Web3 social application Halo announced the completion of a $3 million seed round financing on X platform, with participation from IDG Capital, HashKey Capital, Kucoin Ventures, Cyberport, and a group of Web3 angel investors. In addition to these investments, the digital harbor incubation program supported by the Hong Kong government also provided further support for Halo's development. Halo positions itself as a social monetization layer and upgraded its Halo Genesis Pass to Halo Membership Pass (HMP) in April of this year. It is reported that Halo will soon launch an Influencer Badge and integrate with Farcaster, aiming to help creators deepen their connection with their audience and monetize their social influence in innovative ways.
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According to Coinglass data, the premium rate of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Fund ETF (GBTC) is 0.19%. The premium rate of Grayscale ETH Trust (EEHT) has narrowed to 1.44%, and the premium rate of ETC Trust is 41.72%.In addition, the premium rate of Grayscale BCH Trust is 168.12%, the premium rate of LTC Trust is 276.73%, the premium rate of SOL Trust is 632.94%, the premium rate of LINK Trust is 692.8%, the premium rate of MANA Trust is 554.39%, and the premium rate of FIL Trust is 1410.66%.
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OKX market shows that W has broken through 0.74 USDT and is currently trading at 0.7441 USDT, with a 24-hour increase of 14.57%.
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Web3 social network FriendTech has officially broken off its friendship with Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 network stewarded by Coinbase, as it prepares to migrate to a new blockchain dubbed Friendchain, created in partnership with blockchain infrastructure provider Conduit.
The network will use FriendTech's native token as a "fully transferable gas token" and while the protocol didn't specify a timeline for the move, its announcement on X promised to keep its users informed "over the coming months" as development of the blockchain progresses.
While the announcement had scant other details, the move isn't entirely a surprise given FriendTech co-founder Racer's recent public comments insinuating that the team desired to migrate away from Base. At the time, Racer's announcement caused FriendTech's token to drop 20% in price.
The recent announcement has seemingly had the inverse effect on the price, however, which has risen 11% over the past twenty-four hours, according to The Block's Price Page.
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The platform has recently seen a decline in engagement in terms of buyers and sellers of the keys which grant access to specific users' posts. While the activity on the network briefly increased at the beginning of May with the launch of FriendTech's 'v2' upgrade, with tens of thousands of transactions on the service per day, those numbers have since fallen to levels similar to the pre-v2 upgrade period, according to The Block's data.
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.
© 2023 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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According to Yuki Gambaryan, the wife of Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan, who has been detained for more than three months on suspicion of money laundering and tax evasion, more details have been revealed about Tigran's arrest and detention.
She stated that she has only spoken to Gambaryan twice since his imprisonment in April. Meanwhile, Tigran missed his son's fifth birthday and kindergarten graduation, and spent his 40th birthday in prison.
Yuki said she was very grateful for the letters from American lawmakers, but added that she hoped the US government could respond more quickly, especially considering Tigran's previous employment at the US Internal Revenue Service.
She said that during his 10 years at the agency, Tigran was involved in some of the government's most high-profile investigations and often worked late into the night.
He would spend six months on business trips, mainly to allow Yuki to take care of their two children. "This is the sacrifice he made for the country and the government," Yuki said, "so I expect to see more progress." (DL News)
Earlier, several US politicians had called on President Biden and the Hostage Affairs Unit to try to bring Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan, who has been detained for more than three months on suspicion of money laundering and tax evasion in Nigeria, back home.
In a letter to President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger D. Carstens on June 4, 12 US politicians emphasized that Gambaryan was still "wrongly detained" by the Nigerian government and immediate action must be taken to prevent the situation from further deteriorating. "We are concerned for his safety. Immediate action must be taken to ensure his safety and preserve his life. We must act quickly before it is too late."
These US politicians also stated that Gambaryan was not allowed to meet with his legal team without Nigerian officials and armed guards present. Prior to joining Binance, Gambaryan worked at the US Internal Revenue Service for ten years.
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Degen announced on X platform that Degen ENS subdomains are now online and within the next 48 hours, usernames based on subdomains can be locked in at a discounted price for Farcaster.
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According to an official announcement, OKX has officially opened up its regular simple coin product subscription to all users, supporting the four major currencies of USDT, USDC, BTC, and ETH. Users can go to the "Finance" section of OKX, select the corresponding regular simple coin product, and participate in the subscription. It is reported that OKX's regular simple coin product is based on lending, providing users with the opportunity to earn fixed-rate returns for a fixed period of time. When the borrowing demand of the subscription user for the regular simple coin product successfully matches the lending demand of other users, they will earn hourly returns before the order deadline ends.
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Polygon Labs has announced that Polygon Miden Alpha Testnet v.2 has been launched. Polygon Miden is a zkVM rollup that allows users to prove their state transitions. The new version provides a public account and notes for developers to transparently store account or note data on the chain, offers a simpler CLI, introduces SWAP notes and note filters, expands the content that developers can build, optimizes storage efficiency, increases data storage, and allows developers to create notes without assets.
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Solana SOL
+2.87%
's continued price rise recently remains propelled by memecoin trading on its network, according to the founder of a decentralized exhange.
Zeta Markets Founder Tristan Frizza said the increase in the token's value is mostly driven by an increase in the Solana network's memecoin trading activity. "Memecoins have certainly become a significant driver of activity on Solana. Beyond speculation, this showcases Solana’s ability to handle high transaction volumes with low fees, making it the perfect environment for retail users." Frizza told The Block.
To illustrate this, Frizza pointed to on-chain metrics such Solana’s total value locked (TVL) having surpassed $4.9 billion. "This indicates robust network activity, and the number of active users has also been constantly growing, with monthly active addresses hitting a new all-time high of 41.65 million in May," Frizza added.
Solana has gained by over 5% in the past 24 hours and is now trading at $174.83 as of the time of writing, according to  The Block's Price Page.
Solana boosted by growth in DeFi
According to this week's Bitfinex Alpha report, the Solana DeFi ecosystem is experiencing growth, evident in its lending, liquid staking, and perpetual markets.
"This resurgence in Solana is attributable to the advantages it offers over other blockchains in terms of transactions per second throughput and scalability. Both Solana and Ethereum continue to grow, but the rise in Solana is notable, and despite the fact that by TVL, Solana is four places behind Ethereum, it is second in terms of decentralized exchange volumes by chain, as more users find utility in its blockchain," Bitfinex analysts said.
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Ether implied volatility higher than that of bitcoin
At the top of the cryptocurrency market cap rankings, ether is expected to experience larger price fluctuations this month compared to bitcoin. According to QCP Capital analysts, ether options implied volatility (IV) is currently higher than that for bitcoin, indicating that traders anticipate increased price fluctuations for ether, possibly in response to the upcoming launch of spot ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
"Bullishness is likely to continue as the market waits for the spot ether ETF to usher in new demand, with the options market certainly reflecting this, with ether vols [IV] still trading 15% over bitcoin vols," QCP Capital analysts said.
Block Scholes Head of Research Andrew Melville observed that ether's price fluctuations have become more significant since mid-May than bitcoin's, highlighting the largest disparity in volatility between both tokens since the FTX collapse in November 2022.
"The heightened premium assigned to volatility reflects increased uncertainty particularly in the short term, with potential updates to ether ETF applications looming. However, unlike the recent rally, there's not as much demand for ether's price to go higher quickly. Overall, the market sentiment appears cautiously optimistic, with similar short-term positioning between both ether and bitcoin," Melville 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.
© 2023 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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According to Deribit data, nominal value of over 1.162 billion US dollars of BTC options and over 936 million US dollars of ETH options contracts will expire and be settled on Friday, June 7th. The maximum pain point price for BTC is 69,000 US dollars, and for ETH it is 3,600 US dollars.
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FTX has reached a settlement agreement with the US Internal Revenue Service regarding a $24 billion tax claim. The settlement amount is only a small portion of what the IRS claimed was owed, and it will help FTX pay a large amount of customer compensation. The IRS will receive a priority claim of $200 million in the FTX bankruptcy case and will pay within 60 days after the company's proposed restructuring plan takes effect. The agency will also receive a lower priority claim of $685 million, which will be used to pay customers and other creditors 'on a subordinated basis' and 'when funds are available'.
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According to Lauren Hirsch of DealBook, the Attorney General of Washington D.C. reached a $40 million settlement with billionaire and bitcoin investor Michael Saylor and his software company MicroStrategy for tax fraud. It is reported to be the largest income tax fraud recovery case in the history of the region. This is also the first lawsuit under the revised False Claims Act in the region, which encourages whistleblowers to bring tax evasion charges against residents who are alleged to have concealed their actual place of residence.
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Moonbeam Network announced the launch of the third phase of the Moonbeam Grants incentive program, which will provide 450 GLMR ecological grants under the strategic guidance of Gauntlet, currently worth approximately $1.35 million. The projects participating in this ecological incentive program include StellaSwap, MoonWell, Prime Protocol, and BeamSwap. The Grants evaluation framework will be measured according to dimensions such as TVL, DAU, cumulative transaction volume, and transaction fees.
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According to data from The Block Pro, Bitcoin miner revenue decreased by 46% to $963 million in May due to the impact of the Bitcoin block reward halving in April. In addition, Ethereum staking revenue increased by 4.1% to $267 million. Furthermore, the Ethereum network burned 26,747 ETH in May, worth approximately $91.7 million. Data shows that since the implementation of EIP-1559 in early August 2021, Ethereum has burned approximately 4.3 million ETH, worth about $12.1 billion.
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According to Arkham data, former US President Donald Trump currently holds cryptocurrency assets worth $14,106,540.02, including 579,290 TRUMP coins worth $9.87 million, 465,880 ETH coins worth $1.76 million, and 374,939 WETH coins worth $1.42 million.
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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse predicts that XRP, Solana, and Cardano ETFs will be launched soon, following the approval of the Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He believes it's only a matter of time.
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On May 31, Singapore-based payment company Triple-A released the "2024 Global Cryptocurrency Ownership Status" report, which showed that the global digital currency user group will reach 562 million people (6.8% of the global population) in 2024, a 34% increase from 420 million people in 2023. 34% of cryptocurrency holders are between the ages of 24 and 35, the largest proportion among all age groups. The United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Turkey are among the top 30 economies with the highest cryptocurrency ownership rates. Asia maintains its lead in cryptocurrency holdings, increasing from 268.2 million to 326.8 million, followed by North America with a holding of 72.2 million.
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