Daily Report ｜ Hong Kong Police Disclose JPEX Operation Model and Promotion Methods; Ledger Plans to Launch Private Key Recovery Service by the End of the Year
Modular Rollup platform Eclipse releases Mainnet architecture; Zhao Changpeng stated that Binance provided a $250 million loan to BAM instead of borrowing from it.整理：flowie, ChainCatcher
What Important Events Happened in the Last 24 Hours
1. Hong Kong Police Disclose JPEX Operating Model and Promotion Methods, Announce Five Major Elements of Suspected Fraud
According to ChainCatcher, the Hong Kong police and the Securities and Futures Commission held a joint press conference yesterday to announce the JPEX case. The police summarized the operating model and promotion methods of the virtual asset trading platform JPEX, stating that five elements constitute suspected fraud:
JPEX has not applied for or held a license from the Securities and Futures Commission, yet claims on its website to be "a licensed and recognized digital asset and virtual currency platform," and heavily promotes itself through advertisements, media, over-the-counter (OTC) exchanges, and influencers to create popularity and attract investors.
Influencers made false and misleading statements online, flaunting wealth to create the appearance of "getting rich by buying coins" to increase persuasion. However, since the Securities and Futures Commission had previously issued warning letters to relevant individuals and entities, there is reason to believe that those involved were aware of JPEX's illegal practices but still promoted it to clients.
After registering, JPEX users can exchange different cryptocurrencies on the platform or transfer virtual assets to JPEX accounts for trading on foreign platforms. However, investigations found that JPEX also issued a virtual currency called JPC, which is different from other mainstream cryptocurrencies: JPC cannot be traded on other platforms and cannot be used for payment. Some victims were persuaded to purchase JPC and use it in a so-called "staking" method similar to fixed deposits, receiving extremely high returns only after the staking period ended. JPEX also requires clients to provide the private keys of their cryptocurrencies for safekeeping, effectively allowing JPEX to control users' assets.
After being warned by the Securities and Futures Commission, JPEX arbitrarily set a withdrawal limit of $1,000 for users and charged a $999 fee, effectively restricting asset withdrawals.
By the early morning of the 18th, JPEX had removed all financial trading services from its website. (Source Link)
2. Modular Rollup Platform Eclipse Releases Mainnet Architecture
According to ChainCatcher, the customizable modular Rollup platform Eclipse officially released its Mainnet architecture, which will utilize Ethereum as the settlement layer, run the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) as the execution environment, publish data to Celestia for scalable data availability, and complete ZK fraud proofs through RISC Zero.
Eclipse officials stated that Layer 2 has incredible prospects and future, leveraging Ethereum's network effects and settlement guarantees while attempting to optimize the execution environment. The Eclipse Mainnet is a natural realization of this vision. (Source Link)
3. Zhao Changpeng: Binance Provides $250 Million Loan to BAM, Not Borrowing from It
According to ChainCatcher, in response to a previous report by Decrypt stating "Binance borrowed $250 million from BAM Management U.S. Holdings," Zhao Changpeng stated that this is incorrect information. In fact, "Binance provided a $250 million loan to BAM, not borrowing from it, and has not yet recovered it." (Source Link)
4. Ledger Plans to Launch Its Private Key Recovery Service by the End of This Year
According to ChainCatcher, The Block reported that Ledger plans to launch its private key recovery service by the end of this year, despite the product receiving a lukewarm response from users when it was first introduced in May. The service aims to help users recover their private keys by splitting the seed phrase into three parts and sharing them with Ledger and two other security companies, CoinCover and EscrowTech.
Despite facing controversy, Ledger's CEO Pascal Gauthier stated that he expects the Ledger Recover service to go live by the end of the year, including some open-source features requested by users. Additionally, Ledger is considering how to provide privacy protection tools while offering identification information when needed. (Source Link)
5. Horizen Launches Mandatory Software Upgrade ZEN 4.1.0, Discontinues Shielded Pools
According to ChainCatcher, Horizen announced the launch of the mandatory software upgrade ZEN 4.1.0, discontinuing the shielded pools on the main chain. Horizen reminds exchanges, mining pools, node operators, and full node wallet users to upgrade to ZEN 4.1.0 immediately if they experience service interruptions.
Previously, the official Horizen blog announced that the community recently approved ZenIP 42204 to discontinue the Horizen main chain shielded pools, after which all privacy features will be removed from the Horizen main chain at the consensus level. This means that after this change, ZEN will no longer be considered a privacy coin. Horizen stated that the purpose of discontinuing the Horizen main chain shielded pools is to ensure that Horizen uses privacy technology in a correct and sustainable manner, mitigating regulatory threats.
6. dYdX Launches Up to $1 Million Bug Bounty Program
According to ChainCatcher, dYdX announced the launch of the dYdX Chain bug bounty program, offering users who discover vulnerabilities in the v4 contracts a bounty of up to 1 million USDC, with the specific amount based on the severity of the vulnerability.
The bounty applies to all code found in the v4 chain repository's protocol and indexer folders, as well as all code in the web and client repositories. (Source Link)
7. CoinEx Attack Incident Results in Over $70 Million Loss, Will Fully Compensate Affected Users
According to ChainCatcher, Cointelegraph reported that the cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx disclosed the progress of a previous hacking incident, stating that the leak of private keys led to hackers stealing tokens worth over $70 million. However, the exchange claimed that this amount only accounts for a small portion of its total managed assets, and affected users will receive full compensation for their losses.
CoinEx stated that it is still investigating the identity of those responsible for the security breach, with some blockchain security companies believing the attackers are the North Korean hacker Lazarus Group. Additionally, CoinEx has opened communication channels with the hackers "to reach a mutually agreed solution." (Source Link)
8. a16z Crypto Opens Applications for Crypto Startup School Spring 2024, Will Invest $500,000 in Each Participating Company for 7% Equity
According to ChainCatcher, a16z crypto announced that applications for the Crypto Startup School (CSS) Spring 2024 are now open, with a deadline of October 20, 2023. a16z crypto plans to hold CSS Spring 2024 in London. a16z crypto will invest $500,000 in each participating company in exchange for 7% equity and other standard rights. Applicants need to be builders developing crypto products or interested in learning programming languages like Solidity to develop products. (Source Link)
What Exciting Articles Are Worth Reading in the Last 24 Hours
1. "Bankless Talks to MetaMask Co-Founder: Why is MetaMask Snap So Important?"
Recently, MetaMask launched MetaMask Snaps at Permissionless II. Users can use this feature to achieve interoperability with Bitcoin and non-EVM blockchains. As leading wallets in the industry begin to expand their ecosystems, integrating more tokens and functionalities on-chain, could this be the "Chrome extension" moment for cryptocurrencies? Is this the way to attract the next billion users to crypto? In this episode, MetaMask co-founder Dan provides an in-depth introduction to the new Snap feature and discusses its future development and potential impact.
Celestia is the first modular blockchain network and a cloud computing network for Web 3. It is a pluggable consensus and data availability layer that allows anyone to quickly deploy decentralized blockchains without the overhead of bootstrapping a new consensus network. Industry opinions suggest that Celestia is the most significant underlying innovation in the blockchain industry since Ethereum. Both Ethereum and Celestia are building secure foundational layers.
3. "RWA in the Eyes of the Federal Reserve: Tokenization and Financial Stability"
In a working paper on tokenization published by the Federal Reserve on September 8, it stated that tokenization is a new and rapidly growing financial innovation in the crypto market, analyzed from the perspectives of scale, advantages, and risks. It first introduces the concept of tokenization, which refers to the process of creating digital representations (crypto tokens) for non-crypto assets (underlying assets). In this process, tokenization establishes a link between the crypto asset ecosystem and the traditional financial system. If sufficiently scaled, tokenized assets could transfer the risk of severe volatility from the crypto market to the underlying asset markets of traditional finance.
