Today’s News Highlights:
El Salvador to introduce Bitcoin education in schools by 2024
Shandong Province plans to issue the “Guidance on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the Metaverse Industry” with a target scale of 150 billion yuan by 2025
Genesis Global Trading to shut down its OTC cryptocurrency trading platform on September 18th
- New Letter from Grayscale’s Legal Team What to Consider for the Next Bitcoin ETF Decision
- The market is weak, why are Telegram bots a unique landscape? Analyzing from the perspectives of core functionality, token usage, etc.
- KOL’s Self-narrative I made $10 million at the age of 22 after understanding the essence of cryptocurrency speculation.
X (formerly Twitter) obtains a remittance license for payment services in Mississippi, USA
LayerZero launches Zora Network mainnet, allowing users to mint commemorative NFT “LayerZero Zorb” for free
MetaMask introduces “Sell” feature to convert cryptocurrencies into fiat currency
Story Protocol, an on-chain intellectual property protocol, completes a $25 million Series A financing round with a16z crypto as the lead investor
Report: 204 individuals globally have over $100 million in cryptocurrency assets, with 22 individuals having more than $1 billion
Regulatory News
El Salvador to introduce Bitcoin education in schools by 2024
According to Cointelegraph, the Ministry of Education of El Salvador is partnering with the non-profit organization Mi Primer Bitcoin/My First Bitcoin (MPB/MFB) to add Bitcoin (BTC) education to the curriculum of public schools by 2024.
John Dennehy, the founder of MPB, stated that with the assistance of Bitcoin Beach, the pilot project’s training will begin on September 7th. The Bitcoin diploma course will be taught to 150 public school teachers from 75 schools, providing them with a “basic understanding” of Bitcoin.
US Judge: Predictions or opinions made by malicious promoters of cryptocurrency tokens or stocks may constitute a crime
According to a post by former SEC Internet Enforcement Director John Reed Stark on the X platform, meme stock promoters failed to successfully dismiss criminal securities fraud charges in a federal court in Texas (the judge referred to Twitter posts, fair notice, First Amendment, etc.) The seven social media influencers charged with conspiring to carry out a $114 million “pump and dump” scheme were unable to dismiss the criminal securities fraud charges they faced. Houston federal judge Andrew S. Hanen stated that their fraudulent statements are not protected. The defendants argued that predictions and opinions about Meme stocks are not criminal behavior. However, the judge stated that predictions or opinions made by malicious meme stock promoters may indeed constitute a crime. Therefore, promoters of stocks or any other securities (such as cryptocurrency tokens) will certainly face imprisonment for any fraudulent activities related to the sale of their securities.
Metaverse
Shandong Province plans to issue the “Guidance on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the Metaverse Industry” with a target scale of 150 billion yuan by 2025
The Department of Industry and Information Technology of Shandong Province has drafted the “Guidance on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the Metaverse Industry in Shandong Province” and is now soliciting public opinions. The public opinion solicitation period is from September 4th to September 8th, 2023. The guidance points out that by 2025, the scale of the metaverse-related industry will grow at an average annual rate of about 15%, reaching about 150 billion yuan. The goal is to have key enterprises apply for and obtain more than 3,000 international and domestic patents, incubate more than 100 metaverse ecological chain characteristic advantage enterprises, support the construction of more than 30 metaverse public application experience centers, and create 100 metaverse characteristic application scenarios.
Specifically, in terms of core industries, we will enhance the manufacturing capabilities of virtual/augmented reality terminals, improve the supporting level of core components, and develop and produce collaborative devices for cloud-edge-end research and development. We will strive to advance artificial intelligence technology, blockchain technology, and virtual reality tools. We will also establish a metaverse content distribution platform and promote the growth of digital content creator platforms, creator communities, and cloud-based content production companies. As for market entities, we will develop high-level industrial parks such as the Jinan Qilu Software Park, Qingdao Virtual Reality Industrial Park, Qingdao Metaverse Industrial Innovation Park, Weifang Metaverse Future Innovation Valley, and Weifang Metaverse Supporting Industrial Park. In terms of technological innovation, we will strengthen key technology research in terminal presentation and interaction, metaspace modeling and rendering, generative AI, and other areas, relying on provincial universities and various research institutions. We will establish the National Virtual Reality Innovation Center (Qingdao), Shandong Province Virtual Reality Key Laboratory, Metaverse Technology Innovation Platform (Jinan), and Metaverse Data Exchange and Sharing Platform (Jinan). In terms of technological innovation, we will strengthen key technology research in terminal presentation and interaction, metaspace modeling and rendering, generative AI, and other areas, relying on provincial universities and various research institutions. We will establish the National Virtual Reality Innovation Center (Qingdao), Shandong Province Virtual Reality Key Laboratory, Metaverse Technology Innovation Platform (Jinan), and Metaverse Data Exchange and Sharing Platform (Jinan).
NFT
Project Updates
Grayscale Lawyers Urge SEC to Approve Bitcoin ETF Conversion
According to CoinDesk, Grayscale Investments has told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that there is “no reason” to refuse the conversion of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into an ETF. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asked the SEC to review its previous decision to reject Grayscale’s application. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao agreed with Grayscale’s position that its proposed product is not substantially different from bitcoin futures ETPs already trading in the U.S. Grayscale’s lawyers wrote in a letter to the SEC on Tuesday, “After fully considering the Court’s opinion, including the grounds for its dismissal, we believe the SEC should conclude that there is no reason to treat GBTC differently from ETPs investing in bitcoin futures contracts. The most efficient path forward is for the SEC to issue an order approving NYSE Arca’s 19b-4 rule application and authorize staff to work with Grayscale and NYSE Arca to ensure the timely listing of GBTC.”
Genesis Global Trading to Shut Down OTC Crypto Trading Platform on September 18
According to CoinDesk, Genesis will close its over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency trading business for the U.S. market later this month, according to an email sent to clients on Tuesday. Genesis Global Trading (GGT) will shut down its OTC trading platform on September 18. All trades must be settled by September 21, and any remaining open accounts will be closed by September 30. The email stated that “the decision was made for business reasons.” Another trading-focused subsidiary, GGC International Limited, will continue to operate its spot and derivatives trading services.
Base stopped producing blocks due to a failure, and the network has now been restored to normal.
Base previously experienced a block production failure. The Base team immediately launched an investigation and deployed a fix shortly after, and block production began to recover. The team has confirmed that the network operation and RPC API have been restored to normal and will continue to monitor. Base later tweeted that the issue has been fixed and no funds are at risk.
Zhao Changpeng clarifies that the screenshot of CNBC’s famous “counterpoint” Jim Cramer’s praise for Binance is photoshopped.
Binance founder Zhao Changpeng clarified on X platform a circulated image in the community, stating that the image is photoshopped and should not be believed. The image is a screenshot of CNBC host Jim Cramer’s speech in September 2022, with the caption stating that Jim Cramer said, “Zhao Changpeng seems like a good person, I am optimistic, buy their tokens.” It is reported that Jim Cramer is widely known as a famous “counterpoint”.
X (formerly Twitter) has obtained a remittance license for payment services in the state of Mississippi, USA.
According to Watcher.Guru, X (formerly Twitter) has obtained a remittance license for payment services in the state of Mississippi, USA. It is reported that X has been seeking regulatory licenses to enter the US payment industry. The social media giant is developing software with the goal of eventually enabling payments on its platform.
With this, X has obtained payment regulatory licenses in eight states in the United States, including Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, Missouri, and Rhode Island, in addition to Mississippi.
LayerZero launches on Zora Network mainnet, allowing users to mint commemorative NFTs “LayerZero Zorb” for free.
LayerZero Labs tweeted that LayerZero has launched on the Zora Network mainnet, and users can mint commemorative NFTs, the LayerZero Zorb, for free. Applications built on LayerZero can also be extended to Zora Network, and Zora Network developers can integrate with other parts of the LayerZero network.
It is reported that Zora Network is a Layer2 blockchain built on the OP Stack, focusing on supporting NFT creators, collectors, and applications. It has minted over 4 million NFTs on-chain and has over 900,000 collectors interacting with Zora NFTs.
Connext: Airdrop claims have restarted and are progressing smoothly.
Layer2 interoperability protocol Connext tweeted that everything is back to normal. Airdrop claims have restarted and are progressing smoothly. Previously, Connext stated that a bot activity caused service provider Tokensoft to become overloaded, resulting in users being unable to claim the airdrop.
GMBL.COMPUTER: Lost approximately $800,000 in the signature key leak incident, and now has all the hacker’s information.
Arbitrum ecosystem decentralized exchange GMBL.COMPUTER explained the events of today’s signature key leak on the X platform: “Someone was able to forge a ‘call’ and obtain a signature from our server, then pass that signature to the contract and extract GMBL worth nearly 500 ETH (approximately $815,000 at current prices).”
GMBL.COMPUTER said, “This is not a contract vulnerability. The root cause has been identified and it occurred off-chain. We have obtained all their information and will begin recovering the funds. We offer a bug bounty and will not take legal action if the funds are returned.”
News later today, GMBL.COMPUTER announced that half of the stolen funds have been recovered.
Insider: AntChain to launch a new Web3 brand to provide technical solutions
According to Interface News, AntChain will launch a new Web3 brand at the upcoming Waigaoqiao Summit. Insiders say the brand will provide Web3 technical solutions for the Hong Kong and overseas markets, focusing on security and compliance-related technology products.
The “Waigaoqiao Summit: Fusion Innovation ยท Web3 New Development Forum” co-hosted by AntChain and LianGuaiNews will be held in Shanghai on September 9th. Zhang Hui, General Manager of the Web3 Business Department of Ant Group’s Digital Technology Business Group, will participate in a fireside chat at the conference.
MetaMask launches “Sell” feature to convert cryptocurrencies to fiat
MetaMask announced the launch of its latest feature, “Sell,” which allows users to convert cryptocurrencies to fiat currency through the MetaMask Portfolio and send funds to a bank account. The feature is currently available in the United States, the United Kingdom, and certain European regions, initially supporting ETH on the Ethereum mainnet, and plans to expand to native gas tokens on Layer2 networks soon.
Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) is now live on the Optimism mainnet and plans to go live on the Base network
Circle announced on the X platform that its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) is now live on the Optimism mainnet. CCTP can now transfer USDC through 12 paths between four networks, including Ethereum, Avalanche, Arbitrum, and Optimism. In addition, Circle plans to introduce its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to the Base network.
It is reported that CCTP is a permissionless on-chain tool launched by Circle to facilitate the transfer of USDC between different chains. Circle does not require liquidity on the target chain but instead burns USDC on the source chain and mints native USDC on the target chain, enabling USDC to flow across chains locally.
Yesterday, Circle launched native USDC on the Base mainnet and Optimism mainnet.
Binance has deposited XIRTAM refund assets into a smart contract
Binance has released an update regarding XIRTAM-related matters. The relevant assets have been deposited into a smart contract, and users can view the information of the Claim contract and follow the instructions in the XIRTAM refund guide to claim and verify the relevant information.
Binance has completed the integration of USDC on the Optimism network and has opened deposits. The withdrawal service for USD Coin (USDC) on the Optimism network will be opened after confirming sufficient deposits and will not be announced separately.
Alpha Protocol Ventures establishes a $20 million Web3 fund
Vagelis Diamantis, CEO and founder of Alpha Protocol Ventures, announced that the venture capital firm has established a $20 million Web3 fund, which will be used to invest in “undervalued” Web3 projects, as well as blockchain gaming and digital collectibles-related companies.
Alpha Protocol Ventures has reportedly received funding from Diamantis, Ethernity CEO Nick Rose, Web3 investment firm Morningstar Ventures, and a group of Web3 angel investors.
The Frax core team has proposed the introduction of Staked FRAX (sFRAX) to provide passive income opportunities similar to DSR.
The stablecoin protocol Frax Finance community has initiated the “FIP – 2XX” sFRAX governance proposal, proposed by the Frax core team, which plans to introduce Staked FRAX (sFRAX) into the Frax ecosystem, allowing users to deposit FRAX stablecoin into a smart contract (standard ERC-4626) and earn interest (denominated in FRAX stablecoin).
The proposal states that similar to the concept of Dai Savings Rate (DSR), sFRAX focuses on addressing the near-zero duration yield curve of FRAX, providing users with the opportunity to earn FRAX stablecoin while contributing to the growth of FRAX supply. Apart from the deposited and earned FRAX stablecoin, sFRAX does not guarantee any returns or redemption rights for on-chain or off-chain assets.
dYdX will launch a decentralized order book exchange on Cosmos, and the dYdX platform on Ethereum will be shut down in a few months.
According to Cointelegraph, dYdX Foundation CEO Charles d’Haussy stated at the 2023 Korea Blockchain Week that dYdX plans to provide a “purely decentralized” order book exchange when migrating its ecosystem from the Ethereum network to the cross-chain network Cosmos.
d’Haussy said that one of the challenges faced by decentralized exchanges is the slow performance of on-chain order books. Due to this problem, DEX order books must be moved off-chain to meet the needs of trading platform users. By decentralizing the order book, dYdX takes a “new step” in decentralization. The order book will still not be on the dYdX chain because it is still slow, but it will be hosted in validators. When mentioning the migration plan, d’Haussy stated that dYdX is not expanding, but only migrating. The dYdX trading platform on Ethereum will be shut down in a few months.
Previously, on June 22nd, dYdX announced plans to launch its dedicated application chain using Cosmos SDK, which is expected to be released in the coming months.
Banana Gun will launch the first round of token presale at 1:00 am on September 9th.
Telegram Bot project Banana Gun will launch the first round of token presale at 1:00 am on September 9th (Beijing time). Previously, Banana Gun disclosed the token economics: 20% for presale and 1.2% for airdrop. The presale fundraising cap is 800 ETH, and the participation limit for a single wallet address is 1 ETH. Users who previously participated in activities and received soul-bound NFTs have been whitelisted, and the presale will be open in 4 rounds to specific users such as KOLs and project NFT holders. The presale price is $0.65 per BANANA token, corresponding to an initial market value of $1.56 million and an initial FDV of $6.5 million.
Funding News
On-chain intellectual property protocol Story Protocol has completed a $25 million Series A funding round, led by a16z crypto.
The on-chain intellectual property protocol, Story Protocol, announced the completion of a $25 million Series A financing round, with a16z crypto leading the investment. So far, Story Protocol has raised a total of over $54 million. The official disclosure of the two rounds of financing (including the seed round financing in May this year) includes participation from Hashed, Endeavor, Samsung Next, dao5, Insignia Venture Partners, Alliance DAO, Foresight Ventures, Mirana Ventures, LianGuairis Hilton’s 11:11 Media, WattGuaid co-founders Allen and Eva Lau’s Two Small Fish Ventures, as well as former a16z general partner Balaji Srinivasan, TPG Capital founder and chairman David Bonderman, Dapper Labs founder and CEO Roham Gharegozlou, HYBE/BTS founder and chairman Si-hyuk Bang, Krafton/PUBG CEO CH Kim, Black Label CEO Kyung In Jung, SLVC’s David Lee, former Naver CEO Sanghun Kim, TaLianGuais founder Chang Kim, investor Nicolas Berggruen, and entrepreneur Charlie Songhurst.
It is reported that Story Protocol has officially launched and is building an open intellectual property infrastructure to promote creativity in the internet age. The applications built on Story Protocol are designed for creators of all media types (prose, images, games, audio, etc.), allowing writers and artists to track the origin of their works, allowing anyone to contribute and remix, while capturing the value of their contributions.
Earlier in May, Story Protocol completed a $29.3 million seed round financing led by A16z Crypto.
Coinbase launches crypto lending platform for institutional clients, raising $57 million
According to CoinDesk, Coinbase has launched a new crypto lending service for institutional clients in the United States, filling the gap left by bankrupt companies like Genesis and BlockFi. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Coinbase has raised $57 million for the platform as of September 1. According to a source, clients can lend funds (mainly cryptocurrency) to Coinbase and receive collateral worth more than the loan value. Coinbase can then provide secured loans to institutional trading clients, similar to the bulk brokerage services provided by banks in traditional finance. Genesis and BlockFi previously provided similar lending services in the United States but suffered huge losses last year, leading to full or partial bankruptcy proceedings. This new service is different from Coinbase’s canceled Lend project in 2021. Lend targeted retail customers and faced opposition from SEC officials. This latest lending service is aimed at institutional clients and is subject to relatively relaxed regulations.
Connect Ventures completes $80 million fundraising for its fourth fund, planning to continue investing in Web3 and fintech
European technology venture capital firm Connect Ventures announced that its fourth fund has completed an $80 million fundraising round, with support from British Patient Capital, De Agostini, Big Society Capital, Top Tier, and Molten Ventures.
It is reported that the new fund will drive Connect Ventures to continue pre-seed and seed investments in the fields of B2B SaaS, fintech, consumer, and Web3. The current investment portfolio of this venture capital includes Web3 task platform Zealy, Web3 social platform OP3N, encrypted payment startup Cheq, and banking-as-a-service platform Fiat Republic.
Important data
An address starting with 0x44Af received a large amount of NEXT airdrop through 230 accounts and sold them all, with an income of about $39,000.
On-chain data shows that an address starting with 0x44Af received a large amount of Connext token NEXT airdrop through 230 accounts in the past hour and sold them all for ETH, USDT, and USDC, with an income of nearly $39,000. Currently, Connext has closed airdrop distribution.
Previously, according to reports from multiple community users, there seemed to be problems with the airdrop application process of Layer2 interoperability protocol Connext, and “scientists” could use contract vulnerabilities to steal Connext tokens from other users’ airdrops (only need to know the address details of the airdrop-eligible account).
Whales suspected to have purchased about 260,000 ETH, worth nearly $425 million, yesterday.
According to Ali Charts monitoring, whales seem to have purchased about 260,000 ETH worth nearly $425 million in the past 24 hours.
In August, the spot trading volume of Bitcoin on centralized exchanges dropped to the lowest monthly level since October 2020.
According to a report cited by The Block from Bitfinex, the spot trading volume of Bitcoin on centralized cryptocurrency trading platforms in August was less than $423 billion, the lowest monthly level since October 2020. The report stated, “Spot trading volume divided by assets has reached a historical low, and spot trading volume has been declining for several months. This indicator indicates a decline in confidence in Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency field.”
Report: 204 people globally have over a hundred million in cryptocurrency assets, 22 of them have over a billion dollars.
The Bitfinex report emphasized that the current market has extremely low trading volume and liquidity. This low liquidity environment makes the cryptocurrency market susceptible to significant price fluctuations even with small trading volumes.
According to Cointelegraph, Henley & LianGuairtners, a global residency and citizenship advisory firm, released a report titled “Cryptocurrency Wealth Report.” The report shows that there are approximately 88,200 millionaires globally holding cryptocurrencies, with 40,500 of them holding Bitcoin. There are 204 individuals with assets over a hundred million dollars. Specifically, among the 182 investors who hold cryptocurrencies worth over a hundred million dollars, 78 of them are Bitcoin investors, and among the 22 investors who hold cryptocurrencies worth over a billion dollars, 6 of them accumulated their wealth through Bitcoin trading. In addition, as of July 2023, there are approximately 56.1 million millionaires globally, with less than 0.2% owning a significant amount of cryptocurrencies. The report does not explicitly mention the names of cryptocurrency millionaires and billionaires.
Henley & LianGuairtners CEO Juerg Steffen said the company has received a large number of inquiries from millionaires in the past six months, as part of their efforts to “protect themselves from the potential impact of future bans on trading or using cryptocurrencies in their countries” and “mitigate the risks of aggressive fiscal policies on the taxation of digital assets.”
Data: Market capitalization of L1 blockchains, DeFi protocol TVL, DEX trading volume, and transaction fees for various networks have all significantly decreased in August.
Data from The Block shows that the valuations of Layer 1 blockchains have been declining month by month in August, with Ethereum alone losing $25.4 billion in market capitalization from August 1 to September, a decrease of 11.4%. In August, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols on L1 also saw a general decline, with Ethereum and Tron ecosystems decreasing by $1.2 billion and $562 million respectively. DEX trading volume, consistent with user activity on L1 networks, hit a new low since December 2022, at around $56.8 billion. The total transaction fees for the entire L1 network decreased significantly as Ethereum users paid $41 million less in fees in August compared to July. BNB Chain and Avalanche experienced a month-on-month decline of 28% and 41% respectively.
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2023 Inclusionconf Bund Summit will be held from September 7th to 9th!
Ant Group and LianGuaiNews will jointly hold the “Fusion Innovation – Web3 New Development Forum” during the conference, inviting global experts and scholars to gather in Shanghai to discuss the new development of Web3. Register now!
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