Today's news tips:
Trump Seeks Crypto-friendly Candidates for Financial Institutions
Musk plays key role in shaping Trump's future team
Russian President Putin proposes establishing a digital asset platform within the BRICS alliance
Coinbase APP downloads ranked second on the U.S. iOS financial free list
MicroStrategy spends $2.03 billion to buy 27,200 Bitcoins
F2Pool Co-founder: If DOGE rises to $1, we will buy a Mars exploration mission
Ethereum L2 network Lisk has launched its mainnet and announced an airdrop plan
Ethereum Foundation sold another 100 ETH for 334,000 DAI
Regulation & Policy
Trump Seeks Crypto-friendly Candidates for Financial Institutions
According to Jinshi, citing the Washington Post, US President-elect Trump is preparing for the US government to take a more relaxed stance on cryptocurrencies. He is looking for candidates for key positions that are friendly to the crypto industry, while his senior advisers are consulting crypto executives on potential changes in federal policies. Initial discussions focused on a range of financial regulators, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. According to five people familiar with the matter, Trump advisers considered letting current regulators, former federal officials and financial industry executives take important leadership positions, many of whom have publicly expressed support for cryptocurrencies. They warned that the discussion process is still in its early stages and the list of candidates is still changing.
Musk plays key role in shaping Trump's future team
According to Jinshi, ABC reported, citing multiple unnamed sources, that billionaire Elon Musk has become one of the key figures in the formation of Trump's future government. It is reported that Musk has appeared at Mar-a-Lago almost every day since the last election, which has a direct impact on Trump's personnel decisions and strategies for his second term. Sources said he participated in two calls between Trump and foreign leaders. When talking with Zelensky Zelensky, Trump even handed his phone to Musk and asked Musk to discuss the situation with the Ukrainian leader in person. Musk also participated in a call with Turkish President Erdogan. In addition, according to the Associated Press, people familiar with the matter revealed that Musk's Super PAC spent about $200 million to help Trump's campaign for the US presidency.
Earlier news said Musk's net worth rose to $320 billion, a single-day increase of $16.2 billion.
Agency: US Republicans take control of the House of Representatives
According to Jinshi.com, election forecasting agency DECISION DESK HQ predicts that the Republican Party will take control of the House of Representatives. Currently, it predicts that the Republican Party has won 218 seats in the House of Representatives, becoming the majority party in the House of Representatives; the Democratic Party currently has 209 seats. According to previous predictions by multiple media, the Republican Party has already gained control of the Senate.
According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary, billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, is very supportive of cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin. Some of his recent remarks include: "I am excited about the president's support for cryptocurrencies, and I think it fits in well with the Republican Party. Cryptocurrencies represent freedom, and the crypto economy will continue to exist." "I think all the possibilities of Bitcoin are worth exploring. One of the most exciting things about Bitcoin is that it attracts young people and those who have never participated in the market before. Cultivating a market culture in the United States that makes people believe that there is a system that works for them is the core of capitalism."
Bloomberg: UK plans to pilot blockchain-based digital government bond issuance within two years
According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter revealed that the UK plans to start issuing digital government bonds in the next two years, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is expected to announce the trial issuance of digital government bonds in a speech at Mansion House in the City of London on Thursday. It is understood that the Chancellor of the Exchequer traditionally uses this forum to announce policies that support the financial industry. The New Labour government is working to modernize financial markets and is currently using blockchain technology to "tokenize" government debt, hoping that this move will make government bond transactions faster and cheaper. The digital transformation comes as the British government is embarking on a £297 billion ($382 billion) borrowing program, the second largest borrowing program in history, and sales are expected to remain high in the coming years. People familiar with the matter said that legislation may need to be submitted to Parliament to continue blockchain-based sales. The UK Treasury declined to comment.
Russian President Putin proposes establishing a digital asset platform within the BRICS alliance
According to Cryptoslate, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed that the BRICS countries establish a digital asset platform in a speech at the Valdai Debate Club to promote electronic payments and attract investment in developing markets through a unified digital asset system. The initiative aims to promote investment flows to emerging economies in South Asia, Africa and Latin America, and may provide new channels for capital in high-growth regions. Putin emphasized the platform's potential to promote economic development in rapidly urbanizing regions. He emphasized the growth opportunities in these regions and pointed out that population growth, capital accumulation and rising urbanization rates are factors that support the platform's focus. Putin talked about Russia's restrictions on US dollar transactions due to sanctions, and pointed out that Russia does not intend to abandon the dollar completely. Instead, he criticized the US policy of restricting the use of the US dollar in international markets and said that alternatives like the proposed BRICS digital asset platform can reduce dependence on the traditional Western financial system.
Project News
Brazilian hedge fund Verde reveals it took a small position in Bitcoin before Trump's victory
According to Bloomberg, Verde Asset Management, a well-known Brazilian hedge fund, said in a report to clients on Monday that the company established a small Bitcoin position before the U.S. presidential election on November 5, and the specific size of the position has not been disclosed. The fund is run by industry veteran Luis Stuhlberger. Data shows that the company's main fund fell 0.18% after deducting fees in October. In contrast, the CDI interbank benchmark rate rose 0.93% during the same period, and a basket of local hedge funds rose 0.29%. So far this year, its performance has been more than two percentage points higher than the Anbima Hedge Fund Index. Verde currently manages assets of approximately 19 billion reais (US$3.3 billion), down from 20 billion reais a month ago.
Unichain: Mainnet not yet live, specification bridge not yet finalized
Unichain, the Layer2 network launched by Uniswap Labs, posted on the X platform that some details of early developers accessing the Unichain mainnet have been publicly circulated, but the Unichain mainnet has not yet been launched and the specification bridge has not yet been finalized. Since it is not yet ready for public use, the RPC during the developer's access has been disabled, and the details of the public RPC will be released when it is ready. Before that, cross-chain users can still withdraw funds to the Ethereum mainnet.
Coinbase APP downloads ranked second on the U.S. iOS financial free list
According to a chart analyzed by @followin_io_zh, Coinbase APP downloads ranked second on the free list of iOS financial apps in the United States. In addition, Google Trends data shows that people's search interest in Bitcoin continues to increase, reaching a peak of 100 at one point, and currently falling back to 59.
Starknet: STRK staking will be launched on the mainnet on November 26
Ethereum Layer 2 network Starknet said on X Platform that the launch date of STRK staking on the mainnet is set for November 26. After extensive testing on Sepolia, it is now ready to launch the first phase of STRK staking on the Starknet mainnet. Everyone can participate in the following ways: becoming a validator requires staking at least 20,000 STRK and running a full node; becoming a delegator requires choosing a validator from the available list and holding STRK tokens. Please note that both validators and delegators will be subject to a 21-day staking unlock period.
SuiNS will launch the governance token NS on November 14
Sui Name Service (SuiNS) announced the launch of the NS token to promote decentralization and empower community members to participate in key protocol development decisions. The NS token will be launched on Thursday, November 14, and SuiNS (NS) airdrop NFT holders (about 183,000) will be able to claim the token airdrop through the website, which will be open on TGE day. Earlier news, SuiNS announced its NS token economic model, with 10% allocated to eligible community members.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, published a new article titled "Black or White?", saying that the incoming Trump administration may adopt an economic development model similar to China, which he called "American capitalism with Chinese characteristics." Hayes expects the new government to promote the return of manufacturing to the United States through large-scale fiscal stimulus and industrial policies. The policies will include tax incentives and subsidies for key industries and provide cheap financing through the banking system. It is expected that this will lead to a rapid expansion of bank credit, which may exceed the $4 trillion stimulus during the epidemic. In this context, Hayes believes that Bitcoin will become the best choice to fight the depreciation of fiat currencies, and is expected to reach $1 million.
Bitwise to Launch World’s First Aptos Staking ETP on Swiss Stock Exchange on November 19
According to Globenewswire, Bitwise Asset Management announced today that Bitwise Aptos Staking ETP (stock code: APTB; ISIN DE000A4AJWU3) is scheduled to be listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange on November 19, 2024. The product will become the world's first Aptos Staking ETP.
MicroStrategy spends $2.03 billion to buy 27,200 Bitcoins
According to MicroStrategy's announcement, the company purchased 27,200 bitcoins between October 31 and November 10, spending approximately $2.03 billion, with an average purchase price of approximately $74,463 per bitcoin. Currently, MicroStrategy's total holdings have reached 279,420 bitcoins, with a total purchase cost of approximately $11.9 billion and an average price of approximately $42,692 per bitcoin. The funds for this purchase came from the $2.03 billion raised by the company through ATM stock sales activities. MicroStrategy's Bitcoin year-to-date return (BTC Yield) has reached 26.4%, and the quarterly return is 7.3%.
Later in the day, it was reported that MicroStrategy's stock price broke through $350 after hours, setting a new all-time high ; MicroStrategy's Bitcoin holdings currently have a floating profit of approximately $12.9 billion .
Polymer Launches Polymer Hub, a Real-Time Interoperability Protocol for Ethereum Rollups
According to The Block, blockchain infrastructure company Polymer Labs has officially launched the real-time interoperability protocol Polymer Hub on the Ethereum mainnet, aiming to achieve seamless cross-chain communication between Ethereum Rollups. Polymer Hub initially supports the OP Stack ecosystem, including OP Mainnet, World Chain, and the Base network incubated by Coinbase, and plans to expand to other Ethereum Rollup ecosystems. Based on the IBC protocol developed by Cosmos, Polymer Hub achieves more efficient cross-chain speed and cost optimization by reducing the overhead of cross-chain communication. It uses a pre-confirmation mechanism and EigenDA technology to support data-intensive on-chain use cases, and provides reorganization protection to complete cross-chain transaction settlement at millisecond speeds to ensure transaction security.
Vitalik: Blob has "entered price discovery", with an average daily total fee of 10 ETH
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote on Warpcast that Blob has quietly "entered price discovery" and that total fees seem to be averaging about 10 ETH per day recently.
Split Capital proposes “BLUR Fee Conversion and veBLUR Token Economics”
Split Capital proposed the "BLUR Fee Conversion and veBLUR Token Economics" proposal in the Blur Governance Forum, which aims to add a framework for increasing protocol fees and re-flowing fees into vote-locked BLUR (veBLUR) tokens. Currently, the Blur NFT Marketplace Protocol has been implementing a 0% market fee while enforcing a 0.5% creator royalty. It is proposed to remove the enforced creator royalty and add a 0.5% protocol fee to each transaction. It is also proposed to form a fee committee that can change the protocol rate so that it can be quickly adjusted based on market conditions and the competitive landscape. Split Capital proposes to change the BLUR token economics to use two tokens, BLUR and veBLUR, to manage Blur's utility and governance, similar to Aerodrome. It is also proposed to add 1% of the total supply (30 million BLUR) as rewards to the current Season 4, which will be distributed to Blur users based on their total points at the end of the season. veBLUR is used for governance. BLUR holders will be able to vote to escrow their tokens and exchange veBLUR. Other tokens can be added to the veBLUR NFT at any time. The lock-up period (also known as the voting escrow period) can be up to 4 years. The longer the vesting period, the higher the voting rights of the underlying locked balance.
Coinbase shares have risen 75% in the past five trading days since the U.S. presidential election
According to The Block, the market has continued to rise since Trump won the US presidential election, and the stock price of the crypto exchange Coinbase has performed particularly well in the past week. Coinbase shares closed up 19.7% on Monday at $324.24, the highest closing price since November 19, 2021. Previously, on November 9, the stock hit a record closing high of $357.39, and the intraday high reached $368.90. Coinbase shares have risen 75% in the past five trading days, and before that, the stock traded between $150 and $280 for most of the time. Earlier on Monday, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on the X platform: "The Bitcoin craze has also swept the stock market. Coinbase and Microstrategy are among the top five stocks in today's trading volume. This is a scene I have never seen. Only Tesla and Nvidia have higher trading volumes than them. This feels like a frenzy, at least for now."
OpenAI CEO: I am optimistic about the bright future of cryptocurrency
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on the X platform: "World (also known as Worldcoin) has made amazing progress in the past year. I am very proud of the team, especially Alex Blania's leadership, and the combination of vision and execution. More generally, I am optimistic about the bright future of cryptocurrency."
Tether minted 2 billion authorized but unissued USDT on the Ethereum network in the early morning
According to Whale Alert, around 01:07 am Beijing time, Tether Treasury minted 2 billion USDT on Ethereum. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said this was an authorized but unissued transaction, which means it will be used as inventory for the next issuance request and on-chain exchange.
F2Pool Co-founder: If DOGE rises to $1, we will buy a Mars exploration mission
F2Pool co-founder Chun Wang posted on the X platform that if the price of DOGE rises to $1, he will buy a Mars exploration mission and name it "Marsrise". The mission is scheduled to launch on January 19, 2029, which happens to be the last day of Trump's possible second term. Wang Chun previously disclosed: "Since its launch in 2013, we have mined 16.2 billion DOGE, accounting for 11% of the total number of Dogecoins in existence."
Research: 98% of NFT issuances failed by 2024; only 0.2% brought profits to investors
According to Bitcoin.com, a study found that 98% of NFTs released in 2024 have not seen trading activity since September, and 64% of NFTs have less than 10 mintage volumes. According to the 2024 NFT Release Status Report, this limited trading activity indicates that investors lack enthusiasm or confidence in these projects. This finding may also indicate a mismatch between supply and demand for new NFTs. The authors of the report believe that low user participation and low minting volumes highlight the difficulties creators may face when launching new NFTs. This apparent market saturation is consistent with users' waning interest in NFTs and the metaverse. As interest and trading activity decline, some large technology companies that actively participated in the NFT and metaverse craze a few years ago have reported significant losses, and some of these companies have completely abandoned or no longer prioritized their metaverse projects.
Other worrying indicators also point to a declining market, including NFT prices falling by at least 50% within the first three days of trading. 84% of NFTs released in 2024 had a peak price that was the same as their minting price, indicating that buyers are taking a more conservative approach. In addition, only 0.2% of all NFT releases have brought profits to investors, highlighting the overall plight of the industry. The report recommends that creators address the problem of oversaturated markets by focusing on community building and providing unique utility.
Ethereum L2 network Lisk has launched its mainnet and announced an airdrop plan
According to The Block, Ethereum Layer 2 network Lisk has launched its mainnet and announced an airdrop plan. Lisk launched its testnet in February this year, having previously transitioned from Layer 1 to Layer 2. At the same time as the mainnet is launched, Lisk plans to airdrop 15 million LSK tokens. The airdrop activity will start on November 21 and will last for four months in the first quarter.
Users can earn points by completing tasks on the Lisk platform, and the total number of points will determine the amount of LSK they receive. Lisk was first launched as a Layer 1 blockchain in 2016, and in December 2023 it transformed into an Optimism-based Layer 2 to support real-world assets and decentralized infrastructure networks.
According to The Block, Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, proposed a new consensus layer upgrade proposal, "Beam Chain", at the Devcon conference, which was called "Ethereum 3.0" by the community. The proposal aims to achieve faster block times, lower validator pledge requirements, "on-chain snarkification" and quantum security improvements. The core of Beam Chain is to introduce technologies such as zkVM to significantly improve the scalability of the Ethereum mainnet, even without relying on Layer 2 solutions.
Doug Colkitt, founder of Ambient Finance, said that the localization of zkEVM may completely eliminate the gas limit, so that nodes only need to verify snarks, theoretically achieving unlimited scalability of L1. Nevertheless, the proposal may lead to further centralization of block construction.
Drake, who previously resigned from his advisory position due to potential conflicts of interest with EigenLayer, stressed that the final implementation of Beam Chain requires community consensus and called it his “most ambitious proposal to date.”
Financing News
Brevis Network Completes $7.5 Million Seed Round Led by Polychain Capital and Binance Labs
According to The Block, ZK coprocessor Brevis Network has completed a $7.5 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital and Binance Labs, with participation from IOSG Ventures, Nomad Capital, Bankless Ventures, Hashkey, and several undisclosed angel investors. Brevis began raising funds for this round of financing in June and completed it in September; this round of financing was conducted in the form of token issuance, but refused to disclose the valuation after financing. Brevis is a ZK coprocessor or computing network that aims to improve the scalability of blockchains using ZK proofs. By enabling complex tasks (such as data processing) to be completed off-chain and only verified proofs to be sent back to the blockchain, Brevis aims to reduce the workload of the blockchain, increase speed, and reduce costs. Brevis' ZK coprocessor is currently in the Beta mainnet stage; Brevis' "SpaZK Verifiable AI" product is still under active development and will be released in future stages.
StakeStone, a full-chain liquidity asset protocol, announced the completion of a $22 million financing led by Polychain Capital, with Binance Labs and OKX Ventures participating in strategic investment, and the seed round led by SevenX. Other investors include Nomad Capital, HashKey Capital, Amber Group, etc. This round of financing will help StakeStone accelerate growth, expand its product services and enhance its influence in key markets. StakeStone is committed to building a liquid ETH/BTC asset standard based on a highly scalable staking network, launching a liquid index BTC (SBTC) and interest-bearing liquid BTC (STONEBTC) to enhance the application of native BTC in the EVM ecosystem and other blockchain networks. StakeStone plans to provide efficient liquidity support to ecological partners such as Berachain, AAVE DAO and DeFi protocols to promote the implementation of practical applications. In addition, StakeStone will launch payment products supported by interest-bearing ETH assets STONE, including flexible savings accounts and "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) options, to provide users with greater trading flexibility and build a sustainable application model based on MegaETH's real-time processing capabilities.
According to the official blog, Animoca Brands announced that it has raised an additional $10 million for its Web3 project Mocaverse, following an investment of $31.88 million announced last year. The investment comes with a free additional warrant for the MOCA Coin utility token, with an implied fully diluted value (FDV) of $1 billion, and its structure is similar to the two parts announced previously. Participants in this round of financing include OKX Ventures, CMCC Global, HongShan (formerly Sequoia China), Republic Crypto, Decima Fund, Kingsway Capital, etc., with the aim of accelerating and expanding the scale of Mocaverse's operations against the backdrop of the project's substantial growth since its first financing.
The company will use the new funds to advance its goal of accelerating Web3 mass adoption and interoperability by continuing to expand and build the Mocaverse, an interoperable infrastructure layer for account, identity and reputation systems for consumer cryptocurrency adoption. This includes Realm SDK, an interoperable software development kit (SDK) that allows partners to create their own reputation-based ecosystems and provide corresponding application experiences that are interoperable with all ecosystems built on top of the Moca network.
Mining News
According to The Block, ASIC mining machine manufacturer Canaan Technology has signed a purchase agreement with HIVE Digital to provide HIVE with 6,500 Avalon A1566 mining machines with an average computing power of 185 TH/s. At present, the first batch of 500 mining machines have been delivered and planned to be installed, and the remaining 6,000 will be delivered in batches from December to March 2025. Influenced by this news, Canaan Technology's Nasdaq stock (CAN) rose 38% to $1.74. In addition, HIVE Digital announced that the new 100-megawatt expansion project in Paraguay has started and is expected to be fully operational in the third quarter of 2025, with a target computing power of 12.5 EH/s and an equipment efficiency of 17.6 J/TH.
Important data
ETF
Data: Hong Kong virtual asset ETF today's trading volume is about HK$153 million
Yesterday, the US spot Bitcoin ETF trading volume reached US$7.22 billion, a new high since March 14
Bloomberg analyst: The asset size of US spot Bitcoin ETF has reached ⅔ of that of gold ETF
Other data
According to Watcher.Guru data, the German government previously decided to sell 50,000 bitcoins at $54,000, causing it to miss out on $1.7 billion in profits. Earlier on July 7, it was reported that German law enforcement agencies sold nearly 50,000 bitcoins in total, netting about $2.88 billion.
According to Arkham monitoring, the Mt.Gox address transferred 2,500 bitcoins to the unmarked address 1PQZ...EvAc 15 minutes ago, worth approximately US$222.26 million.
BTC breaks through $89,000, hitting a new all-time high
The OKX market data shows that BTC has just broken through $89,000 and is currently trading at $89,131.10 per coin, with a daily increase of 6.02%.
Later in the day, news came that Bitcoin surpassed silver to become the world's eighth largest asset by market value ; the global cryptocurrency market value hit a record high, breaking through $3 trillion again after three years ; the total cryptocurrency market value is about to exceed France's GDP, and Bitcoin's market value has exceeded Spain's GDP .
Tesla's Bitcoin holdings value exceeds $1 billion
According to Arkham data, Musk's Tesla currently holds 11,509 BTC. With the rise in Bitcoin prices, the value of its Bitcoin holdings has now exceeded US$1 billion.
According to the monitoring of on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, "a whale that has made a profit of $18.99 million by buying low and selling high ETH since May 2023" recharged 3,200 ETH to Binance again 4 hours ago, about $10.65 million. In the past 10 months, the whale/institution has built a position of 46,600 ETH (about $127 million) at an average price of $2,715, of which 24,800 have been recharged to the trading platform at a recharge price of $3,359. If all are sold, a profit of $15.98 million will be made.
A scammer stole 95.27 million GIGA and sold them for $2.1 million worth of SOL
According to Onchain Lens, a scammer stole 95.27 million GIGA from three wallets and sold them in large quantities. These tokens were worth $6.09 million before the sale, and the scammer sold them for 11,759 SOL, which was worth only $2.1 million. After that, SOL was exchanged for USDC and USDT and transferred to another address; in addition, 700 SOL were indirectly transferred to Kucoin.
According to The Data Nerd, 6 hours ago, Longling Capital deposited 3,200 ETH (about 10.65 million USD) into Binance. In 3 days, it deposited a total of 8,200 ETH (about 26.35 million USD) into Binance.
The four-year dormant BBQCat address transferred all 206.34 BTC today, worth $18.12 million
According to the monitoring of on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, the four-year dormant address 1BnkE...yxFey transferred 206.34 BTC worth $18.12 million to 15286...bjYma at noon today; currently, all the BTC in this address has been sold.
Ethereum Foundation sold another 100 ETH for 334,000 DAI
Spot On Chain monitoring shows that the Ethereum Foundation sold 100 $ETH this evening in exchange for 334,315.7 $DAI. This is the first ETH sale since the release of the 2024 report on November 8.
A trader lost $24.7 million by frequently trading PNUT tokens
According to The Data Nerd, a trader made $10,800 in profits on $PNUT tokens through 7 transactions with an initial principal of $1,100. However, if the trader did not trade frequently and simply held 51.27 million $PNUT, the potential profit of his initial $1,100 investment could have reached $24.7 million.
