Organizer: Luan Peng, ChainCatcher
Important news:
The US Bitcoin Spot ETF options are about to go live.
Trump's social media company is negotiating the acquisition of the cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt.
Trump met with Coinbase CEO to discuss personnel appointment issues.
MicroStrategy plans to privately issue 1.75 billion dollars in convertible preferred notes for purchasing Bitcoin and general corporate purposes.
Zhao Changpeng: Countries will compete to include Bitcoin in their strategic reserves.
Heather Morgan, an accomplice in the Bitfinex hacking case, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
A California judge denied Kraken's emergency appeal request.
ai16z founder's new coin ELIZA currently has a market value of nearly 60 million dollars.
What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?
The US Bitcoin Spot ETF options are about to go live
According to a notice from the US Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), the agency is preparing to launch spot Bitcoin ETF options. The disclosed notice indicates that the OCC is preparing for the clearing, settlement, and risk management of spot Bitcoin ETF options, which will comply with the new options listing process outlined in the options listing program.
Previously, ChainCatcher reported in October that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the listing of multiple Bitcoin ETF option products by Cboe Exchange and NYSE American. Cboe received approval to list options for Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB); NYSE American received approval to list options for Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC), Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC), and Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB). Previously, the SEC had approved options trading for BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).
According to documents, both exchanges have set the single-sided position limit for each Bitcoin ETF option at 25,000 contracts, lower than other ETF option products. As of August 30, 2024, GBTC has issued approximately 367 million shares, with a market value of over 13.4 billion dollars; BITB has issued about 68.7 million shares; FBTC has issued over 201 million shares, with a 6-month trading volume exceeding 1.1 billion shares; ARKB has issued about 45.5 million shares, with a 6-month trading volume exceeding 297 million shares.
Trump's social media company is negotiating the acquisition of the cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt.
According to reports from the UK (Financial Times), Trump's social media company is deeply negotiating the acquisition of the cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt, as the company tries to expand its business beyond online dialogue.
Two individuals familiar with the negotiations stated that Trump's media and technology group is close to acquiring Bakkt with an all-stock deal. It is unclear what the valuation in discussions is, but on Monday, Bakkt's market value was slightly above 150 million dollars.
Trump met with Coinbase CEO to discuss personnel appointment issues.
Insiders revealed that President-elect Trump will meet with the CEO of cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase on Monday. It is reported that the two will discuss personnel issues for the next government.
The meeting between Trump and Brian Armstrong will be their first since the election day, as Trump continues to appoint cabinet members and other senior positions. Earlier this year at the annual Bitcoin conference, Trump stated that if he wins the presidential campaign, he will appoint a presidential advisory council on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to design transparent regulatory guidance. Since Trump's victory, Armstrong has openly discussed who should become the next head of the SEC.
Armstrong stated that he believes that Trump's SEC commissioner Hester Peirce is the 'best candidate.'
MicroStrategy plans to privately issue 1.75 billion dollars in convertible preferred notes for purchasing Bitcoin and general corporate purposes.
According to official news, MicroStrategy plans to privately issue 1.75 billion dollars in 0% convertible preferred notes, maturing in 2029. These notes are unsecured and interest-free, convertible into cash or stock. The funds will be used to purchase Bitcoin and for general corporate purposes.
Zhao Changpeng: Countries will compete to include Bitcoin in their strategic reserves.
Zhao Changpeng expressed appreciation for Michael Saylor's speech, stating: 'A wonderful speech. Worth listening to. Also, thanks for supporting Binance in the video. Countries will compete to print money to buy Bitcoin, that is, Bitcoin strategic reserves. No one wants to be the last.'
Heather Morgan, an accomplice in the Bitfinex hacking case, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Washington, D.C. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Heather Morgan, one of the suspects in the Bitfinex hacking case (rapper 'Razzlekhan'), to 18 months in prison during a hearing on November 18.
In August 2023, Morgan admitted to charges of conspiracy to launder money and fraud; she is the wife and accomplice of hacker Ilya Lichtenstein, who stole 120,000 Bitcoins from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016 and laundered the money.
On November 14, Judge Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Lichtenstein to five years in prison, far below the 20-year sentence allowed by the sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors pointed out that this hacker provided 'substantial assistance' in other investigations and had no prior criminal record.
A California judge denied Kraken's emergency appeal request.
A California judge rejected Kraken's emergency appeal motion, stating in the ruling that allowing the appeal would only 'delay' the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from resolving its case against the cryptocurrency exchange.
The second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, Kraken, filed an emergency appeal motion in September (a type of appeal challenging a non-final ruling by the judge while allowing other aspects of the case to proceed). A month ago, US Northern District Court Judge William Orrick ruled that the SEC's charges were reasonable, indicating that the cryptocurrencies sold on the Kraken platform could be classified as securities under the Howey test.
ai16z founder's new coin ELIZA currently has a market value of nearly 60 million dollars
According to Gecko Terminal data, the new coin ELIZA issued by ai16z founder Shaw had a market value of nearly 60 million dollars within an hour of its creation, peaking at 100 million dollars.
Shaw stated that 10% of the tokens will be allocated to ELIZA holders who were snapshot on vvaifu.fun.
Data: The top three global CEX weekly visit counts are Binance, OKX, and Bitget.
According to CoinMarketcap's global CEX weekly visit data, Binance ranks first with 11.2 million weekly visits, followed by OKX (5.45 million) and Bitget (4.98 million).
In the global CEX spot trading volume ranking, Binance ranks first, with OKX and Bitget ranking fourth and sixth respectively.
Binance added several spot trading pairs such as ACT/BRL and trading robot services.
According to the official announcement, Binance announced it will launch ACT/BRL, ACT/EUR, CATI/USDC, ETH/EURI, LUMIA/TRY, PNUT/BRL, and PNUT/EUR spot trading pairs at 16:00 (UTC+8) on November 20, 2024, to provide users with more spot trading options.
In addition, Binance will open trading robot services for the following trading pairs at 08:00 (UTC) on November 20, 2024: Spot grid and spot DCA: ADA/USDC, DOGE/USDC, SUI/USDC, XRP/USDC; Spot algorithm orders: ACT/BRL, ACT/EUR, CATI/USDC, ETH/EURI, LUMIA/TRY, PNUT/BRL, and PNUT/EUR.
The Hunan court ruled that the virtual currency 'mining machine' trading contract is invalid, with related losses borne by both parties.
According to Hong Wang, the Hunan Jiahe County People's Court recently ruled on a major mining machine trading dispute case. The case shows that the plaintiff Pan Mouxiang communicated with the defendant Lei Moucai through WeChat to purchase Bitcoin mining machine S19XP, paying 23.678 million USDT, after which both parties had disagreements regarding the nature of the contract and settlement price. The plaintiff requested the defendant to return 6.27 million USDT as the price difference and continue to deliver 149 mining machines.
The court ruled to dismiss all of the plaintiff's claims based on two main reasons: First, according to the central bank and other departments' notice (about further preventing and handling virtual currency trading speculation risks), USDT and other virtual currencies do not have the status of legal tender, and related transactions are illegal financial activities.
Secondly, based on the National Development and Reform Commission's notice (regarding the rectification of virtual currency 'mining' activities), mining activities have high energy consumption, high carbon emissions, and low economic contributions, which do not align with the national green development strategy. The court ruled that the trading contract is invalid due to violations of laws and regulations and public order, with related losses borne by both parties.
Bitcoin mining company MARA increased the issuance scale of convertible preferred notes by 150 million dollars to 850 million dollars.
According to Coindesk, Bitcoin-listed mining company MARA Holdings (MARA) has increased its previously announced convertible preferred note issuance from 700 million dollars to 850 million dollars.
The company will also increase the amount for initial purchasers to buy additional bonds from 105 million dollars to 150 million dollars. This issuance is expected to end on November 20 and is a private placement for qualified institutional buyers. The fundraising is expected to be around 833 million dollars, of which 199 million dollars will be used to repurchase existing 212 million dollars convertible notes due in 2026. The remaining portion will be used for Bitcoin (BTC) acquisition, asset expansion, and general corporate purposes.
Previous news yesterday reported that MARA intends to finance 700 million dollars through the issuance of convertible preferred notes to purchase more Bitcoin.
ai16z co-founder: Someone in the team did indeed gain significant profits, and has agreed to hand it over to the DAO and the team.
ai16z co-founder Shaw responded to the Eliza token issuance controversy, stating, 'I coordinated with our publishing partners to try to buy chips at the time of eliza's release, but did not get much. However, someone on our team did obtain a considerable amount of profit and agreed to hand it over to the DAO and the team, so we have enough money to fulfill our airdrop commitments to other projects and maintain the Eliza team operations.'
Shaw stated that although it is regrettable that the project was pre-released, considering the interests of the holders, the original team has reached a cooperation with the pre-release party, promising to airdrop 10% of the supply to the initial token holders as compensation. The new team will join the Eliza project as code contributors, focusing on assisting in the development of meta-narrative tools. Shaw emphasized that the Eliza project has been in preparation for several years, and although this incident is regrettable, the team will continue to advance the project's development, ensuring that the tokens circulate freely and are not controlled by any individual or organization.
Bitcoin L2 solution Bitfinity Network completed 12 million dollars in financing, with participation from Polychain Beacon Fund and others.
According to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin L2 solution Bitfinity Network announced the completion of 12 million dollars in financing, including 7 million dollars invested by institutions such as Polychain Beacon Fund, ParaFi, Draft Ventures, and Warburg Serres, as well as 5 million dollars raised from community OTC token sales.
The project will utilize Internet Computer Protocol (ICP)'s Chain Fusion technology to enable the operation of native Bitcoin assets in Ethereum-compatible ecosystems. The ecosystem plans to host decentralized applications including Sonic, Chapswap, Lendfinity, and Omnity Bridge. Notably, the founder of the lending protocol Liquity, which has a TVL of one billion dollars, is also supporting the project.
According to RootData, Bitfinity (formerly InfinitySwap) is the next-generation EVM, acting as a second layer for Bitcoin and other assets, utilizing threshold signature schemes and built on the Internet Computer.
What exciting articles are worth reading in the past 24 hours?
Dialogue with institutions listed on RootData List | SevenX co-founder Eraser: It is the right time to invest in Web3 applications.
During the Bangkok Devcon, the Web3 asset data platform RootData, in collaboration with ChainCatcher, held the annual summit 'DeInsight 2024', officially releasing (RootData: 2024 Web3 Industry Development Research Report and Annual List) (click the link to view the complete report and list).
This list is the second annual selection launched by RootData after its first release in 2023. This year's RootData List 2024 covers five lists: Top 50 projects (completed TGE), Top 50 projects (not conducted TGE), Crypto VC Top 50 investment institutions, Top 10 angel investors, Top 20 best CEOs.
ChainCatcher will publish a series of articles, dialogue with institutions listed on RootData List 2024, looking for builders who traverse the bull and bear markets and tracking the latest trends in Web3.
SevenX successfully selected as Crypto VC Top 50 and recently appeared on RootData Space to share its success story.
Memecoin market map: An asset class worth 120 billion dollars.
In the past year, Memecoin has been the best-performing sector in the cryptocurrency market. Now, the total market value of Memecoin has exceeded 100 billion dollars, surpassing the combined total of DeFi, DePin, gaming, and the metaverse.
As the scale and diversity of this asset class continue to expand, we attempt to map out the market to identify the opportunities within it.
We analyzed the best-performing Memecoins of each quarter this year, and the results confirmed our hypothesis—Memecoins dominated the market in every quarter. In the first quarter, $POPCAT, $WIF, $MOG, and $MYRO were the best performers;
In the second quarter, $PONKE, $SPX, $TURBO, $GIGA, $WOJAK, $BRETT, and $MOG performed outstandingly; in the third quarter, $SPX, $GIGA, $FUD, and $MUMU led the performance.
Ethereum's dawn is approaching; 10,000 dollars is not a dream.
Since the beginning of 2024, if many cryptocurrency believers were to list the most disappointing cryptocurrency assets, Ethereum would undoubtedly top the list.
In the previous cycle, Ethereum, which shone brightly with new applications such as DeFi and NFTs, once reached a historical high of 4,800 dollars, creating a wealth secret with more than 20 times the increase. As Bitcoin surged ahead, people's expectations for the second dragon were also heightened.
However, in the new cycle, when Bitcoin has broken through 90,000 dollars, Ethereum is barely holding above the 3,000 dollar mark. Even after a brief spike to 4,000 dollars at the beginning of the year, it once fell to the 2,200 dollar mark, during which a number of cryptocurrency believers who were eagerly waiting for Ethereum's rise were trapped, including 'Brother Sun' who never suffers losses, indicating that institutional investors are also not immune. Currently, the exchange rate of Ethereum to Bitcoin has dropped to a historical low of 0.034.
As the saying goes, 'When the mountains and rivers block the way, the willows are dark and the flowers are bright in another village.'
The author believes that the predicament Ethereum currently faces is an inevitable stage in the early development of the Web3 industry. When Bitcoin occupies the consensus high ground in the field of digital gold, Ethereum's vision as a world computer encounters some structural contradictions, so it has failed to resonate with its market value, and cannot realize value expectations in the short term. However, the author believes that all current predicaments are essentially paper tigers, and we are in the 'dawn'.
The power behind the positions: A perspective on institutional layout of Bitcoin.
As Bitcoin prices continue to rise, its appeal has gradually shifted from retail investors to large institutions with substantial funds and resources. Unlike the previous bull market, where the prosperity of the ecosystem and institutional entry became the core driving force for price surges, in this round of market, institutional deep positioning has become an important variable in driving market development. From the successful approval of the spot ETF to the frequent increase in positions by traditional financial giants and professional asset management institutions, institutionalization is reshaping the landscape of the Bitcoin market.
In this process, the investment logic of Bitcoin is also subtly changing—from purely chasing price fluctuations as a speculative asset to gradually evolving into a long-term allocation tool with asset diversification and anti-inflation characteristics. Meanwhile, the changes in holdings and profitability of major institutions are also of great concern to the market: who is continuously increasing their Bitcoin positions? Which institutions have already gained considerable returns from this round of rise? Has the change in position size significantly impacted market prices? This article will focus on introducing the holdings of several top-ranking institutions.
When will the winds of the bull market reach the Bitcoin ecosystem?
The Bitcoin ecosystem was once considered one of the most promising ecosystems in this bull market, with an ecosystem total market value expected to reach the billion-dollar level.
However, since the end of the inscription craze at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, the Bitcoin ecosystem has slowly entered a bear market, with a sharp decline in new users and funds. Although subsequently, Rune, 5-character BRC-20 tokens like pizza, the Fractal ecosystem, and CAT-20 have brought some attention to the Bitcoin ecosystem, the scale has always been less than that of the initial inscription craze across the network.
On one hand, Bitcoin prices continue to rise and reach new highs, with 100,000 dollars seemingly within reach; on the other hand, the gradual prosperity of the Solana ecosystem and other ecosystems (such as Base, Sui, etc.). When will the winds of the bull market reach the Bitcoin ecosystem?
