Headlines
▌Binance denies rumors of 12.8 million user data leak
Recently, someone on the dark web forum claimed to have leaked the personal data of 12.8 million Binance users, including sensitive information such as name, email address, phone number, birthday and address. However, Binance said the news was false information. The poster, named "FireBear", said that the data was leaked in August and attempted to sell part or all of the information.
A Binance spokesperson confirmed to Decrypt that the security team has investigated the matter and determined that no data breach has occurred. Nevertheless, cybersecurity experts warn that such false information may lead to phishing attacks and account theft, and recommend that users enable two-factor authentication and be wary of suspicious communications.
▌The US SEC and TrueUSD-related companies reached a settlement on fraud charges
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reached settlements with companies associated with the TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoin. These companies include TrustToken and TrueCoin, now reorganized under Archblock. The SEC accused them of misrepresenting the reserve backing of TUSD and failing to register to issue securities related to TUSD.
These California companies claimed that TUSD had one-to-one U.S. dollar reserves, but actually invested the funds in high-risk overseas commodity funds. According to the settlement agreement, TrustToken and TrueCoin will each pay a fine of $164,000 and return approximately $400,000 in profits and interest.
The SEC pointed out that these companies were aware of TUSD redemption issues in 2022 and conducted unregistered securities sales through their platform TrueFi. The SEC emphasized that this case highlights the importance of registration for protecting investors.
The current market value of TUSD is close to US$500 million, and more than 13% of TUSD funds have been used for profitable opportunities on the TrueFi platform.
Quotes
As of press time, according to Coingecko data:
BTC's latest transaction price is $64,238.10, with a daily change of +1.3%;
ETH's most recent trading price is $2,651.04, with a daily change of +0.1%;
BNB's latest transaction price is $605.59, with a daily change of +0.1%;
SOL's latest trading price is $152.46, with a daily change of +5.3%;
DOGE's latest transaction price is 0.1097 yuan, with a daily increase or decrease of +1.4%;
XPR recently traded at $0.5905, with a daily change of +0.9%.
policy
▌The U.S. Senate passed a bill to strengthen security for presidential candidates
On September 24th local time, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the "Enhancing Presidential Security Act", which aims to strengthen the U.S. Secret Service's security for major presidential candidates. After the Republican presidential candidate Trump suffered two "failed assassination attempts" this year, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill on September 20 and submitted it to the Senate for deliberation. The bill will strengthen the U.S. Secret Service's protection of presidential candidates to the same level as the current president. In addition, the bill will expand presidential-level protection to vice presidential candidates and require the Secret Service to regularly report to House and Senate leaders on candidate protection.
It was previously reported that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to strengthen security for presidential candidates.
▌The U.S. SEC postpones its decision on BlackRock’s Ethereum spot ETF options trading application
According to The Block, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed its decision on whether to allow BlackRock’s spot Ethereum ETF to conduct options trading.
Turkey shelved additional plans to tax stocks and cryptocurrencies
Turkey has decided not to move forward with an additional tax proposal that would have taxed profits from stock trading and cryptocurrencies, Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz told Bloomberg.
"There is no stock tax on our agenda. We discussed this issue before, but it was not included in the agenda, and the focus of officials in the coming period will be on narrowing the scope of tax exemptions," Yilmaz said.
In June this year, the Turkish government decided to postpone the implementation of the stock tax plan after the Turkish stock market fell on news of the tax increase.
▌US SEC Chairman Gensler was fiercely questioned at a congressional hearing on crypto regulation and the handling of the DEBT Box case
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler was questioned by lawmakers from both parties at a congressional hearing, with the focus on the SEC's regulation of the crypto industry. Republican Majority Whip Tom Emmer questioned Gensler's handling of the case involving crypto startup DEBT Box at the hearing, which was criticized by a federal judge as "malicious" and required the SEC to pay related sanctions.
Gensler admitted that the case was handled improperly. In response to questions from lawmakers, he said, "The law is in place, but Congress can make adjustments." In addition, Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres discussed how the SEC defines securities, using the comparison of buying New York Yankees tickets to buying NFTs.
The hearing comes against the backdrop of the upcoming 2024 election, when cryptocurrency has become a hot topic and related companies have invested $119 million in political action committees this year.
Blockchain Applications
Solana Labs and Google Cloud Partner to Launch Web3 API Called Gameshift
Solana Labs has partnered with Google Cloud to launch a Web3 API called Gameshift, which aims to provide traditional Web2 game developers with convenient blockchain and digital asset management tools. The API was released at the 2024 Solana Breakpoint conference and is now available on the Google Cloud Marketplace.
Gameshift simplifies the process for developers to integrate Web3 elements such as NFTs into existing games, helping game studios overcome technical complexities. Jack Buser, director of Google Cloud Gaming, said that Gameshift provides simplified technical solutions for overloaded developers and accelerates the application of Web3 technology in the gaming industry.
This launch continues Solana Labs’ ongoing collaboration with Google Cloud, with the two parties set to launch new collaborative projects at the Solana Conference every year starting in 2022.
▌USDC issuer Circle launches on-chain compliance platform
On September 24, USDC issuer Circle launched a new on-chain compliance platform “Compliance Engine”, which aims to help companies develop blockchain applications while meeting strict compliance requirements. The platform includes transaction screening, monitoring tools, and services that comply with customer identity (KYC) requirements, and supports multiple blockchain networks such as Ethereum and Solana. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said this is the first time that the technology accumulated by the company over the past decade has been open to developers and operations teams.
This move is an important step for Circle to accelerate the application of USDC stablecoin and challenge Tether's market dominance. Currently, the market value of USDC is 36 billion US dollars, far lower than USDT's 119 billion US dollars. In addition, PYUSD launched by PayPal has also joined the competition, with a market value of 1 billion US dollars.
Circle is also targeting the real-world asset (RWA) market, which could reach trillions of dollars in the future, to boost the adoption of USDC.
Cryptocurrency
▌Bank of New York Mellon is advancing crypto ETF custody services
Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) is moving forward with offering Bitcoin and Ethereum custody services to its exchange-traded fund (ETF) clients. This comes after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided after a review that BNY does not need to comply with the controversial crypto asset accounting rule SAB 121.
Since its introduction in 2022, SAB 121 has required companies that custody crypto assets to include them in their accounts as liabilities, putting pressure on the crypto industry. The SEC said that customer protection measures of banks such as BNY are sufficiently robust, so it allows them to be consistent with traditional custody arrangements in accounting treatment. BNY still needs to obtain approval from other regulators before it can officially provide services.
Polymarket's betting on the 2024 US presidential election exceeds $1 billion
The amount of bets on the 2024 US presidential election on the prediction platform Polymarket has exceeded $1 billion. Among them, Vice President Kamala Harris's chance of winning is predicted to be 51%, with a total bet of nearly $154 million; followed by Republican candidate Donald Trump, whose chance of winning is 48%, with a bet of about $163 million. In addition, users have also bet on other Republican or Democratic candidates to win, but these odds are relatively low.
▌Ethena Labs: eUSD is now online
Ethena Labs announced on the X platform that the liquidity re-staking token eUSD of Ethena, which is in cooperation with EigenLayer, is now online, and currently supports depositing different stablecoins to exchange for eUSD.
▌A Bitcoin whale wakes up after 13 years of silence and deposits 20 Bitcoins into CEX
According to Arkham monitoring, another ancient Bitcoin whale has transferred $3.17 million worth of Bitcoin. This wallet has never made any transfer operations since it received these Bitcoins 13 years ago.
The address woke up today and just transferred 20 bitcoins (about 1.27 million US dollars) to Bitstamp and another 30 bitcoins to an anonymous address.
It was reported yesterday that an ancient Bitcoin whale awoke after 10 years of silence and transferred 5 BTC to Kraken. The address still holds 1,215 BTC.
Important economic developments
▌The probability of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by 25BP in November is 43.9%
According to CME's "Fed Watch", the probability of the Fed cutting interest rates by 25 basis points by November is 43.9%, and the probability of cutting interest rates by 50 basis points is 56.1%. The probability of a cumulative rate cut of 50 basis points by December is 15.6%, the probability of a cumulative rate cut of 75 basis points is 48.3%, and the probability of a cumulative rate cut of 100 basis points is 36.1%.
▌Moody's: Without substantial debt reduction measures, the United States will lose its only Aaa rating
The next U.S. government "must contend with widening fiscal deficits," Moody's warned in a report, nearly a year after it announced a negative outlook on the U.S. sovereign credit rating. "The government's tax and spending policies will affect the size of future budget deficits and the expected decline in U.S. fiscal strength, which in turn could have significant implications for the U.S. sovereign credit profile," analysts including Claire Li and William Foster wrote in the report. After the congressional and White House elections in November, the U.S. government is expected to remain divided, hindering the new administration from making comprehensive fiscal reforms. As a result, both candidates' fiscal policy proposals are likely to require intense bipartisan negotiations and compromises. "Without policy actions to correct them, these debt dynamics will become increasingly unsustainable and inconsistent with an Aaa rating," the report concluded.
▌S&P expects US economic growth to slow in 2025
S&P Global Ratings said in a report that it expects U.S. economic growth to slow to 1.8% next year from 2.7% this year. S&P said it expects consumers to rein in spending in the coming quarters. Although the Federal Reserve is expected to continue cutting interest rates, S&P said: "We view the upcoming period of gradual easing as more of a precautionary measure to prevent economic growth from falling too far below potential rather than an immediate stimulus to the real economy." S&P said that except for the continued slump in housing and manufacturing, most of the latest activity indicators showed that economic growth momentum remained slightly above trend. The agency also said that it has raised its growth forecasts for 2026 and 2027 due to rising potential growth.
▌Top economic research institute predicts Germany's economy will shrink in 2024
Sources told dpa on Tuesday that the German Economy Ministry will publish an official report on Thursday that may show that the German economy will shrink in 2024. The ministry warned that Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) may fall by 0.1% this year. In the spring, they expected the economy to grow by a weak 0.1%. The twice-yearly study includes contributions from top think tanks such as Munich's IFO and the German Economic Research Institute DIW. The researchers still expect Germany's economic output to be positive in 2025, but the GDP growth forecast for 2025 has been revised to 0.8% in the autumn report from 1.4% in the spring, the sources said. The coalition government led by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is planning a series of measures to stimulate economic activity, but business groups complain that these measures are not enough and they want fundamental reforms. Their biggest complaints include: high energy prices, excessive bureaucracy and a shortage of skilled workers.
Golden Encyclopedia
What is the Algorithm of Thought (AoT)?
Algorithms of Thought (AoT) is a groundbreaking approach in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) that revolutionizes the way AI models think and reason. Developed by Microsoft Research, AoT introduces a new paradigm for large language models (LLMs) to enhance reasoning capabilities to solve complex problems. It aims to combine the best of both worlds: a nuanced, intuitive understanding of the human thought process with the structured, systematic nature of an algorithmic approach.
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