Hotairballoon has selected important information, investment and financing conditions of the crypto market last week, as well as on-chain data of current popular tracks such as LSD and RWA. In addition, it has also counted projects with relatively large unlocking volumes recently for your reference.
1. Important information about the crypto industry last week
Take a quick look at important industry information of the week.
1. Policy/Regulation
1. Indian Prime Minister Modi called for the establishment of a global cryptocurrency regulatory framework during the G20 summit
According to Cointelegraph on August 28, Indian Prime Minister Modi called for global cooperation in the development of cryptocurrency regulations during the G20 summit. As the chair of the G20, India has taken on the task of advocating the establishment of a comprehensive global cryptocurrency regulatory framework.
2. The Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee wrote to Powell, condemning the Federal Reserve for undermining the clarity of payment stablecoin legislation
On August 28, McHenry, Chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, stated in a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Powell that the Federal Reserve’s recent supervisory and regulatory letters (SR 23-7 and SR 23-8) undermined the progress made by Congress in legislating a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, and would undoubtedly prevent financial institutions from participating in the digital asset ecosystem.
3. US SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce opposes SEC's enforcement actions against NFT
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda opposed the SEC's enforcement action that NFT sales are securities, saying in part that they disagreed with the application of the Howey test. The SEC does not have a sufficient basis to bring this under its jurisdiction.
4. Hong Kong Legislative Council Member Wu Jiezhuang: The digital Hong Kong dollar launched in Hong Kong in the future can play the role of a stable currency
On August 29, according to Sing Tao Daily, Hong Kong Legislative Council member Wu Jiezhuang revealed that he used the summer break of the Legislative Council to visit six provinces in the Mainland and Singapore. During his visit to Singapore, he found that it was very common to use virtual currencies, such as USDT (Tether), for large-value luxury goods such as private jets. He believed that Hong Kong should catch up and improve the relevant regulatory system as soon as possible; he also believed that the digital Hong Kong dollar to be launched in Hong Kong in the future can play the role of a stable currency and promote the development of virtual asset transactions in Hong Kong.
5. Grayscale wins the lawsuit against the US SEC
On August 29, U.S. court documents showed that Grayscale's request for review was approved and the U.S. SEC's order was revoked. Grayscale filed a lawsuit against the SEC last year because the SEC rejected its proposal to convert its flagship fund GBTC into a spot Bitcoin ETF. This ruling means that Grayscale has won the lawsuit against the U.S. SEC.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said this does not mean that GBTC will automatically convert into an ETF, but it does bring things one step closer (to approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF).
6. Swiss crypto bank SEBA Bank has received approval in principle from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission to provide crypto-related product transactions
On August 30, according to The Block, Swiss crypto bank SEBA Bank has obtained in-principle approval from Hong Kong securities regulators to continue expanding its business in Asia.
7. The Japanese Financial Services Agency announced its 2023 financial policy guidelines, mentioning that it will establish a registration and review system for stablecoins
According to Coinpost, on August 29, the Financial Services Agency of Japan announced its financial policy guidelines for the 2023 administrative year (July 2023 to June 2024), summarizing the key measures for the coming year. The policy proposes measures to reform the Financial Services Agency of Japan to promote the realization of asset management to revitalize the country.
In its second policy, “Building a financial system that balances solving social problems and economic growth,” the Financial Services Agency of Japan proposed the goal of “realizing a digital society,” which includes specific policies for digital currencies and encrypted assets to be implemented to promote Web3, including the establishment of a registration and review system that supports the smooth issuance and circulation of stablecoins, and the encouragement of the establishment of self-regulatory organizations.
8. Uniswap class action lawsuit judge ruled that "Ethereum is a commodity, not a security"
On August 31, ConsenSys lawyer Bill Hughes tweeted that the judge of the Southern District Court of New York clearly ruled in the class action ruling against Uniswap on August 29 that Ethereum is a commodity, not a security. In addition, the judge also hinted that Wrapped BTC is a commodity, but did not explicitly state this.
9. The US SEC has postponed its decision on all Bitcoin spot ETFs, including BlackRock
According to a screenshot of a document released by Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart on September 1, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has successively postponed the resolution of the Bitcoin spot ETF applications of WisdomTree, Invesco Galaxy, Valkyrie, Fidelity, VanEck, Bitwise and BlackRock. The document shows that the new deadline for the SEC to make resolutions on the applications of WisdomTree, Invesco Galaxy, Fidelity, VanEck and BlackRock is October 17, Valkyrie is October 19, and Bitwise is October 16.
10. Thailand plans to distribute about $290 worth of digital assets to all people over the age of 16 to boost the national economy
On August 31, according to Blockworks, the Pheu Thai Party will use "utility tokens" in its upcoming digital wallet plan, aimed at stimulating the national economy. The plan was promised by the party during the campaign and will provide 10,000 baht (290 U.S. dollars) of digital assets to all Thais over the age of 16.
11. China People's Court News: Virtual currency is still legal property. It is recommended that the money and property involved in the case should not be confiscated or returned.
On September 1, China People's Court Daily published an article today titled "Identification of the Property Attributes of Virtual Currency and Disposal of Property Involved in Cases". The article analyzed the criminal law attributes of virtual currency, stating that virtual currency has economic attributes and can be classified as property, and current laws and policies do not define virtual currency as illegal items. Therefore, under the current legal and policy framework, virtual currency held by relevant entities in my country is still legal property and is protected by law.
(II) Project Information
1. Pauly: PEPE team’s selling of coins is market manipulation and insider trading
On August 28, Jeremy Cahen, founder of CryptoPhunks and NFT market Not Larva Labs, tweeted that the PEPE team stole more than $10 million worth of funds from the CEX wallet and sold them on the open market. Now they have transferred the remaining $9.6 million to a wallet controlled by an anonymous user. They laid out a large number of short orders before stealing CEX funds. The entire team was involved in insider trading.
2. The dYdX community has voted to extend the current grant program for another 6 months
On August 28, the Snapshot page showed that the dYdX community passed the "dYdX Grant Program v1.5 Extension" proposal with 100% support. According to the proposal, the dYdX Grant Program will be extended for another 6 months with the remaining budget on hand. The extension will start on September 1, 2023 and expire on March 1, 2024. The program will introduce two new roles: funders and operators; funders will be responsible for RFPs, procurement and recommending grants, and managing approved grants, and operators will be responsible for payments and financial reporting.
3. The proposal of “Aave V3 MVP version deployed to Gnosis Chain” has passed the temperature check vote
On August 28, the Snapshot page showed that the Aave community passed the temperature check vote for the proposal to "deploy Aave V3 Minimum Viable Product (MVP) version to Gnosis Chain" with 100% support.
4. HashKey Exchange has opened BTC/USD and ETH/USD trading pairs to retail investors
On August 28, according to an official announcement, HashKey Exchange has opened Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) deposit, withdrawal and trading services to retail investors, and has officially opened BTC/USD and ETH/USD trading pairs to retail investors.
5. Crypto KOL: BlackRock is the second largest shareholder of four listed Bitcoin mining companies
On August 28, according to the 13F document submitted to the SEC cited by the crypto KOL "The Bitcoin Therapist", among the top five listed Bitcoin mining companies in the world by market value, Riot Blockchain, Marathon Digital Holdings, Cipher Mining, Hut 8 Mining and TeraWulf, BlackRock is the second largest shareholder of four of them, Riot Blockchain, Marathon Digital Holdings, Cipher Mining and TeraWulf.
6. OPNX: The time for exchanging FLEX for OX has expired, and the remaining 5.97 billion OX will be stored in the custody contract after minting.
On August 29, the crypto claim and trading platform Open said on the X platform that as of today, users can no longer exchange FLEX for OX. During the token migration, more than 35 million FLEX were exchanged for OX by users, accounting for about 36% of the FLEX supply, and 3.89 billion OX were issued.
7. The Curve community has passed the proposal to "remove Chainlink price security restrictions in crvUSD oracle"
On August 29, according to the Curve governance platform, the proposal initiated by Curve founder Michael Egorov to "remove the ±1.5% security limit on Chainlink prices in the crvUSD oracle" has passed the on-chain vote.
8. Polygon Labs launches chain development kit CDK for developing and connecting to Ethereum L2
On August 29, according to The Block, Polygon Labs released a software tool called Chain Development Kit (CDK), which allows developers to develop a Layer 2 chain for Ethereum supported by zero-knowledge proofs. Layer 2 blockchains deployed using its CDK will be able to connect to a shared ZK bridge to achieve interoperability. The code base of CDK will be open source.
9. Ethereum Foundation officially launches Ethereum Execution Layer Specification (EELS)
On August 30, according to official news, the Ethereum Foundation announced that after more than a year of development, it has officially launched the Ethereum Execution Layer Specification (EELS). EELS is a Python reference implementation of the core components of the Ethereum execution client, focusing on readability and clarity.
10. MakerDAO announces the final stage of "Endgame", aiming to increase DAI supply to more than $100 billion within three years
On September 2, according to The Block, MakerDAO published a document announcing the final stage of "Endgame", which will be a complete re-implementation of the entire Maker protocol built on the native blockchain NewChain. Through this strategy, MakerDAO hopes to increase the supply of the stablecoin DAI.
11. The proposal to deploy Uniswap V2 to all existing V3 standard instances has passed the temperature check vote
On August 31, the Snapshot page showed that the Uniswap community's proposal to "deploy V2 on all chains where V3 specification instances exist" passed the temperature check vote with 98.36% support.
12. The proposal of "Aave Treasury will invest part of the stablecoin into RWA" has passed the temperature check vote
On August 31, the Aave community recently passed a temperature check vote on the "Aave Treasury's Proposal on RWA Allocation", which proposed to allocate part of the stablecoins held by the Aave Treasury to low-risk real-world assets (RWA) investments through Centrifuge Prime.
13. Worldcoin: Argentina sets a new record of 9,500 users completing World ID verification in a single day
On August 31, Worldcoin, a crypto project owned by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, said in its official blog that Argentina's demand for World ID pushed Orb verification to a new single-day record. 9,500 Argentine users completed World ID verification in a single day, which means that one person in Argentina successfully passed the verification every 9 seconds. Currently, World App has become the number one application in Argentina on the App Store.
14. HashKey Capital launches its first secondary crypto market fund, with less than 50% invested in Bitcoin and Ethereum
On August 31, according to Reuters, HashKey Capital announced the launch of the first secondary market fund, which will invest most of its assets in secondary cryptocurrencies with the goal of outperforming Bitcoin. The fund will invest less than 50% in Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrencies, and will also diversify its allocation and invest in some "altcoins."
15. PYUSD is now available on the Coinbase website and iOS and Android apps
On September 1, according to official news, Coinbase announced that PayPal USD (PYUSD) has been launched on the Coinbase website and Coinbase iOS and Android applications (with experimental labels). Coinbase users can log in to buy, sell, convert, send, receive or store these assets.
16. OpenSea's monthly active users fell 12% to 126,000 in August, the lowest level since July 2021
On September 1, according to The Block, the number of active users of OpenSea also hit its lowest level since July 2021. In August, the number of active users of OpenSea fell 12% to 126,000. In addition, the daily trading volume of the Solana-based NFT market fell below US$1 million for the first time since September 2021.
17. Vitalik exchanged 500 MKR for 350 ETH, the first sell-off in two years
According to The Data Nerd, on September 2, 2 hours ago, Vitalik Buterin sold 500 MKR (worth about $581,000) through CoWSwap and exchanged them for 350 ETH. Vitalik then transferred all the received ETH to the address starting with 0x3f6.
(III) Others
1. Coinbase CEO shared his top ten innovations in the crypto industry, including Flatcoin, on-chain reputation, and RWA.
On August 31, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong shared his top 10 thoughts on the crypto industry on the X platform, which are:
1.Flatcoin；
2. On-chain reputation;
3. On-chain advertising;
4. On-chain capital deployment;
5. Decentralized labor market;
6. Layer 2 privacy;
7. Fully on-chain P2P exchange;
8. Web3 game economy;
9. Tokenization of real-world assets;
10. Network status tool.
2. Bloomberg: Iceland has become a refuge for Bitcoin miners
On August 31, Bloomberg reported that as energy costs soared and regulatory pressure on cryptocurrency businesses increased in the United States and other countries, Iceland has become a refuge for Bitcoin miners.
3. Security company: More than 25 typical security incidents occurred in August, with a total loss of approximately US$17.43 million
On August 31, according to the monitoring of Beosin EagleEye security risk monitoring, early warning and blocking platform under blockchain security audit company Beosin, the number of various security incidents and the amount of losses in August 2023 dropped significantly compared with July. More than 25 typical security incidents occurred in August, and the total amount of losses from attacks was about 17.43 million US dollars, a decrease of about 90% from July; the total amount of Rug Pull reached 28.85 million US dollars, an increase of about 18% from July.
4. Multiple Ethereum liquidity staking providers promised to limit the staking amount to no more than 22% of the total staking amount
On September 1, Ethereum community consultant superphiz.eth stated on the X platform that several Ethereum liquidity staking providers, including Rocket Pool, StakeWise, Stader Labs, Diva Stake, Puffer Finance and Swell Network, have promised (or are promising) to limit their holdings to no more than 22% of the total staked amount, in order to address the increasing centralization of the Ethereum staking market.
5. OKX plans to enter the Indian market, recruit local employees and explore Web3 use cases
On September 1, according to CoinDesk, OKX Chief Marketing Officer Haider Rafique said the company is planning to enter the Indian market and recruit local employees to explore potential Web3 use cases. Rafique said the company plans to "exponentially" expand its wallet services by leveraging India's highly regarded developer community.
2. Investment and Financing Situation Last Week
1. DeFi
1. Lightning Network liquidity pledge project Stroom Network completes $3.5 million seed round financing
On August 31, according to Decrypt, the Bitcoin Lightning Network liquidity staking project Stroom Network completed a $3.5 million seed round of financing, led by Greenfield, with strategic support from Ankr's venture capital department Mission Street, and participation from Lemniscap, No Limit Holdings and Cogitent Ventures, as well as several other venture capital firms and angel investors.
2. Binance Labs announces investment in DeFi yield protocol Pendle Finance
According to official news, Binance Labs announced its investment in the DeFi yield protocol Pendle Finance. The announcement stated that this investment strengthens Binance Labs’ commitment to supporting innovative projects aimed at shaping the next generation of DeFi primitives.
2. Web3
1. Web3 marketing company Raleon completes $3.8 million seed round of financing
On August 24, according to Cryptonews, Web3 marketing company Raleon announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$3.8 million, with participation from Blockchange, Play Ventures, Alliance DAO and Portal Ventures. The funds will be used to help project and brand development.
2. AI and Web3 startup Moonbox receives strategic investment from Bing Ventures
On August 22, according to PR Newswire, Bing Ventures, the investment arm of the cryptocurrency exchange BingX, announced a strategic investment in AI and Web3 startup Moonbox. The specific amount has not been disclosed.
3. Web3 infrastructure startup IronMill completes $2.6 million Pre-Seed round of financing
On August 30, according to AlexaBlockchain, Web3 infrastructure startup IronMill announced the completion of a $2.6 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by Gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from Blockchain Builders Fund, Superscrypt, LongHash, Kestrel 0x1 and SevenX.
4. Web3 marketing company DeForm completes $4.6 million seed round of financing
On August 31, The Block reported that Web3 marketing company DeForm completed a $4.6 million seed round of financing. Kindred Ventures led the investment, with participation from Elad Gil, Scalar Capital, A.Capital, Alchemy Ventures, Naval Ravikat, Sota Watanabe, Sep Kamvar, Scott Belsky and Marc Bhargava.
(III) NFT/chain games
1. Startup FirstMate completes $3.75 million in financing, led by Dragonfly Capital
On August 28, according to The Block, FirstMate, a startup that aims to provide digital storefronts for NFT creators, raised US$3.75 million in a round of financing led by Dragonfly Capital. Coinbase Ventures and NextView also participated in this round of financing announced today.
2. Hungri Games completes $1.9 million financing with a valuation of $23 million, led by Bogazici Ventures
Web3 game developer Hungri Games announced that it has completed a $1.9 million seed round of financing with a valuation of $23 million. Bogazici Ventures led the investment, and Roko Finance, Preston Labs, Triple Dragon, Erol Ozmandiraci, Oyunfor, Caglan Tanriverdi and The Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget participated in the investment.
4. Infrastructure
1. Web3 talent and project network BuidlerDAO completes $2 million financing, led by Sequoia China Seed Fund and SevenX Ventures
On August 28, according to the official X account, Web3 talent and project network BuidlerDAO announced the completion of a $2 million angel round of financing, led by Sequoia China Seed Fund and SevenX Ventures, with participation from Bing Ventures, DRK Lab, M77 Ventures, Gate Labs, Mirror World, Conflux, Nicholas Hu (PlanckerDAO), Xiao Zhang (founder of zCloak Network), Paka, Vitalbridge, Inverse Ventures, Doc Labs and others.
2. Virtual event planning platform Allseated completes $20 million in equity financing
On August 29, TechCrunch reported that Allseated, a virtual venue display and event planning platform, completed $20 million in equity financing. Allseated also stated that it is spinning off its Metaverse division into an independent entity. After this round of financing, Allseated's total cash financing exceeded $43 million, including investments from Magma Ventures, Level Structured Capital, Vestech Partners, NYFF and WGG to further expand its spatial visualization and collaboration platform.
(V) Others
1. Metaverse Architecture Project STELSI Receives Strategic Investment from NGC Ventures
On August 31, according to Globenewswire, the Metaverse construction project STELSI recently announced that it has received a strategic investment from the NGC Ventures Metaverse Fund, and the specific amount has not been disclosed. This investment will be used to expand project adoption, product launches and global expansion.
2. Roblox's educational technology platform Kinjo completes $6.5 million seed round of financing
On August 31, according to Businessinsider, Kinjo, an educational technology startup based on the metaverse platform Roblox, completed a $6.5 million seed round of financing, led by LiveOak Venture Partners, with participation from Silverton Partners, Breyer Capital and Roble Capital. The startup plans to use the funds to offer its products on YouTube, Minecraft and other popular online platforms.
3. Satoshi Network completes $2 million angel round of financing
On September 1, Satoshi Network announced the completion of a $2 million angel round of financing. The main purpose of this financing is to support the destruction plan of the early Satoshi Network bond sUSD. The destruction will be carried out on September 1, 2023, and the destruction record hash is: 0x7f520487d65ac08db1c272394f1ec281347b91371d31c93c650eb2ee4ca31f79.
4. Decentralized GPU resource network GPU.Net completes $500,000 in financing
The decentralized GPU resource network GPU.Net has completed a $500,000 financing round, with Momentum 6 and Alphablockz participating. The company is also supported by NVIDIA and Taanga Studios and is expected to launch the GPU.Net testnet next month.
5. Lyvely, a social network and content monetization platform, completes seed round financing, led by Cypher Capital
Lyvely, a UAE-based social network and content monetization platform, has announced the completion of its seed round of financing, led by Cypher Capital, with an investment amount of undisclosed.
6. Decentralized social recommendation protocol Tako Protocol completes $2 million Pre-Seed round of financing
On September 1, according to official news, the decentralized social recommendation protocol Tako Protocol completed a US$2 million Pre-Seed round of financing. DWF Ventures, Mask Network, UOB Venture, Signum Capital, AC Capital, SmrtiLab, RSS3, HashBrown Research and other angel investors under DWF Labs participated in the investment.
3. Last week’s main track data
1. RWA
According to defillama’s statistics, the total TVL of the RWA track has reached 1.2 billion US dollars, a slight increase from last week. The total locked volume (TVL) ranks 8th, and it ranked 9th last week. Defillama has included 25 RWA protocols, 3 more than last week.
Among these RWA (real world asset) tokenization projects are U.S. Treasury tokenization and real estate tokenization.
According to data from the rwa.xyz platform, the scale of U.S. Treasury tokenization has reached US$635 million, a slight increase from last week, with an average yield of more than 5%.
Among these U.S. Treasury tokenization projects, Franklin Templeton Benji Investments Market Cap on Steller has the highest market value, reaching US$293 million, with a yield of 5.19%.
MakerDAO
As of writing, the size of Dai in DSR has increased by 265 million from last week to 1.35 billion, a slight increase from last week. The total amount of Dai has increased to 5.296 billion, a slight increase from last week. Currently, DSR accounts for 24.6% of the total amount of Dai, and the DSR deposit rate is 5%.
Among them, sDAI is 810 million, a slight increase from last week.
Let’s take a look at the distribution of DAI.
The share of DAI in DEX and Lending has been declining since October 2022, while the holding rate of DAI in EOA accounts has been rising, reaching 55.9%, a slight decrease from last week. Since the DSR adjusted the interest rate, the share of DAI Savings has become larger and larger, currently reaching 24.9%, up two percentage points from last week.
Currently, the ones with the highest proportion are: EOA, DAI Savings, and Bridge.
The TVL of Maker's own lending protocol Spark reached 660 million, a slight decrease from last week.
According to dune platform statistics, RWA accounts for 57.6% of MakerDAO's revenue, which is a very high proportion. This is related to MakerDAO's vigorous layout in the RWA track, which is a slight decrease compared with last week.
2. LSD
Currently, the amount of ETH staked in the beacon chain has reached 26.38 million ETH, a slight increase from last week, accounting for 21.95% of the total supply of ETH, and the number of nodes has exceeded 820,000.
Currently, the ETH staking yield is approximately 3.75%. As the quality increases, the yield is decreasing.
Among the three major protocols, in terms of ETH staking volume, Lido increased by 0.59% in a week, Rocket Pool increased by 0.33% in a week, and Frax increased by 0.07% in a week.
Judging from the price performance of the three major protocols, LDO fell 4.37% in a week, RPL fell 6.48% in a week, and FXS price fell 0.07% compared with last week.
3. Ethereum L2
According to data from the l2beat platform, Ethereum Layer2 TVL has dropped by 1.04% in the past week and is currently at $9.56 billion. The reason for the drop in TVL is partly due to the drop in ETH prices.
In Ethereum Layer2, Arbitrum still has the highest TVL, accounting for 54.94%. The fastest growing one in recent times is of course Base. In the past week, its TVL increased by 51.4% to US$372 million, which is a very fast growth rate.
4. DEX
TVL
According to statistics from defillama, the total locked value in the DEX sector is US$11.97 billion.
The highest lock-up volume is Uniswap, followed by Curve, PancakeSwap, Balancer, SUN and Sushi. Except for Balancer, the TVL of other DEXs has decreased compared to last week.
Among them, the DEXs with the highest TVL on the Ethereum mainnet are Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, Sushi, and Loopring.
The above are the top 6 DEXs in terms of TVL on Arbitrum, OP Mainnet, zkSync Era, Starknet, and Base chain.
The above are the top 6 DEXs in terms of TVL on other Layer1 chains.
Trading volume
The decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume in the last 24 hours was nearly US$700 million, which was a decrease from last week. The total trading volume of global cryptocurrency exchanges in the last 24 hours was US$24.5 billion, of which DEX trading volume accounted for only 2.9%.
Among DEXs, the exchanges with relatively high trading volumes include Uniswap, ApeX, Pancakeswap, Curve, and Maverick.
5. Derivatives DEX
TVL
According to the data from defillama, except for dYdX, the TVL of most derivatives DEXs has been declining recently. On the one hand, this is because of the drop in token prices, and on the other hand, it is because the overall trading volume of the derivatives track is declining.
In the derivatives track, GMX has the highest TVL, followed by dYdX, Gains Network, NUX Protocol, and ApolloX.
Trading volume
According to data statistics from the coingecko platform, the decentralized derivatives trading platform with the highest trading volume is dYdX, with a trading volume of US$250 million in the last 24 hours, followed by GMX, with a trading volume of US$13.65 million in the last 24 hours.
4. Recent Token Unlock
Recently, the token unlocking of 6 projects is worthy of attention. Among them, the unlocking amount of IMX, the token of the ImmutableX project, is relatively large. The amount of token unlocking this time reached 9.83 million US dollars, accounting for 1.61% of the IMX token flow.
