Today's news tips:
UXLINK 24-hour trading volume ranks first on both Upbit and Bithumb
VitaDAO plans to distribute 6.9 million BIO to VITA and VitaDAO IPT holders
GoPlus releases GPS token economics: 10% of total supply will be used for airdrops
Syncracy Capital co-founded: AI16z, Zerebro and Griffain's FDV is expected to exceed $1 billion
30 new wallets withdrew 1.37 million LINK from Binance in 5 days, worth about $34.1 million
An anonymous user pledged 10,000 BTC on Babylon 10 days ago, worth over $1 billion
Regulatory/Macro
Crypto Stock Performance in 2024: MicroStrategy Up 402%, Core Scientific Up 307%
2024 is a milestone year for the cryptocurrency market, with landmark events including the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs, Bitcoin's halving event in April, and Trump's support, all of which have brought volatility to cryptocurrency-related stocks. Overall, the S&P 500 rose 25%, and Bitcoin prices rose nearly 120%. Among the best-performing stocks, MicroStrategy (MSTR) led with a 402% increase, with a market value of $83 billion. As the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, MicroStrategy continued to buy a large amount of Bitcoin in 2024. Core Scientific (CORZ) followed closely with a 307% increase, successfully signing a 12-year contract with AI giant CoreWeave. Terawulf (WULF) and Bitdeer Technologies (BTDR) also performed strongly, rising 142% and 122%, respectively. In addition, Coinbase (COIN) rose 69%, with a market value of $66.5 billion, and performed steadily. Among the worst performing stocks, Greenridge Generation (GREE) plunged 74%, Argo Blockchain (ARBK) fell 80%, and Gryphon Digital Mining (GRYP) fell 92% due to a sharp drop in revenue.
Financing
Founders Fund is raising about $3 billion for its third growth equity fund
Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, is raising about $3 billion for its third growth equity fund, Axios has learned from multiple sources. Founders Fund has not yet provided potential investors with an official size target for the new fund, but said $3 billion would be the approximate size. Founders Fund has invested in some of the world's most valuable tech startups, including SpaceX and Stripe. It will also have a chance to enter the incoming White House due to Thiel's long-term support for President-elect Trump and the company's multiple investments with Musk. Founders Fund has also invested in multiple crypto projects, including Pudgy Penguins parent company Igloo, Inc., Bitcoin lending platform Lava, Bitcoin rollup project Citrea, etc. Founders Fund successfully raised $3.4 billion for its second growth equity fund in 2022, while raising $1.8 billion for its eighth early-stage fund. However, at the beginning of last year, they decided to split the early-stage fund in two because they perceived relatively few investment opportunities in the market. But as of now, they have not yet started investing in what is now called the "ninth fund." In addition, while there was discussion of spinning off the growth fund, it never happened, and now the majority of the fund’s capital is deployed, including investments in capital-intensive AI companies.
Project News
UXLINK 24-hour trading volume ranks first on both Upbit and Bithumb
Coingecko data shows that UXLINK's 24-hour trading volume ranks first on South Korean crypto exchanges Upbit and Bithumb, at approximately $2.886 billion and $345 million respectively. UXLINK's price is currently $3.63, with a 24-hour increase of 123.7%.
On-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa said: "The top 3 addresses that paid out money to the first AI-Pool public pre-sale project spent a total of 814 SOL, but actually only received 10 SOL equivalent METAV. The excess and overtime transfers seemed to be considered donations. Funding receiving rules: Since the launch process is completely executed by AI, the fund receiving range is 1-10 SOL, and funds below 1 SOL are considered donations. But from the transaction records, it seems that 'funds exceeding 10 SOL' and 'funds transferred after the deadline' are also 'forced donations'." The top 3 addresses that paid out money during the pre-sale stage: 1. Address HRu6k...eoFCw: 574 SOL; no tokens have been received yet, and the position is forced to be locked. 2. Address 4b6ry...bKkjU: 200 SOL; 10 SOL corresponding tokens have been received, that is, 109,628 METAV, all of which have been sold. 3. Address 4MeZj...wpRsB: Transferred 200 SOL. Received 10 SOL corresponding tokens and added 23,000 SOLs. Not sold yet.
VitaDAO plans to distribute 6.9 million BIO to VITA and VitaDAO IPT holders
The VitaDAO community has launched a new proposal to "airdrop BIO tokens to the VitaDAO community" to strengthen the connection between the BIO and VitaDAO communities, while coordinating governance participation by distributing tokens to active VITA and VITA IPT holders. The proposal proposes to distribute up to 6.9 million BIO tokens (from VitaDAO's total allocation of 21 million) to the VitaDAO community through an airdrop mechanism. The distribution will be based on multiple snapshots for VITA token holders and VITA-IPT holders, and the airdrop will use a tiered system to ensure fair distribution among different holder categories. The implementation period of the claim mechanism is 2 months (January 2025-March 2025).
GoPlus releases GPS token economics: 10% of total supply will be used for airdrops
Web3 cybersecurity company GoPlus recently announced that it will issue GPS tokens, and the details of the TGE will be announced soon. The launch of GPS marks the transformation of GoPlus from a security service provider to a decentralized network. The GPS token is designed to power all aspects of this security lifecycle: security service fees, staking rewards, and security transaction fees. Regarding token economics, the total supply of GPS tokens is 10 billion, 60.67% of which are allocated to ecosystem and community growth, and 39.33% are allocated to early contributors and private investors. The allocation for ecosystem and community growth is specifically: 24.67% for community and development, 10% for ecosystem growth, 6% for marketing and growth, 10% for airdrops, 7% for liquidity, and 3% for advisors. The allocation for early contributors and private investors is specifically: 20% for the team, and 19.33% for early supporters from 2021-2024.
Viewpoint
Syncracy Capital co-founded: AI16z, Zerebro and Griffain's FDV is expected to exceed $1 billion
Daniel Cheung, co-founder of Syncracy Capital, said that several AI agent platforms on Solana are expected to achieve a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of more than $1 billion in the next phase. He specifically mentioned AI16z, Zerebro and Griffain as the projects most likely to reach this goal.
Jon Ma, founder of Artemis, an institutional data platform for cryptocurrencies, shared his experience of entering the cryptocurrency industry from the traditional financial sector on social media. He mentioned that when he first came into contact with Bitcoin in 2015, he did not take it seriously until 2017 when he paid attention to it again and bought Bitcoin and other crypto assets.
He said that through communication with Erik Voorhees of Shapeshift, he began to realize the possibility of separating currency from the government. In the following years, he missed the DeFi craze and the rise of NFT, but re-entered the encryption field in 2021, invested in Solana and its NFT, and tried to participate in DeFi projects.
He and his girlfriend also support Filipino scholars through Axie Infinity. He believes that in the future, participants in the traditional financial field will drive crypto assets from US$3.5 trillion to more than US$100 trillion. Asset management companies such as Fidelity and BlackRock are actively launching digital asset ETFs and related products, and the world's largest fintech companies Stripe and Visa are also likely to benefit from the crypto payment network.
Matrixport: Ethereum’s opportunity to enter the market again may be coming
Matrixport said that Ethereum, like Bitcoin, tends to lose momentum when prices rise sharply, especially when prices rise by more than 60% in 30 days. According to historical data, this is usually a good opportunity to make profits. The current price has been pulled back to the same position as a month ago, which may mean that an opportunity to re-enter the market is brewing, especially if the cryptocurrency bull market is expected to continue until 2025.
It is worth noting that Ethereum has not shown the higher beta characteristics of the previous bull market in this round of rebound. However, it is still an asset favored by investors. The recent continuous inflow of ETF funds is the best proof. This strong demand not only highlights the importance of Ethereum, but also shows that it is still attracting attention even if it performs slightly below expectations in this cycle.
According to Morningstar, cryptocurrency research firm K33 Research pointed out that Bitcoin has been vacillating since breaking the $100,000 milestone earlier this month. But history shows that it may hit a new all-time high around mid-January next year. Vetle Lunde, director of research at K33, said that based on data from Bitcoin's past three cycles, the average duration of Bitcoin from the first to the last all-time high in each cycle was 318 days. With Bitcoin hitting its first all-time high on March 5 of the current cycle, if the average duration of previous cycles repeats, investors may see the cryptocurrency reach a new peak in this cycle on January 17, 2025. If Bitcoin really reaches its cycle peak in mid-January next year, it will be close to Trump's US presidential inauguration, January 20.
Important data
According to Spot On Chain monitoring, the suspected Justin Sun address transferred 70,182 ETH ($244.9 million) to HTX 7 hours ago, including 42,905 ETH unstaked from Lido Finance and 27,277 ETH transferred from Etherfi. Since November 10, he has deposited 179,101 ETH ($645 million) to HTX at an average price of $3,601. He still holds 106,905 STETH ($372.4 million) and 56,277 EETH ($195.8 million), of which 25,000 ETH ($87 million) has been unstaked from Etherfi. Earlier yesterday, Justin Sun denied rumors of liquidating ETH, saying that this was just an ETH transfer operation between different wallets by the team.
Glassnode: Solana has maintained positive net capital inflows since early September 2023
Glassnode posted on the X platform: “Solana has maintained positive net capital inflows since early September 2023, with only small outflows during this period. This continued influx of liquidity has helped stimulate Solana’s growth and price increases, reaching a significant peak of $776 million in new capital inflows per day.”
Coinbase International's weekly trading volume hits a record high of $119 billion
Coinbase International saw total trading volume of over $119 billion last week, a record high. The weekly total was 124% higher than the previous week’s total, while the daily average for the past week was 164% higher than the daily average for the previous week. Coinbase International’s average daily trading volume in November was just $2.5 billion. As of December, the exchange’s average daily trading volume was close to $10 billion. The top five trading pairs on Coinbase International include perpetual futures for BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, and DOGE, accounting for 99.8% of the exchange’s total trading volume. BTC-PERP accounted for 57% of the total trading volume, followed by ETH-PERP at 34%.
According to Cointelegraph, the total transaction volume of decentralized exchange (DEX) PancakeSwap reached $310 billion in 2024, an increase of nearly 179% year-on-year from $111 billion in 2023. PancakeSwap reported that mainly due to L2 networks Arbitrum and Base, the cryptocurrency transaction volume on Arbitrum increased by 3,656% year-on-year to $13.2 billion, while the cryptocurrency transaction volume on Base increased by 3,539% year-on-year to $11.6 billion by 2024. In addition, PancakeSwap's transaction volume increased by 179% year-on-year, reflecting positive market sentiment and increased activities in the DeFi and DEX fields.
According to Naver, Bank of Korea data showed that as of the end of November, the number of cryptocurrency investors in South Korea reached 15.59 million, an increase of 610,000 from October. This figure accounts for more than 30% of the country's total population, reflecting the increase in market activity after US President-elect Trump pledged to support the cryptocurrency industry. The rise in Bitcoin prices also contributed to the growth of this trend. As of the end of November, the total cryptocurrency holdings of Korean investors totaled 102.6 trillion won (about 70.8 billion US dollars), compared with 58 trillion won (about 40 billion US dollars) in October. The average daily trading volume in November reached 14.9 trillion won (about 10.288 billion US dollars), which is equivalent to the sum of the average daily trading volume of the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) market and the Korea Stock Market Index (KOSDAQ) market in the same month.
An address with a balance of approximately 13.14 million USDT on the Ethereum chain was frozen
According to Whale Alert monitoring, at around 06:36 Beijing time today, an address with a balance of 13,145,135 USDT on the Ethereum chain was frozen.
An anonymous user pledged 10,000 BTC on Babylon 10 days ago, worth over $1 billion
Bitcoin pledge protocol Babylon disclosed in its official blog that on December 15, during the third launch of the Babylon Bitcoin pledge protocol mainnet, an anonymous pledger pledged 10,000 bitcoins through three transactions, worth more than $1 billion. Babylon said: "Before this, the largest pledges came from entities that wanted to pledge for their users (such as LST protocols and custodians), but such a large-scale pledge by an individual is of particular significance to Babylon and its protocol. Whoever this person is, they decided to pledge directly to Babylon instead of through LST, which pushed the concept of 'trustless' pledge from the abstract to the concrete."
30 new wallets withdrew 1.37 million LINK from Binance in 5 days, worth about $34.1 million
According to Lookonchain monitoring, a total of 30 newly created wallets withdrew 1.37 million LINK from Binance in the past 5 days, worth approximately US$34.1 million.
