zachxbt

The cryptocurrency world was recently shaken when blockchain investigator ZachXBT revealed the identity of a trader who made millions from leveraged trading as William Parker, a convicted fraudster. According to the investigation, Parker not only manipulated the market but also has a troubled history involving fraud and gambling.
From Leveraged Trading to a History of Fraud
#ZachXBT determined that Parker made 6.8 million USD after going long on Bitcoin just before former US President Donald Trump announced plans to establish a strategic cryptocurrency reserve. Shortly thereafter, Parker continued to earn an additional 9 million USD by shorting BTC as the price dropped rapidly.

MPC wallet company Fordefi announced the completion of US$10 million in financing, led by Electric Capital, with participation from Paxos and Alchemy. It is reported that Fordefi is expanding its self-hosted MPC wallet products to service platforms for retail investors, such as trading platforms and financial technology platforms, and further reducing the risk of interaction with DeFi applications. (CoinDesk) #zachxbt

21:00-7:00Keywords: PayPal, LINK, Aave founder, AFME
1. Kansas banker accused of embezzling $47 million to buy cryptocurrency;
2. PayPal is developing a new consumer app for its mobile customers;
3. The European Financial Markets Association expressed shock at the proposed crypto asset custody rules;
4. A giant whale accumulated US$112 million in LINK from Binance through 55 addresses in the past 6 days;
5. Aave founder: There should be two verification categories on Lens, namely global verification and local verification;
6. AFME: Disagree with the proposal to expand the territorial scope to cover relevant crypto-asset activities conducted outside the UK.

Data from China Money Network shows that the onshore RMB against the US dollar rose more than 360 points during the day, currently reporting at 7.2282. According to Sina quotes, offshore RMB against the US dollar continues to rise, with a cumulative increase of 370 points during the day, currently reporting at 7.2258.
#zachxbt

Dorothy, the growth lead of AltLayer, clarified on social media regarding the "insider" airdrop event that was previously questioned by KOLs, stating that the OG Badge and Oh Ottie NFT series were minted as a fair way for the community to participate in activities two years ago, and it was announced early on that there would be a token airdrop in the future, which the community was aware of. Dorothy also promoted the "airdrop" feature publicly on multiple occasions as the main promoter of Otties, and personally purchased some Otties for friends a year ago at a price of 0.3-0.59 ETH, one of which was for @mulan_0x.Dorothy stated that he did not know the exact date and time of ALT's listing on Binance before the announcement was made. For a venture capitalist, it is normal to profit from settling in an NFT series with low liquidity after abnormal price fluctuations occur. @mulan_0x listed the NFT on Blur the day before the announcement date for a Pudgy Penguins, which was purely a coincidence as it was close to the announcement date.
#zachxbt

Cypherpunk Holdings (ticker: HODL) is doubling down on its strategy to buy and stake Solana’s native token — to such an extent that the publicly traded cryptocurrency investment firm has been renamed SOL
+1.85%
Strategies, it announced on Thursday.
The firm, which only began buying SOL in the second quarter of 2024 (when former Valkyrie CEO Leah Wald took up the reins as chief executive officer), now holds over 86,000 solana (valued above $11 million at current prices, according to The Block’s data), the majority of which are being staked to earn token rewards.
“We've continued to put more of our balance sheet into SOL and are trying to engage with the Solana ecosystem as much as possible,” Wald told The Block in an interview. “We are highly focused on the Solana ecosystem.”
If the SOL strategy seems reminiscent of MicroStrategy’s pivot to buying bitcoin back in 2020, it’s because of many similarities between the two firms’ “treasury management” styles. In short, if MicroStrategy’s massive bitcoin bags became a way for investors to gain exposure to that crypto asset, SOL Strategy would do the same for Solana.
In June, the firm, then still Cypherpunk Holdings, became one of if not the first publicly traded firms to put SOL on its balance sheet, making its stock a proxy vehicle for traders to gain exposure to the fastest-growing blockchain without having to buy the token outright.
“We think that MicroStrategy has been very successful at utilizing their treasury management strategy to accumulate bitcoin giving the market exposure to bitcoin via MSTR,” Wald said. (Cypherpunk did similarly when it bought its first 100 BTC in 2019.)
However, Wald clarified that it’s not a perfect comparison — because so much of SOL Strategies’ tokens are locked up earning yield in company-run validators, HODL is more akin to a bitcoin mining stock. Additionally, MicroStrategy regularly issues debt to purchase bitcoin, making its stock a play on leveraged bitcoin (the firm has $4 billion in debt and about $13 billion worth of bitcoin on its balance sheet).
“No other companies are running a validator, and none of the staked-SOL ETPs for North America are approved,” Wald said. “It's an interesting time right now with 3iQ filing many months ago for a SOL ETP in Canada and VanEck filing for a SOL ETF in the United States.”
Most experts believe the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is unlikely to approve a SOL exchange-traded fund anytime soon, meaning that — at least for now — if institutional investors want exposure to SOL, buying SOL Strategies stock is one of the few available avenues.
RELATED INDICES
To some extent, that’s also a page out of MicroStrategy’s playbook. When the Michael Saylor-helmed company began adding bitcoin to its balance sheet in August 2020, there were no bitcoin ETFs available in the United States. It wasn’t until October 2021 that ETFs based on bitcoin futures began trading; spot bitcoin ETFs hit the market in January of this year.
SOL Strategies purchased its SOL tokens for an average price of $143. It has earned over 230.35 SOL (worth ~$57,000) from staking as of June.
‘Rising Tide’
The change to SOL Strategies comes amid a period of rising interest in Solana, which has seen its userbase and transaction count skyrocket following the launch of memecoin launchpad Pump.fun in January. However, Wald said memecoins are likely a “fad” and that “the trend of continued interest on a more substantive basis for Solana is still increasing.”
Solana’s “immense throughput with minimal fees” is “going to start mattering … as more companies in the financial sector consider what blockchains they want to use to underpin their new projects,” Wald said, adding that she’s “very concerned about both Bitcoin BTC
+1.12%
and Ethereum's ability to affordably manage transactions on the base chain.”
That said, despite the name change and increased emphasis on Solana, SOL Strategies is still pursuing a multi-token, multi-equity investment strategy. Wald said the firm will maintain bitcoin as a treasury asset, and as of its latest financial statement, the firm still has equity investments in hardware wallet firm and eco-friendly crypto Chia.
Between March and July of this year, SOL Strategies sold off about 109 BTC and shed the entirety of its equity stake in metaverse firm Animoca Brands, which was once its second-largest investment. The firm has about approximately $4.9 million in cash and $115,000 in liabilities. Its other venture capital and equity bets have a book value of nearly $500,000.Finally, when asked about the risk of the SEC one day approving Solana ETFs, thereby undercutting SOL Strategies’ current moat, Wald was nonplussed.
“In many ways, since Solana is more esoteric, we believe that a rising tide would lift all boats here,” she said.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.
© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Hong Kong stock market data shows that as of the close, the trading volume of today's six Hong Kong virtual asset ETFs was HK$27.47 million, including: Hua Xia Bitcoin ETF (3042.HK) had a trading volume of HK$9.23 million, and Hua Xia Ethereum ETF (3046.HK) had a trading volume of HK$10.6 million; Harvest Bitcoin ETF (3439.HK) had a trading volume of HK$2.07 million, and Harvest Ethereum ETF (3179.HK) had a trading volume of HK$1.29 million; Bose HashKey Bitcoin ETF (3008.HK) had a trading volume of HK$1.23 million, and Bose HashKey Ethereum ETF (3009.HK) had a trading volume of HK$3.05 million.
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According to market data on March 10th, AI token prices have risen in general. Among them:
Worldcoin (WLD) hit a new historical high, now priced at $10.82, with a 24-hour increase of 35.5%;
Arkham (ARKM) hit a new historical high, now priced at $3.74, with a 24-hour increase of 32.83%;
Render (RNDR) hit a new historical high, now priced at $12.12, with a 24-hour increase of 14.4%;
SingularityNET (AGIX) is now priced at $1.36, with a 24-hour increase of 11.76%;
Fetch.ai (FET) hit a new historical high, now priced at $2.97, with a 24-hour increase of 7.86%.
#zachxbt

The Ethena protocol behind the USDe digital dollar currently accounts for nearly 5% of global Ethereum perpetual futures open interest contracts. USDe is a token pegged to the value of the US dollar, which can provide high returns. Although it is described as a stablecoin, the team avoids using this term and instead explains it as a "synthetic dollar." George Calle, Vice President of Research at TheBlock, emphasized that Ethena's USDe is essentially a tokenized representation of cash and arbitrage that exists in the crypto market. Therefore, it generates returns by shorting Ethereum futures and staking Ether. According to CoinGecko data, the project's advertised yield of up to 27% has so far attracted users to mint approximately $420 million worth of USDe tokens.
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Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said Bitcoin is a fraud and a Ponzi scheme. JPMorgan Chase is reportedly an authorized participant in BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF. #zachxbt

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes analyzed the evolution of ownership structure and fundraising methods in the cryptocurrency industry in his latest blog post. By comparing the business model of the East India Company in history with the operating methods of modern cryptocurrency projects, Hayes explored how from Bitcoin to the first token issuance (ICO), liquidity mining (yield farming), and even the latest points system have become a natural evolution for user participation and fundraising. Hayes emphasized the fundamental difference in fundraising and attracting users between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 projects, especially in the cryptocurrency industry, where holding tokens or points allows users to directly participate in project ownership, which is a major paradigm shift. He believes that the emergence of Bitcoin marks a new beginning, where participation is equivalent to ownership. Subsequently, ICOs as an early fundraising method allowed retail investors to participate early, while liquidity mining further incentivized participation by rewarding users for directly using the protocol. According to Hayes' analysis, the latest points system combines the strengths of both ICOs and liquidity mining. This system rewards users who interact with the protocol with points, which may be converted into tokens in the future, creating a more flexible and sustainable incentive mechanism. Hayes believes that this method can not only effectively attract and retain users, but also provide a more equitable way for retail investors to participate in the project at a lower cost in the early stages. In addition, Hayes also mentioned the potential impact of the points system on fundraising strategies for cryptocurrency projects, pointing out that this could reduce reliance on pre-selling tokens to venture capitalists and high net worth investors. He emphasized that the success of this system depends on a high level of trust between project founders and users, while also warning of potential risks and improper behavior.
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Senior Democrats are opposing the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), which is supported by digital asset organizations like Coinbase. The bill provides a regulatory framework for digital assets and expands the authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters and House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member David Scott have sent an email to Democratic members of the House of Representatives expressing their opposition to the bill, citing concerns that it undermines established legal precedents and weakens investor protections. The email also urges lawmakers to vote against a bill introduced by Majority Whip Tom Emmer that would block the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency.
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Encyclopedia is an online encyclopedia with the concepts of equality, collaboration, sharing, and freedom. It creates a Chinese knowledge platform covering all fields of knowledge and services for every Internet user. #zachxbt

The Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) has launched a publicly accessible tracker to stop cryptocurrency and other investment scams. The software relies on consumer complaints to collect key threat information and alert the public in order to "make it harder for perpetrators to defraud more investors."
The DFI recently revealed that according to victim reports from January 2022 to June 2024, Wisconsin residents lost nearly $3.55 million to financial fraud and cryptocurrency scams. (Cointelegraph) #zachxbt

According to official news, the encryption trading platform BitRocket will be officially launched in mid-December and will issue the platform token BRC at the same time. BitRocket will use 95% of the total BRC for community rewards until full output. #zachxbt