Daily Quotes (May 1, 2024 22:30)

ChainDD's market data on May 1 shows that the combined DD index and CoinMarketCap quotes are:

BTC was at $57,410.45, down about 5.82% in 24 hours;

ETH was at $2,891.44, down about 3.71% in 24 hours;

BNB reported $549.74, up or down by about 2.38% in 24 hours;

DOGE was at $0.1234, down about 8.17% in 24 hours;

DOT was trading at $6.57, up about 5.21% in 24 hours.

Chain Circle Dynamics

Bitcoin L2 Network Stacks’ “Nakamoto” Upgrade Delayed Again, Needing 8 More Weeks of Development and Testing Time

Bitcoin’s L2 network Stacks’ “Nakamoto” upgrade has been delayed again, citing the need for another eight weeks of development time.

Mitchell Cuevas, head of the Stacks Open Internet Foundation, wrote that core developers have determined that more advanced signer resilience/recovery capabilities are needed. It is expected that an additional eight weeks of development and testing time will be required before the second hard fork brings the "activation" function. The code for the new signer resilience function is expected to be completed on July 15 and activation will begin on August 28.

Vitalik: More than 90% of personal funds are kept in multi-signature wallets to avoid risks such as loss of mnemonics

Netizens discussed the importance and precautions of using hardware wallets on the X platform, and mentioned some risks, such as the mnemonic being discovered by others and forgetting where the mnemonic was hidden.

In response, Vitalik Buterin commented: “This is why I keep more than 90% of my personal funds in multi-signature (Safe) custody, M-of-N scheme, where some keys are held by you (but not enough to prevent recovery), and the rest are held by others you trust. Don’t reveal the identity of others, and even these people should not reveal their identities to each other.”

UniSat releases Rune Market update, including added code-like warnings

UniSat releases Rune Market Update on X Platform:
1. Warnings about code similarity are now displayed on the Runes Market homepage. Verify carefully before trading to avoid buying the wrong tokens;
2. Rune Market home page and individual ticker detail pages now have new statistics including value, market cap, and holder count.

Cryptocurrency News

Greeks.live researcher: Bitfinex spot big players began to continuously buy the bottom

According to Adam, a researcher at Greeks.live, who posted on the X platform, Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency market are still experiencing a deep correction. April has become the deepest correction in the past year. Dvol fell directly from 74% to 55% this week. The market's volatility expectations have dropped very quickly, which shows that the market is rapidly turning from hot to cold. The short vega trading strategy mentioned in the previous few weeks can be closed for profit. In the short term, you can choose a term and price with a lower IV and start buying options appropriately, which is very cost-effective.

In the crypto interest rate market, Bitfinex spot traders have begun to continuously buy at the bottom. In the Green Leaf interest rate market, orders with an annualized interest rate of 20% can often be encountered. If you encounter suitable interest rate orders, you can actively trade them. Using the high-interest model may bring surprises.

RWA tokenization company Securitize completes $47 million financing, led by BlackRock

Securitize, a real-world asset tokenization company, has completed a $47 million financing round led by BlackRock, with participation from Hamilton Lane, ParaFi Capital and Tradeweb Markets.

Securitize will use the proceeds from this round to accelerate product development, expand its global footprint, and further strengthen its partnerships in the financial services ecosystem. Joseph Chalom, BlackRock’s Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships, has been appointed to Securitize’s Board of Directors.

Riot produced 1,364 bitcoins in the first quarter, with total revenue of $79.3 million

Riot Platforms announces financial results for the first quarter of 2024. Total revenue was $79.3 million, compared to $73.2 million in the same three months of 2023.

1,364 Bitcoins were produced during the quarter, a 36% decrease from the 2,115 Bitcoins mined in the three months to March 31, 2023, primarily due to a significant increase in Bitcoin network difficulty, which has more than doubled since January 2023.

Tether: Net equity reached $11.37 billion as of March 31, 2024

Tether released its first quarter report for 2024, which disclosed that its net equity reached $11.37 billion, a significant increase from the $7.01 billion equity recorded on December 31, 2023. The report emphasized that Tether's excess reserves increased by $1 billion, and as a buffer to support the company's stablecoin issuance, its total reserves have reached nearly $6.3 billion. Tether's tokens are backed by cash and cash equivalents, with a ratio of up to 90%. In addition, the issuance of USDT in the first quarter of 2024 exceeded $12.5 billion.

As of March 31, 2024:
1. The Tether token reserves in circulation are $110,289,406,409.
2. The liabilities of the company that issued Tether tokens were $104,027,539,692, of which $104,019,279,735 was related to the issued digital tokens.
3. As of March 31, 2024, the value of the assets that make up the reserve exceeds the value of the liabilities of the companies that issue Tether tokens by $6,261,866,717.

CZ: I do try to make positive contributions to Bitcoin

Four months after being sentenced, former Binance CEO CZ responded to the concerns of crypto community users on the X platform.

Some community users believe that CZ is the person who has contributed the most to the crypto world since Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, but CZ is the one who brought Bitcoin to the world. In response, CZ said: "I am not that important myself, but I do try to make positive contributions to Bitcoin."

In April, NFT sales on the Bitcoin chain exceeded US$589 million, setting a record for the third highest single month

Cryptoslam data shows that NFT sales on the Bitcoin chain reached US$589,926,708.95 in April, setting the third highest single-month on-chain sales record in history to date (second only to US$869 million in December 2023 and US$616 million in March 2024).

In addition, the number of NFT transactions on the Bitcoin chain in April was 337,734, of which there were 102,550 independent buyers and 86,875 independent sellers. So far, the total sales of NFTs on the Bitcoin chain has reached US$3.727 billion, and the total number of transactions on the chain is 2.849 million.

BTC and ETH options with a notional value of over $2.2 billion will expire on Friday

Deribit data shows that BTC options with a nominal value of over $1.285 billion and ETH options contracts with a nominal value of over $954 million will expire on Friday (May 3). The maximum pain point price of BTC is $64,000, and the maximum pain point price of ETH is $3,050.

Zhang Ruijin, one of the defendants in Singapore's largest money laundering case, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for involving 36 million Singapore dollars

In Singapore's largest money laundering case involving S$3 billion, one of the defendants, Zhang Ruijin, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Five people have been convicted so far in the case. Zhang Ruijin was involved in money laundering of about S$36 million, the most among the defendants convicted so far, and his sentence was the longest.

The total value of assets seized from Zhang Ruijin is approximately S$131 million, including cash, real estate, vehicles and cryptocurrencies. About 90% of the assets were confiscated after the case was sentenced, including two bungalows worth S$16 million and S$15.5 million respectively located in Pearl Island, Sentosa, which he and his mother each owned separately.

Zhang Ruijin and nine other co-defendants were arrested in August last year, and five have been convicted so far. Among them, Su Baolin was sentenced to 14 months in prison, Su Wenqiang and Wang Baosen were sentenced to 13 months each, and Su Haijin was sentenced to 14 months.

The first-day fundraising scale of Hong Kong spot cryptocurrency ETF was about HK$2 billion, exceeding the first-day performance of US spot Bitcoin ETF

On April 30, the first batch of spot cryptocurrency ETFs under China Asset Management (Hong Kong), Bosera Funds (International), and Harvest Global Asset Management officially landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Overall, the first batch of spot cryptocurrency ETFs performed actively on the first day, with a transaction volume of more than HK$87 million. Among them, the increase of Bitcoin ETFs exceeded 1%, which was stronger than Ethereum ETF.

Relevant sources said that China Asset Management (Hong Kong) has a strong momentum in its issuance. On the first day of issuance, China Asset Management Bitcoin ETF and China Asset Management Ethereum ETF raised more than HK$1.1 billion, exceeding the first-day fundraising scale of the US Bitcoin ETF. Adding the total fundraising of the other two institutions, the fundraising scale of the first batch of cryptocurrency ETFs is about HK$2 billion.

Analysts believe that Hong Kong investors have shown great interest in virtual assets. As the virtual asset infrastructure and ecosystem continue to improve, the asset management scale of cryptocurrency ETFs is expected to expand significantly.

Russia to ban cryptocurrency exchanges from operating in the country

Russia is preparing to approve a bill regulating mining activities, which mentions a ban on organizing cryptocurrency exchanges in the country. According to a statement by Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the Russian Duma on financial markets, the ban will come into effect on September 1 as part of the bill regulating cryptocurrency mining activities in Russia.

The bill, proposed by a group of deputies led by Aksakov, stipulates that certain exceptions will apply to crypto mining activities and mining pools to allow them to continue operating within Russia. Aksakov also stated that digital financial assets issued in Russia will be allowed to circulate freely on national exchanges.

Furthermore, Aksakov explained that the necessity of this ban lies in the fact that these assets are quasi-currencies, which may compete and try to replace the Russian ruble, “but only the Russian ruble fulfills the mission of a monetary unit, that’s why this decision was made”. He believes that digital financial assets, rather than cryptocurrencies, may help Russia open up financial markets that are currently closed due to economic sanctions.

Anton Gorelkin, co-sponsor of the aforementioned bill, further explained: “The circulation of cryptocurrencies will not be prohibited. What is prohibited is the organization of circulation, that is, the creation of exchanges and exchangers outside the scope of operation of the experimental legal regime.”