1. Bitgo announces plans to transfer control of WBTC product to a joint venture with BiT Global
Custody rights are dispersed from the United States to Hong Kong, Singapore and other places. Justin Sun will have significant influence or control over the joint venture that manages WBTC. BA Labs proposed urgent action to limit the growth of WBTC exposure. Justin Sun responded that WBTC has not changed compared to before. Audits are conducted in real time, and personal participation in WBTC is purely strategic. They do not control the private keys of WBTC reserves and cannot move any BTC reserves. Bitglobal and Bitgo will not sign any unaudited transactions. Keys are still protected using the same Bitgo cold wallet technology and offline keys, and are backed up in multiple countries and regions.
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2. Tether CEO: MiCA regulation poses systemic risks to the banking system
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said that the European Union's recently approved Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) poses not only a threat to stablecoins, but also a systemic risk to the entire banking system. Ardoino pointed out that MiCA requires at least 60% of stablecoin reserves to be held in EU bank accounts, a regulation that could increase systemic risk. He emphasized that banks use a fractional reserve system, which makes them vulnerable to runs, and mentioned the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 as a warning that this regulation could have an adverse impact on large-scale stablecoin issuers.
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3. Polymarket: Currently 52% of people think Harris will win, while Trump is 45%
Data from Polymarket shows that Harris has received 52% support in her race against Trump, surpassing Trump's 45%. Her support rate was only 33% when she announced her candidacy. The New York Times/Siena College poll showed Harris leading in key battleground states. However, some right-wing people claim that dark money groups are buying Harris' stock on Polymarket to create an image of a popular candidate. But this is not what is happening at Polymarket now.
4. Singapore A&A Group CTO sentenced to 5 years
A&A Group lied about buying a cryptocurrency mining company in Yunnan, China, and defrauded more than 700 local investors in Singapore of 6.7 million Singapore dollars. Wang Xinghong, the CTO from China, was sentenced to five years in prison. The defendant's accomplices included a man named Yang Bin, the chairman of A&A Group. Yang Bin's experience is very legendary. He once ran Eurasian Agricultural Enterprises and was appointed as the governor of the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region by the North Korean government. He was later arrested by China on multiple charges and was released on parole on September 26, 2016.
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5. Hong Kong Legislative Council Member Qiu Dagen: Hong Kong will strengthen digital asset supervision within 18 months
Hong Kong Legislative Council member David Chiu said at the FORESIGHT 2024 Summit that a sound exchange system should be established and that stablecoin-related legislation will be introduced soon. Stablecoins may appear in Hong Kong by the end of this year, and sandbox testing has already been carried out. In addition, it is planned to improve the supervision and enforcement of legislation related to digital asset financial products within one to one and a half years, and the next step will be to encourage project parties to explore more innovative financial products in Hong Kong.
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6. Hot project dynamics of the week: Grayscale launches TAO and SUI crypto investment trusts, Zircuit mainnet launches, OKX delists Jumpstart project MSN, etc. (0804–0810)
1. Grayscale announces the launch of TAO and SUI’s crypto investment trust link
Grayscale announced the launch of two new crypto investment trusts: Grayscale Bittensor Trust and Grayscale Sui Trust. The former invests in Bittensor's native token TAO, while the latter focuses on Sui Protocol's SUI token. Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, head of product and research at Grayscale, said the launch of these two products will provide investors with access to cutting-edge technologies in decentralized AI and smart contract blockchains. So far, Grayscale has launched 18 crypto investment products, including Solana, Litecoin, Stellar, Zcash, Chainlink and other crypto investment products.
2. Arbitrum DAO releases ARB Staking proposal voting link
Arbitrum DAO releases ARB Staking proposal vote, proposing to unlock the utility of ARB and improve the governance and security of the Arbitrum protocol through ARB staking without distributing fees to token holders. ARB staking distributes future rewards generated by the DAO (such as sorter fees, MEV fees, validator fees, token inflation, and treasury diversification) to token holders who delegate to active governance participants. The proposal will also implement a liquid staked ARB token (stARB) through the Tally protocol, enabling future rewards to automatically compound and be compatible with DeFi. The Arbitrum DAO treasury has accumulated more than $16 million in fees from Arbitrum One and Nova. As of press time, the proposal has received 5.8m ARB votes in favor, and the vote will end on August 16.
3. White hat hackers discovered a vulnerability in the game blockchain Ronin Bridge, involving $9.33 million in funds link
On August 6, gaming blockchain Ronin released an update saying that we have received notification from a white hat hacker about a potential vulnerability in the Ronin bridge. After verification, the bridge was suspended about 40 minutes after the first on-chain action. The attacker withdrew about 4,000 ETH and 2 million USDC from the bridge, worth about $12 million, which is the largest amount withdrawn in a single transaction. The upgrade of the bridge had problems during the governance process, causing the bridge to misunderstand the operator voting threshold required to withdraw funds. The team is working to resolve the problem and plans to re-vote and deploy after a rigorous audit. Negotiations are currently underway with the attacker, all user funds are safe, and any shortage will be replenished when the bridge reopens.
On the same day, Ronin tweeted that the white hat hacker had returned about $10 million in ETH, and that USDC was expected to be returned later today. The bug bounty program will reward the white hat with a $500,000 bounty.
4. Zircuit mainnet is launched, and it is pointed out that its verification contract has an obvious temporary backdoor link
L2 project Zircuit announced the launch of the first phase of the mainnet, launched the Zircuit mainnet node and opened the first quarter airdrop to reward early contributors and participants of the network. Users who participated in the first quarter points activity can now claim their tokens, but they cannot be transferred for the time being. In addition, users can also obtain ZRC tokens by paying gas fees on the Zircuit network. Zircuit previously received investment from Binance Labs, with a TVL of more than US$2.5 billion.
Bartek, founder of L2Beat, said that the first zkEVM Zircuit built on Optimism Bedrock has been launched on the mainnet, but its proof system is not what was expected; when looking at the verification proof contract, it was found that this code has an obvious temporary backdoor, and potential malicious actors can easily hide the backdoor behind complex mathematical operations; it is necessary to allow the community to independently regenerate the verification key and explain the mathematical principles. Dr. Z, co-founder of Zircuit, said that in the early stages, Zircuit intends to use the so-called "template proof" to roll up its status in time so that the chain can quickly reach finality; as the proof system matures and optimizes, each block will be equipped with a zk-SNARK proof.
5. Franklin Templeton announced that FOBXX has been launched on Ethereum’s second-layer blockchain Arbitrum link
Franklin Templeton, which manages $1.5 trillion in assets, announced that its OnChain U.S. Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX) has been launched on Ethereum's second-layer blockchain Arbitrum. This is the third blockchain the fund has launched after Stellar and Polygon. Franklin Templeton said that the Stellar network is the official equity record of the fund, but upon request and qualification, the fund can also use the Polygon and Arbitrum networks, and Arbitrum will initially be open to institutional wallets. It is reported that the fund was launched in 2021 and currently has a market value of $420 million, making it the third largest on-chain product linked to U.S. Treasuries.
6. Aave DAO announces partnership to launch $100 million worth of on-chain fixed-income loans link
Aave DAO announced a partnership with Trident Digital, IntoTheBlock and TokenLogic to launch the first $100 million on-chain fixed-income loan, aiming to provide lenders and borrowers with investment options and reduce market volatility and risk. Trident Digital CEO Anthony DeMartino said the new model will provide borrowers and lenders with certainty of fixed interest rates and terms. In addition, the partnership includes locking up 33,000 ETH for three months and supplying funds to Aave v3 through ITB's non-custodial smart contract suite.
7. Uniswap Foundation: As of Q2, it holds $36.81 million in stablecoins and 680,000 UNI link
The Uniswap Foundation released an unaudited quarterly financial summary as of June 30, 2024, holding $36.81 million in U.S. dollars and stablecoins and 680,000 UNI. These fiat (USD) cash and stablecoins will be used for grants and operating activities, and UNI will be used for employee token rewards. The Uniswap Foundation said that it expects these funds to last until the end of 2025 and will be allocated as follows: Grant commitments and incentives: A total of $26.12 million will be allocated. Of this, $22.46 million will be committed in 2024 and 2025, and $3.66 million will be reserved for previously committed grants; the remaining $10.69 million will be used to fund operating expenses until the end of 2025.
8. Ethena announces USDe is now available on Solana link
Ethena announced that USDe is now available on Solana, marking the official launch of its integration with Solana. USDe is deployed on Solana through LayerZero_Labs' OFT, and SOL will be the supporting asset of USDe, subject to governance approval. In addition, Ethena launched the Solana Sats event. Solana users can now trade with USDe and receive Ethena's native rewards through sUSDe.
9. Blast community token PacMoon announced to leave Blast and migrate to Solana link
Blast community token PacMoon announced that it would leave Blast and migrate to Solana, and receive airdrops on Solana based on the destroyed PAC. Lamboland, head of growth at PacMoon, said that building on Blast was an uphill battle, and that tokens, community, and culture were the keys to the success of blockchain, but Blast never paid attention to them; the native token on Blast was suppressed, and the Blast team did not provide any social support.
In response, Blast founder Pacman said that the foundation team will expand the scope of incentive distribution and support local assets more directly. The new measures include: 1. Cultural category projects (such as memecoins and NFT collections) will directly receive gold points incentives; 2. Asset incentives: Projects can now allocate gold points to their local assets, subject to review by the Blast Foundation. But unfortunately, Pacmoon decided to migrate before this allocation was released. The allocation reserved for Pacmoon will be distributed to previous holders based on snapshots of two weeks before and two weeks after TGE.
10. OKX delists MSN, OMN, REP, IGU, PCI, SLN tokens link
OKX will officially delist MSN/USDT, OMN/USDT, REP/USDT, BTC/EURT, ETH/EURT, EURT/USDT, IGU/USDT, PCI/USDT, SLN/USDT and other trading pairs from 4:00 to 4:30 pm (UTC+8) on August 9, 2024. In addition, OKX has suspended the deposit operation of MSN, OMN, REP, EURT, IGU, PCI, and SLN, and will stop withdrawal at 4:00 pm (UTC+8) on November 9, 2024. It is worth noting that MSN was OKX's Jumpstart project in April. It announced in January 2024 that it had received investment from Tide Groups with a valuation of US$1 billion. Tide Groups claims to be a leading Web3 AI algorithmic trading company focusing on listing consulting, market making and token management. As of press time, the total market value of MSN is only 11.38M$, and the value of a single coin has shrunk by more than 97% since it was listed on OKX.
OKX founder Star criticized OKX's coin listing, criticizing some token project parties for only releasing, reducing holdings and harvesting users after listing on the exchange.
