1. DEX Velocore on zkSync and Linea was attacked, losing millions of dollars
Velocore, the DEX on zkSync and Linea, was hacked today, all LPs were drained, and the loss was about $6.8 million. The hacker washed away 1,807 ETH through Tornado. Velocore released an incident report saying that the root cause was a vulnerability in the Balancer-style CPMM pool contract and an internal logic error in the 'velocore__execute()' function of ConstantProductPool. A snapshot of the affected users has been taken and an appropriate compensation plan will be implemented.
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2. Bitcoin Magazine: Trump accepts Bitcoin Lightning Network payments for campaign donations
Donald Trump has become the first US president to accept Bitcoin Lightning Network payments for campaign donations. Notably, Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey is a cryptocurrency aide to the Trump campaign.
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3. Tether co-founder Brock Pierce hints at possible return to Hong Kong
Tether co-founder Brock Pierce hinted at a possible return to Hong Kong, saying China will be open to cryptocurrencies. But he did not reveal what his new company would do or whether Hong Kong would become its permanent base of operations. He said Hong Kong is part of an "ongoing dialogue." Brock Pierce, who co-founded the stablecoin Tether in Hong Kong a decade ago, revealed that he is considering returning to work in Hong Kong for a third time as the Hong Kong government works to attract the cryptocurrency industry back.
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4. FTX sells remaining Anthropic shares, bankruptcy costs over $700 million
The bankrupt FTX sold its remaining 15 million shares in the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic at $30 per share, netting more than $450 million. FTX initially invested $500 million in Anthropic, and now has a total gain of $1.3 billion. In addition, the legal and administrative costs of FTX's bankruptcy totaled more than $700 million.
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5. China-Arab Joint Statement: Strengthen cooperation to combat cybercrime represented by telecommunications network fraud
The People's Republic of China and the United Arab Emirates issued a joint statement. Article 41 emphasized that both sides stressed their strong willingness to strengthen cooperation to combat all forms of organized crime, cybercrime represented by telecommunications network fraud and online gambling, as well as money laundering, human trafficking, drugs and illegal immigration. In addition, China appreciates the UAE's first direct cross-border payment transaction of 50 million dirhams in central bank digital currency "Digital Dirham" with China through the "Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge (mBridge)" platform, which has opened up space for trade and investment facilitation between the two friendly countries.
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6. Wu Shuo Zhou’s Selection: MtGOX’s large-scale transfer, ETH ETF may be launched at the end of June, Babylon received an investment of 70 million US dollars and the top 10 news
Top 10 News of the Week
1. Mt.Gox cold wallets began to transfer a large amount of money link
Mt. Gox cold wallet began to transfer at 9:41 UTC+8 on May 28, of which 47.229k BTC was transferred to the new address: 1HeHLv…vHoV68, 23.797k BTC was transferred to the new address: 1zuWGg…FWGRH6, 47.229k BTC was transferred to the new address: 16eAGJ…37P9gX and 19.41k BTC was transferred to the new address: 15VuDC…gSZnh4. Mt. Gox issued an announcement stating that the reorganization trustee has not yet made direct BTC or BCH repayments through designated cryptocurrency exchanges, nor has it sold BTC and BCH for repayment of proceeds. Mark Karpelès, former CEO of Mt. Gox, also said on X that "the trustee is transferring tokens to another wallet to prepare for possible distributions this year, and will not sell Bitcoin immediately."
2. BlackRock submits revised S-1 statement Ethereum spot ETF is expected to launch at the end of June link
BlackRock has filed an amended S-1 registration statement disclosing information about seed capital investors, paving the way for its proposed Ethereum ETF to be listed for trading. The amended document shows that on May 21, 2024, seed capital investors purchased a seed creation basket totaling 400,000 shares at a price of $25.00 per share, subject to conditions being met. The shares will be traded under the symbol "ETHA." Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said BlackRock's amended S-1 is a "good sign" and that other companies are expected to file similar documents soon and could start trading around the end of June or July 4.
3. Biden campaign begins reaching out to key cryptocurrency industry figures link
President Biden’s reelection campaign has begun reaching out to key figures in the cryptocurrency industry, seeking guidance on “the future development of the cryptocurrency community and cryptocurrency policy.” According to several sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, the outreach includes calls to key industry leaders that the Biden administration had previously rejected, marking a significant “shift” from Biden’s previously distant dealings with the industry. The outreach began about two weeks ago, the sources said, as the Biden camp becomes increasingly aware of the impact that cryptocurrency-related issues could have on what could be a fairly close presidential race.
This move may be related to the pressure from Trump's Dailaid. According to Bitcoincom, David Bailey, CEO of Bitcoin Magazine and a cryptocurrency assistant for the Trump campaign, revealed that Trump had asked if Bitcoin could be used to solve the U.S. national debt problem. Bailey said that when he first met Trump, Trump asked him if Bitcoin could do something about the $35 trillion debt. Earlier, Bailey disclosed that his team has been advising Trump to develop a policy that is friendly to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Bailey also mentioned an executive order submitted to Trump, which will be signed on the first day of Trump's return to power.
4. U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary: The Treasury Department does not intend to ban cryptocurrency mixing services link
U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Brian Nelson said the Treasury Department does not intend to ban cryptocurrency mixing services. Nelson pointed out that the 2023 Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposal is aimed at promoting transparency rather than banning mixing services. He emphasized that the Treasury Department hopes to work with the crypto industry to find ways to enhance privacy without facilitating terrorist financing. Most current mixers are designed to circumvent anti-money laundering (AML) and KYC reporting requirements, which makes them attractive to criminals.
5. EU draft considers MEV as market abuse link
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) defines Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) as a clear example of illegal market abuse in its draft technical standards under its proposed Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. Crypto commentator Patrick Hansen noted that almost all EU-regulated crypto businesses, including exchanges and brokers, are required to detect and report MEV instances through comprehensive "suspicious transaction or order reports" (STORs). Actors involved in MEV may face investigations and enforcement actions not only from EU regulators, but also from international regulators. The deadline for consultation feedback set by ESMA is June 25, and the final standard is expected to have a significant impact on the EU crypto regulatory environment.
6. Binance sold GOPAX victims’ asset claims at less than half of their face value, causing GOPAX to lose tens of billions of won link
Korean media hankyung reported that Binance, the largest shareholder of the Korean exchange GOPAX, sold the asset claims of GOPAX victims for less than half of the face value. Initially, Binance promised to compensate 100% of the losses caused by the interruption of fund withdrawals of investors in the virtual deposit service GoFi last year (about 70 billion won at that time). In return, Binance acquired GOPAX shares at a price significantly lower than the market price and became its largest shareholder. However, Binance did not use its own funds to compensate, but sold the victims' asset claims at a low price to pay the compensation, which was actually a "debt for debt" behavior. In the process, after Binance sold the victims' asset claims, the prices of virtual assets such as Bitcoin rose sharply, resulting in an increase in the scale of victims. It is estimated that the amount of GoFi's debt, after deducting the repaid part, is currently about 100 billion won, causing GOPAX to lose at least tens of billions of won.
7. PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD is now available on the Solana blockchain link
PayPal's stablecoin PYUSD has been launched on the Solana blockchain. Officials said that users can transfer PayPal's stablecoin to Solana through Crypto com, Phantom and Paxos (the issuer of PYUSD). Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital currency at PayPal, said the company is interested in Solana's potential in payments and peer-to-peer fund flows, not just for transactions. PYUSD debuted as an Ethereum-based stablecoin in August last year, backed by 1:1 assets (including US dollars and US Treasuries).
8. Bitcoin spot ETF has seen net inflows for 13 consecutive days link
According to SoSoValue data, yesterday (May 30, EST), the total net inflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $48.706 million. Yesterday, Grayscale ETF GBTC had a net outflow of $0.00 per day, and the current historical net outflow of GBTC is $17.777 billion. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest net inflow in a single day yesterday was Fidelity ETF FBTC, with a net inflow of $119 million per day, and the current total net inflow of FBTC has reached $8.884 billion. As of May 30, EST, Bitcoin spot ETFs have had net inflows for 13 consecutive days. Currently, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $59.026 billion, the ETF net asset ratio is 4.37%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached $13.809 billion.
9. Bernstein: Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF market is expected to grow to $450 billion link
The Bernstein report pointed out that the total Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF market is expected to grow to $450 billion, indicating that more than $100 billion will flow into crypto ETFs in the next two years. Previously, the broker predicted that the high point of the Bitcoin cycle in 2025 would be $150,000, with a target price of $90,000 at the end of the year. In addition, the report stated that Ethereum is the first PoS token approved as a spot ETF, which has a positive impact on other blockchain tokens, and Solana (SOL) may benefit.
10. Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon raises $70 million led by Paradigm link
Babylon, a startup focused on Bitcoin staking, raised $70 million in its latest round of financing, led by Paradigm. This is also the largest investment in the Bitcoin ecosystem in recent times. Earlier, Binance Labs announced an investment in Babylon. At the end of 2023, it completed a $18 million financing, led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC.
Key financing events
Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon raises $70 million led by Paradigm link
AI-based DeFi platform Aperture Finance completes Series A funding at a valuation of $250 million link
Decentralized AI project GaiaNet announces $10 million in funding link
Oracle protocol Switchboard announces $7.5 million Series A funding link
Neynar announces $11 million Series A funding link
RWA tokenization platform Fortunafi announces completion of $9.51 million strategic seed round of financing link
Mighty Jaxx Completes $11 Million Series A+ Funding Link
Blockchain game developer Supervillain Labs announces completion of $4.5 million seed round of financing link
DePIN infrastructure Parasail completes $4 million seed round, led by Protocol Labs link
SocialFi infrastructure OpenSocial announces $5 million seed round of financing link
Blockchain node management platform NodeOps announces completion of $5 million seed round of financing link
Ethereum L2 network Mint Blockchain announces $5 million seed round of funding link
PlayAI announces $4.3 million in seed funding link
Kuroro Beast, a blockchain game developer, announced the completion of a $2.5 million strategic financing link
For more industry financing events, please visit crypto-fundraising.info.
7. Hot project dynamics of the week: ZK trademark dispute, Taiko mainnet launch, friend tech intends to move out of Base, etc. (0526-0601)
1. Matter Labs: Will not file any new trademark applications for ZK link
Matter Labs tweeted that it would like to thank Vitalik Buterin, NEAR founder Illia Polosukhin, Hasu and others for their comments and suggestions on how to ensure that key terms such as ZK remain freely available and free from abuse. The following is a community proposal that is fully supported: Establish a non-owner legal entity whose sole purpose is to hold trademarks for ZK and similar key names. This work must be led by a trusted, impartial and neutral organization or community member; the entity provides free trademark licenses to everyone; invite many influential community figures and impartial and neutral organizations to join as guarantors. Matter Labs promises that it will not submit any new trademark applications for ZK. If the application is rejected, Matter Labs will not appeal. Matter Labs will never enforce any existing or future ZK trademarks it owns, except for defensive purposes, that is, to prevent others from suing us. Matter Labs also promises to financially support the creation of a community-led trademark holder entity and transfer all applied ZK trademarks to that entity.
2. Polyhedra Network said its code will be adjusted from the original ZK to ZKJ link
Polyhedra Network said it will change its ticker from ZK to ZKJ when it is listed on cryptocurrency exchange HashKey Global on Friday. On Thursday, Polyhedra, Polygon and StarkWare issued a joint statement condemning zkSync’s use of ZK as a token symbol and calling on the community to demand that Matter Labs withdraw all trademark applications and use of the ZK symbol.
Linea, a L2 network backed by Consensys, tweeted in support of StarkWare’s statement and argued that zkSync developer Matter Labs should withdraw its ZK trademark application. Linea said that using a legal framework to claim ownership of a cryptographic fork used to develop a permissionless, decentralized L2 execution environment goes against the principles and purpose of Ethereum.
3. OP Labs launches beta version of custom gas token functionality link
OP Labs announced that the beta version of the custom gas token feature is now available on OP Stack. Chain operators can enable this feature when deploying L2 or L3 chains and use ERC20 tokens other than ETH as gas fees. This feature allows projects to deploy chains that use their own tokens or community tokens as gas tokens. Blockchain game developers can also deploy their own chains and use custom gas tokens as in-game currency for players to pay gas fees.
4. Taiko has launched on mainnet and will launch tokens in a few weeks link
After development since 2022 and going through 7 testnets, Taiko, based on Ethereum rollup, has been launched on the mainnet. In the initial stage, Taiko's Rollup protocol contract is controlled by a multi-signature arrangement on Ethereum. The protocol initially requires SGX proofs, and plans to gradually transition to requiring 50% of blocks to use ZK proofs as part of its long-term expansion and security strategy. In addition, Taiko has integrated a type-1 zero-knowledge virtual machine. The Taiko token is expected to be launched a few weeks after the mainnet launch, and plans to launch a points incentive program called Trailblazers. Taiko also plans to launch a DAO later this year to gradually transfer control of the protocol to its community.
5. ENS Labs proposes to migrate ENS from Ethereum mainnet to Layer 2 link
ENS Labs proposes to expand the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to Layer 2 and calls this work "ENSv2". ENSv2 aims to enhance scalability and reduce gas fees by moving core functions from the Ethereum mainnet to the Layer 2 blockchain. However, ENS Labs has not yet selected a specific stack or Layer 2 network for migration, which will become the new platform for users to interact with ENS after the migration is completed.
According to the ENS data panel, since the beginning of this year, the number of newly registered ENS domain names has reached 175,000, while the number of Ethereum independent addresses has increased by about 16.9 million, and the number of newly registered ENS domain names accounts for only about 1% of the number of new addresses. Although ENS can still maintain more than one million US dollars in revenue each month, in the past three months, the revenue generated by ENS from renewals of old domain names has exceeded the revenue captured by newly registered domain names. ENS's bottleneck in the number of new domain name registrations on Ethereum may be one of the reasons why ENS Labs recently proposed to expand the ENS domain name service to Layer2. Previously, Vitalik praised ENS as the most successful non-financial application.
6. Friend Tech Lianchuang published a statement saying that it was "excluded by the Base community" and intends to move out of Base link
Racer, co-founder of friend tech, a social application on the Base chain, said in the early morning that if you can figure out a way to migrate friend tech from Base without causing major problems for users, and the effect is good enough for us to decide to use it, we will pay you $200,000. Racer said that the relationship between the friend tech team and Base has been unstable, and said that it was excluded by the Base community. The tweet is currently invisible. In response, Jesse Pollak, head of Base at Coinbase, tweeted that he acknowledged that the friend tech team felt isolated and disconnected from Base and parts of the Ethereum ecosystem. It would be sad if the team decided to leave Base, but they also respected and supported their choice.
7. pump.fun’s fee income in the past 30 days is $14.12 million, exceeding Uniswap Labs link
Pump.fun, a meme coin issuance platform on Solana, has earned $14.12 million in fees in the past 30 days, surpassing Uniswap Labs to become the fourth largest protocol among all blockchain networks.
8. Uniswap Foundation postpones token staking and delegation reward voting link
The Uniswap Foundation tweeted that the Uniswap protocol governance proposal vote originally scheduled to go live today (Friday) will be postponed due to new issues raised by stakeholders that require further review and verification. The Foundation made this decision in view of the immutability and sensitivity of the proposed upgrade.
Previously, the Uniswap Foundation announced that Uniswap v4 will be launched later this year. It has cooperated with Uniswap Labs to select 5 top auditing companies. The audit will begin this week and will last for several months.
9. EOS Network Foundation announces that the first part of token economics has come into effect, and staking rewards are expected to start in June link
The EOS Network Foundation announced that the first part of the token economics has come into effect. The proposed changes include limiting the total number of EOS tokens to 2.1 billion, allocating funds to purchase 35 million EOS in RAM, and 315 million EOS for RAM market making. The second part is about to be launched, exploring the transition to REX 2.0. EOS staking rewards are expected to start at the end of June, including transferring system fees to block producers (BPs), transferring staking rewards to REX, and changing the REX staking lock-up period from 4 days to 21 days.
10. Atomicals Protocol releases AVM white paper link
The BTC ecological protocol Atomicals Protocol released the AVM virtual machine white paper on May 28. According to @tmel0211, this is a way to simulate the Bitcoin virtual machine, so that the original "stateless" Bitcoin main network can realize the ability to carry a smart contract system, and then complete the state recording and processing capabilities of more complex assets other than BTC assets, similar to Turing complete smart contracts. The white paper clarifies a reasonable way to execute the built-in virtual machine, but how it will actually be deployed online and how it will operate in the application environment and how it will run stably are still unknown.