Today's news tips:
Shanghai Court: It is not illegal for an individual to simply hold virtual currency
Trump Considers Appointing Crypto Lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén as SEC Chair
BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Options IBIT's First-Day Trading Volume Nearly $1.9 Billion
Stablecoin company Noble completes $15 million Series A financing, led by Paradigm
Regulatory News
Shanghai Court: It is not illegal for an individual to simply hold virtual currency
The Shanghai High People's Court recently made a clear statement on a virtual currency issuance and financing service contract dispute case. As a commodity, virtual currency has property value. It is not illegal for an individual to simply hold it, but commercial entities are not allowed to participate in virtual currency investment or token issuance without authorization. In the case, an agricultural development company (Company X) commissioned an investment management company (Company S) to assist in the issuance of tokens and paid a service fee of 300,000 yuan, but the tokens were not issued as scheduled. The court determined that the essence of token issuance financing was illegal public financing, and the agreement violated financial regulatory regulations and was invalid. It ordered Company S to return 250,000 yuan. The court emphasized that virtual currency-related businesses are prone to suspected illegal activities such as illegal issuance of securities and illegal fundraising, disrupting the financial order. If a contract involving virtual currency violates the mandatory provisions of the law, it will be deemed invalid and the relevant parties will bear the corresponding legal responsibilities. The court reminded enterprises and individuals to be cautious about virtual currency-related businesses and avoid legal risks.
According to Seoul News, South Korea's ruling Democratic Party plans to implement a 20% tax policy on cryptocurrency gains (22% including local taxes) in early 2025 as originally planned. The tax was originally scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2022, but was postponed twice to 2025 due to strong opposition from investors and the industry.
The amendment plans to increase the tax-free amount of crypto gains from 2.5 million won (about $1,795) to 50 million won (about $35,919). In addition, the amendment allows a certain percentage of the sales price to be declared as the purchase cost when accurate purchase records cannot be provided. The Democratic Party said that increasing the tax-free amount will actually exempt most investors from paying taxes. The amendment is expected to be voted on by the National Assembly Tax Subcommittee on November 25 and submitted to the National Assembly for deliberation on November 26.
The South African Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) issued Directive No. 9, requiring digital asset platforms to collect and store the identity information of both parties in cryptocurrency transactions, including full names and wallet addresses. The regulation will take effect on April 30, 2025 and will apply to all transactions with a value of less than US$277 (about 5,000 rand). The directive aims to implement the "travel rule" of the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) to prevent crypto assets from being used for illegal activities such as money laundering and financing terrorism.
South Africa's move is intended to get rid of the impact of being included in the FATF gray list since the beginning of 2023 and restore international trust. However, Altify CEO Sean Saunders expressed doubts about the global minimum threshold of US$277, believing that it may bring additional burdens to ordinary users.
According to the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission, Yao Qian, former director of the Science and Technology Supervision Department and former director of the Information Center of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, was expelled from the Party and removed from public office for serious violations of discipline and law. Investigations show that Yao Qian regarded himself as a financial technology expert, spared no effort to support specific technology service providers for his own selfish interests, and was willing to be the "key training target" of the hunters. He abused the regulatory powers such as the right to recommend, formulate, and execute policies, abandoned the responsibilities of science and technology supervision, sought improper benefits for others in the expansion of business, software and hardware procurement of information technology system service institutions, and used virtual currency to trade power for money. He engaged in superstitious activities; ignored the spirit of the Central Committee's eight regulations, illegally accepted valuable items such as Maotai liquor and accepted banquets; violated organizational principles and sought benefits for others in the recruitment of employees; violated the discipline of integrity, and handed over the fees for car rental that should be paid by individuals to the supervision object, illegally borrowed large sums of money from the supervision object, and illegally invested in shares in enterprises. Illegally accepted property, the amount was extremely huge.
After research by the Party Committee of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, it was decided to expel Yao Qian from the Party; after research by the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission stationed in the China Securities Regulatory Commission, it was decided to expel Yao Qian from public office; and to confiscate his illegal gains; after research by the Supervisory Committee of Shanwei City, Guangdong Province, it was decided to transfer Yao Qian's suspected criminal case to the procuratorate for review and prosecution in accordance with the law, and the relevant property would be transferred together.
Trump Appoints Crypto-Friendly Howard Lutnick as Next US Commerce Secretary
According to a statement released by the Trump transition team, Trump officially announced the appointment of Howard Lutnick, chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, as the next U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Lutnick will be responsible for leading the U.S. tariff and trade agenda and will be directly responsible for the work of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
It is reported that Cantor Fitzgerald has been the custodian of Tether since the end of 2021, and Howard Lutnick is considered a supporter of cryptocurrency.
Trump Considers Appointing Crypto Lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén as SEC Chair
Trump is expected to announce his nominee for Treasury secretary as early as Wednesday.
Project News
According to the official announcement of Coinbase, affected by the latest review results, Coinbase will suspend the trading service of wBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin) on December 19, 2024, at around 12 noon Eastern Time. The suspension of trading involves all trading modes of the Coinbase platform, including Simple and Advanced Trade, Coinbase Exchange and Coinbase Prime, but users can still access and withdraw their wBTC assets at any time.
In response, the wBTC team issued a statement expressing regret and surprise at Coinbase's decision. The team emphasized that wBTC has always taken compliance, transparency and decentralization as its core principles, providing users with efficient BTC liquidity solutions, while seamlessly integrating with a variety of DeFi protocols, making important contributions to the development of the ecosystem. The wBTC team called on Coinbase to reconsider the decision and expressed its willingness to provide more information to resolve any potential issues.
Coinbase: cbBTC is now available on the Arbitrum Network
According to the official announcement of Coinbase, cbBTC launched by Coinbase is now available on the Arbitrum network. cbBTC is an ERC-20 token supported by Coinbase, and each unit is backed by 1:1 Bitcoin (BTC) as a reserve.
According to the FTX lawsuit, Meerun is a sophisticated and well-organized criminal who has defrauded FTX by manipulating tokens such as BTMX since 2021, causing cumulative losses of more than $1 billion. Its methods include manipulating token prices to increase the value of collateral, exploiting loopholes in the FTX margin system to obtain funds, and evading monitoring through false KYC materials and multiple associated accounts.
The FTX team tried to freeze Meerun’s account but failed to stop its withdrawal in time, resulting in its successful cashing out of $450 million. In addition, Meerun is also suspected of manipulating other tokens such as MOB, BAO, and SXP, taking advantage of the lack of market liquidity to obtain huge profits.
The documents further state that Meerun has close links to organised crime networks in Poland, Romania and Ukraine involved in human trafficking and terrorism financing.
Yu Xian, the founder of SlowMist, tweeted that a user was attacked by a phishing attack because the first and last numbers of the wallet address were similar, and 129 million USDT was mistakenly transferred to the phishing address (THcTxQi3N8wQ13fwntF7a3M88BEi6q1bu8). However, surprisingly, the phishing gang returned 90% of the funds in less than an hour, and the remaining 10% was also returned in full after 4 hours.
Bluesky, a decentralized social media project backed by Jack Dorsey, announced the launch of the Chrome extension "Sky Follower Bridge", which helps users find the same users they follow on Twitter (X) on Bluesky. Last week, it was reported that as the heat of the US election faded, users fled X and flocked to Bluesky.
Archax, a UK-based compliant crypto exchange, announced that it will offer tokenized money market funds backed by State Street, Fidelity International and Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM). The first tokenized assets will be issued on the Hedera Hashgraph, XRPL and Arbitrum blockchains, and the ownership of the assets will be represented by tokenized interests held by customers.
Phantom acquires Web3 firewall Blowfish to enhance wallet security
Well-known crypto security platform Blowfish announced that it has been acquired by self-hosted wallet Phantom. The move aims to integrate Blowfish's advanced security technology and further enhance the security features of Phantom wallet. The Blowfish team will join Phantom to jointly develop more powerful security features including transaction simulation previews and real-time fraud alerts. As the integration progresses, Blowfish's existing services will be gradually closed, and Phantom users will enjoy functional support with higher security standards.
VanEck Openly Supports the Establishment of a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve
Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, posted on the X platform that VanEck publicly supports the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. In addition, there are rumors that BlackRock, the world's largest asset management company, has supported the idea of establishing a US strategic Bitcoin reserve, but as of now BlackRock has not issued an official statement to confirm this.
Binance will remove C98/BTC, IDEX/BTC and other leveraged trading pairs on November 27
Binance officially announced that it will remove the following leveraged trading pairs at 14:00 on November 27, 2024 (Eastern Time 8): • Full leverage: C98/BTC, IDEX/BTC • Isolated leverage: C98/BTC, FIS/BTC, IDEX/BTC, MBOX/BTC, REN/BTC, TKO/BTC.
According to The Block, NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal has agreed to pay $11 million to settle a class action lawsuit stemming from the promotion of the Astrals NFT project. The plaintiff accused O'Neal of helping to promote unregistered securities. The case involves 10,000 Astrals NFTs based on the Solana network and the related "Galaxy" governance tokens. U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno in Miami ruled that these assets may be considered securities, and O'Neal was identified as a possible "seller" because of his role as a "spokesperson" for the project.
It is reported that O'Neal promoted the project through personal influence at the peak of the NFT market, but the market fell sharply after the collapse of the FTX exchange in November 2022. The plaintiff claimed that O'Neal then abandoned the project. He also faced legal action with celebrities such as Tom Brady and Larry David due to his involvement in the FTX endorsement case. If the judge approves the settlement amount, part of the funds will be used to compensate investors for losses and pay attorney fees.
Upbit adds Korean Won trading market supporting BONK
Upbit Exchange announced the addition of a new Korean Won (KRW) trading market supporting Bonk (BONK), based on the Solana network. The specific arrangements are as follows: • Trading opening time: Expected to be 12:30 on November 20, Korean time.
Upbit announces the listing of JASMY and NCT (BTC, USDT markets)
Upbit Exchange announced that it has added new trading markets supporting JasmyCoin (JASMY) and PolySwarm (NCT), supporting trading pairs of BTC and USDT, based on the Ethereum network. The specific arrangements are as follows: • Deposit opening time: within 3 hours after the announcement • Trading opening time: expected to be 15:00 on November 20, Korean time.
ai16z Joint Creation: ELIZA token airdrop for ai16zeliza holders has officially started
ai16z co-founder Shaw announced that the ELIZA token airdrop plan has been officially launched and will be distributed to all ai16zeliza holders. According to snapshot data, a total of 100 million tokens will be airdropped according to the holding ratio, with 20% unlocked immediately and the remaining part unlocked linearly every day, in order to prevent the tokens from being sold in a concentrated manner.
Currently, ai16z DAO holds more than 10% of the token supply, and the project itself holds 3% of the supply through the Squads wallet for future development and growth support. Users can check the airdrop eligibility through the official GitHub link and complete the claim on the Streamflow platform.
Shaw also emphasized that the development team did not profit from yesterday’s events and will use all resources to support the development of the ai16z DAO and ai16zeliza projects.
According to previous news, ai16z co-founder stated that ai16z partner Logan’s sale of Eliza was due to buying the wrong token and was not insider trading .
Rumble considers adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet, 93.8% of users support the move
Chris Pavlovski, founder and CEO of video sharing platform Rumble, launched a poll on social media X, asking whether Bitcoin (BTC) should be included in the company's balance sheet. So far, the poll shows that 93.8% of users support the move.
MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor responded that he was willing to discuss the importance of Bitcoin and specific operations with Pavlovski. Subsequently, Pavlovski said that he had contacted him via private message.
Jupiter Android mobile app is now available on Google Play Store
Solana ecosystem transaction aggregator Jupiter announced on the X platform that the Jupiter mobile app is now available on the Google Play Store for all Android users. Earlier in early October, the Jupiter mobile app was already available on the iOS platform.
LQR House Board of Directors Approves Purchase of $1 Million in Bitcoin as Reserve Assets
According to Accesswire, LQR House Inc. (NASDAQ: LQR), a US listed company, announced today that its board of directors has approved the purchase of $1 million worth of Bitcoin as part of its fund management strategy. In addition, the company will now accept cryptocurrency payments on CWSpirits.com, giving customers the flexibility to use digital currency to purchase alcoholic beverages. As part of the plan, LQR House has adopted a policy to keep up to $10 million in crypto payments as Bitcoin, reflecting the company's confidence in the long-term potential and value of digital assets. The press release stated that while Bitcoin will now be included in LQR House's diversification strategy, the company remains firmly committed to its core business. It is reported that LQR House is a niche e-commerce platform focusing on the spirits and beverage industry.
Dakota is committed to solving existing problems by providing cryptocurrency companies with access to traditional banking services. Dakota is a "crypto-native" online banking platform that allows customers to make US dollar transfers without paying common fees such as ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT or SEPA. In addition, customers can also earn rewards for holding US Treasuries, and their deposits are fully backed by US Treasuries. When a customer opens an account with Dakota, the platform automatically converts funds into "in-platform" stablecoins backed by US Treasuries.
Bitfinex Securities Launches First Public Tokenized U.S. Treasury Bond Offering Under Salvadoran Law
According to Cointelegraph, digital securities exchange Bitfinex Securities is conducting the first public offering of tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds (T-bills) under the legal framework of El Salvador. As part of the offering, El Salvador-based digital asset issuer NexBridge Digital Financial Solutions will issue a new token with the trading code USTBL. The token is designed to provide investors with investment opportunities in short-term U.S. Treasury bonds denominated in U.S. dollars (USD).
Bitfinex Securities' first offering aims to raise at least $30 million to continue issuing tokens, with the initial subscription period starting on November 19, 2024 and ending on November 29. According to Bitfinex Securities, the offering is the "first regulated" U.S. Treasury bond tokenization product based on Bitcoin technology. The new token is issued on the Bitcoin Layer2 network Liquid Network and is expected to provide an annualized yield to maturity of 5.02%. The proceeds from the offering will be allocated to the iShares $ Treasury Bond 0-1yr UCITS ETF, a publicly traded ETF that seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of U.S. dollar-denominated government bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury.
According to The Block, tokenization company Securitize has launched a new way to get liquidity from physical assets through its innovative "sToken" while still earning returns. On Tuesday, the company announced that this token architecture is the result of a collaboration between its subsidiary Securitize Credit and the "synthetic dollar" project Elixir. sTokens are based on Ethereum's ERC-4626 token standard and will provide institutional investors holding RWA issued by Securitize with a way to convert these assets into Elixir's decentralized dollar token deUSD while still earning returns on their investments. BlackRock's BUIDL token will be the first token issued by Securitize to belong to the "deUSD RWA Institutional Program", with other assets planned to be launched later.
Financing News
Stablecoin company Noble completes $15 million Series A financing, led by Paradigm
According to Fortune magazine, the stablecoin company Noble has completed a $15 million Series A financing, led by Paradigm, and other investors have not yet been disclosed. They will use the funds from this round of financing to accelerate the adoption of stablecoins by developing new user-oriented products and expanding the workforce. The new financing brings Noble's total financing amount to $18.3 million. According to reports, Noble hopes to bridge the gap between stablecoin issuers such as Circle and application chain builders by developing a platform that provides higher liquidity. Noble acts as an intermediary, working with stablecoin issuers to efficiently distribute their products to 50 different blockchains and providing developers with a seamless user interface to ensure that their application chains are compatible with Noble. Noble has established partnerships with several stablecoin issuers such as Circle, Ondo Finance, Hashnote Labs, and Monerium. The company has attracted more than $458 million in assets.
Crypto and AI company OpenLayer completes $5 million seed round of financing
According to The Block, OpenLayer, a crypto and artificial intelligence startup founded by three former Robinhood employees, has raised $5 million in seed round financing. The financing was participated by a16z CSX, Geometry, IOSG Ventures, Spartan Group, LongHash Ventures and other angel investors, and some investors came from projects such as EigenLayer and AltLayer.
OpenLayer focuses on developing an AI data layer that allows users to contribute and verify data through a Chrome extension while protecting privacy and earning rewards. Developers can access data based on user permission for AI model training, user targeting, and feature enhancement. The project has been launched as an Active Verification Service (AVS) on EigenLayer, attracting more than 48,575 participants and staking more than $10 billion worth of Ethereum.
OpenLayer plans to launch a token in the future. The current team size is seven people and it is planning to hire two engineers.
Important data
Statistics: More than 60 listed companies have adopted Bitcoin strategies
According to Cointelegraph statistics, more than 60 public companies have already adopted a Bitcoin strategy, and thousands of private companies are following suit.
According to on-chain analyst Ember, a whale trader sold 562.19 WBTC bought nine days ago at an average price of $93,051 after Bitcoin (BTC) hit a record high of $93,905 early this morning, making a profit of approximately $6.84 million.
The whale recently sold WBTC twice after BTC price hit a new high, with a total profit of up to $15.69 million. The funds increased from $37.61 million to $53.3 million. The transaction details are as follows:
In early October, the whale bought 629.4 WBTC at an average price of $60,726, and sold them at an average price of $75,021 after BTC hit a new high on November 8, making a profit of $8.85 million.
On November 11, he re-bought 562.19 WBTC at an average price of $80,885. After BTC hit a new high early this morning, he sold it at an average price of $93,051, making a profit of $6.84 million.
BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Options IBIT's First-Day Trading Volume Nearly $1.9 Billion
According to The Block, driven by the first day of options trading of iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) launched by BlackRock, the price of Bitcoin hit a record high, breaking through the $93,900 mark for the first time. As the first spot Bitcoin ETF approved for options trading, IBIT's first-day trading volume was close to $1.9 billion in notional exposure, totaling 354,000 contracts, including 289,000 call options and 65,000 put options.
Analysts said that this trading volume was significantly higher than the first-day performance of other ETFs, such as BITO's first-day trading volume of only $363 million. Market experts expect that as the interest in the opening of Bitcoin ETF options increases, market liquidity will increase and volatility may gradually decrease. In addition, Bitwise and Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF options are expected to start trading on Wednesday this week, and more similar products will be launched one after another.
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