Today's news tips:
FTX co-founder Gary Wang develops software tool to help US government detect fraud
India arrests key suspect in $230 million WazirX hack
OpenAI plans to release an AI agent tool codenamed "Operator" in January next year
Binance will launch spot trading pairs such as ACT/FDUSD and NEIRO/USDC on November 15
BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund Expands to Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, OP, and Polygon Chains
The cumulative trading volume of US Bitcoin spot ETF has exceeded US$500 billion
Regulation & Policy
According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter revealed that Polymarket was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly allowing U.S. users to place bets on the platform. The FBI issued a search warrant for Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan and seized his mobile phones and electronic devices. According to an agreement reached with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022, Polymarket is required to prevent U.S. traders from trading on the platform. Polymarket said in a statement that the company will "stand up for ourselves and our community" and accused the FBI of a politically motivated search. The company said: "Polymarket is a completely transparent prediction market that can help people better understand the events that matter most to them, including elections."
According to Bloomberg, like his former FTX colleagues who have become witnesses for the U.S. government, Gary Wang provided "outstanding" assistance to federal prosecutors in their case against Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of the crypto exchange FTX. In their argument for leniency, prosecutors said Wang created "tools" to help the U.S. government detect other frauds. "Wang also provided substantial assistance - and took steps to correct past mistakes in the process - using his extraordinary computer programming skills to detect potential fraud in the stock and cryptocurrency markets," federal prosecutors wrote in sentencing documents filed on Wednesday. "Unlike other co-conspirators, Wang did not lie to customers, lenders or investors, nor did he spend his customers' money." While prosecutors did not make a specific sentencing recommendation, the filing asked the court to consider Wang's outstanding cooperation. Prosecutors also said Wang was the first FTX insider to cooperate with prosecutors, even though there was little written evidence linking Wang to the fraud. It is reported that Gary Wang is scheduled to be sentenced on November 20 for his role in the FTX collapse.
The Republican Party won enough seats to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives, securing a sweeping victory in the general election and securing their control of both houses of Congress and the White House, according to Jin10. The Republican Party earlier gained control of the Senate.
India arrests key suspect in $230 million WazirX hack
Indian police have arrested West Bengal resident SK Masud Alam, accusing him of involvement in the WazirX hack, BeInCrypto reported. Earlier this year, the hack caused WazirX to lose more than $230 million as customers were unable to withdraw their funds. Alam is accused of creating a fake account under the pseudonym Souvik Mondal, which he allegedly sold to hackers via Telegram. The account was later used to attack crypto exchanges. The Indian police's charges point to a lack of cooperation from Liminal Custody, the company responsible for securing WazirX's digital wallets. Liminal reportedly did not provide key information despite repeated requests, raising concerns about its security measures.
AI
OpenAI plans to release an AI agent tool codenamed "Operator" in January next year
According to Bloomberg, OpenAI is preparing to launch a new artificial intelligence agent tool code-named "Operator", which is scheduled to be released in January 2025. The tool will be able to automatically perform tasks on the user's computer, such as writing code or booking a trip.
According to people familiar with the matter, OpenAI leadership announced in an internal meeting on Wednesday that the tool will be launched as a research preview and open to developers through an API. The plan is part of a broader push by the AI industry to develop "agent" software, which aims to allow AI agents to complete multi-step tasks with minimal supervision. Previously, Anthropic and OpenAI's investor Microsoft also launched similar AI agent tools, and Google is also developing similar products.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted at the move toward “agents” in a Reddit Q&A last month.
Project News
Binance Launchpool and Pre-Market Trading to List Usual (USUAL)
According to the official announcement, Binance Launchpool has launched the 61st project - Usual (USUAL), a decentralized fiat stablecoin issuer. Users can put BNB and FDUSD into the USUAL reward pool on the Launchpool website after 08:00 (ET) on November 15, 2024 to receive USUAL. The USUAL event will last for a total of 4 days. The website is expected to be updated within about twelve hours of this announcement before the event opens.
Binance pre-market trading will list Usual (USUAL) and open USUAL/USDT trading market at 18:00 (ET) on November 19, 2024. The end time of pre-market trading and the spot listing time will be announced later, so please stay tuned for announcement information. Eligibility for participating in Binance pre-market trading depends on the country or region where the user resides. The maximum position limit for an individual is 40,000 USUAL.
The total and maximum supply of Usual (USUAL) tokens is 4 billion, the Launchpool token reward is 300 million (7.5% of the total token supply), and the initial circulating supply at the time of Binance listing is 494.6 million (12.37% of the total token supply).
Three Arrows Capital seeks to increase claim against FTX to $1.53 billion
According to Cointelegraph, the liquidators of the defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital are trying to amend their claims against FTX, increasing their claims from $120 million to $1.53 billion. The liquidators of Three Arrows Capital claim that two weeks before the hedge fund collapsed, FTX liquidated and seized their assets on the platform to settle a debt of $1.33 billion. The hedge fund claims that these transactions are "avoidable and unfair" and have caused damage to Three Arrows Capital creditors. Three Arrows Capital believes that the liquidation should be invalid, accusing FTX of underestimating transactions and violating trust and contracts. Three Arrows Capital also claims that FTX delayed providing necessary information, forcing Three Arrows Capital to parse raw data to calculate losses. As a result, Three Arrows Capital said it could only confirm the liquidation amount in August. However, FTX responded that an unnamed individual associated with Three Arrows Capital initiated the liquidation of assets, and FTX has not yet identified this person. The court will hold a hearing on November 20 to discuss Three Arrows Capital's motion to modify its claims.
The ZKsync community has voted on the chain to pass the TPP 001 proposal "Distribute 325 million ZK tokens to DeFi users within 9 months", which proposes to distribute 325 million ZK tokens within 9 months, of which 300 million will be distributed to users through six minters (with an upper limit of 50 million each), and the other 25 million tokens will be managed by four minters to cover management and unforeseen costs. The proposal aims to establish a DeFi liquidity center on the ZKsync Era and improve the liquidity of all interoperable ZK chains (Elastic Chain).
Korean DAXA members decide to terminate trading support for Radiant Capital (RDNT)
According to an official announcement from Bithumb, members of the Korea Digital Asset Exchange Association (DAXA) will terminate trading support for Radiant Capital (RDNT). Since the project foundation did not submit explanatory materials on the reasons for the designation of trading warning stocks, and after reviewing the losses caused by the security incident and the public position of the foundation, it was determined that it did not meet the standards for maintaining trading support, so it decided to stop trading support. Bithumb will end trading support for RNDT at 15:00 local time on December 12, 2024. It is reported that the Korea Digital Asset Exchange Association (DAXA) is composed of the five major crypto exchanges in South Korea, namely Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax.
Binance will launch spot trading pairs such as ACT/FDUSD and NEIRO/USDC on November 15
Binance will launch ACT/FDUSD, ACT/USDC, NEIRO/USDC, PNUT/BTC, PNUT/FDUSD and PNUT/USDC spot trading pairs at 16:00 (ET) on November 15, 2024.
According to Cointelegraph, Coinbase Wallet is about to launch a "Tap to Pay" crypto solution to join the competition with Cash App, Venmo, PayPal and other fast payment companies. Jesse Pollak, head of Coinbase Wallet and founder of Base, revealed in an interview that this feature is "currently in the internal alpha stage" and the full release is "coming soon." In addition, Pollak hopes to integrate 50 countries and regions into Coinbase Wallet by the end of 2025. Pollak pointed out that part of the integration will involve connecting user bank accounts to Coinbase wallets. At the same time, Pollak said that Base is seeking to solve the Ethereum Layer2 interoperability problem in the "next six months." Although there are multiple cross-chain solutions between the Ethereum mainnet and Ethereum Layer2, Base and other Ethereum Layer2s are still decentralized. Pollak said that this problem is being "quickly solved" through two important specifications-namely ERC-7683 (which introduces interoperability standards for cross-chain transfers) and RIP-7755 (which enables trustless execution between chains).
Solana Eco Wallet Phantom said in a post on X: "A small number of iOS users are experiencing app resets. These users can restore their wallets using mnemonics. A new iOS app update has been launched to prevent this from affecting any other users." According to posts on social media earlier on Wednesday, some iOS users reported that after downloading the recent Phantom update, their Phantom wallets were automatically logged out and inaccessible. This problem seems to affect users who did not back up their mnemonics.
Musk: DOGE's stable inflation rate is not a bug, but a feature
DOGE founder Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) posted on the X platform: "If you want to eliminate the inflation of Dogecoin, the code is on line 146 of the GitHub code base, returning 10000*COIN; you can change it there, make a pull request, and convince the community and miners to use the new version. Don't bother me now." Musk commented on the X platform: "I think the stable inflation rate of Dogecoin is a feature, not a bug, which means that the inflation rate will be reduced in a certain proportion." Shibetoshi Nakamoto replied: "I agree that it is very suitable for use as a currency because it has a stable and predictable inflation rate, which decreases in percentage terms, much lower than the US dollar."
Coinbase has launched dogwifhat (WIF) in the early morning
Coinbase Assets tweeted that it has added dogwifhat (WIF) to its coin listing roadmap today. Update: dogwifhat (WIF) is now available on Coinbase.com and the Coinbase iOS and Android apps. Coinbase customers can log in to buy, sell, exchange, send, receive or store these assets.
Upbit to List Pepe (PEPE) in Korean Won Market
According to the official announcement, South Korean crypto exchange Upbit will list Pepe (PEPE) in the Korean won market, and trading will begin at 11:30 local time today.
Coinbase acquires Utopia Labs team to accelerate on-chain payment deployment
According to the Coinbase blog, Coinbase announced that the Utopia Labs team will join its Ethereum second-layer network Base to accelerate the development of on-chain payments for Coinbase Wallet. The stablecoin studio Utopia Labs has extensive experience in on-chain payments and will help Coinbase achieve its vision of low-cost and fast global on-chain payments in the future. Data shows that the transaction volume of stablecoins reached 8.5 trillion US dollars in the second quarter of 2024, with more than 1.1 billion transactions.
BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund Expands to Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, OP, and Polygon Chains
According to the Securitize announcement, BlackRock announced that its US dollar institutional digital liquidity fund (BUIDL) will launch new share categories on multiple blockchains, including Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism's OP mainnet and Polygon. The fund was originally launched on the Ethereum network in March 2024 and tokenized by Securitize.
Cardano Foundation spends $23.7 million in 2023, with ADA as the main asset holding
According to CoinDesk, the Cardano Foundation released its first "Financial Insights Report" for 2023, revealing that the total expenditure for the year was US$23.7 million. Among them, US$19.22 million was used for operations, education and ecosystem promotion, and another US$4.55 million was for center operating costs. Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard said that the report reflects the foundation's commitment to transparency, showing resource allocation and its role in promoting the development of Cardano. As of December 31, 2023, the Cardano Foundation had total assets of US$478.24 million, of which 82.5% was ADA, 10.1% was BTC, and the rest was US dollar liquidity. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has risen 109%, while ADA has fallen 9%. In addition, Cardano's governance token soared 35% over the weekend after founder Charles Hoskinson announced that he would assist the Trump administration in formulating encryption policies.
Financing News
Digital asset trading infrastructure provider Wyden completes $16.4 million Series B financing
According to Bitcoin.com, digital asset trading infrastructure provider Wyden announced the completion of a $16.4 million (CHF 14.5 million) Series B financing round, led by French fintech investment company Truffle Capital, with new investors such as Postfinance, SBI-Sygnum-Azimut Digital Asset Opportunity Fund and Fivet Fintech also participating. Existing investor C3 Venture Capital also participated in the financing. Wyden said it plans to use the investment to accelerate the expansion of banks, brokers and exchanges. It also plans to enter markets that regulate digital asset operations like traditional financial services. In addition to integrating another 20 banks, brokers and exchanges, Wyden also plans to strengthen its various functions and development centers in Poland. Wyden has been expanding its customer base, especially among regulated banks and brokers in Europe. It is actively seeking to cooperate with more banks and brokers to seek crypto licenses in various European countries.
According to The Block, Crypto-AI startup 0G Labs announced that it has received $290 million in new financing, including $40 million in seed round financing and $250 million in token purchase commitments. The project aims to build a decentralized AI operating system (dAIOS) to support the development of on-chain AI applications. Investors in 0G Labs include Hack VC, Delphi Digital, OKX Ventures, Samsung Next, Bankless Ventures, Animoca Brands and its co-founder Yat Siu, Polygon and its co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Stanford Blockchain Fund, Abstract VC, Alchemy, Blockdaemon, Foresight Ventures, etc. 0G Labs co-founder and CEO Michael Heinrich said that the token commitment will be used for the ecological development of the 0G protocol, and the token is expected to be listed on the exchange next year. The current total financing amount has reached $325 million. The new funds will support the team to expand to 80 people and promote ecological projects such as developer incentives, hackathons and community building.
Important data
Data: Hong Kong virtual asset ETF today's trading volume is about HK$174 million
BTC breaks through $93,000, hitting a new all-time high
Tether Treasury mints 2 billion more USDT
According to iChainfo monitoring, the Bitcoin address (1Law...9YMQ) that has been silent for seven years transferred 2,720 BTC five hours ago, with a total value of approximately $245.14 million. This is about 20 times higher than the value seven years ago.
Coingecko data shows that the squirrel-based meme coin PNUT is now trading at $2.29, up 447.9% in 24 hours, and its market value has increased to $2.277 billion. This morning, Musk used the "peanut" emoji again when commenting on the news that "Costco was asked to recall 80,000 pounds of butter."
The cumulative trading volume of US Bitcoin spot ETF has exceeded US$500 billion
According to The Block, the cumulative trading volume of the US Bitcoin spot ETF has exceeded US$500 billion since its launch in January 2024. This milestone coincided with the single-day trading volume of BlackRock's IBIT Bitcoin ETF hitting a new high of US$5 billion. Since this week, Bitcoin ETFs have received a net inflow of US$2.4 billion.
The trading volume of spot Bitcoin ETF has grown rapidly since its launch in January, exceeding $100 billion in March this year and reaching $200 billion in April. As the crypto market pulled back, the price of Bitcoin fluctuated between $50,000 and $70,000 for several months, until Trump's recent victory drove the price above $90,000, pushing ETF trading volume up again. BlackRock's IBIT fund currently has a market share of 67% and an asset management scale (AUM) of $41.1 billion.
In addition, the trading volume of the US Ethereum spot ETF has also increased since its launch in July, with a single-day trading volume of US$702 million on November 13 and a cumulative total of US$22.3 billion.
