Headlines

Nomura Securities, Laser Digital and GMO to explore issuing stablecoins in Japan

Japanese banking giant Nomura and its digital asset unit Laser Digital have partnered with Japan-based GMO Internet Group to explore the issuance of stablecoins in Japan. They plan to explore the issuance, exchange and circulation of stablecoins denominated in yen and US dollars. The partnership also plans to provide "stablecoin as a service" products to help companies issue stablecoins. According to its announcement, such products may cover regulatory compliance management, blockchain integration, and back-end transaction management. Through the collaboration, Nomura and Laser Digital will focus more on crypto trading, asset management, and venture capital, while GMO plans to contribute more on the technical side. Previously, GMO's US subsidiary GMO-Z.com Trust has issued stablecoins such as GYEN and ZUSD on multiple chains. (The Block)

The market value of stablecoins has increased by nearly US$600 million in the past two weeks, and the supply of FDUSD has decreased by 29% in the past 30 days.

Odaily Planet Daily News Since May 11, 2024, the market value of stablecoins has grown from $160.86 billion to $161.45 billion, an increase of $590 million in the past two weeks. USDT has a market value of approximately $111.95 billion, accounting for 69.34% of the entire stablecoin market. In the past 30 days, USDT's supply has increased by 1.3%, while USDC's supply has fallen by 1.9% during the same period. As of Sunday, May 26, 2024, its market value is $32.72 billion. DAI currently has a market value of approximately $5.29 billion, an increase of 1.8% over the past month. FDUSD has fallen the most in 30 days, redeeming 29% of its supply, and its market value is $3.13 billion as of press time. In comparison, Ethena’s USDe has seen its supply increase by 17.5% over the same period, with a market cap of around $2.78 billion as of Sunday. (Bitcoin.com)

Ethereum liquidity re-staking protocol TVL exceeds 13.2 billion US dollars, and most protocols TVL increased by more than 20% in 7 days

DeFiLlama data shows that the TVL of Ethereum liquidity re-staking protocol is currently 13.234 billion US dollars, among which the top five protocols by TVL are: -ether.fi Stake TVL is 5.796 billion US dollars, a 7-day increase of 29.56%; -Renzo (Ethereum chain) TVL is 2.864 billion US dollars, a 7-day increase of 24.48%; -Puffer Finance TVL is 1.817 billion US dollars, a 7-day increase of 27.21%; -Eigenpie TVL is 1.019 billion US dollars, a 7-day increase of 25%; -Kelp DAO TVL is 971.12 million US dollars, a 7-day increase of 24.34%.

Industry News

Tornado Cash Co-founder lawyers again seek to dismiss lawsuit before trial begins, saying prosecutors overstepped their authority

The defense team for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm has filed a series of new documents seeking to have the trial against Storm dismissed before it even begins, arguing that prosecutors overstepped their authority in their final pretrial motion.After the government responded to Storm's motion to dismiss the trial, his defense team filed another response on Friday, arguing that the case against him should be dismissed on the grounds that the government did not do enough to prove that Storm actively participated in the crimes alleged in the indictment. "In fact, as the government admits, when criminals began to abuse the Tornado Cash protocol, it was immutable and accessible to anyone with an internet connection," the motion states. Most of the documents question the government's characterization of Tornado Cash as a "money transmitter business," a description that even caught the attention of Senators Ron Wyden and Cynthia Lummis, who sent a letter objecting to the government's interpretation of the term, which is also included in Storm's motion. Storm's lawyers argue that characterizing Tornado Cash as a money transmitter "...violates due process, leniency, and principles against innovative structures." In other motions, lawyers argued that government prosecutors should be forced to provide certain communications with Dutch authorities and that the seizure of his cryptocurrency hardware wallet violated the Fourth Amendment. (The Block) Earlier in April, the U.S. Department of Justice rejected Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's motion to dismiss criminal charges against him, saying that the documents submitted by the defendant raised controversial facts that the jury should weigh.

EU draft considers MEV as market abuse and proposes strict regulatory standards

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 the proposed Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. Patrick Hansen pointed out 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). The new standards raise concerns about the feasibility of managing reports for every instance. ESMA also recommends that authorities inside and outside the EU cooperate to sanction market abuse, and actors involved in MEV may face investigations and enforcement by international regulators. The deadline for consultation feedback set by ESMA is June 25, and the final standards are expected to have a significant impact on the EU crypto regulatory environment.

Libertarian Party Nominates Chase Oliver as Presidential Candidate, Crypto Stance Undecided

At the Libertarian Party convention, 38-year-old Chase Oliver was nominated as a candidate for the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The candidate of the third-largest political party will face Democratic candidate Joe Biden and Republican candidate Donald Trump. After Oliver was nominated, many people expressed concern about his stance on cryptocurrency. Although the Libertarian Party supports the use of any mutually agreed-upon goods or items as currency, Oliver has not made a clear statement so far. Oliver supports the release of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, but his specific views on digital assets remain unclear. Oliver's proposed running mate Mike ter Maat strongly opposes central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and supports no regulation of cryptocurrencies. In addition, Trump has become more active on the issue of cryptocurrency, announcing that he will accept digital asset donations and expressing an open attitude towards the technology. President Biden is expected to sign three cryptocurrency-related bills before November, which may affect voter choices. The Libertarian Party only received about 3% of the vote in the 2016 presidential election, but in the 2024 election, third-party candidates may affect the results by splitting votes.

Project News

friend.tech Lianchuang hinted that due to the unstable relationship between the team and Base, it intends to move out of the agreement, causing FRIEND to fall more than 32% in 24 hours

After the co-founder of the Web3 social network friend.tech protocol (alias Racer) posted a post hinting at the intention to migrate the protocol out of Base, the protocol's native token FRIEND fell sharply. According to CoinGecko data, FRIEND is now at $1.01, a 24-hour drop of 32.2%. Racer wrote on X: "System Design Bounty: If you can find a way to migrate friend.tech from Base without causing major problems for users, and it works well enough, we decided to use it and will pay you $200,000." Racer explained in another post that the friend.tech team has always had a rocky relationship with Base. "Farcaster's investors were crazy about us when we launched because they misunderstood what we were doing. They put a lot of pressure on the team and users, and since then, our relationship has gone downhill and we have been excluded from the "Base community." It should be noted that at some point on Sunday, Racer's post was no longer accessible; it is unclear whether they deleted their account after the post was published. In response, Coinbase’s Base lead Jesse Pollak admitted that the friend.tech team felt “isolated and disconnected” from Base and parts of the Ethereum ecosystem. “I would be sad if the team decided to leave Base, but I would respect and support either path — that’s the beauty of a decentralized, on-chain economy,” Pollak wrote. (The Block)

Taiko: The protocol has been deployed on the Ethereum mainnet and plans to launch the DAO later this year

Taiko, an Ethereum L2 network based on zkRollup, announced on the X platform that its protocol has been deployed on the Ethereum mainnet. After the mainnet is launched, Taiko said that it plans to launch a DAO later this year to gradually transfer control of the protocol to its community. This transition will be carried out in stages, reducing the "training wheels" over time until the community achieves full governance. (TheBlock)

TON TVL breaks through $300 million, a new high, growing more than 10 times since early March

DefiLlama data shows that TON TVL has exceeded $300 million and is currently $316.82 million, a record high, and has increased more than 10 times since the beginning of March (US$23 million). The rapid growth of the protocol's TVL is mainly driven by DEXs such as Ston.fi and Dedust, as well as liquidity staking protocols Tonstakers and bemo. (The Block)

Character*Voice

JPMorgan Chase: Doubtful of SEC approval of Solana and other cryptocurrency ETFs

JPMorgan Chase expects that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will not approve other cryptocurrency ETFs after the spot Ethereum ETF. JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said that unless U.S. policymakers pass legislation to declare most cryptocurrencies as non-securities. Given that the U.S. SEC believes that most cryptocurrencies are securities, the investment bank doubts whether the SEC will approve such funds. (TheBlock)

Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht: Thank you Trump for your pardon promise

Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, thanked former US President Donald Trump in a post on X Platform. He said: "Last night, Donald Trump promised to commute my sentence on the first day if he was re-elected. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. After 11 years in prison, it's hard to express how I feel at this moment. Thanks to your unremitting support, I have a second chance." Yesterday, Donald Trump promised at the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, DC that if he was re-elected as president, he would commute Ross Ulbricht's sentence on the first day. Trump said that Ulbricht has served 11 years in prison and "we want him to go home." Many people in the audience held signs that read "Free Ross" and cheered Trump's promise.

Nexo executives: ETF is the strongest price catalyst for ETH in the bull market cycle, and it may reach $10,000 by the end of the year

Andrey Stoychev, head of brokerage business at Nexo, believes that ETF approval may be the strongest price catalyst for ETH in the current bull market cycle, and the Ethereum ETF in the United States and similar products in Asia may become the driving force for ETH to reach $10,000 by the end of 2024, better than Bitcoin's performance after the ETF approval. (Cointelgraph)

Investment and Financing

Elon Musk's AI company xAI completes $6 billion Series B financing, with participation from a16z and others

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI announced the completion of a $6 billion Series B financing round, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management Research Company, Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and his Kingdom Holding. This round of financing will be used to bring xAI's first products to market, build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate the research and development of future technologies.

Blockchain node management platform NodeOps completes $5 million seed round of financing, led by L1 D

Blockchain node management platform NodeOps received $5 million in seed round financing, led by L1 D, with participation from Blockchain Founders Fund, Finality Capital and others. It is reported that NodeOps has built a solution that simplifies the process of node deployment and management, and integrates with multiple blockchain networks through innovative tools and support mechanisms.