Blockchain & cryptocurrency market summary news – May 15
Vitalik Buterin, Founders Fund participated in Polymarket's $45 million capital round
Vitalik Buterin and billionaire Peter Thiel's Founders Fund have participated in Polymarket's $45 million Series B round, a decentralized prediction market platform based on cryptocurrency. Including three rounds of funding, Seed, Series A and Series B, Polymarket has raised a total of 74 million USD.
Other investors participating in the Series B round include 1confirmation, ParaFi, Dragonfly Capital and Kevin Hartz. Previously, the Series A round was led by General Catalyst along with Polychain Capital and Joe Gebbia.
Despite difficulties from the proposed ban on derivatives related to political and sports events, Polymarket continues to operate abroad after being forced to close its US website and pay a $1.4 fine. million USD by 2021. By 2024, Polymarket reaches about 202 million USD in forecast value.
Zeta Markets raises $5 million in capital ahead of launching Z token
Zeta Markets, a decentralized derivatives exchange on Solana, has just raised $5 million in a strategic capital round led by Electric Capital. Other participating investors include DACM, Selini Capital and Airtree Ventures. The capital raising round also had the participation of famous individual investors such as Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana) and Mert Mumtaz (Helius Labs).
The new money will help Zeta accelerate the development of the Layer-2 expansion solution, which is expected to have testnet in Q4 and mainnet in Q1/2025. Zeta will also launch the “Z” token this May, along with an Airdrop plan.
Hacker Poloniex continues to transfer more than 53 million USD via Tornado Cash
Hacker Poloniex transferred 17,800 ETH, equivalent to 53 million USD, into Tornado Cash to launder money, after stealing 125 million USD from the Poloniex exchange in November 2023. Poloniex owner - Justin Sun - announced that he had identified the relevant wallet address and gave the hacker 7 days to return the money to receive the reward, but the hacker had no intention of returning it. Despite the hack, Poloniex quickly restored operations and Justin Sun pledged to fully refund affected users.
Tornado Cash developer was convicted of money laundering and received a 64-month prison sentence
Alexey Pertsev, the developer of Tornado Cash, was arrested and convicted of money laundering by the Netherlands. The Dutch court sentenced Pertsev to 5 years and 4 months in prison (64 months) for laundering $1.2 billion in illegal money on Tornado Cash from 2019-2022.
The court declared that Tornado Cash is a “tool for criminals”, with “maximum conditions for users to commit crimes”. Lawyer Pertsev argued they could not stop users, but prosecutors argued Tornado Cash was more than just a smart contract.
OFAC 2022 report says Tornado Cash laundered more than $7 billion in dirty cryptocurrency, including money stolen from Lazarus Group and hacks. Attorney Pertsev has 14 days to appeal.
Vitalik Buterin proposed EIP-7706, building a new “calldata” gas fee for Ethereum
Vitalik Buterin proposed EIP-7706 to build a new gas fee specifically for “calldata” in Ethereum transactions. Currently, Ethereum has two main gas fees – one for transaction execution and one for data storage. This proposal suggests adding a third gas fee for calldata, the portion of data sent to the smart contract. At the same time, it proposes a uniform fee adjustment system for all three types of gas. Implementing EIP-7706 can significantly reduce transaction costs, especially on layer-2 Ethereum networks.
