1.8 billion to raise funds. If all these tokens are sold, it will bring $537 million in revenue to the project's treasury.
Dumpster DAO checked the Dough Finance token deployer (an address on the Polygon blockchain) and found test contracts labeled WLFinancial and WLFiPresale. The contracts showed that 30% of the WLFI token supply was planned to be sold at six prices, starting at $0.0075 per token and ending at $0.03 per token, raising a total of $537 million. The code in the test stipulates that WLFI is not tradable initially, but it leaves the option for projects to upgrade WLFI to make it tradable at a later time.
The information contained in the test code matches the draft white paper for World Liberty Financial previously reported by CoinDesk. The draft states that insiders will receive 70% of WLFI tokens, and the remaining 30% will be sold to the public. At a valuation of $1.8 billion, those who will benefit from the project, including several members of the Trump family, could receive tokens worth nearly $1.3 billion.
Trump family's new crypto project has hired Web3 Antivirus and PixelPlex founder Alexei Dulub as an advisor
The Trump family’s new crypto project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) announced on X Platform that Alexei Dulub, founder of Web3 Antivirus and PixelPlex, has joined the team as an advisor.
According to WLFI: "Alexei has been a blockchain pioneer since 2013, building custom L1 and L2 that power today's Web3 projects."
It is reported that Web3 Antivirus is a Web3 open source extension project that prevents crypto fraud and wallet loss. PixelPlex is a provider of blockchain technology solutions and software development.
Binance Kazakhstan has received full regulatory license approval from AFSA
According to an official announcement, Binance Kazakhstan has received a full regulatory license officially approved by the Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA).
Binance Kazakhstan has completed the steps required to obtain a full license to operate in Kazakhstan, including a series of internal and external audits and regulatory inspections, and will be authorized to operate a virtual asset trading facility and provide a range of virtual asset-related services.
88 American business leaders wrote a letter in support of Harris, including Ripple CEO, Facebook co-founder, etc.
According to CNBC, 88 current and former executives from corporate America have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the country’s president. Among the signatories are prominent CEOs of several public companies, including Aaron Levie of Box, Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp, and Michael Lynton, chairman of Snap.
Some of the signatories appear to be publicly endorsing Harris for the first time since she became the de facto Democratic nominee in July. They include James Murdoch, the former CEO of 21st Century Fox and media heir to the Murdoch family, and Chris Larsen, a cryptocurrency executive and co-founder of the Ripple blockchain platform.
More than a dozen of the signatories made their fortunes on Wall Street, including Tony James, former president and chief operating officer of Blackstone Group and founder of Jefferson River Capital, and Bruce Heyman, former managing director of Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management.
However, of all the signatories, the vast majority of the 88 people who endorsed Harris are former CEOs of large public companies, including former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Paramount Pictures’ Barry Diller, Merck’s Ken Frazier, Lyft’s Logan Green, GoDaddy’s Blake Irving, Starbucks’ Laxman Narasimhan and PayPal’s Dan Schulman.
Vitalik: The current budget strategy of the Ethereum Foundation is to spend 15% of the remaining funds each year
Vitalik said in the Reddit sub-forum that the current budget strategy of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) is to spend 15% of the remaining funds each year, which means that EF will last forever, but as a part of the ecosystem will become smaller and smaller over time.
Earlier news, Justin Drake of the Ethereum Foundation said that the foundation's financial report will be released soon, and it is estimated that the foundation has about 10 years of financial reserves.
OKX will delist DMAIL, JPG, LITH, STC, and REVV spot trading
According to the official announcement, OKX will delist DMAIL, JPG, LITH, STC, and REVV spot trading.
The platform will officially delist the following trading pairs from 16:00 to 16:30 (UTC+8) on September 13: DMAIL/USDT, JPG/USDT, LITH/USDT, LITH/USDC, STC/USDT and REVV/USDT. The top-up service of the above tokens has been suspended at 16:00 (UTC+8) on September 5. The withdrawal service will continue until 16:00 (UTC+8) on December 13.
Data: Three hackers deposited 17,800 ETH into Tornado Cash in three days, worth about $42.7 million
According to Lookonchain, from September 3 to 5, three hackers deposited a total of 17,800 ETH worth about $42.7 million into the anonymous currency mixing protocol Tornado Cash.
The Penpie attacker deposited 9,600 ETH (about $23 million);
WazirX attacker deposited 7,200 ETH (about $17.3 million);
The hacker who attacked Distributed Capital founder Bo Shen deposited 1,000 ETH (about $2.4 million).
Binance CEO: It is true that Zhao Changpeng is permanently banned from managing or operating Binance, but still retains major shareholder rights
According to Axios, Binance's current CEO Richard Teng confirmed that Binance's former CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) was permanently banned from managing or operating the company. According to the agreement of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Zhao Changpeng will be banned from participating in the company's daily operations after completing his imprisonment on September 29, 2024.
However, as the largest shareholder, Zhao Changpeng retains all shareholder rights and will still maintain significant influence over the company. Teng said: "If the company's performance does not meet expectations, as an investor, he has the right to replace or nominate new board members or CEOs, and shareholders can also propose resolutions at any time."
Vitalik: I don’t plan to invest in L2 or other token projects in the future, I will only donate to valuable projects
Vitalik responded to his tweet on August 31 that “Ethereum has never been sold for personal profit since 2018”, saying, “The above also applies to L2 tokens or other project tokens I hold. All proceeds will be donated and used again to support public goods within the Ethereum ecosystem or broader charities. I also do not plan to invest in L2 or other token projects in the foreseeable future. My goal in funding projects is to support things I think are valuable, especially when other parts of the ecosystem may undervalue them. Going forward, I plan to do this only through donations.”
Arthur Hayes: Bitcoin is expected to fall below $50,000 this weekend, and short selling has been carried out
Bitmex co-founder Arthur Hayes posted on X that "Bitcoin is expected to fall below $50,000 this weekend and short selling has already been carried out."
Trump plans to appoint Musk to lead the Government Efficiency Commission, and Musk responded, "If I have the opportunity, I look forward to serving the United States."
Trump said on Thursday that if he wins the election in November, he will set up a government efficiency committee led by Musk. The committee will develop an action plan to completely eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months. This will save the United States trillions of dollars while maintaining the level of government services. Musk wrote on X: "If I have the opportunity, I look forward to serving the United States. No reward, no title, no recognition." (Jinshi)
Telegram founder Pavel Durov pledges to significantly improve platform regulation after arrest in France
After being arrested in France, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said via Telegram that “it is absolutely untrue that Telegram is some kind of anarchist paradise. We delete millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports and have direct channels of contact with non-governmental organizations to handle urgent regulatory requests more quickly.
Telegram's rapid growth to 950 million users has caused the platform to experience growing pains, making it easier for criminals to abuse the platform. That's why I've made it my personal goal to significantly improve this situation. We have begun this process internally and will share more details about our progress with you soon. "
Pavel Durov responds to French arrests, says he is ready to exit markets that are incompatible with his platform principles
According to The Block, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov spoke for the first time through the Telegram platform after being arrested in France. He not only denied the reasons for the arrest, but also expressed his willingness to withdraw from markets that are incompatible with Telegram's principles.
"If we cannot agree with regulators in a country on the balance between privacy and security, we are ready to leave the country. We have done this several times," Durov stressed, mentioning Russia and Iran as examples. "We are ready to leave markets that are incompatible with our principles because we are not in it for money. We are driven by bringing benefits to people and defending fundamental rights, especially where these rights are violated."
Earlier news, Durov was arrested at the Paris airport and subsequently indicted by a French court. The charges include "assisting the dissemination of child sexual images and other crimes such as drug trafficking on communication applications." The arrest is part of a wider cybercrime investigation involving Telegram, which is accused of facilitating money laundering, child pornography and drug trafficking through its encryption tools and services. French authorities have released Durov but required him to accept "judicial supervision," which means the Telegram founder must stay in France.
Hunter Biden to plead guilty to federal tax crimes today, faces up to 17 years in prison
Hunter Biden, the second son of US President Biden, will plead guilty today to federal tax crimes, including multiple felonies, and faces up to 17 years in prison.
Hunter Biden has been charged with nine tax crimes, including three felony counts. Prosecutors allege he failed to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes and evaded taxes by filing returns with fraudulent business deductions. They also accuse Biden of spending money on luxury cars, luxury hotels and sex workers instead of paying taxes on time. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said he would not pardon his son in either case. It's unclear if the president's mind has changed since he gave up his reelection bid, but he still has the power to pardon his son or commute his sentence.
"What are the interesting articles worth reading in the past 24 hours?"
With over 200 million USD in financing in the past two months, what are the new trends in Web3 payment with the participation of Sequoia, Temasek, and Tether?
In the relatively quiet Web3 market in recent days, Web3 payment is one of the more active tracks.
Solana, Binance, and Coinbase all emphasize Web3 payments.
Solana Foundation Chairman Lily Liu presented the concept of PayFi at major Web3 conferences such as EthCC this year, saying that its market size may far exceed DeFi. Binance Research recently released a research report on Web3 payments titled "Blockchain Payments: A Fresh Start", detailing the impact that blockchain is having on global payments. Coinbase CEO also recently announced his participation in a new track related to AI encrypted payments.
Amid the overall downturn in the Web3 investment and financing market, Web3 payment has also been one of the hottest financing tracks in the past quarter.
According to statistics from Web3 asset data platform RootData, Web3 payment has announced 15 financings in the past two months, with a total financing amount exceeding US$200 million, and large-scale financings have occurred frequently.
ChainCatcher statistics show that in the past two months, there have been 11 financings exceeding US$30 million, nearly 40% of which came from Web3 payments. Among them, the stablecoin payment platform Bridge and the blockchain payment and settlement technology platform Partior both received more than US$50 million in financing.
Web3 Financing Report for the First Half of 2024: Financing Exceeds $7.5 Billion, Transaction Count Increases 58%
In the first half of 2024, there was a significant increase in financing activity in the Web3 space, with 1,240 projects raising $7.52 billion, a 24% increase in capital and a 58% increase in the number of deals compared to the second half of 2023. This outpaced the performance of the entire venture capital market, which saw a 16.1% increase in capital but a 16.7% decrease in the number of deals.
Web3 pre-seed funding showed strong resilience, hitting a new high in the first half of 2024 with $189 million raised across 80 deals. Series A funding also showed strong growth, raising $1.56 billion across 77 deals, almost double the amount in the second half of 2023.
In the second quarter of 2024, the financing environment for global startups improved, mainly due to the increase in large financing rounds and a surge in funding in the field of artificial intelligence, with artificial intelligence financing doubling to US$24 billion. Despite market fluctuations, the overall trend shows a gradual recovery, especially in the seed and Series A stages.
The growth in AI and Web3 investments indicates investor confidence in these high-growth sectors, driving a stable and improving market environment through 2024. This trend suggests that there could be upward momentum in the coming quarters, especially in early-stage deals.
Telegram founder speaks out for the first time after being arrested: We are not here to make money, but to defend people’s basic rights
On August 25, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was detained in Paris, France, and faced multiple charges including fraud, money laundering, and terrorism. On August 29, Pavel Durov was released after paying a 5 million euro bail, but was not allowed to leave France. A complete summary of the incident: "Real-time update | South Korea investigates Telegram; encryption-related businesses account for about 40% of Telegram's total revenue"
After nearly a week of silence, Durov responded to the Paris detention incident for the first time on his official personal channel this morning. Here is his full statement:
Thank you for your support and concern!