Today's news tips:
Trump to Speak at Bitcoin Conference This Month
U.S. CFTC Chairman: I am personally happy to bring the crypto market under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, and some definitions of securities and commodities need to be changed
Powell: Fed doesn't need inflation to fall below 2% before cutting rates
Sanctum will officially launch CLOUD tokens on July 18 and open airdrop applications
Jump Trading subsidiary takes FTX Estate to court over failure to receive 8 million SRM tokens
Hypersphere opens $130M liquidity fund, seeks $75M for new VC fund
Bloomberg ETF Analyst: US SEC may approve Ethereum spot ETF on July 18
The U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF had a total net inflow of $147 million yesterday, continuing its net inflow for 4 consecutive days
Regulatory News
Trump to Speak at Bitcoin Conference This Month
According to official news, Trump will give a speech at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference, which will be held from July 25 to 27. A spokesperson for the conference said that Trump will give a 30-minute speech at 2 pm on the last day of the conference. According to previous news, several politicians will also give speeches at this conference, including presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and Republican Senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn.
U.S. CFTC Chairman: CFTC’s failure to obtain regulatory jurisdiction over the crypto market will put the market at risk
According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, U.S. Senator Cory Booker said: "We have pushed all the work to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), but abuse is still prevalent in the market." He also pointed out that nearly half of the cases in the CFTC's enforcement files are related to cryptocurrencies, calling this situation "extraordinary."
CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam commented on Booker’s point that half of the agency’s docket is cryptocurrency enforcement cases, calling it “a shocking statistic that an agency that regulates a trillion-dollar market has to regulate a market where it has no jurisdiction and no access to funding,” and said the situation puts both markets at risk.
Booker then turned to Sens. Stabenow and John Boozman and said, “This is an emergency, so I’m asking us to move faster. If we don’t act, if we don’t do something quickly, more and more people are going to suffer, more and more people are going to lose money.”
U.S. CFTC Chairman: Illinois court has confirmed that BTC and ETH are digital commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act
According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, Rostin Behnam, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that an Illinois court has confirmed that BTC and ETH are digital commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act. Behnam also said that 70%-80% of the cryptocurrency market is non-securities.
U.S. CFTC Chairman: I am personally happy to bring the crypto market under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, and some definitions of securities and commodities need to be changed
According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, Senator Dr. Roger Marshall talked about the power struggle between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to determine which digital assets are securities and which are commodities. Marshall asked CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam: "Wouldn't it be simpler if we put the whole thing under the jurisdiction of the CFTC?" Behnam said: "I speak for myself, but I'd be happy to do it. I think we have the expertise and the ability." He said that under the system, some changes need to be made to the definition of securities and commodities.
BitMEX pleads guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations in anti-money laundering case
According to The Block, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, cryptocurrency exchange and derivatives trading platform BitMEX admitted on Wednesday to violating the Bank Secrecy Act, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine. Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement: "As BitMEX's founders and employees admitted in federal court in 2022, the company did not implement any meaningful anti-money laundering program (AML) as required by federal law when operating in the United States. BitMEX has become a tool for large-scale money laundering and sanctions evasion schemes, posing a serious threat to the integrity of the financial system."
Bill Hwang, the protagonist of the century's big liquidation, was found guilty in the 2021 Archegos collapse
According to Sina Finance, Archegos Capital Management founder Bill Hwang was criminally charged for his company's bankruptcy in 2021. The two-month trial ended on Wednesday, and the U.S. jury sentenced Bill Hwang and co-defendant, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Halligan, to guilty verdicts. Bill Hwang, 60, pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud, three counts of fraud and seven counts of market manipulation, but he was convicted of 10 of the 11 charges, and faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of conviction.
According to prosecutors, Bill Hwang secretly accumulated huge stakes in multiple companies without actually holding the stocks. Archegos' market position swelled to $160 billion at one point because they adopted a deceptive trading strategy that concealed their true size from the market. This allowed Bill Hwang and his hedge fund to remain anonymous due to the use of borrowed money and derivative securities that do not need to be publicly reported.
Archegos collapsed in March 2021, as Wall Street scrambled to liquidate positions associated with Archegos. When the dust settled, it caused more than $10 billion in losses to counterparties including Credit Suisse Group, Morgan Stanley and Nomura. The incident also sowed the seeds for Credit Suisse's bankruptcy.
Bloomberg ETF Analyst: US SEC may approve Ethereum spot ETF on July 18
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas predicts that the U.S. SEC may approve the Ethereum spot ETF on July 18.
Powell: Fed doesn't need inflation to fall below 2% before cutting rates
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed does not need inflation to fall below 2% before cutting interest rates.
Project News
Lava Network: Vesuvius airdrop launched, 6% of total token supply will be allocated
Lava Network, a modular blockchain infrastructure developer, announced that it has launched the Vesuvius airdrop. The airdrop claim interface is now open and will last until 4:00 am Beijing time on July 19. This airdrop will distribute approximately 55 million LAVA tokens, accounting for 6% of the total supply. The airdrop targets include early users, community members, node operators and infrastructure providers, as well as researchers and technical contributors.
Sanctum will officially launch CLOUD tokens on July 18 and open airdrop applications
Solana ecosystem LST liquidity aggregation protocol Sanctum will host a week of special events from July 15th to 19th to welcome the release of $CLOUD. A survival guide for the $CLOUD launch process will be provided on Monday. A special conference call "Liftoff: CLOUD" will be held in cooperation with JupiterExchange at 15:30 (UTC time) on Tuesday, and the LFG website will be online, where users can view airdrop allocations, purchase $CLOUD in advance, and lock positions. $CLOUD will be officially released on July 18th, and users can claim rewards and start trading. A special CLOUD party will be held on July 19th.
EOS Network Foundation: Spring 1.0 hard fork is expected to take place on September 25
The EOS Network Foundation stated in an official blog that Spring 1.0 and the Savanna consensus algorithm will be the most important upgrades to EOS since the launch of the network. To ensure a smooth rollout and safe transition, the EOS Network Foundation is updating the release schedule and community testing guidelines. The stable version is scheduled to be released on September 4, 2024, and the hard fork or consensus upgrade is scheduled to be released on September 25, 2024. All node operators must be prepared for the upcoming hard fork in order to continue to participate in the EOS network. After the hard fork is activated, the EOS finalization time will be significantly reduced from several minutes to a few seconds.
Starknet token staking is planned to be launched on the mainnet in the fourth quarter of 2024
According to The Block, Starknet is expected to introduce native token staking functionality by the end of this year. StarkWare, the core developer of the project, has submitted a Starknet Improvement Protocol (SNIP) to enable network staking, CEO Eli Ben-Sasson said on EthCC on Wednesday. If approved by the community, staking may be launched on the testnet soon, with the mainnet scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter of 2024. It is reported that there will be a 21-day time lock period before funds can be withdrawn.
Vitalik pushes Ethereum to respond to 51% attacks in a more automated way
According to The Block, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin advocates that the Ethereum network should be better prepared for hypothetical censorship under a 51% attack. He said in a keynote speech at the ETHCC in Brussels: "I advocate for more research and construction on this." He believes that one of the biggest concerns is that such an attack could lead to network censorship. To this end, he proposed to develop an automated response so that honest validators can automatically turn to a blockchain fork when censorship behavior is detected.
Goldman Sachs to launch three tokenization projects by year end
Mathew McDermott, global head of Goldman Sachs digital assets, said Goldman Sachs intends to expand its cryptocurrency products, including launching ambitious initiatives in the hot tokenization field; Goldman Sachs plans to launch three tokenization projects with major clients by the end of this year, including its first project in the United States. McDermott did not provide specific information on the three tokenization projects planned to be launched this year, but said that one of them focuses on the fund complex in the United States and the other focuses on debt issuance in Europe.
Worldcoin announces that the claim period for unclaimed WLD reserve tokens will be extended by one year
Worldcoin stated in its official blog that shortly after the launch of Worldcoin in July 2023, the Worldcoin Foundation introduced a WLD token reservation mechanism, allowing users who have not yet been verified to reserve WLD tokens and redeem them at a certain point in the future, so as to allow as many people as possible to participate in Worldcoin, regardless of whether they have orb devices available. The original deadline for claiming this part of the tokens was July 31, but it has now been extended by one year to July 31, 2025.
MATR1X announces MAX token economics: total supply is 1 billion, 9.4% will be airdropped to NFT holders
Web3 entertainment platform MATR1X announced the token economics of its platform governance token MAX. The total supply of MAX is 1 billion, and 94 million MAX will be airdropped to holders of MATR1X platform NFTs, such as YATC and MATR1X KUKU NFTs.
The complete token distribution plan is as follows: NFT airdrop accounts for 9.4%, platform contribution accounts for 27.6%, ecosystem accounts for 16%, early bird activities account for 5.5%, community accounts for 10%, investors and teams account for 30%, and consultants account for 1.5%. MAX will support a wide range of applications and services in the MATR1X ecosystem, and its main uses include: community governance, ecosystem value capture, participation in staking and rewards, and some exclusive privileges.
Compound DAO Security Advisor: Compound's official website has been hacked, the protocol itself is not affected and all funds are safe
Compound DAO security consultant Michael Lewellen tweeted that the Compound Finance official website (http://compound.finance) has been hacked and is currently hosting a phishing website. Please do not interact with the website until further notice. It should be noted that the Compound protocol itself is not affected and all smart contract funds are safe.
Jump Trading subsidiary takes FTX Estate to court over failure to receive 8 million SRM tokens
Jump Trading subsidiary Tai Mo Shan took FTX Estate to court, seeking $264 million in damages for failing to receive 8 million Serum (SRM) tokens, CoinDesk reported. However, FTX's lawyers said the loan was never initiated, so the claim was invalid. Jump Trading claimed that FTX's subsidiary Alameda failed to deliver SRM tokens as per the loan confirmation. Court documents show that Alameda did not deliver the tokens, so the loan failed to take effect. FFTX Estate also questioned Jump Trading's damage calculations, noting that it may have involved fraudulent transfers.
Terraform Labs is looking to sell four of its companies: Pulsar, Station, Enterprise and Warp
According to Cointelegraph, the bankrupt Terraform Labs is seeking to sell four of its companies to complete a $4.5 billion settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and gradually shut down operations. The four companies are portfolio tracking platform Pulsar Finance, crypto wallet platform Station, code-free decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) management platform Enterprise, and smart contract automation protocol Warp.
Golem launches ecosystem fund, 40,000 ETH pledged 8 hours ago
According to the official Twitter account of Golem Network, the Golem Ecosystem Fund has officially been launched. Golem has stopped selling ETH and pledged 40,000 ETH (worth $124.6 million) 8 hours ago. The program aims to accelerate the development of the Golem network and its ecosystem by providing resources for developers, researchers, entrepreneurs and innovators, while supporting ideas that enhance the Ethereum ecosystem and decentralized computing. Contributors will receive 75% of the staking pool rewards, which will be adjusted based on project performance, and the first batch of projects will be jointly evaluated by the Golem community and team.
Upbit launches Galxe (GAL) Korean Won trading pair
According to the Upbit announcement, Upbit will list the Galxe (GAL) digital asset in the Korean won market at 12:00 (Korean time) on July 11, 2024. GAL is based on the Ethereum network. Please be sure to confirm the network information before depositing digital assets.
Binance will remove TUSD from cross and isolated margin trading
According to the Binance announcement, Binance Margin Trading Platform will remove TUSD trading pairs from full margin and isolated margin at 14:00 (Beijing time) on July 24, 2024. The removed full margin trading pairs include BTC/TUSD and TUSD/USDT, and the isolated margin trading pairs include BTC/TUSD and TUSD/USDT.
Mocaverse has opened the MOCA token airdrop application, the time limit is 30 days
Animoca Brands' Web3 project Mocaverse said on the X platform that the MOCA token has been launched, and the token contract (on the Ethereum chain) is 0xF944e35f95E819E752f3cCB5Faf40957d311e8c. Moca NFT and Lucky Neko holders can now apply for airdrops, and have 30 days to claim them.
Binance is looking to sell its majority stake in GoPax operator to Megazone
According to IT Chosun, Binance is in last-minute talks with Megazone Cloud's parent company Megazone to sell its stake in Streami, the operator of South Korean crypto exchange Gopax, reducing its 72.6% stake in Streami to 10%. People familiar with the matter said the move is part of Binance's efforts to strengthen its governance structure in response to financial regulators' requests and is a necessary step to renew its real-name account contract with Jeonbuk Bank in August this year, and the deal will be completed by the end of this month. Binance acquired 72.26% of Gopax's shares in February last year. Later, in March of the same year, Binance reported a change in its largest shareholder, but South Korean financial authorities have not decided whether to accept Binance's statement for the past year and three months. People familiar with the matter said that the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea has asked Binance to replace its largest shareholder and reduce its shareholding to below 10% to fix the change report. As a result, Binance notified the authorities in March this year that it would reduce its stake in Gopax and reform its governance structure. Industry insiders expect that this sale discussion is not only Binance, but also Gopax’s last chance to maintain its status as a Korean won exchange. An official from Megazone explained, “We are discussing various forms of cooperation, including acquisition of shares, provided that government approval is obtained,” and added, “However, there is no specific decision on the future process or timing.
Astar Network and Binance team up to create a new staking mechanism, staking activities will end on October 11
According to the official blog, Astar Network, a multi-chain smart contract network, announced that it is working with global exchange Binance to launch an unprecedented staking mechanism. This move is more than just another staking opportunity; it brings unique changes that directly affect the Astar Community Treasury and the Unstoppable Community Grants program. The staking event is designed to allow users to earn simple and generous returns. When users stake through the Binance Simple Earning Event, the exchange will stake Astar Network's native token ASTR directly into the Astar Community Treasury in the Astar dApp staking. Because this means that the dApp staking rewards generated by the treasury during the staking process will increase in proportion to the amount of Binance staking. This will bring higher returns to the community treasury, and the community can allocate more Unstoppable Community Grants to builders. The event time is from 2024-07-11 18:00 to 2024-10-11 17:59 Beijing time, and ASTR holders are eligible to participate.
Investment and Financing
Hypersphere opens $130M liquidity fund, seeks $75M for new VC fund
According to The Block, crypto investment company Hypersphere Ventures has opened its newly launched liquidity fund to external investors, which has gathered $130 million in assets under management (AUM). The liquidity fund, called Atlas, is a multi-manager fund that aims to provide a 40% return through various trading strategies, including DeFi, quantitative, market making, and arbitrage. The fund also provides co-investment in private rounds, such as Toncoin. These co-investments are divided into private equity categories, and existing investors can choose to join. In addition to Atlas, Hypersphere will also raise a new venture fund to invest in early-stage crypto projects. Platts revealed that the company plans to raise $75 million for the venture capital fund, adding that financing will begin in the fall.
Important data
The suspected Justin Sun address bought 1,614 ETH on the chain and then deposited 20,000 ETH into Aave
According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, the suspected Justin Sun address 0x435...Ef7cB bought 1,614 ETH on the chain through 1inch in the past 15 minutes, with an average cost of $3,101, worth $5 million; he then deposited 20,000 ETH into Aave. The address has accumulated 65,878 ETH since April 17.
2442 BTC were transferred from CEX and other addresses to the "German Government" wallet early this morning
Arkham data shows that between 2:18 and 4:22 this morning, a total of 2,442 BTC were transferred to the "German Government" wallet from Kraken, Bitstamp, addresses starting with bc1q8pg, bc1qtk, bc1q7cva, bc1qvshz and bc1qz6tn.
Farcaster user engagement hits all-time high, with 73,700 unique users last week
According to The Block, user engagement on the decentralized social media protocol Farcaster hit an all-time high, with 73,700 unique users last week. The platform has generated 62.58 million pieces of content, has 280,120 total users and 3,050 hubs, 190,540 connected addresses, and a network size of 142.83 GB. At the same time, Farcaster has generated 611.03 ETH in revenue, demonstrating its potential to create value in the ecosystem. Founder Dan Romer announced the development of new tools to support USDC in-app payments, which may be the reason for the surge in users.
The “German Government” wallet address once again transferred 2,375 BTC to CEX and other addresses
Arkham data showed that at 15:51 Beijing time, the wallet address marked as "German Government" transferred a total of 2,375 BTC to Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp and two unknown addresses.
Later in the day, it was reported that the “German Government” wallet address again transferred about 152 BTC to the Cumberland DRW address.
The U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF had a total net inflow of $147 million yesterday, continuing its net inflow for 4 consecutive days
According to SoSoValue data, yesterday (July 10, Eastern Time), the total net inflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $147 million. Yesterday, Grayscale ETF GBTC had a net outflow of $8.1525 million, and the current historical net outflow of GBTC is $18.623 billion. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest net inflow in a single day yesterday was Fidelity ETF FBTC, with a net inflow of $57.7857 million in a single day, and the current total net inflow of FBTC has reached $9.571 billion. The second is Franklin Templeton ETF EZBC, with a net inflow of $31.6615 million in a single day, and the current total net inflow of EZBC has reached $379 million. As of press time, the total net asset value of the Bitcoin spot ETF was US$50.62 billion, the ETF net asset ratio (market value as a percentage of the total market value of Bitcoin) was 4.47%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached US$15.422 billion.
