Article reprinted from: PA Daily
Today's news tips:
xAI has released the beta version of the artificial intelligence model Grok-2
Binance Launchpool launches the 56th project: Toncoin (TON)
Grayscale launches new MKR-focused fund, Grayscale MakerDAO Trust
Crypto Custody Firm Copper Partners with Hedera to Provide Custody and Staking Services for HBAR Tokens
Banana Gun: 2% of the total supply of BANANA tokens has been destroyed, worth approximately $8.6 million
Analyst: Norway's sovereign wealth fund indirectly holds 2,446 BTC, an increase of 938 from the end of last year
Upbit to List Aethir (ATH) in KRW and BTC Markets
The total number of transactions in the Ethereum L2 ecosystem reached 12.4 million on August 12, setting a new record high
Regulatory News
The New Zealand central bank unexpectedly cuts interest rates as the economic downturn slows inflation
According to Jinshi, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut its official cash rate by 0.25 percentage points to 5.25% as the economy declined and inflation slowed, starting an easing cycle much earlier than previously expected. The New Zealand dollar/US dollar NZD/USD plunged 50 points in response. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand's new forecast shows that the average OCR will fall to 4.92% in the fourth quarter and 4.36% by the middle of next year. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand said in May that it was considering raising interest rates and would not cut them until the second half of 2025, but this shift to easing policy is a rapid change in the bank's tone. With the New Zealand economy teetering on the brink of recession for the third time in less than two years and unemployment rising, the bank's concerns about high domestic inflation are easing.
AI
xAI has released the beta version of the artificial intelligence model Grok-2
Musk's xAI company announced in an official blog that the artificial intelligence model Grok-2 Beta has been released. xAI said that Grok-2 is its cutting-edge language model with the most advanced reasoning capabilities. This version includes two products in the Grok series: Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini. Both models are now available to Grok users on the X platform. They are currently in the testing phase and will also be available through the enterprise API later this month. According to reports, Grok-2 is an AI assistant with advanced capabilities in text and visual understanding, integrating real-time information from the X platform and accessible through the Grok tab in the X application. Grok-2 mini is a small but powerful model that strikes a balance between speed and answer quality. Compared with its predecessor, Grok-2 is more intuitive, operable and versatile, and can perform a variety of tasks, whether you are looking for answers, collaborative writing or solving coding tasks.
Earlier news, xAI's Grok AI model can now generate images on the X platform.
Project News
Binance Launchpool launches the 56th project: Toncoin (TON)
Binance announced the launch of the 56th project Toncoin (TON), a decentralized and open L1 blockchain, on Binance Launchpool. The webpage is expected to be available 24 hours before the start of Launchpool. Users can stake BNB and FDUSD in different pools to obtain TON tokens for 20 days starting from 08:00 (UTC +8) on August 15, 2024. Binance also announced the launch of Binance Super Earn, where users can enjoy special APR in the simple yield lock product by locking TON immediately after the new coin is listed. Launchpool details: Total token supply: 5.11 billion TON, Launchpool rewards 7,650,000 TON. Supported pools include staking BNB (webpage available in about 24 hours), with rewards of 6,502,500 TON (85%); staking FDUSD (webpage available in about 24 hours), with rewards of 1,147,500 TON (15%). TON super yield will be notified separately, TON is locked for 20 days, and special APR is to be announced.
Grayscale launches new MKR-focused fund, Grayscale MakerDAO Trust
Asset management company Grayscale has launched a new fund focused on MakerDAO's governance token MKR, CoinDesk reported. The new closed-end fund, Grayscale MakerDAO Trust, will be open to qualified individuals and institutional accredited investors. Similar to the company's other single-asset trusts, the fund does not allow direct withdrawals, which may lead to deviations between the price of fund shares on the secondary market and the price of the underlying assets. Maker is one of the largest protocols in the DeFi space, managing more than $7 billion in cryptocurrencies and real-world assets and issuing a $5 billion stablecoin DAI. Recently, Grayscale also launched single-asset funds for Bittensor's TAO tokens and Layer-1 blockchain Sui (SUI), as well as a fund that invests in cryptocurrencies for decentralized AI projects.
Crypto Custody Firm Copper Partners with Hedera to Provide Custody and Staking Services for HBAR Tokens
According to The Block, London-based cryptocurrency custody company Copper has partnered with Hedera to expand institutional access to HBAR tokens. Copper will provide custody and staking services for HBAR tokens and provide institutional users with access to DeFi through its ClearLoop and Connect platforms. Copper is chaired by former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and has more than 300 large institutions and crypto trading platform clients. This collaboration allows institutional investors to enter the Hedera ecosystem more easily and securely. HBAR tokens will be connected to Copper's ClearLoop settlement network and can be connected to DeFi protocols such as Aave through the Copper Connect application.
Banana Gun: 2% of the total supply of BANANA tokens has been destroyed, worth approximately $8.6 million
According to official news, the Telegram Bot project Banana Gun announced that it has destroyed 2% of the total supply of BANANA tokens, worth about $8.6 million. Coingecko data shows that the price of BANANA is now $41.65, with a 24-hour increase of 15.1%.
Bloomberg analyst: The amount of BTC held by US Bitcoin ETFs is expected to exceed Satoshi Nakamoto in October
According to Decrypt, after months of accumulation, the amount of BTC held by U.S. Bitcoin ETFs will soon exceed that of its mysterious anonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. A chart published on the X platform by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas on Monday shows that the 10 spot Bitcoin funds currently traded on U.S. stock exchanges hold a total of nearly 1 million BTC. Although the numbers in the chart are slightly deviated from the current total (for example, as investors cashed out this week and last week, Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF's digital currency has been losing), it is estimated that it will not be long before the total amount of these funds exceeds the Bitcoin data held by Satoshi Nakamoto. Balchunas estimates that based on the current accumulation rate, the total size of Bitcoin ETFs will exceed Satoshi Nakamoto's 1.1 million Bitcoins in October, and BlackRock's funds will be alone at the top of the holder list by the end of 2025. However, it is worth noting that this is just a theory, and some analysts have come out to refute this argument. But if this is true, then at today's price, Satoshi Nakamoto now holds about $67 billion worth of cryptocurrency.
Sonic Labs Appoints Andre Cronje as Chief Technology Officer
According to official news, Sonic Labs (formerly Fantom) announced the appointment of Andre Cronje as Chief Technology Officer, who will replace the outgoing Chief Technology Officer Quan Nguyen. Andre will continue to lead the design and development of the new Sonic network, especially the new native bridge technology "Sonic Gateway", which will make it safer and more convenient to transfer assets from other chains (such as from Ethereum to Sonic).
Head of Base Protocol: A huge Bitcoin economy will be built on Base
Jesse Pollak, head of the Base protocol, posted on the X platform: “Say it out loud: I love Bitcoin and am very grateful for its pioneering role in the field of cryptocurrency. We will build a huge Bitcoin economy on Base.” In addition, the crypto exchange Coinbase posted “cbBTC” and may launch related products with this name.
Solv Protocol lists BTC and BTCB as the first SolvBTC reserve assets
Solv Protocol announced that BTC and BTCB will be listed as the first SolvBTC reserve assets. SolvBTC is a decentralized Bitcoin reserve system, each SolvBTC is backed by a 1:1 Bitcoin asset, and transparency and security are guaranteed through the Liquidity Consensus Network (LCN). Solv Protocol also plans to expand the reserve pool to include WBTC, BTC.b, M-BTC, FBTC, and decentralized options such as tBTC and dlcBTC, pending consensus and SOLV governance approval. BTCB is a BEP20 asset managed by Binance and maintains a 1:1 anchor with BTC.
Analyst: Norway's sovereign wealth fund indirectly holds 2,446 BTC, an increase of 938 from the end of last year
Vetle Lunde, senior analyst at K33 Research, said on the Algorithm-based sector weighting and risk diversification strategies are unlikely to be driven by a deliberate choice to increase Bitcoin exposure - if increasing Bitcoin exposure was the goal, we would see more evidence of direct exposure initiatives ( and significantly greater exposure). But regardless, this perfectly illustrates the growing maturity of Bitcoin as an asset and its inclusion in any diversified portfolio thanks to Michael Saylor, Jack Dorsey, Fred. The company’s Bitcoin reserve strategy promoted by Thiel and others has brought the number of indirect Bitcoin “satoshis” held per capita in Norway to 44,476 “satoshis” (approximately $27) by the end of the first half of 2024. The increase in indirect exposure is due to: Exposure to MicroStrategy increased from 0.67% to 0.89%; MicroStrategy increased exposure to 37,181 Bitcoins in the first half of 2024; Exposure to Marathon Digital increased from nothing to 0.82%; Exposure to Coinbase Exposure increased, from 0.49% to 0.83%; exposure to Block Inc increased, from 1.09% to 1.28%.”
GM tokens will have a 6% two-way transaction tax for liquidity, which is planned to be cancelled a few weeks after the CEX listing
The token economics of the gm.ai project token GM shows that there will be a 6% two-way transaction tax on the purchase and sale of the token. Subsequently, the founder dexter posted: "To ensure transparency, I would like to explain to everyone: all taxes on Meteora will be added back to the liquidity, and when CEX listings begin, the taxes will be cancelled within a few weeks. In the early stages of the project, the tax setting is only valid on DEX. A peg plan will be launched later, where users can store tokens until the tax is cancelled, and then users will have more tokens to sell and more liquidity. This is just a gamification method."
Ant Financial: Promoting a new energy asset cross-border RWA project
According to Sina Technology, Ant Digital CTO Wang Wei revealed in response to Sina Technology's questions that Ant Digital is actively promoting the implementation of a cross-border RWA project involving new energy assets. It is reported that Ant Digital has currently participated in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's digital currency project to jointly explore and research the scenario applications of tokenized deposits, tokenized assets and central bank digital currency settlement. Wang Wei told Sina Technology, "RWA is a new exploration of our overseas business segment. We hope to build a technological bridge for physical enterprises and provide unique value." As a technology service provider, in order to further ensure the security of digital assets, Ant Digital has developed a revolutionary distributed key management solution. Compared with traditional solutions, the new technology has achieved a performance improvement of up to 2 to 3 times. This research result has been fully included in the world's top information security conference CCS 2024.
Binance will remove BLZ/FDUSD, IMX/TRY, PORTO/BTC spot trading pairs
According to the official announcement, based on the recent review results, Binance will remove the BLZ/FDUSD, IMX/TRY, and PORTO/BTC spot trading pairs and stop trading at 11:00 on August 16, 2024 (Eastern Time 8).
Upbit to List Aethir (ATH) in KRW and BTC Markets
According to an official announcement, South Korean crypto exchange Upbit will list Aethir (ATH) in the Korean won and BTC markets. It is reported that Aethir is a decentralized cloud computing infrastructure project.
WazirX is migrating remaining assets from Liminal to a new multi-signature wallet
Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX announced that it is migrating its remaining assets from Liminal to a new multi-signature wallet to ensure maximum security of its assets.
OKX will launch DOGS/USDT spot trading pair on August 20
According to the official announcement of OKX, $DOGS/USDT spot trading will start at 20:00 on August 20, Beijing time.
Financing News
Essential Completes $11 Million Series A Funding Led by Archetype and Launches Essential Devnet
Essential, an "intention-based" blockchain infrastructure, announced the completion of a $11 million Series A financing round, led by Archetype, with participation from IOSG, Spartan, Mirana, Amber Group, Maven 11, Bodhi Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Heartcore Capital, Selini, DCLM and PropellerHeads, as well as founders and angel investors from Celestia, Hashflow, Enso, Barter, LI.FI, Astaria, GlueX, Bebop, Sorella and other companies. Essential launched the intent-driven blockchain infrastructure and Essential Devnet (development network), aiming to make blockchain technology more intuitive and easy to use through declarative architecture. The newly developed Pint language provides constraints for programmable intents to optimize the user and developer experience. Essential plans to promote the next paradigm shift in blockchain by reducing on-chain computing and improving scalability.
Important data
The total net inflow of the US Bitcoin spot ETF yesterday was US$38.9442 million, and the ETF net asset ratio reached 4.63%
The total net inflow of the US Ethereum spot ETF yesterday was US$24.3412 million, and the ETF net asset ratio reached 2.36%
Jump Trading sold another 17,049 ETH, about $46.44 million
According to Lookonchain monitoring, Jump Trading withdrew 17,049 ETH (about 46.44 million US dollars) from Lido and transferred it for sale. Jump Trading currently has 21,394 wstETH (about 68.58 million US dollars) left.
The suspected Sun Yuchen address recharged 596.601 BTC to Binance two hours ago, worth 36.47 million US dollars
According to the monitoring of on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, the suspected Justin Sun address 1JScg...N6aiK recharged 596.601 BTC worth 36.47 million US dollars to Binance two hours ago. These 1,000 BTC were redeemed from Merlin Chain by the address 1BGH3...5rA4L two days ago. 500 of them were recharged to the exchange as early as 08.12, and the rest were transferred today.
The total number of transactions in the Ethereum L2 ecosystem reached 12.4 million on August 12, setting a new record high
According to Cointelegraph, Growthepie data shows that the total transaction volume of Ethereum Layer2 expansion ecosystem reached 12.42 million on August 12, a record high. Leon Waidmann, head of research at the Onchain Foundation, commented on this milestone in an article in X on August 13, saying that "scalability is rapidly improving" and "user activity has reached a peak." According to the platform, the daily transaction volume of the L2 ecosystem has increased by 140% since the beginning of 2024. Growthepie only counts transactions executed by users or smart contracts, not system transactions. This growth is mainly due to the Coinbase L2 blockchain Base, where the transaction volume on the blockchain soared to a peak of more than 4 million transactions at the end of July. Basescan confirmed the data report, saying that the daily transaction volume on the Base network has surged by 700% in the past six months. The expansion industry indicator platform L2beat reported that as the number of expansion platforms has increased, the overall throughput has also increased significantly recently, with the average TPS (transactions per second) doubling in the past two months. Growthepie also reported that the Layer2 network now has more stablecoins than Solana and Binance Chain combined. The report states that the number of stablecoins on Layer2 is 150% more than Solana and 94% more than BNB Smart Chain. Meanwhile, according to Etherscan data, Ethereum Layer1 daily transaction volume has been relatively stable, hovering around 1.1 million for most of the year.
Goldman Sachs Now Holds $418 Million Worth of Bitcoin Spot ETF
Bitcoin News tweeted that Goldman Sachs' latest 13F filing showed that the company holds a total of $418 million worth of Bitcoin spot ETFs, including $238.6 million in BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust, $79.5 million in Fidelity Bitcoin ETF, $35.1 million in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, $56.1 million in Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, $8.3 million in Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, $749,469 in WisdomTree Bitcoin ETF, and $299,900 in ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF.
DRW Venture Capital holds nearly $200 million worth of cryptocurrency ETFs, of which Grayscale ETHE accounts for more than $150 million
According to The Block, according to the latest 13F form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), DRW Venture Capital, the venture capital arm of Chicago-based high-frequency trading company DRW Holdings, disclosed that it currently holds more than $195 million worth of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, of which more than $150 million is invested in Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETHE. DRW's entry into the Ethereum ETF market may signal a growing institutional interest in Ethereum. It is reported that DRW's Ethereum ETF holdings are more than three times the size of Bitcoin ETFs. In fact, Grayscale ETHE is DRW's third largest holding, second only to funds tracking the S&P 500 index fund and gold trust funds. In addition, the company's investment in Bitcoin ETFs is relatively scattered, holding Bitcoin ETFs issued by Ark and 21Shares, Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity and Proshares. It is reported that DRW has been involved in the crypto industry since 2018. Its subsidiary Cumberland has been selected as a liquidity provider for many Bitcoin ETFs. Cumberland also recently obtained the virtual currency license BitLicense granted by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).
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