Headlines
Ethereum network gas fee hits 5-year low
Dune data shows that the median Gas fee of the Ethereum network has recently hit a new low in the past five years, falling below 2 gwei for the first time on August 10. In addition, the real-time Gas fee was once below 1 gwei.
An Ethereum IC0 participant address transferred 48,500 ETH to OKX in the past month, equivalent to approximately $154 million
According to on-chain analyst Ember, a whale/institution that participated in Ethereum's IC0 in 2015 and received 1 million ETH (IC0 price $0.311) transferred 48,500 ETH (US$154.01 million) to OKX in the past month.
They transferred 64,100 ETH to the address 0x e 17...Ab 7 through the address 0x 7 d 6...1 B 4, and then transferred the ETH to OKX in batches through the address 0x e 17...Ab 7.
By tracing back to the ETH at address 0x 7 d 6...1 B 4, we can see that it was 1 million ETH received from the Ethereum genesis block at address 0x 193...284 on 2015/7/30.
The amount of ETH currently held by this whale/institution is still as high as 682,000 (US$1.756 billion):
345,000 ETH were pledged through the address 0x b 05...8 d 3;
287,000 ETH are held through the address 0x 7 d 6...1 B 4;
50,000 ETH were pledged through the 0x d 65...2 2d address.
Justin Sun: Participating in the WBTC project only provides strategic support and does not affect the security and decentralization core of the project
Justin Sun responded to some of the community's concerns about his involvement in various projects including WBTC on the X platform. He said, "Compared to before, WBTC has not changed. Audits are conducted in real time and can be accessed through http://wbtc.network. The minting process is completely managed by custodians Bitglobal and Bitgo according to previous procedures. In short, Bitglobal and Bitgo will not sign any unaudited transactions. Keys are still protected using the same Bitgo cold wallet technology and offline keys, with backups in multiple countries and regions."
Justin Sun emphasized that his personal participation in WBTC is purely strategic, and he does not hold the private keys to the WBTC reserves, nor can he move any BTC reserves.
OKX Star: If the address related to Tornado Cash is poisoned, it will not affect the use of the account after verification
Regarding whether the accounts were cleared after being poisoned by Tornado Cash-related addresses, OKX CEO Star responded on the X platform, saying, "For each case, a compliance officer will conduct an in-depth investigation. If it is indeed passive poisoning, it will not affect the use of the user's account." Earlier, Star said that OKX accounts that had financial interactions with Tornado Cash would be cleared.
Industry News
BitGo CEO responds to WBTC project controversy: Willing to assist Maker DAO with due diligence to alleviate community concerns
BitGo previously announced that it would become a minority shareholder in a new joint venture with Hong Kong-based BiT Global to provide “multi-jurisdictional and multi-institutional custody” for WBTC operations. The company also described the move as a “strategic partnership” between BitGo and Tron founder Justin Sun.
Sun’s participation in the venture was subject to a 60-day transition period, which led Maker DAO’s risk management team, Block Analitica Labs, to raise a proposal on Maker’s governance forum to prevent new borrowing against WBTC collateral. “Overall, we find that Sun’s role as a controlling shareholder in the newly formed WBTC venture presents an unacceptable risk,” wrote BA Labs co-founder Monetsupply.
In an interview, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe downplayed the impact of Justin Sun’s involvement in the joint venture, emphasizing BitGo’s long-term commitment to security. “BiT Global has a whole team of people managing multiple customer accounts, and they have a responsibility to keep them safe. They can’t lend out funds, they can’t just give funds to Justin Sun, me, or anyone else, otherwise they will be in jail. In terms of certification, we have always had wbtc.network, which will continue to operate.”
Although some users in the crypto community have proposed decentralized alternatives to WBTC, Belshe believes that such products are risky. “DeFi products are not that decentralized. What happens if they decide to start earning returns and taking risks? So the structure we created is not legally allowed to do so. That’s what makes it unique. It also makes it more expensive to run.”
As for Maker DAO, Belshe said he was willing to assist with due diligence to alleviate any concerns. (The Block)
Yesterday, BitGo and BiT Global jointly established a joint venture to expand WBTC's custody and cold storage services to multiple jurisdictions. BitGo will participate as a minority shareholder in the new joint venture. The change will remain seamless and transparent to the WBTC community, and the transition period is expected to be 60 days. The new solution will apply BitGo's multi-signature and cold storage technology that has been used to protect Bitcoin since 2019 to ensure asset security.
In response to some of the community’s concerns about Justin Sun’s participation in the project, he stated that participating in the WBTC project only provides strategic support and does not affect the project’s security and decentralized core.
Bloomberg survey: Fed will only cut interest rates by 25 basis points in September
Bloomberg's latest survey of economists shows that nearly four-fifths of respondents expect the Fed to cut interest rates by only 25 basis points in September, and the median forecast shows that the probability of an emergency rate cut before the September meeting is only 10%. (Jinshi)
Uniswap Labs paper: Crypto asset price increases since 2023 are unrelated to stock market context
Recently, researchers from Uniswap Labs, Copenhagen Business School, and Circle published a paper titled "A Study of the Drivers of Crypto Asset Prices." The paper uses a structural vector autoregression model to study the factors that affect cryptocurrency returns.
The model uses asset price co-movements to identify the impact of monetary policy and risk sentiment in conventional markets on crypto asset prices. Specifically, the researchers decompose daily Bitcoin returns into three factors reflecting conventional risk premiums, monetary policy, and crypto-specific shocks. By leveraging the co-movement of Bitcoin and stablecoin market capitalizations, the shocks to specific cryptocurrencies are further decomposed into changes in crypto risk premiums and cryptocurrency adoption levels.
The analysis shows that crypto asset prices are significantly affected by conventional risk and monetary policy factors. Notably, tight monetary policy factors accounted for more than two-thirds of the crypto market decline in 2022. In contrast, since 2023, the compression of crypto risk premiums has been the main driver of cryptocurrency returns, regardless of the active stock market background.
Project News
Stacks Foundation: Nakamoto upgrade will be activated on August 28
The Stacks Foundation recently published a post on X stating that the final code for the Nakamoto upgrade will be sent to network operators on August 28, and the activation window will be open. Network operators will upgrade to Cycle 92, and once the Signer successfully switches from Cycle 92 to Cycle 93, core developers will select the final hard fork block.
It is reported that the Nakamoto upgrade aims to significantly improve security and speed by increasing transaction throughput, "100% Bitcoin finality" and reducing Bitcoin miner extractable value (MEV).
Additionally, the project’s planned non-custodial, programmable 1:1 Bitcoin-backed asset, sBTC, will be “ready for mainnet within four weeks of the Nakamoto hard fork.”
Michael Saylor: Today is the fourth anniversary of MicroStrategy adopting Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset
Michael Saylor, founder of MicroStrategy, a U.S. listed company, posted on the X platform that four years ago today, MicroStrategy adopted Bitcoin as its main fiscal reserve asset. Since then, MSTR's stock price has outperformed 499 of the 500 stocks in the S&P 500 index.
Runecoin: Plans to launch Season 2, prioritizing mechanics and timing
Runecoin posted on X that it plans to launch Season 2, with mechanics and timing being the priority.
Jupiter Lianchuang: In the future, the team will focus on more powerful monitoring, optimization and completing some new experiments
Jupiter posted on X: “We’re sorry that our platform is not operating to the high standards we set for ourselves.
The team will be working diligently over the coming weeks to resolve these issues.”
Jupiter co-founder meow said: “I must admit that when the number of tokens users wanted to trade surged to 100-20,000, we were a bit caught off guard and had to completely redo major parts of the architecture.
We're going to have the team work together on more robust monitoring, optimization, and some new experiments, some short-term, some medium-term, and some just because it's fun. We're going to work on that."
Yesterday, Jupiter co-founder meow released additional explanations on some of the problems the Jupiter platform faced last week. Details:
Priority Gas Fee Calculation Error: Priority fee estimation error occurred when calculating the Gas required for front-end execution. Although it is not easy to occur under normal circumstances, it becomes a major problem during severe congestion. The team takes full responsibility for this;
DCA downtime: Due to CU estimation errors, the platform DCA function was down for about 6 hours, resulting in user orders not being traded. The team expressed deep regret for this and will review operations to increase vigilance;
Low liquidity tokens: To ensure the safe execution of DCA, the platform performs price and slippage checks before trading. However, the mark price and execution price of low liquidity tokens may differ greatly, causing the engine to be unable to execute the transaction. The team will improve the user interface, add more information, and optimize the security check method;
Future plans: The team plans to add more information to the user interface and gradually implement smart safety checks to address existing issues.
The Arena: Updating the points algorithm to prepare for the launch of the V2 points plan
The Arena, the Avalanche ecosystem social protocol, posted on X that the team is updating the points algorithm to prepare for the launch of the V2 points program, The Arena Uprising. Due to the recent update, this week's points are expected to be announced tomorrow. It should be noted that V1 points will still be issued before The Arena Uprising is launched.
Investment and Financing
Investment platform BasedVC completes $2 million seed round with $15 million post-money valuation
Decentralized proprietary investment platform BasedVC completed a $2 million seed round of financing with a post-money valuation of $15 million. Neo Tokyo, Kongz Capital, and angel investors such as Mario Nawfal, Crypto Banter, Ashcrypto and Kmanu participated in the investment.
According to the team: “In the past year, BasedVC platform revenue exceeded $65 million and deployed investments into more than 50 cryptocurrency projects. As a decentralized investment portal, we enable the community and retail investors to join Pre-Seed and private rounds, avoiding the high risk of public rounds, and raise funds from strategic communities such as Neo Tokyo.” (CoinDesk)
Regulatory trends
The Federal Reserve takes enforcement action against crypto-friendly banks, and the sincerity of the Harris campaign is questioned
The U.S. Federal Reserve System has taken enforcement action against cryptocurrency-supporting customer banks, requiring them to provide 30 days’ notice before establishing new banking relationships with cryptocurrency companies.
This move raises questions about the sincerity of Vice President Harris' campaign team in repairing relations with the cryptocurrency industry. Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson both said that the current US government is hostile to the crypto industry and warned voters that supporting Harris may be detrimental to the US crypto industry. (Cointelegraph)
Character Voice
Adam Cochran: Venture capital is slowing down investment in the crypto space, and returns from holding BTC/ETH alone can exceed index funds
Adam Cochran, partner at venture capital firm Cinneamhain Ventures, said in an article on X: “Venture capital has significantly slowed down its investment in cryptocurrencies, including a series of very subtle reasons.”
Most venture capital firms have limited partners, and LPs are primarily interested in outperforming index fund returns. But in the medium term, the risk-return ratio of just holding Bitcoin and Ethereum can already “easily beat” index funds.
This allows venture investors to capture returns through a holding strategy, waiting for safer, more profitable opportunities, rather than taking as much early risk on Web3 startups as they would in other industries. “Typically in an industry, you’d have more VCs investing early because the idle yield that BTC/ETH offers doesn’t exist in these markets,” Cochran explained.
He said that in the last crypto cycle (2020-2024), venture capitalists were keen to invest in applications that were "already explosive" because they hoped to "reap large returns with consumers in the later stages."
Cochran added: “We’ve also been through several recent narrative trends (NFTs, AMM forks, DeFi, L2), and it’s not quite clear what’s going to happen next.”
According to data from RootData, crypto venture capital funding exceeded $1 billion in each of the three months of 2024: March ($1.09 billion), April ($1.04 billion), and July ($1.01 billion). This is a significant increase compared to last year, which only reached this level in November 2023 ($1.29 billion).
However, this is still significantly lower than two years ago, when crypto VC funding exceeded $4 billion in each of the first four months of 2022. (Cointelegraph)
Mechanism Capital: SUI shows multiple bullish signals, which may bring interesting developments
Andrew Kang, co-founder of Mechanism Capital, wrote on X that although there is no exact information, he believes that SUI may be about to usher in some interesting developments. Kang listed five reasons to support this prediction:
1. Raoul Pal, who serves on the advisory board, has published a series of posts in support of SUI;
2. There is a demand for large-scale over-the-counter transactions in the market;
3. Despite the massive unlocking, holders remain relatively strong;
4. SUI price trend is positive and no pullback occurs;
5. Recent Mysiceti performance upgrades may bring interesting new applications.
Kang also added that there have been comments that SUI is issuing grants to promoters, which would be a bullish sign if true.
GSR: Bitcoin and US stocks will remain highly correlated until the election is over
In an interview with BlockWorks, GSR CEO Rich Rosenblum said that Bitcoin and U.S. stocks will remain highly correlated until the election, and Bitcoin will not be able to become "digital gold" for the time being.
