Compiled by: Luan Peng, ChainCatcher
“What important events happened this week (9.23-9.29)”
1. Trump says he will not run again if he loses the 2024 election
According to Jinshi, former US Republican presidential candidate and president Trump said that if he loses the presidential election in November this year, he does not think he will run again in the 2028 presidential election.
Trump was born in 1946 and is now 78 years old. He will be 82 years old by the time of the 2028 US presidential election. Before the current US President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 US presidential election, Trump often used the age issue to attack Biden, who is now 81 years old.
2. The central bank announced a rate cut and reserve requirement ratio cut, and will cut the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points in the near future
According to Jinshi, Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China, announced at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on the 24th that the deposit reserve ratio and policy interest rate would be reduced. In the near future, the reserve ratio will be reduced by 0.5 percentage points, releasing 1 trillion yuan of long-term liquidity, and the reserve ratio may be reduced by another 0.25-0.5 percentage points before the end of the year. At the same time, the central bank's policy interest rate will be reduced, and the seven-day reverse repurchase operation rate will be reduced by 0.2 percentage points, guiding the loan market benchmark rate (LPR) to decline simultaneously.
3. Harris' Arizona campaign office was shot
According to the New York Post, US police are investigating a shooting at Vice President Kamala Harris's Arizona campaign office this week.
Gunfire damage to the Democratic National Committee campaign office off South Avenue in Tempe was discovered after midnight Monday, according to the Tempe Police Department.
"No one was inside the office during the night, but it raises concerns for the safety of those who work in the building and those nearby," said public information officer Sergeant Ryan Cook.
Police said detectives are analyzing evidence collected at the scene and have taken additional measures to increase safety for staff and those in the surrounding area.
4. Harris said he would make the United States dominant in the blockchain field and reiterated his support for digital assets
U.S. Vice President Harris said in a speech to the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on Wednesday that under her leadership, the United States will "recommit" to maintaining global leadership in areas that will define the next century, maintaining dominance in artificial intelligence and quantum computing, blockchain and other emerging technologies.
At a recent Wall Street fundraiser in Manhattan, Harris said artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency are part of her vision for an “opportunity economy.”
Harris reiterated this sentiment in his 80-page economic plan: "We will encourage innovative technologies, such as artificial intelligence and digital assets, while protecting consumers and investors. We will create a safe business environment with consistent and transparent rules of the road."
5. OpenAI CEO announced several senior personnel changes in the company and will refocus on technology and products
OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman posted on social media that major personnel changes are taking place at the company's top level. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, Chief Scientist Bob and another executive Barret will leave. Altman said these decisions were independent and friendly. Mark will take over as senior vice president of the research department and lead the research team with Chief Scientist Jakub. Josh Achiam will serve as director of mission alignment, Kevin and Srinivas will continue to lead the application team, and Matt Knight will serve as chief information security officer.
Altman stressed that while the move was abrupt, the leadership changes were a natural result of the company’s rapid growth. He plans to refocus efforts on the technology and product aspects of the company and will discuss the changes further at the all-hands meeting.
6. SRC20 founder: Fractal is neither Bitcoin nor L2, but Shitcoin
SRC20 founder Mike In Space posted on the X platform that Fractal is neither Bitcoin, nor a Bitcoin-like product or L2, but Shitcoin.
In addition, the SRC20 project OpenStamp was launched on Fractal yesterday, and the account was followed by Mike In Space. However, due to Fractal network problems, it was difficult to mint, so the official stopped minting and will fully refund failed users.
7. Celestia will unlock 175 million TIA on October 30, worth over $1 billion
According to Token unlock data, on October 30, the modular blockchain Celestia will unlock more than 175 million TIA tokens, accounting for 17.68% of the total TIA supply, with a value of approximately US$1.08 billion.
According to previous news, on September 24, Celestia announced that it had received US$100 million in financing, but it was later revealed that the financing was an over-the-counter (OTC) transaction completed a few months ago.
8. Bloomberg: Former Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng has been released
According to Bloomberg, former Binance leader and co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has been released from prison, two days earlier than originally planned.
A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to provide specific information about CZ’s release.
The U.S. Department of Justice had requested that CZ's sentence be increased to 36 months because they accused CZ of intentionally violating the law to profit for the company and himself. On the other hand, CZ's lawyer said that CZ had taken responsibility and "deeply regretted" his crimes, and asked the court to sentence him to probation.
9. Trump: If re-elected president, he will seek to sue Google
Former US President Trump said that if he is re-elected as US president, he will seek to sue Google and accuse the company of publishing negative reports about him.
10. Zhao Changpeng posted his first tweet after being released from prison: “GM”
Zhao Changpeng posted his first tweet “GM” on the X platform after being released from prison.
11. Vitalik publishes a new article: "Making Ethereum's Alignment Visible"
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik published an article titled "Making Ethereum's Alignment Visible", in which he proposed the concept of "Ethereum alignment" to solve the problem of how to balance the Ethereum client team, researchers, Layer 2 teams, application developers, and local community groups to ensure that all these projects collectively build a unified Ethereum ecosystem.
This can include values alignment (e.g., open source, minimal centralization, support for public goods), technical alignment (e.g., adopting ecosystem-wide standards), economic alignment (e.g., using ETH as a token whenever possible). Vitalik analyzes from the perspectives of open source, open standards, decentralization and security, and positive sum, and his ideal goal is to see more entities like L2beat emerge to track how well projects meet the above criteria and other criteria proposed by the community. Instead of competing for connections, projects should compete on alignment based on easy-to-understand criteria.
“Dashboard organizations” like L2beat, block explorers, and other ecosystem monitoring tools are an excellent example of this principle working successfully in the Ethereum ecosystem. If the different aspects of alignment can be made clearer, while not being centralized in a single “overseer,” this concept can be made more effective and do a better job of fairness and inclusion in the Ethereum ecosystem.
12. China’s former vice finance minister: U.S. encryption policy has undergone significant changes this year. We must pay attention to the development of cryptocurrency
The 2024 Tsinghua PBC Chief Economist Forum was held in Beijing on September 28. Zhu Guangyao, former vice minister of the Ministry of Finance, attended and delivered a speech. Zhu Guangyao called for attention to the study of the development of cryptocurrency, "It does have a negative impact, and we must fully recognize its risks and harm to the capital market, but we must study the latest changes and policy adjustments internationally, because it is a crucial aspect for the development of the digital economy."
Zhu Guangyao reviewed the development of cryptocurrency. Over the past decade, the United States has always believed that cryptocurrency has a huge destructive power on international anti-money laundering and international anti-terrorist financing. In addition, the sharp fluctuations in the value of cryptocurrency have a huge impact on the international financial market. However, this year, the US policy has undergone major changes.
Zhu Guangyao said that Trump's campaign platform explicitly included cryptocurrencies, and he also publicly stated, "We must embrace cryptocurrencies, otherwise China will replace us." The US Securities and Exchange Commission has also approved the listing of 11 Bitcoin ETFs in the stock market and futures market. Among emerging market countries and BRICS countries, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, and India have also taken action.
13. Changpeng Zhao: Will continue to invest in blockchain/decentralized technology, artificial intelligence and biotechnology
Zhao Changpeng posted on the X platform that the food tastes great and it is a luxury to be able to eat more than one piece of fruit every day. I want to thank everyone for their support. It means a lot to me and keeps me strong in the darkest moments.
Some quick updates/thoughts: Giggle Academy is going great and will be a big part of my life for the next few years. Will continue to invest in blockchain/decentralized tech, AI, and biotech. I'm a long-term investor and care about impact, not returns. I'll also be investing more time and money into philanthropy (and education). I have some rough ideas. Still working on my book. I think I'm about 2/3 done. Writing a book is a lot more laborious than I expected, but I'll keep at it.
“What are some interesting articles worth reading this week (9.23-9.29)”
1. Just read this article! TOKEN2049 WEEK speech and essay collection
The much-anticipated TOKEN 2049 WEEK came to a successful conclusion last week, and the "Small Composition Creator Competition" about TOKEN 2049 WEEK was launched. ChainCatcher's editorial department selected the wonderful speeches of the guests and the excellent works of the "Small Composition" competition, and extracted the essence for you to take a look.
2. A quick look at the modular L2 Hemi led by Binance Labs: How to combine the security of Bitcoin with the flexibility of Ethereum?
Hemi is a modular blockchain network designed to provide scalability, security, and interoperability, unifying Bitcoin and Ethereum as components of a single supernetwork. The Hemi Virtual Machine allows developers to build smart contracts compatible with Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the Hemi Bitcoin Suite allows individuals to create proof-of-stake, MEV markets, and other Bitcoin-native applications with direct access to granular Bitcoin state.
Hemi bills itself as a “layer 2 network tunnel between Bitcoin and Ethereum,” blending the advanced programmability of Ethereum with the security of Bitcoin.
Currently, Hemi’s incentivized testnet is online and its mainnet is expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Hemi’s co-founders are Jeff Garzik, a well-known early Bitcoin developer, and Max Sanchez, a blockchain security pioneer.
On September 18, Hemi Labs, the developer of Hemi network, announced the completion of a $15 million financing round. The financing lineup includes overseas venture capital firms focused on Bitcoin and Bitcoin OGs, with Binance Labs, Breyer Capital and Big Brain Holdings as the lead investors.
Breyer Capital is an early investor in Facebook, Circle, and Spotify. Big Brain Holdings is a leading Web3 fund, with investments in Solana, The Graph, and Arweave. Crypto.com, Web3 Ventures, HyperChain Capital, Alchemy, SALT Fund, Kelly Investments, Sunflower Capital, DNA Fund, BitDeer founder Jihan Wu, Portal founder George Burke, Beluga founder Sonny Singh, and others also participated in this round of financing.
3. PayFi, the highlight of Solana Breakpoint, shared what application scenarios and participation opportunities?
Community users who follow the Solana ecosystem should be familiar with the concept of PayFi. This is basically a concept that Lily Liu, chairman of the Solana Foundation, must talk about at every industry conference this year.
At the recent Solana Breakpoint conference, PayFi remained the highlight of the Solana ecosystem, and several Solana ecosystem PayFi concept projects announced their latest developments and participation opportunities.
PayFi can be simply understood as using blockchain technology to innovate the payment system and achieve a more efficient and low-cost transaction experience.
PayFi emphasizes the time value of money. In layman's terms, today's money is more valuable than future money, because today's money can be used immediately for investment, consumption or savings, and may generate more income in the future. However, future money will lose some opportunity costs and have inflation risks and other uncertainties because it needs to wait for a while before it can be used, so its value will be reduced accordingly. What PayFi wants to do is to help users maximize the time value of money.
It may still be difficult to understand the future value of PayFi simply from its definition and vision. From some project dynamics at the Solana Breakpoint conference, we can learn that some PayFi projects are mainly carried out in scenarios such as cross-border payments, creator monetization, commercial lending, and subscription payments. However, the participation threshold of most PayFi concept projects is still not low, KYC is required, and there are compliance issues.
4. Dialogue with Puffpaw founder Reffo: Smoking and mining is cool, but how to implement it?
Good news for smokers has arrived, and soon you will be able to make money by smoking.
To be precise, this is a project to help people quit smoking. Smoking is just a behavior, the goal is to quit smoking, and X-To-Earn is the mechanism.
Puffpaw, a project on Berachain that focuses on "quit smoking and make money", announced on September 5 that it had completed a US$6 million seed round of financing. At the same time, as the first DePIN project on Berachain, Puffpaw received support from the Berachain Foundation.
“We are now developing e-cigarettes and sensor devices ourselves. At this stage, we have our own new e-cigarette brand. We explore Web3 to enhance consumer experience and help people quit smoking. In the future, our sensors will support more e-cigarette brands. Selling e-cigarettes and cartridges is not our ultimate business goal.” Puffpaw founder Reffo said in an exclusive interview with ChainCatcher.
Reffo and his two other partners are already in the e-cigarette industry, have their own brands in the United States, and have a complete supply chain that covers production, OEM, tobacco, etc. After working in the Web3 industry for a while, Reffo gradually came up with a clear idea of "making money by smoking" - an e-commerce application scenario that combines e-cigarettes and blockchain, so he started working on this idea at the end of last year.
At present, Puffpaw has completed the preliminary research and development of e-cigarettes and hardware, and the team has expanded to 15 people. They will launch the TG mini-game in October and cold start it in the form of NFT.
Interestingly, Reffo also mentioned that Berachain was chosen because its culture and community consensus are more in line with the project, and the name of Berachain’s founder “Smokey” sounds related to cigarettes.
5. More than 50 million US dollars poured into Solana, investment hot spots and opportunities after Breakpoint
"More than 6,000 tickets were sold out, with representatives from more than 114 countries and regions participating. More than 70 Solana-related products shared their latest developments and actions, covering DeFi, DePIN, Games and other fields." This was Solana's official on-site summary of the Breakpoint event.
At the conference, traditional financial institutions such as Franklin Templeton, Forge, a subsidiary of Societe Generale, and Citibank announced that they have established cooperative relationships with Solana. The SOL token also performed exceptionally well during the conference, with daily gains of more than 10%.
The large number of participants and projects made the Breakpoint conference attract industry attention and became the most discussed topic at the Token2049 conference. It was once considered the most eye-catching summit event in the crypto industry this year.
After the Breakpoint conference, a large amount of funds began to flow into the Solana ecosystem in search of new opportunities. According to the latest cross-chain data from SolanaFloor on September 23, over the past 7 days, more than $50 million of funds have been transferred from various blockchain networks to the Solana network. Among them, the amount of cross-chain transfers from Ethereum reached $34 million, accounting for nearly 70% of the total cross-chain amount.
However, for ordinary users, they are more concerned about what opportunities there are to participate in Solana and its ecosystem after the Breakpoint conference, and how to capture more Alpha?
Since Pyth, Jupiter, Wormhole, Drift and other ecosystem-native projects have successively issued coins and airdropped, the impression that the Solana ecosystem has left on users is mainly based on the hype of MEME coins. However, at this Breakpoint conference, more than 70 Solana-related projects participated and announced the latest progress of related products, such as Eclipse will be launched on the mainnet at the end of October, the perpetual cooperation agreement Flash Trade will launch the token FLASH later this year, and the NFT platform Magic Eden's ME token will be launched on Solana, etc.
6. Analysis of airdrop performance in 2024: Why did nearly 90% of token airdrops fail?
The report analyzed 62 airdrops on 6 chains and found that 88% of the airdropped tokens have seen a drop in price, with most of them plummeting within 15 days. Post-airdrop price changes mainly occurred within the first few days. After three months, few tokens were able to achieve positive returns, and only a few tokens were able to reverse the trend.
7. CZ, the totem of the crypto-pain period, has returned. Can confidence and innovative vitality be restored?
After four months in prison, CZ is expected to return in a few hours. This Chinese entrepreneur has officially passed the first necessary "disaster" in the process of leading Binance to become a global great enterprise.
Looking back at last year’s historic November 22, when CZ pleaded guilty, resigned as Binance CEO, and accepted a sky-high fine of over 4 billion, the crypto market was plunged into turmoil.
But with CZ and Binance admitting their penalties, the era of cryptocurrencies has officially ended. Soon after, the US Bitcoin spot ETF and Ethereum ETF were approved one after another. Cryptocurrency upstarts used their money power to compete for the right to speak in the US election, and cryptocurrencies are no longer a niche.
The nearly one year since CZ’s retirement was also a critical period for Binance and the entire crypto market to move from grassroots to strong compliance, and from niche to mainstream.
Under the leadership of He Yi and new CEO Richard Teng, Binance's business has developed steadily. In September, Binance's historical trading volume exceeded the 100 trillion US dollar mark for the first time.
But everything did not go smoothly as expected. Faced with the ever-changing crypto market, Binance was inevitably confused in its strategy and was embroiled in huge controversy over its coin listing strategy.
The fate of Binance is a microcosm of the crypto industry. As the old and new crypto cycles alternate, hope and confusion are intertwined.
Although the massive capital injection from Wall Street pushed Bitcoin past $70,000, crypto innovation did not seem to keep up with the pace, and all participants, including project developers, VCs, and retail investors, were unable to enjoy the same wealth as in the previous bull market cycle. This round of crypto bull market has therefore been criticized as a fake bull market.
At the beginning of the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut cycle, can the return of crypto totem CZ once again inject confidence and innovative vitality into the confused crypto market?
8. Celestia was suspected of "raising the price" by packaging the sale of coins as financing before the large-scale unlocking
Recently, the highly-anticipated modular blockchain Celestia has fallen into a crisis of trust. “The disclosed $100 million in financing was actually an over-the-counter (OTC) sale of coins, and was announced during the countdown to a large amount of unlocking.” This series of confusing operations has put Celestia, the leading modular public chain, at the forefront of public opinion.
The community questioned Celestia's behavior, and it is possible that they were colluding with VCs or institutions to take the opportunity to "pull up the price of the currency and sell it out." A few days before the unlocking, they announced the proceeds from the OTC sale of the currency as financing news to create favorable conditions, and used information manipulation and other means to guide retail investors to take over, thereby seeking personal gain.
In the community’s view, the Celestia Foundation failed to make the necessary transparent disclosure of this OTC transaction, and instead packaged it as financing news, which misled investors and triggered a crisis of trust.
However, as of press time, Celestia has not made any response to this incident.
9. RootData launches the first Web3 project popularity list to help investors capture the most consensus projects at the moment
Most investments in the Web3 space are essentially attention investments.
Crypto KOL @redphonecrypto once said that a coin’s ability to attract attention is more important than other indicators. This round of bull market meme once again illustrates this truth by completely defeating “value coins”.
However, in the current situation where attention is scattered and filled with noise, it is not easy to judge the true direction of attention. Users are often misled by marketing information on social media such as platform X or false data such as TVL from project owners.
The Web3 market also lacks a more authoritative data analysis platform to guide users in investing their attention.
To solve the above pain points, Web3 asset data platform RootData launched the first "Web3 Popular Project Ranking". This popularity ranking helps users capture the real attention pulse and improve the accuracy of user investment decisions through 4.3 million real user behavior data.
10. Vitalik’s new article: It’s time to “align” the entire Ethereum ecosystem
In the Ethereum ecosystem, the most important governance challenge is balance — or more precisely, integrating decentralization and cooperation. The strength of this ecosystem is that there are a wide range of individuals and organizations — client teams, researchers, second-layer network teams, application developers, local community groups — all working towards their own visions of what Ethereum could become. The main challenge is to ensure that all projects work together to build one Ethereum ecosystem, rather than 138 incompatible fiefdoms.
To address this challenge, many in the Ethereum ecosystem have proposed the concept of "Ethereum consistency". This may include value alignment (e.g., open source, minimal centralization, supporting public goods), technical alignment (e.g., working with ecosystem-wide standards), and economic alignment (e.g., using ETH as a token when possible). However, this concept has historically been poorly defined, which creates the risk of social control: if consistency means having the right friends, then "consistency" as a concept fails.
To address this, I think we should make the concept of consistency clearer by breaking it down into specific properties that can be represented by specific metrics. Everyone's list will be different, and metrics will inevitably change over time. However, I think we have some solid starting points.
