Weekly Report | BlackRock Registers Ethereum Trust in Delaware; SEC Chairman Says FTX Can Be Restarted "Within Legal Bounds"
Poloniex has successfully identified and frozen assets related to the hacker; Binance has launched spot trading and U-based perpetual contracts for Ordinals (ORDI).Organizer: Cookies, ChainCatcher
"What Important Events Happened This Week (11.6-11.12)"
1. BlackRock Registers Ethereum Trust in Delaware, Believes SEC Will Approve Spot Bitcoin ETF Before January
Fox reporter Charles Gasparino stated on X platform that BlackRock is increasingly confident that the SEC will approve its spot Bitcoin ETF before January.
According to The Block, Nasdaq has submitted BlackRock's proposed Ethereum spot ETF "iShares Ethereum Trust" application to the SEC, which will use Coinbase Custody Trust Company as the custodian and will reference the CME CF Ether-Dollar reference rate.
Currently, BlackRock has registered the Ethereum trust in Delaware. Other asset management companies such as Grayscale, Ark Invest, ProShares, and Valkyrie have also submitted applications for Ethereum spot ETFs.
According to Bloomberg, UBS Group, along with competitors like HSBC, is allowing Hong Kong clients to trade some exchange-traded funds linked to cryptocurrencies. Insiders say that starting Friday, wealthy clients will be able to purchase three cryptocurrency ETFs authorized by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission on UBS's Hong Kong platform: Samsung Bitcoin Futures Active, CSOP Bitcoin Futures, and CSOP Ether Futures ETF. (Source Link)
2. SEC Chairman: "Legally" Restarting FTX is Feasible
Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, stated during Washington D.C.'s Fintech Week that if the new leadership of FTX has a clear understanding of the law, restarting FTX, operated by the former president of the New York Stock Exchange, is feasible "within the law."
Additionally, according to CoinDesk citing insiders, Silicon Valley investment firm represented by Proof Group, as part of the Fahrenheit consortium, has successfully bid for the bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius and is now involved in planning the restart of the once-mighty cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners has narrowed down multiple proposals for FTX's potential restart to one of three shortlisted options. Besides a possible restart, other options being considered include selling the entire trading platform and its 9 million customer list or bringing in partners. Perella Weinberg partner Kevin Cofsky stated last month that a final decision is expected by mid-December.
Other companies showing interest in reviving FTX include fintech and digital asset company Figure, which is also part of the NovaWulf group that failed to successfully bid for Celsius. It is reported that venture capital firm Tribe Capital has also submitted a bid for FTX. (Source Link)
3. Justin Sun: Poloniex Successfully Identified and Frozen Hacker-Related Assets, Will Gradually Resume Deposit and Withdrawal Services in the Coming Days
Justin Sun posted on social media that the Poloniex team has successfully identified and frozen some assets related to hacker addresses. Currently, the losses are within a controllable range, and Poloniex's operating income can cover these losses.
Additionally, Justin Sun stated that the Poloniex team has restored the Poloniex system and preserved relevant evidence. In the coming days, Poloniex will work to gradually resume deposits and withdrawals, ensuring 100% security. Poloniex sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience caused.
It is reported that on the evening of November 10, hackers stole a total of $118 million in cryptocurrency assets from Poloniex on Ethereum and Tron, including $32.7 million in USDT, 443 BTC (worth about $16.5 million), and 6,103 ETH (worth about $12.7 million), among others. (Source Link)
4. Changpeng Zhao: An Executive of a Client Was Lured to Montenegro and Extorted About $12.5 Million, Binance Successfully Frozen About $11.8 Million
Changpeng Zhao stated on social media that an executive of a client was lured to Montenegro on a "business trip," where they were kidnapped and forced to empty their wallet, resulting in a total loss of about $12.5 million.
Binance investigated on-chain activities and contacted partners earlier today to freeze the wallet, as all funds were transferred to a Tron wallet in USDT, successfully freezing about $11.8 million of the $12.5 million.
Whale Alert monitoring shows that an address with a balance of 11,862,921 USDT (worth 11,865,383 USD) was frozen on the Tron chain. (Source Link)
5. FTX Bankruptcy Advisors Sue Bybit to Recover Assets Worth $953 Million
According to Bloomberg, FTX bankruptcy advisors filed a lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange Bybit Fintech Ltd and its two subsidiaries in Delaware court on Friday, seeking to recover approximately $953 million in cash and crypto assets that were withdrawn from the platform before FTX's collapse.
The lawsuit claims that Bybit's investment division, Mirana Corp., had special "VIP" privileges that most FTX customers did not have and used these privileges to transfer most of its assets off the FTX platform during the collapse. While FTX customers were waiting in line to withdraw funds, Mirana pressured FTX employees to fulfill its withdrawal requests.
It is reported that another subsidiary named Time Research Ltd is also a defendant. (Source Link)
6. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Approves Celsius's Transformation into a Bitcoin Mining Company, Still Needs SEC Approval
According to Bloomberg, the U.S. bankruptcy court has approved the transformation of cryptocurrency lending company Celsius Network LLC into a Bitcoin mining company owned by creditors, as part of a proposal to repay customers whose accounts have been frozen for over a year. Approximately $2 billion worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum will be redistributed to Celsius creditors along with equity in NewCo. Celsius's lawyers stated that the platform may begin asset distribution early next year.
The transformation plan must also receive SEC approval, and if everything goes as planned, the new company will go public. If the proposal is not approved, Celsius may turn to liquidation. The judge urged the SEC to make a swift decision on Celsius's transformation plan. (Source Link)
7. Binance Launches Ordinals (ORDI) Spot and U-Based Perpetual Contracts
Binance launched Ordinals (ORDI) spot and U-based perpetual contracts on November 7. Casey Rodarmor, founder of the Bitcoin protocol Ordinals, requested Binance to remove the link in the "ORDI" token information interface, stating that ORDI is not associated with the Ordinals project, The Open Ordinals Institute, or The Ordicord. Binance has modified the information for the Ordinals (ORDI) token accordingly.
8. Ava Labs Founder: This Layoff Affected 12% of Employees
Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs, confirmed the news of the company's layoffs on social media, revealing that this layoff affected 12% of Ava Labs' employees.
Emin Gün Sirer stated, "This allows us to reallocate resources to double down on the growth of our company and the Avalanche ecosystem. The bear market is difficult to navigate, and Ava Labs is fortunate to have significant runway and resources, which we will concentrate in the coming years to advance the Avalanche ecosystem."
Previous News, Avalanche developer Ava Labs conducted large-scale layoffs on Monday, affecting multiple teams including communications and marketing. Garrison Yang, Vice President of Growth and Strategy at Ava Labs, stated on Twitter that the layoffs affected many, particularly employees in the company's marketing department. (Source Link)
9. WSJ: Former Legal Advisors of FTX Team Up with Former Executives to Establish a New Cryptocurrency Exchange
According to The Wall Street Journal, former FTX General Counsel Can Sun is teaming up with several former FTX executives to establish a new cryptocurrency exchange aimed at addressing the issues that led to FTX's bankruptcy. Can Sun testified in the criminal trial of SBF and is a key witness in the trial.
Can Sun is currently leading a Dubai startup named Trek Labs, which plans to launch a new cryptocurrency exchange called Backpack. Trek Labs received approval from Dubai's cryptocurrency regulatory authority last month. Sun is collaborating with former FTX employee Armani Ferrante and other former FTX executives to raise funds at a valuation of $100 million. (Source Link)
10. Data
- MicroStrategy holds over 158,000 Bitcoins, with a floating profit of over $1.1 billion.
- Tether issued 1 billion USDT on Tron for the next issuance request and on-chain exchange inventory.
- Raft suffered a hack with losses of about $3.3 million, with the attacker destroying 1,570 ETH and losing 4 ETH in the process.
- FTT briefly surpassed $5.5 on November 11, with a 270% increase over three days.
- CME Bitcoin open interest reached $4 billion, surpassing Binance to rank first.
- The largest holding address for sats minted 150 trillion sats on September 24, worth $1.91 million.
- A whale has accumulated 274,000 AAVE, worth about $26 million.
- Binance cold wallet transferred $282 million BTC to Binance hot wallet.
"What Great Articles Are Worth Reading This Week (11.6-11.12)"
1. "The 'Death Wave' Arrives: A Review of Seven Ways Web3 Projects Die"
By synthesizing the "last words" of these dying projects, ChainCatcher summarizes the seven main reasons for their demise. For most projects declared dead, lack of funding is the primary and most direct reason, while other reasons include lack of product-market fit and tightening regulatory policies.
2. "On the 15th Anniversary of Bitcoin, Does 'Digital Gold' Remain Unchanged?"
Looking at the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems, from Taproot Assets to RaaS, the BTC and ETH communities seem to gradually reach a consensus—if the economic environment does not improve rapidly, simplifying user operations from a technical perspective and providing developers with more tools to play with may be a more promising route out of the bear market. Thus, we can look forward to the 16th year of the Bitcoin white paper and the new narrative after the Ethereum Cancun upgrade, which will further refine the problem-solving approach during the bear market.
The remaining contenders for acquiring FTX include Bullish, a cryptocurrency exchange under Block.one, fintech startup Figure Technologies, and crypto venture capital firm Proof Group, making an FTX restart possible.
4. "BRC20 Intensifies CEX Competition, Web3 Wallets Enter the Scene, Binance and Others Follow Suit"
Centralized exchanges integrating Web3 wallets are becoming a trend. Following OKX's integration of a Web3 wallet, Binance and Bitget announced the integration of Web3 wallets this week; gate.io has not directly announced the integration of a Web3 wallet but has released its own Web3 wallet. Previously, Bybit had already integrated a Web3 wallet.
The recent intensive launch of Web3 wallets by centralized exchanges, including built-in Web3 wallets, is hard not to be speculated as a product driven by OKX's Web3 wallet. This week, with the second surge of BRC20, OKX has once again welcomed a traffic bonus due to its Web3 wallet. According to Dune data, with the surge in Bitcoin Ordinals trading volume, on November 8, OKX's Web3 wallet's Ordinals daily trading volume exceeded $12 million, capturing over 75% of the market share. The price of OKB also broke $58, reaching a historical high.
5. "GAS Token Rises 50% in a Day, Is There a Korean Force Behind It?"
The old public chain Neo's token NEO once created the myth of a thousandfold increase and was the first to introduce Byzantine fault tolerance to public chains. Now, another token of the public chain Neo, GAS, has risen about 650% last month and today (November 9) rose another 50%. Besides the token NEO, what is the GAS token, and what triggered its surge?
With the development of blockchain technology, cross-chain interoperability has become a highly focused topic, attracting more developers, enterprises, and investors to research and solve the technical and solution challenges of cross-chain interoperability. The popular project LayerZero has gained funding from notable crypto capitals such as a16z, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs, and Multicoin Capital, and in April this year, it secured $120 million in Series B funding at a valuation of $3 billion. Recently, it has once again become the center of discussion due to the launch of its liquid staking protocol stETH's packaging function.
7. "Interpreting Bitcoin Layer2: Solving the 'Impossible Triangle' Dilemma"
The Bitcoin L2 space is fascinating, as protocols like Ordinals, BRC-20, and Runes attract more Web3 developers to build on Bitcoin, leading to increasing competition. As Web3 investors, our focus remains on applications and infrastructure while trying to avoid token trading. Currently, we are interested in off-chain networks and decentralized sidechains with unique application advantages, mainly because they have open member consensus models, community building, and capital acquisition advantages. If BitVM successfully introduces a more minimal trust method for joint cross-chain bridges, we are also optimistic about joint mining.
Importantly, both collateral-driven cross-chain bridges like sBTC and the BitVM method are still in development. BitVM was just announced through a white paper this month and has attracted significant interest from developers, while sBTC has been in development for over a year with substantial resources invested. Ultimately, in addition to investing in Bitcoin L1 applications and infrastructure, the Bitcoin Frontier Fund also aims to strategically enter these three areas.
8. "Understanding the BTC Ecosystem and Tools"
Before understanding these protocols, let's first answer a question: Why has the BTC ecosystem suddenly been discovered for its value? This requires discussing two important technical updates. First, the Segregated Witness upgrade in 2017 effectively expanded BTC's block data from 1MB to 4MB, but the expanded portion could only be used to store signatures.
It wasn't until the Taproot upgrade at the end of 2021 that advanced scripting could be written, allowing complex data to be written on BTC. BTC has made significant progress in programmability and scalability, leading to the emergence of protocols with complex logic. The BTC ecosystem has finally entered the next milestone phase, which is a major opportunity for the ecosystem's explosion in 2023.
9. "DYDX Valuation Report: Unlocking Panic and Data Truth"
The new version of DYDX has been launched on the mainnet, receiving a positive market response and a strong price increase. However, it is also worth noting that in December, dYdX will face a large number of initially allocated tokens being unlocked (accounting for 15% of the total token supply). How will the market react to the potential selling pressure? Will the token release lead to inflation and dilute the v4's empowerment? Can the positive effects of the new version continue to drive DYDX token growth? Is December the last opportunity to get in? To explore the development prospects of dYdX and the expected value of the DYDX token more deeply, this article will be data-driven, analyzing from a valuation perspective based on previous works. It will use DCF and comparable analysis models to reasonably predict dYdX's revenue and token price, and discuss the potential impact of this selling pressure on v4 staking yields.
10. "Why Did SOL Rise 4 Times in a Year, but Solana's Ecosystem Development Still Lags?"
Solana (SOL) has surged in the past few weeks, causing many investors to feel strong FOMO. Even Arthur Hayes and Raoul Pal have joined in. If this doesn't mark a local peak, I don't know what else could (based on recent price trends, it indeed marks a local peak).
What is the reason? Why hasn't Solana's ecosystem become active in 2023?
The answer is quite simple. It's not all doom and gloom for the network. A batch of new projects is injecting new liquidity into the ecosystem and can address the issues hindering Solana's development.
Risk warning
Risk warning
