Today's news tips:
Trump team considers former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins to replace Gary Gensler
Russia passes cryptocurrency tax law, redefining digital currency rules
Binance: BNSOL Super Staking will launch the first phase of the project Pyth Network
Celsius to Make Second Distribution of $127 Million to Eligible Creditors
The Genesis Event of Hyperliquid’s Native Token HYPE Will Be Held on November 29
Regulation & Policy
According to Jinshi, on November 23rd, local time, US President-elect Trump announced the nomination of Brooke Rollins as Secretary of Agriculture. So far, all the cabinet ministers of Trump's new administration have been confirmed. In addition, Trump has nominated several high-level officials in the past few weeks. Judging from the list of the new government, in addition to Musk, Howard Lutnick and other well-known names in the crypto market, many cabinet officials are firm supporters of cryptocurrencies and have publicly disclosed their cryptocurrency holdings, including the nominated vice president, secretary of the treasury, secretary of commerce, secretary of health and human services, director of national intelligence, etc.
Trump team considers former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins to replace Gary Gensler
According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter revealed that President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has interviewed Paul Atkins, a senior financial regulator and behind-the-scenes think tank in the conservative financial community, as a candidate for the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. People familiar with the matter said that Atkins is one of the strongest contenders to replace the outgoing SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. Trump is expected to make a choice in the next few days, but has not yet made a decision. According to previous news, Atkins is not only proficient in cryptocurrency technology, but also has a deep understanding of the internal operations of the SEC. He has served as a commissioner and staff member of two SEC chairmen, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt.
Russia passes cryptocurrency tax law, redefining digital currency rules
According to Bitcoin.com, on Wednesday, the upper house of the Russian parliament approved a government-sponsored bill outlining a tax framework for digital currencies. The bill had received preliminary approval in the State Duma (lower house) the day before and was finally passed in a plenary session on Wednesday. The new law classifies digital currencies (including those used as payment instruments under an experimental legal framework) as property under the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. This classification exempts digital currency mining and sales transactions from value-added tax (VAT), reducing the financial burden on participants in this field. In addition, services provided by authorized organizations that facilitate transactions under these experimental frameworks will also be tax-free. An important provision requires mining infrastructure operators to report personal data on the use of their systems to the tax authorities. Income from digital currency mining will be considered taxable income and form the basis for personal income tax. According to Danil Volkov, head of the relevant department of the Russian Ministry of Finance, companies engaged in mining activities will be taxed at standard corporate income tax rates. The law stipulates that mining income will be taxed based on the value of assets on international exchanges. For most digital currency earners, the personal income tax rate will remain at 13%, and from 2025, the tax rate will increase to 15% for those with an annual income of more than 2.4 million rubles. During the legislative process, the bill needs to be reviewed several times in the State Duma, approved by the Federation Council, and signed by the President before it can become law. With the expected support of President Putin, the legislation will formally establish a detailed tax framework for digital currencies in Russia.
AI
According to Bitcoin.com, Databricks, a San Francisco-based data analysis and artificial intelligence (AI) company, has raised $5 billion in its latest round of financing, which will bring the company's valuation to $55 billion. Sources said Databricks plans to raise a total of $8 billion, which is expected to be the largest financing round this year. Databricks' latest round of financing is reportedly intended to allow employees to sell shares, thereby reducing the need for an immediate initial public offering (IPO). However, while the IPO may not come soon, it is still possible that it will happen in the second half of 2025. While the report did not disclose the identities of the investors involved in the latest round of financing, it revealed that the company's well-known backers include Nvidia, Capital One, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, Insight Partners and Tiger Global. In the September 2023 financing, Databricks raised $500 million and the company was valued at $43 billion. OpenAI currently holds the record for the largest financing round in 2024, raising $6.6 billion in October. Billionaire Musk's XAI also received $5 billion in funding, bringing the company's valuation to $50 billion. Another AI startup, Anthropic, received $400 million in funding from Amazon, bringing its total funding to $8 billion.
Project News
Binance: BNSOL Super Staking will launch the first phase of the project Pyth Network (PYTH)
According to the official announcement of Binance, BNSOL Super Staking will launch the first phase of the project - Oracle Network Pyth Network (PYTH). From 08:00 on December 2, 2024 to 07:59 on December 17, 2024 (Eastern Time), users who hold BNSOL in their Binance accounts and Web3 wallets, or stake SOL to BNSOL, will receive PYTH APR Boost airdrop rewards. These PYTH APR Boost airdrop rewards are additional token airdrops provided on top of the Binance SOL staking base annualized interest rate, providing users with a higher rate of return. BNSOL Super Staking Reward Pool: Opening date is from December 2, 2024 to December 17, 2024; the total reward pool contains 1,428,571.43 PYTH, and the daily reward amount is 95,238.095 PYTH. PYTH APR Boost airdrop rewards will be available at around 13:30 (GMT+8) every day starting from December 3, 2024.
a16z general partner Sriram Krishnan announces he will leave the company at the end of the year
a16z general partner Sriram Krishnan announced on the X platform: "After working at a16z for 4 years, I will leave the company at the end of the year. I will talk about my future plans later, and I will share more information in the next few months." In addition, according to The Information, Krishnan has discussed with Elon Musk about joining the government efficiency department he heads.
Celsius to Make Second Distribution of $127 Million to Eligible Creditors
According to Beincrypto, Celsius is preparing to distribute a second round of $127 million from its litigation recovery account to eligible creditors. Funds will be distributed in the form of Bitcoin, Ethereum or US dollars according to eligibility. According to the latest bankruptcy court documents, after deducting fees and expenses, the litigation administrator allocated approximately $127 million for this round of payments. The funds will be distributed to "post-effective date debtors" among Celsius creditors who have the right to recover non-current assets under the company's bankruptcy plan. A portion of the funds specified in the plan will be retained as reserves. It is worth noting that creditors who wish to receive distributions in the form of BTC or ETH must have an active Coinbase account, and the account information must be consistent with the information recorded by Celsius. Celsius said on X: "According to the Coinbase agreement, non-corporate creditors who have not received Celsius distributions through Coinbase after November 9, 2024 will automatically be transferred to the US dollar distribution partner for processing."
Rushi Manche, co-founder of Movement Labs, publicly accused the Scroll team of many problems on the X platform, including: 1. After years of community, it launched a predatory incentive plan, which ultimately passed the burden on to ordinary investors. 2. The team has been selling secondary market share for several years before going online. 3. The rest of the team was forced to buy at a valuation of $1.8 billion, while senior leaders sold at the same time. 4. The Scroll team directly distributed the airdrop to their own wallets and then cashed out. 5. The most predatory token economic model was designed with the goal of harming every community member. Manche accused the Scroll team of damaging the reputation of the EVM L2 ecosystem and called on it to make improvements to avoid "making it look like a complete scam."
Later in the day, Scroll responded to the doubts: they would improve the project design issues and the team was making structural adjustments .
The Aave community initiated the ARFC proposal of "Establishing a Strategic Partnership with Instadapp by Investing in INST Tokens". The proposal includes Aave DAO establishing a strategic partnership with the multi-chain DeFi management protocol Instadapp by investing $4 million in INST tokens at a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $350 million, aiming to strengthen cooperation and coordination between the two protocols. Aave DAO will allocate up to 1/3 of INST tokens to support the GHO trading pair on Fluid through Merit. DAO will also provide support and promotion for Instadapp products that utilize the Aave protocol (including GHO and Fluid integration). The remaining tokens will be set with a one-year vesting period and authorized to the Aave Protocol Embassy.
Coinbase: Pepe (PEPE) has been launched for users in New York State
According to the Coinbase Assets announcement, Pepe (PEPE) is now open to users in New York State. Users can buy, sell, convert, send, receive or store PEPE assets through the Coinbase official website and its iOS and Android applications. Coinbase obtained a virtual currency business license issued by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) on January 17, 2017 to ensure compliance operations. In addition, NYDFS also approved Coinbase to establish Coinbase Custody Trust Company LLC in 2018. However, due to failure to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act and the Anti-Money Laundering Program (BSA/AML Program) as well as transaction monitoring and network security programs, Coinbase reached a $100 million settlement agreement with NYDFS in 2023.
SOS Ltd., a Chinese company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, announced that its board of directors has approved a plan to invest $50 million to purchase Bitcoin (BTC) in order to strengthen its blockchain industry layout. SOS said that the plan not only reflects its long-term confidence in Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset, but also hopes to optimize its investment portfolio and enhance the company's competitiveness in the field of digital assets. SOS will adopt a diversified quantitative trading strategy, including investment, trading and arbitrage, to reduce market volatility risks and achieve stable returns. SOS has a market value of approximately $9.16 million. After opening today, it may have been affected by this news and soared 47.19%.
Tether announced that it will stop supporting its euro stablecoin EUR₮ and will stop processing new minting requests in 2022. This decision is based on the increasingly complex regulatory environment in the European stablecoin market. At the same time, Tether will give priority to supporting new projects, such as the new stablecoins EURQ and USDQ launched in cooperation with Quantoz Payments in compliance with MiCAR regulations. Tether will also provide efficient and compliant support for the issuance of assets, including stablecoins, through its technology platform Hadron. Existing EUR₮ users must complete the redemption operation before November 27, 2025.
Binance to Launch MORPHO and CHILLGUY USDT Perpetual Contracts
Binance Futures will launch perpetual contracts with a maximum leverage of 75x at the following times: November 27, 2024, 22:30 (ET8): MORPHOUSDT perpetual contract; November 27, 2024, 22:45 (ET8): CHILLGUYUSDT perpetual contract.
Clanker Co-creation: After the Clanker contract upgrade, users can receive a 40% fee share
According to Clanker co-founder proxystudio.eth, the team is upgrading the contract to allow users to directly receive a 40% fee share (including ETH and tokens). MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay previously stated that the Meme coin CONSENT has been tested on the Base and Solana chains. Data shows that the market value on the Solana chain is $2.8 million and on the Base chain is $2 million. Clanker is an AI-driven token deployment tool that allows users to submit token ideas through Farcaster clients such as Warpcast and quickly launch tokens on the Base chain. Related reading: Clanker: "Pump.fun" on the Base chain
Hyperliquid reminds users to accept the Genesis Event terms as soon as possible
According to the Hyper Foundation announcement, users who have recently started using Hyperliquid L1 and those who have missed it before must review and accept the Genesis Event terms and conditions before 23:59 UTC on November 28 (07:59 Beijing time on November 29). Failure to complete on time may affect the eligibility to participate in the event, so please act in time.
According to official news, Japanese listed company Metaplanet announced the issuance of mobile execution stock subscription rights to raise up to 9.5 billion yen (62 million US dollars) to accelerate the accumulation of Bitcoin.
The Genesis Event of Hyperliquid’s Native Token HYPE Will Be Held on November 29
According to the official blog, the Hyper Foundation announced that the genesis event of HYPE, the native token of the decentralized derivatives trading platform Hyperliquid, will take place at 15:30 on November 29, Beijing time. The maximum supply of HYPE is 1 billion, which is allocated as follows: 38.888% for future emissions and community rewards; 31.0% for the genesis allocation; 23.8% for current and future core contributors; 6.0% for the Super Foundation budget; 0.3% for community grants; 0.012% for HIP-2. Tokens will be issued over time, of which 76.2% will be allocated to the community. Eligible participants in the genesis event will receive 310 million tokens, which will be fully unlocked. Unallocated tokens will be transferred to future issuance and community rewards. 60 million HYPE are allocated to the Hyper Foundation budget, 300 HYPE are allocated to grants, and 120,000 HYPE are allocated to Hyperliquidity (HIP-2). 388,880,000 unminted HYPE are reserved for future issuance and community rewards. Core Contributor tokens will be locked for 1 year after genesis. Most vesting is scheduled to be completed between 2027-2028; some will continue after 2028. The genesis allocation strictly excludes core contributors. No allocations are provided for private investors, centralized exchanges, or market makers.
SlowMist: There are obvious violations in the JUMPFUN project, please pay attention to the risks
Yu Xian, the founder of SlowMist, said in a post: "According to the feedback from the SlowMist Zone Intelligence Officer, the JUMPFUN project (@jumpdotfun) is suspected of suspicious behavior. After analyzing the project contracts and transaction records, we found the following suspicious situations: The JUMPBonusPool contract was originally designed with two core mechanisms: 1. Bonus pool mechanism: The last 5 users who participated in the donation can share the accumulated ETH bonus; 2. Time extension mechanism: Each time a user makes a donation, the game time will be automatically extended by 30 seconds. Yesterday, the project party used the owner authority to modify the JUMPBonusPool contract pointed to by the JUMPTreasury contract twice through the setEmergencyBonusPool function. This modification prevented users from participating in the grand prize competition of the JUMPBonusPool contract that had accumulated bonuses before through normal donations. It is worth noting that the newly replaced JUMPBonusPool contract has not been open sourced. These behaviors are seriously inconsistent with the description of the activity rules previously disclosed by the project party, and there are obvious violations. Remind all participating users to pay attention to risks and participate with caution."
According to previous news, SlowMist stated that attackers used the XSS vulnerability of the Cointelegraph website to carry out phishing .
Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on his personal TG channel: "Major Mini Program is one of my favorite success stories of Telegram ecosystem. Launched by 27-year-old entrepreneur Roxman, Major has gained more than $10 million in revenue and 70 million users in just 5 months. I like Major because it can quickly adopt the new possibilities of the mini program platform and add features that feel naturally belong to Telegram. I also like Roxman, and I have been following him before he launched Fabrika and Major. Roxman generously donated 1% of the MAJOR tokens to me, and I will not sell these tokens in the next 10 years. I heard that the Major team is preparing many innovations (such as username NFT leasing and digital ID). Tomorrow is a big day for them. The MAJOR token will be listed on six major exchanges. I wish them good luck."
Robinhood Launches Ethereum Staking Service for European Users
According to Crowdfund Insider, Robinhood announced the launch of Ethereum staking services, through which European users can earn returns on their ETH holdings. In addition, earlier this year, Robinhood Crypto launched Solana staking services in Europe. Johann Kerbrat, general manager and vice president of Robinhood Crypto, said that staking services are a highly demanded feature for users, but they may be complicated for cryptocurrency novices. Robinhood has simplified the staking process, allowing users to efficiently contribute to the security of the ETH network while earning returns.
Tether CEO: Tether's commodity liquidity pool could reach $5 billion by 2026
BitWise submits ETF application to the US SEC to track 10 cryptocurrency indexes
According to Beincrypto, BitWise has submitted an application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch an ETF based on its 10 cryptocurrency index funds. If the application is approved, this will become the most diversified and widely covered cryptocurrency ETF in the U.S. market. According to the document, the fund includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Avalanche, Chainlink, Bitcoin Cash, Polkadot and Uniswap. BitWise has maintained this initial fund since 2018 and has linked its value to the ten most valuable cryptocurrencies. The SEC has officially confirmed receipt of the application, marking the beginning of the countdown for the committee to decide whether to reject or approve the application. However, the deadline for approval of the application has not yet been determined.
Mining News
According to an official announcement, Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings, Inc announced that it has acquired an additional 703 Bitcoins through the issuance of $1 billion in zero-interest convertible senior notes, bringing the total amount of Bitcoin purchased through this batch of senior notes issuance to 6,474, with an average price of $95,395 per Bitcoin. The yield per Bitcoin from the beginning of the year to date is 36.7%. The company currently holds a total of approximately 34,794 Bitcoins, with a total value of approximately $3.3 billion based on the current Bitcoin spot price of $95,000. MARA has repurchased part of the $200 million worth of bonds due in 2026; after deducting transaction costs, the remaining proceeds are approximately $160 million, which can be used for future purchases when the price of Bitcoin falls.
Tether-backed Northern Data receives acquisition offer for its crypto mining unit
Northern Data AG is close to a deal to sell its cryptocurrency mining business, Bloomberg reported, as the company looks to capitalize on the November bitcoin rally. Northern Data Chief Financial Officer Elliot Jordan said the company has hired bankers, invited bidders to make offers, and is currently reviewing proposals. "It's best described as 'in progress,' and we're receiving offers from multiple different parties, and it's going well," Jordan said in a speech at the German Equity Forum on Wednesday. Jordan said Northern Data did not value the business, but it was reportedly valued at $300 million to $500 million before bitcoin's rally. "Obviously, now is the best time to sell this business," he told investors. Northern Data, whose major shareholder is stablecoin issuer Tether, is seeking to free up funds to expand its artificial intelligence services business. This is a shift that many mining companies are exploring after the April bitcoin software update, which halved its main source of revenue. Earlier in October, it was reported that Northern Data planned to sell its crypto mining division Peak Mining.
XT Exchange: Changes in the platform's own funds will not affect user interests
According to the official announcement of XT, the XT exchange detected an abnormal transfer in the platform wallet , involving the on-chain address 0xdb3ded7731c781224ec292e2163d9554c094fd7c, an amount of approximately 1 million US dollars, involving 12 different currency assets. XT stated that the assets involved in this incident are the platform's own funds and will not affect the interests of users.
Currently, the technical team is conducting an urgent investigation into the incident and plans to launch the Merkel Tree asset proof system in mid-December.
Earlier reports said that the cryptocurrency exchange XT.COM was suspected to have been hacked and has currently suspended withdrawals of all currencies .
Important data
According to UnChained, the L2 network Base incubated by Coinbase reached 11.4 million transactions in a single day yesterday, setting not only a record high for the Base network, but also a new record for all Ethereum L2s. Analysis shows that while Meme coin activity mainly occurs on Solana, Clanker, an artificial intelligence agent on the decentralized network Farcaster, is helping the growth of on-chain activity on Meme season and Base. The large language model Clanker has currently deployed about 4,700 tokens.
Stablecoin trading volume surges to $1.8 trillion so far in November
According to CCData's November 27 report, as of November 25, the monthly stablecoin trading volume has increased sharply by 77.5% to $1.81 trillion. This growth puts the monthly trading volume of centralized exchanges on track to hit a new annual high. The total market value of stablecoins continued its 14-month upward trend, increasing by 9.94% in November to $190 billion, exceeding the historical high of $188 billion before the collapse of Terra's TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin in April 2022. Despite the growth, the market share of stablecoins fell from 7.22% in October to 5.54% as investors and traders increased their diversified investments in Bitcoin and altcoins. USDT continued to show strong performance, with its market value increasing by 10.5% to $133 billion. USDT accounts for 69.9% of the overall market, followed by Circle's USDC, whose market value increased by 12.1% in November to $38.9 billion, the highest level since February 2023. Ethena Labs’ USDe also showed momentum, with its market cap increasing by 42.2% to $3.86 billion.
According to Deribit data, BTC options and ETH options with a total notional value of approximately $10.85 billion will expire tomorrow. Among them, the notional value of BTC options to expire is $9.4 billion, the Put Call Ratio is 0.83, and the maximum pain point is $80,000; the notional value of ETH options to expire is $1.45 billion, the Put Call Ratio is 0.73, and the maximum pain point is $2,900.
