Today's news tips:
Crypto.com surpasses Coinbase to become North American cryptocurrency trading leader
Binance will stop supporting deposits and withdrawals of BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) network
Cardano founder announces Cardano L1 will transform into Bitcoin L2
Vitalik proposes key goals for Ethereum's future development in the Splurge phase
Alchemy Pay announces launch of L1 blockchain Alchemy Chain, enabling gas payments via ACH
Regulatory News
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is discussing whether to shut down its pilot cross-border payments platform mBridge after Russian President Vladimir Putin viewed the underlying technology as a tool to circumvent sanctions and potentially undermine the dollar’s dominance in the global financial system, Bloomberg reported. The mBridge project, which promises to allow remittances around the world without relying on U.S. banks, was one of the topics discussed by central banks and finance ministers at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington last week, according to people familiar with the matter. Closing the project is one of the options on this topic, according to people familiar with the matter. BIS President Agustin Carstens, whose term ends in June, said at a Group of 30 event in the U.S. capital on Saturday: “We cannot directly support any BRICS project because we cannot work with countries that are under sanctions - I want to make that very clear.”
According to CNBC, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop a political action committee (PAC) controlled by Musk from rewarding registered voters in swing states with $1 million. A few days before prosecutor Larry Krasner filed the lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter warning Musk's political action committee that its random distribution of $1 million in prizes may violate federal election laws.
AI
Meta is developing an AI-powered search engine to reduce its reliance on Google and Microsoft
According to Cailianshe, citing The Information, Meta is developing a search engine that crawls the web to provide answers to conversations about current events for users using the Meta AI chatbot. The company is trying to keep up with OpenAI in artificial intelligence development. According to a person who has spoken with the search engine team, Meta hopes that doing so will reduce its dependence on Google Search and Microsoft's Bing, which currently provide news, sports and stock information to users using Meta AI. According to a person involved in the strategy, it may also give Meta a backup option if Google or Microsoft withdraws from these arrangements.
Project News
Crypto.com surpasses Coinbase to become North American cryptocurrency trading leader
Crypto.com’s digital asset trading has exploded this year, making the crypto exchange’s trading volume in North America far surpass that of Coinbase (COIN), according to CoinDesk. Crypto.com’s monthly spot trading volume soared from $34 billion in July to $134 billion in September, according to The Block. The overall trading volume of North American cryptocurrency exchanges in September was $183 billion, of which Coinbase processed $46 billion. Crypto.com surpassed Coinbase for the first time in July and continued to lead in October. The Block data shows that the exchange has traded $112 billion so far this month, while the total trading volume of exchanges in the region is $173 billion. The third largest exchange, Kraken, lagged far behind in October, with trading volume just under $10 billion. A key reason for Crypto.com’s popularity may be the wide variety of tokens it offers. It has listed more than 378 tokens, compared to no more than 290 tokens listed on Coinbase and Kraken.
Mantle: COOK, the governance token of the mETH protocol, is now open for claiming
Mantle announced in its official blog that COOK, the governance token of the mETH protocol, is now open for claiming. The total supply of COOK is 5 billion, and the initial circulation supply is 916 million. Users who hold eligible mETH positions during Season 1: Methamorphosis, or who have participated in Stash activities and the "Methamorphosis Journey" mission, can claim their tokens. COOK tokens will be listed on multiple exchanges at 18:00 Beijing time today.
Stacks’ Nakamoto upgrade is now live, introducing “fast blocks” and “Bitcoin finality” mechanisms
Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Bitcoin Layer2 network Stacks, said on the X platform that the Nakamoto upgrade of Stacks has been successfully launched. With this upgrade, Bitcoin's finality reaches 100% for Stacks Layer2 transactions, and transaction ordering and reversal are protected by Bitcoin's full hash power; "Fast Blocks" shortens the delay to a few seconds instead of Bitcoin's 10-40 minutes; Stacks no longer forks from Bitcoin, and the only way to fork Stacks L2 is to reorganize Bitcoin itself; Nakamoto lays the foundation for the launch of SBTC, which is expected to be launched in 4-6 weeks from now. The core developers released this version with a focus on network security and a large-scale upgrade. In the coming weeks, more optimization measures for network bandwidth and latency will be launched; these upgrades are not consensus-critical upgrades, but normal node upgrades.
Ant Chain unveils its “Two Chains and One Bridge” platform for RWA business
According to official news, Ant Chain, a subsidiary of Ant Digits, unveiled for the first time at the Hong Kong Fintech Week its "Two Chains and One Bridge" platform for RWA business, which aims to help more mainland new energy assets go to Hong Kong RWA and enable technology to empower physical assets. Zhang Chenguang, head of Web3 business products at Ant Digits, introduced that "Two Chains and One Bridge" specifically refers to "Asset Chain", "Transaction Chain" and "Ant Chain Trusted Cross-Chain Bridge". The application of "Asset Chain" in the mainland enables the physical assets of enterprises to be digitized and standardized, thereby transforming them into tradable financial products. "Transaction Chain" focuses on tokenizing funds, especially funds from traditional financial institutions, and realizing efficient circulation and transactions of funds through blockchain technology.
Later in the day, Ant Financial announced that it would increase its investment by 1 billion yuan in the Greater Bay Area within three years .
Binance will stop supporting deposits and withdrawals on the BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) network
According to the official announcement of Binance, the BNB Chain team will complete the BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) network integration plan at 14:00 (ET) on November 19, 2024. Therefore, Binance will stop processing all withdrawal requests for BEP2 tokens at 08:00 (ET) on November 01, 2024, and stop processing all recharge requests for BEP2 tokens except Binance pegged tokens (B-tokens) at 08:00 (ET) on November 08, 2024. Binance strongly recommends users to recharge B-tokens of the BEP2 network to their Binance accounts before 14:00 (ET) on November 19, 2024, that is, before the BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) network integration plan is completed. These tokens will be accounted for and users can withdraw them through their native chains or other networks supported by Binance.
Elijah Madonia, a whale holding 16% of the ai16z supply, said on the X platform that he had purchased 17% of the ai16z supply with 80 SOLs, and then sent some tokens to ai16z founder Shaw and another team member because "they didn't even have the chance to buy it themselves"; afterwards, Elijah distributed some tokens to friends at a discount, hoping to share the profits. Elijah further pointed out that he still holds 16% of the ai16z supply and plans to reduce it to 5%, and donate the remaining 11% to the ai16z lockup program, which aims to support promising developers and creators and help solve liquidity problems through viable OTC transactions, which are conducive to the development of ai16z DAO and the introduction of new partners.
Truth Terminal founder X account attacker made $602,500 in one hour
According to Lookonchain monitoring, an attacker hacked into the X account of Andy Ayrey, the founder of Truth Terminal, and released the IB information of the new token, making a profit of $602,500 in less than an hour.
Cardano founder announces Cardano L1 will transform into Bitcoin L2
According to Ordinal News, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson changed his stance on Bitcoin and announced that Cardano L1 will transform into Bitcoin L2.
According to CoinDesk, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said that the company respects international sanctions and works closely with law enforcement, but admitted that it ultimately has to obey the US authorities. Ardoino said: "If the United States wants to kill us, they can press a button and kill us anywhere. We will not fight the United States." Ardoinohi also said that the company is "doing its best" to combat the use of illegal cryptocurrencies, but compared with the US dollar, USDT's role in illegal finance is "insignificant." Speaking of the role played by Tether's key ally Howard Lutnick in Donald Trump's campaign, he said that the company "does not expect any political favors from anyone."
Arthur Hayes: China's economic stimulus measures are expected to drive cryptocurrency gains
In his latest article, Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, said that China's stimulus measures will inject trillions of dollars into financial markets and drive up cryptocurrencies. For those who believe that the market will immediately see future trends and push up the price of Bitcoin accordingly, Hayes said that these expectations may be disappointed. He pointed out that both the quantitative easing policy of the People's Bank of China and the re-acceleration of bank credit growth will take time to achieve their effects. In the initial stages of the policy, Chinese savers tend to buy domestic stocks and apartments that are undervalued by the market. But Hayes believes that given enough time, the long-term impact of these policies will be obvious. Hayes believes that this actually provides investors with an excellent buying opportunity. Because when those ordinary wealthy coastal residents decide to invest in Bitcoin, the price surge will be reminiscent of the scene in August 2015-after the unexpected devaluation of the RMB, the price of Bitcoin soared from $135 to $600, almost quintupling in less than three months.
Sequoia Capital to receive more than $100 million from Stripe's acquisition of Bridge
According to Cointelegraph, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital owns a 16% stake in the stablecoin platform Bridge, and the company is expected to receive more than $100 million in proceeds from Stripe's $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge. People familiar with the matter said that Sequoia Capital invested $19 million in Bridge's Series A financing last year. Other venture capital firms will also receive hundreds of millions of dollars in windfalls from Bridge's shares, including Ribbit Capital, Haun Ventures, Index Ventures and Bedrock Fund Management. Ribbit's stake in Bridge is about 10%, worth $100 million, while Bedrock and Index Ventures each hold about 6% of the shares, and Kathryn Haun's venture capital firm holds 4%. Earlier news, Stripe acquired the stablecoin payment platform Bridge for $1.1 billion; this marks the largest acquisition in the crypto industry to date.
Vitalik proposes key goals for Ethereum's future development in the Splurge phase
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published "The Future of Ethereum Protocol Part 6: The Splurge". The key goals are as follows: 1. Make EVM reach a high-performance and stable "endgame state"; 2. Introduce account abstraction in the protocol so that all users can benefit from safer and more convenient accounts; 3. Optimize transaction fee economics, improve scalability, and reduce risks; 4. Explore advanced encryption technologies that can make Ethereum better in the long run.
Magic Eden: Users are not encouraged to trade the test token TestME because it has no economic value
According to the official blog, NFT market Magic Eden said that the application time for the ME Foundation's test token TestME is from 02:00 on October 30 to 08:00 on November 1, Beijing time. Residents of the United Kingdom and the United States cannot participate in the application. Each eligible wallet can only receive TestME once. All eligible wallets will receive the same fixed number of tokens, and there is no need to keep them after receiving TestME. The role of the test coin is to familiarize users with the process of receiving tokens, and to help project parties identify and resolve any potential problems before the official ME token is issued. Magic Eden does not encourage users to trade test tokens because it has no economic value. Users who participate in TestME will not receive any financial compensation or benefits from Magic Eden; TestME tokens will not have any impact on ME token applications.
US media: Bloomberg boss has spent nearly $100 million to support Harris
According to a report by Jinshi citing the New York Times, several people familiar with the matter said that former New York Mayor and Bloomberg boss Michael Bloomberg recently donated $50 million to a nonprofit organization supporting Democratic presidential candidate Harris. People familiar with the matter said that Bloomberg's latest donation went to the nonprofit organization Future Forward USA Action. Before this anonymous donation, he had already provided $47 million in public political donations to the Democratic Party, second only to George Soros among all the major Democratic donors. Bloomberg invested $95 million to help the Democratic Party in the 2018 midterm elections. According to Forbes data, Bloomberg, 82, is worth about the same as Bill Gates, about $105 billion.
Source: Trump family crypto project WLFI plans to issue stablecoin
According to Decrypt, sources said that the Trump family cryptocurrency project "World Liberty Financial" (WLFI) plans to issue a stablecoin. WLFI recently raised $14 million in its first token sale. It plans to create and issue its own stablecoin, which is still under development and may take some time to launch. A source said that the team is still determining how to ensure the security of the financial product before bringing it to market.
Grass airdrop is now available
The Grass Foundation announced that the "GRASS Airdrop One" airdrop is now open for collection. The "GRASS Airdrop One" airdrop collection window will end at block height 312762760, which is expected to be January 15, 2025 (Wednesday). Eligible users must complete the airdrop collection before then.
Alchemy Pay, a provider of crypto payment solutions, announced that it will launch its Layer-1 blockchain, Alchemy Chain, which aims to reshape the future of the payment industry. Based on the scalable Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) architecture, Alchemy Chain supports the seamless integration of crypto and fiat payments, and promotes the transparency, security and efficiency of cross-border settlements. The blockchain adopts an innovative Trusted Proof of Authority (TPoA) mechanism and introduces advanced Layer-2 solutions to optimize data synchronization and improve scalability. $ACH will serve as the functional token of Alchemy Chain, and users can pay transaction fees through $ACH or fiat currency. Alchemy Chain will also launch Meme Launchpad and Meme Telegram Bot to provide simplified development support for developers and ecological projects, further promoting the popularity of global crypto payments.
Binance will launch SANTOS 1-75x USDT perpetual contract
Binance Futures will launch SANTOSUSDT perpetual contracts at 22:00 (ET) on October 28, 2024, with a maximum leverage of 75x.
Investment and Financing
BTC native stablecoin protocol bitSmiley.io completes $10 million second round of financing
BTC native stablecoin protocol bitSmiley.io announced the completion of a $10 million second round of financing, with participation from institutions including MH Ventures, Veris Ventures, Side Door Ventures, KuCoin Ventures, Pragma, NewTribe Capital, Kinetic Kollective, Perlon Capital, IBC, GuildQB, NxGen, Dutch Crypto Investors, Aegis Ventures, ZC, Skyland Ventures and Cypher Capital. This financing will promote bitSmiley's innovation and development in the field of Bitcoin-backed DeFi. bitSmiley.io plans to expand its cross-chain transactions and BTCFi infrastructure by cooperating with platforms such as ZetaChain and Babylon. Last year, bitSmiley completed its first round of financing, with OKX Ventures and ABCDE co-leading the investment.
Rollup-as-a-Service Platform Gelato Completes $11 Million Series A+ Funding, Led by Hack VC
According to The Block, Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform Gelato has raised $11 million in its latest A+ round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from Animoca Brands, IOSG Ventures, and Bloccelerate VC. The financing will be used to expand the team and services, support more enterprise-level rollup applications, and strive to become the preferred platform for launching blockchain projects. Gelato's new customers include Kraken's Layer 2 blockchain Ink, which is expected to be launched on the mainnet in early 2025. As part of the Ethereum Superchain ecosystem, Ink will adopt Optimism's OP Stack architecture. This financing brings Gelato's total financing to $23.2 million.
Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund leads Infinex’s “Sponsored” NFT funding, raising $67 million
According to The Block, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund participated in Infinex's "sponsorship" NFT financing model to help it achieve its fundraising goal of $67 million. Infinex's financing attracted venture capital, angel investors and community supporters through the sale of Patron NFTs. Other participating institutions include Wintermute Ventures, Framework Ventures and Solana Ventures, and individual investors include Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and Aave founder Stani Kulechov. Infinex was founded by Synthetix founder Kain Warwick and is committed to building a decentralized trading experience to compete with centralized exchanges. The platform currently has a total locked value of $125 million. In the future, it will focus on realizing functions such as spot trading, derivatives and fiat currency entry to further approach the service level of centralized exchanges.
Important data
BTC breaks through $71,000, up 3.71% on the day
According to the Hurun Report WeChat official account, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2024 Hengchang Shaofang Hurun Rich List", and former Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng ranked 16th on the list with a wealth of 135 billion yuan. The article mentioned that although Zhao Changpeng was arrested in California in the past year and paid a total of more than 7 billion US dollars in fines, his wealth still increased by 90 billion yuan from last year (ranked second on the list with the largest wealth growth), reaching 135 billion yuan, mainly due to the increase in the total transaction volume of virtual currencies in the past year, as the price of Bitcoin rose 130% from the same period last year to 65,000 US dollars. In addition, the market value of the virtual currency exchange Coinbase has more than doubled from 19 billion US dollars to 46 billion US dollars. It is reported that Zhao Changpeng of Binance just made the list in 2018, and now his wealth is also over 100 billion.
MicroStrategy's Bitcoin holdings have generated over $8 billion in profits
At the current price of Bitcoin at $71,004.4, MicroStrategy's Bitcoin holdings have a floating profit of over $8 billion. According to previous news, as of September 19, 2024, MicroStrategy holds a total of 252,220 Bitcoins, with a total purchase cost of approximately $9.9 billion and an average price of approximately $39,266.
Dune data shows that the total market value of Solana's liquidity staking tokens has exceeded $5 billion, and is currently about $5.29 billion, a record high. The top LSTs by market share are: JitoSOL (43.55%), mSOL (17%), and jupSOL (12.1%).
Bitcoin's market share hit 59.92% in the early hours of the morning, a new high since March 31, 2021
According to Tradingview data, Bitcoin's market share briefly hit 59.92% at around 03:35 this morning, a new high since March 31, 2021. Currently, Bitcoin's market share is 59.53%.
Pump.fun’s fee account sold another 41,000 SOL, worth about $7.17 million
According to Lookonchain monitoring, Pump.fun's fee account has just sold another 41,000 SOLs, worth about $7.17 million. So far, Pump.fun has generated a total revenue of 1,041,344 SOLs (about $182 million) and sold 545,843 SOLs at an average price of $158, totaling about $86.14 million.
Arkham data shows that the Royal Government of Bhutan deposited 929 bitcoins (about $66.16 million) to Binance in the past hour. Currently, the Royal Government of Bhutan holds a total of 12,456 bitcoins, about $887 million.
Data: 59.08% of the GRASS token airdrop has been claimed
According to Dune data, 59.08% of the GRASS airdrop tokens (approximately 46,247,326 tokens) have been claimed by users, involving 739,285 airdrop claiming addresses.
