BlockBeats will organize the key industry news content of the week (6.17-6.23) in this article, and recommend in-depth articles to help readers better understand the market and learn about industry trends.
Important News Review
ZKsync token ZK was available for claiming on Wednesday and will be listed on Binance, OKX and other exchanges
Binance was originally scheduled to launch ZKsync (ZK) at 16:00 (ET on June 17), and open spot trading pairs of ZK/BTC, ZK/USDT, ZK/FDUSD, and ZK/TRY. Later, it was postponed to 18:00 on the same day. It hit $0.295 after Binance opened, and is now quoted at $0.183. According to Nansen data, among the "first 10,000 addresses" that received the ZK airdrop, nearly 41% of the addresses sold all the airdrops, while 29.2% of the addresses sold at least some of the tokens. The total sales of the two groups exceeded 486 million ZK.
Binance: Distributing 10.5 million ZK tokens to up to 52,500 eligible users
On June 17, before the launch of the ZK token, Binance announced that it would distribute 10,500,000 ZK tokens to up to 52,500 Binance users who met all of the following conditions. The planned date is 10:00 on June 17-07:59 on July 17. The conditions are as follows:
1. The user initiated at least 50 transactions on ZKSync Era between February 2023 and March 2024 (where the user was the “sender” address in the transaction);
2. Transactions were made in 7 different months (between February 2023 and March 2024), excluding self-transfers;
3. The claim address does not meet the ZK token eligibility requirements of the official ZK Nation airdrop program;
4. The claim address is not a contract/CEX/bridge address.
In addition, eligible users must deposit at least 0.02 ETH from the whitelisted address of the ZKSync ERA network to the Binance official website. Binance will use the ZKsync active user whitelist as a reference for distribution. ZK tokens will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis to users who meet all of the above conditions.
LayerZero token ZRO airdrop is open for claiming and will be listed on exchanges; users are dissatisfied with the "airdrop tax" required to claim the airdrop
On June 20, according to the official announcement, Binance has launched LayerZero (ZRO) at 20:00 on June 20, 2024 and added a seed tag to it, and opened ZRO/BTC, ZRO/USDT, ZRO/FDUSD, and ZRO/TRY spot trading pairs. LayerZero (ZRO) opened at $5.62 on Binance and is currently quoted at $3.19. According to Dune data, due to the large number of users choosing the Arbitrum network to receive the LayerZero (ZRO) airdrop, Arbitrum rollup's daily revenue reached $3.43 million and its profit reached $3.29 million, both of which set historical records. Related reading: "Layerzero token ZRO valuation and price forecast, when is it more appropriate to sell?"
On June 20, LayerZero announced the token economics. The total amount of ZRO is 1 billion, of which: 38.3% is allocated to the LayerZero community, including users, developers and community members; 32.2% is allocated to strategic partners for a period of 3 years, including investors and consultants; 25.5% is allocated to core contributors for a period of 3 years, including current and future team members; 4.0% of the tokens will be repurchased and promised to be placed in the community fund pool. Related reading: "Interpreting the Token Economics of LayerZero (ZRO): A total of 1 billion tokens, 38.3% is allocated to the community"
On the same day, the LayerZero Foundation announced the launch of a new claiming mechanism called Proof-of-Donation, which will result in approximately $18.5 million in donations to the Protocol Guild. To claim ZRO, users must donate USDC, USDT, or native ETH at a price of $0.10 per ZRO. This small donation is transferred directly to the Protocol Guild. The LayerZero Foundation will match all donations, up to a cap of $10 million. Later that day, LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino posted a statement saying that there is no forced donation, and if you don't want to donate, don't claim it. This is not something you own, but something that others provide. The move caused dissatisfaction among users. Related reading: "LayerZero launches "airdrop tax", and huge profits eventually go inward"
LayerZero market makers may be six institutions including GSR and Wintermute
On June 20, @Noah_nftn monitored that there may be six LayerZero market makers, namely GSR, Wintermute, Amber Group, Auros, Animoca Brands and an unknown institution. Wintermute and GSR have already recharged ZRO to the trading platform for testing.
Binance's second Megadrop project Lista (LISTA) is now open
Binance's second Megadrop project - Lista (LISTA) will be launched on Binance at 18:00 (ET) on June 20, 2024, and LISTA/BTC, LISTA/USDT, LISTA/BNB, LISTA/FDUSD and LISTA/TRY trading markets will be opened, and seed tag trading rules will apply.
Consensys: The US SEC is ending its investigation into Ethereum 2.0 and will no longer accuse ETH sales of securities transactions
On June 19, Ethereum infrastructure development company Consensys posted on social media, “Today, we are pleased to announce a major victory for Ethereum developers, technology providers, and industry participants: the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Enforcement Division has notified us that it is ending its investigation into Ethereum 2.0. This means that the SEC will not bring charges that the sale of ETH is a securities transaction.”
Bloomberg analyst: Ethereum spot ETF is expected to be launched before July 4
On June 19, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart posted on social media that “Based on the documents submitted by Bitwise this time, it is unclear when these products (Ethereum spot ETFs) will be launched. Additional updates may not be required, and adjustments may be required. But they need to be ultimately approved by the SEC. The launch time depends largely on the SEC’s decision. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas and I believe they should be launched before July 4.”
Magic Eden has opened the channel for exchanging Magic Tickets for "Diamond" points
Magic Eden officials said that the Magic Tickets series of NFTs will be integrated into the rewards program. Users holding Magic Tickets can now use NFTs to redeem "diamond" points, and the destruction window will last for one month. Because the community previously speculated that Magic Eden's future tokens will be associated with "diamonds", there have been speculations about the pricing of diamonds. Related reading: "Magic Tickets Burn for "Diamonds", How Does the Market Price Its Valuation?"
Binance launches HODLer airdrop for BNB holders, airdrop distribution will be counted according to backtracking logic
On June 19, Binance is launching the HODLer airdrop for BNB holders. Users who subscribe to Simple Earn with BNB will receive airdropped tokens issued by projects with a large amount of token circulation and intend to be listed on Binance soon. Binance will make an announcement before the HODLer starts a new token airdrop. User balances and total pool balances will be snapshotted multiple times per hour to obtain the hourly average balance of users in Simple Earn products (flexible and/or locked). Later that day, Binance co-founder He Yi posted that (HODLer airdrop) is an upgraded version of Launchpool, and users who hold BNB for a long time will receive benefits. Hodler's projects are distributed to BNB holders, and the statistical time is not based on future holding logic, but retrospective logic.
He Yi released his opinions one after another, responding to the community's doubts about Binance's listing and the poor performance of new coins after listing
On June 18, Binance co-founder He Yi responded to a discussion on the social platform about "Why TON is not listed on Binance" and said, "Considering that many projects on the market have a circulation of 1-3% when they are launched, we hope that the circulation of the project will not be less than 10%. If Megadrop or lounchpool is added, the total number of airdrops will be in the single digits to double digits, and these coins are given to users by the project party."
On June 22, He Yi wrote again: "The rise in 2024 was initiated by BTC ETF. The king-level projects and Lumao Studio worked together to create a wave of beautiful data. On the one hand, the project parties can raise more money from VCs. On the other hand, the project parties with money and users are full of confidence. There are millions of users on the chain. It doesn’t matter if they are not listed on a certain platform. Most of them will be listed on CEX. If CEX is not listed, there are DEX. If not, there are native DEX on their own chain. Trading platforms do not have pricing power, so for projects with high valuations, users need to look at the fundamentals, not just the market value, but also the circulation. Today, the fratricide between Lumao Studio and L2 projects has turned into a farce, and the Lumao era may be over. As an ordinary investor, the ICO in 2017, the IEO and nesting dolls in 2021, and even the Lumao strategy in 2023 may not be suitable for today's market."
Grass: Wallet binding and email verification are now available
On June 21, Grass posted on the X platform that users need to link their Solana wallet to the corresponding Grass account, verify the bound email address, and follow the official tweet link to enter the "Rewards" tab on the dashboard. The support team will answer user questions at any time on Discord.
10x Research: The selling pressure caused by the large-scale unlocking of Altcoin is dragging down Bitcoin
On June 18, 10x Research said in its market analysis report that last week was a critical moment for the cryptocurrency market and one of the most critical weeks in 2024. Cryptocurrencies, especially Altcoin, have fallen sharply. It is difficult for the market to digest the large amount of token unlocking of Aptos $97 million, IMX $51 million, STRK $75 million, SEI $62 million, ARB $90 million, APE $18 million, and UNI $90 million (a total of $483 million). Early investors and venture investors seem to be under pressure to cash out, and these token flows are dragging down Bitcoin. Despite improved inflation data, Bitcoin ETFs have seen a large outflow (average outflow of $660 million in 5 days) as the overall net outflow of various fields (stablecoins, futures leverage, ETFs, etc.) was $2.4 billion, which was the third week of net flow decline since the launch of ETFs in January 2024. Additionally, as SOL-USDT falls below key trend levels and support lines, SOL may face more downward pressure, with some analysts pointing out that it could fall to $100.
Vitalik: Off-chain ZK applications underestimate the potential of using STARKs
On June 17, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on social media that he believes that off-chain ZK applications really underestimate the potential of using STARK, including use cases with high privacy requirements. Currently, STARK is less than 100 kB, and for off-chain use cases, this amount of bandwidth is negligible compared to the client proof time saved by using STARK.
US CFTC is investigating Jump Crypto
On June 20, Fortune reported that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating Jump Crypto. Jump has been known as one of the leading players in the field of high-frequency trading. In September 2021, the company announced the establishment of its crypto division Jump Crypto. It is not clear whether the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is considering bringing any charges against the company.
A MEV robot earned 250,000 SOL in 2 months, equivalent to about 34 million US dollars
On June 20, according to Lookonchain monitoring, a MEV robot earned 250,000 SOL (about 34 million US dollars) in 2 months, and all profits were transferred to a wallet address starting with 9973hW. The robot earned 1 million US dollars on RNT, 617,300 US dollars on TOPG, and 403,500 US dollars on MOTHER. Related reading: "Making 30 million US dollars in 2 months, why the "sandwich attack" on Solana is repeatedly banned"
Linea: Linea Park LXP coinage will be opened, anti-witch work has been carried out
On June 20, Linea officials posted on social media that they will open Linea Park LXP minting tomorrow. Officials said that due to the high participation in Linea Park, a large number of robots and Sybil addresses have appeared. After official anti-sybil work, addresses identified as robots or Sybils will not be able to receive LXP from Linea Park, and these addresses will be marked as "POH for this account is disabled."
A bank executive embezzled public funds and laundered money through virtual currency, involving up to 2.6 billion yuan
On June 18, according to Jiemian News, in August 2020, the former Party Secretary and President of Huludao Bank colluded with shareholders to fabricate asset management plans on the grounds of resolving non-performing assets, and misappropriated up to 2.6 billion yuan of the bank's funds. The criminals illegally converted more than 1.8 billion yuan of the funds into foreign currency and transferred them to the Hong Kong company account. From September to October 2020, the criminals purchased virtual currencies at a price higher than the market price in the virtual currency trading WeChat group. After that, the obtained virtual currencies were sold overseas through overseas virtual currency buyers and exchanged for US dollars and other remittances to the Hong Kong company bank account. The court held that knowing that the funds of others were the proceeds of crime from the bank, they still helped them convert them into virtual currency and transfer them overseas. The circumstances were serious and their actions constituted the crime of money laundering.
This week's hot articles
《The third "519" this year is coming》
The crypto world has been turbulent in the past week. Mainstream value coins have been falling for a long time, and the serial liquidations of CRV and the ZK airdrop have caused panic among the people. Today, as Bitcoin fell below US$65,000, the crypto once again ushered in "519".
The witch cleansing activity that lasted for more than a month has finally ended. On June 19, the LayerZero Foundation announced on X that it had launched an airdrop qualification query page, but the result can still be described as "stingy". As one of the most anticipated potential airdrop projects in the community, LayerZero's airdrop was expected to be "big and coming", but as the witch cleansing activity progressed, a large number of studios and even retail accounts were reported as witch accounts, and all the hard work for more than half a year was finally wiped out.
"Is Kanpai Pandas, which received the LayerZero airdrop, a "rat trading"? "
First of all, my point is very clear, Kanpai Pandas is obviously not a "rat warehouse". Since entering 2023, the floor price of Kanpai Pandas has never been lower than 0.7 ETH. After LayerZero announced the snapshot in early May, Kanpai Pandas was also smashed, but the trend is still relatively stable, and the increase in trading volume has not shown a "guillotine" trend.
Recently, Binance's registered users exceeded 200 million and an AMA was held for this. Binance co-founder He Yi answered some questions that everyone was concerned about, including the recent counter-trading theft of coins, the contradiction of FDV's large project listing coins, and the standards for removing zombie coins. In addition, He Yi said that he would write emails to CZ every day and also need to write reading notes; his daily life mainly involves fitness, making phone calls (teleconferences), and coaxing children to sleep, which is very boring. He Yi jokingly mentioned "girlfriend coins", saying that Binance is trying to see if it can bring some normal business models, and will also endure some ridicule and failures in the process.
We will take a bird’s eye view of the digital asset landscape for the remainder of 2024, including a closer look at the two major catalysts at this juncture – regulation and liquidity. Portfolio-level insights from the second quarter will be shared with LPs in a separate email.
"It's not VCs or retail investors, who made money in this bull market?"
June 18th was the carnival for e-commerce, but it was not a happy day for crypto users. Bitcoin and various Altcoin have been "falling continuously" with almost no signs of rebound. There were complaints on various platforms. Who has made money in this bull market so far? First of all, it is definitely not VCs. Most of the projects invested by VCs have not yet started to issue coins. Secondly, it is not retail investors. Most retail investors speculate on memes, play altcoins, and open contracts. It cannot be said that there are no people who make money, but they are very few, and the probability is about the same as playing the lottery. From observation, there are several types of people who make money: 1. Bitcoin holders 2. Centralized exchanges 3. CeFi platforms such as Tether 4. Operation teams of some public chain/DeFi products 5. Coin issuing project parties with high market value whose main purpose is to sell coins.
On May 22, Farcaster completed a $150 million financing led by Paradigm at a valuation of nearly $1 billion. This news once again attracted attention to Farcaster and its largest front-end application Warpcast, which had attracted market attention at the beginning of the year. Daily active users reached a record high one day after the announcement of financing. Currently, the Farcaster protocol is gradually opening up its core functions to weaken Warpcast's exclusive advantages and encourage the development of more third-party clients. Despite some operational challenges, the Farcaster protocol is still in the early stage of dividend discovery.
Why do almost all Web3 social applications fail?
We live in a capitalist world where money is everything, but true cultural power is not always proportional to wealth. Being rich can bring not only a certain kind of political and cultural influence, but it can also lead to a lack of another kind of cultural power. This article delves into the relationship between the merchant class and cultural tastemakers, revealing the difficulty of converting between money and status. Although there are many ways to convert financial capital into social capital in theory, it is challenging in practice. We explore the reasons behind this phenomenon and use the cases of Web2 and Web3 to explain the difference between financial incentives and social incentives and their impact on community building.
This is not a native industry of cryptocurrency. Compared with investment institutions and individual cryptocurrency traders, the history of Lumao people started in 2020, which is only 4 years. Unlike investment or speculation, Lumao is more like doing business. Basically, there is no need to understand the so-called new concept of Crypto. You only focus on costs and benefits. In the past 4 years, the scale and voice of Lumao's business have become larger and larger. From individual iteration to studio and even company, it has become an extremely important part of the cryptocurrency industry. Of course, the crowded track means considerable profits. Examples of Lumao getting rich like cryptocurrency trading are common, and the returns are even more amazing than those of cryptocurrency trading.
On June 19, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken and blockchain security company CertiK had a public standoff on social media over a series of serious security vulnerabilities. Initially, CertiK discovered a series of serious vulnerabilities in Kraken, which originated from a recent change in Kraken's user experience (UX), which immediately booked customer accounts before their assets were settled and allowed customers to trade cryptocurrency markets in real time, and Kraken had not yet fully tested this specific attack vector. After Kraken examined the vulnerability, it was immediately assessed as "critical" and the issue was mitigated by Kraken's team of experts 47 minutes later. Subsequently, Kraken Chief Security Officer Nick Percoco stated that the issue was fully fixed and would not occur again.
"$DJT is so popular, did Trump issue a coin?"
The two-week-long craze for celebrity coins has died down. But to the community's surprise, perhaps the biggest character IP in the crypto meme, "Trump", has also had his own coin. On June 18, the well-known American media Pirate Wires published a tweet on the X platform, saying "Rumor has it that Trump is launching an official token on Solana - $DJT." In the past two months, Trump's related meme tokens have all seen surprising gains. These tokens were all initiated by the community, and Trump himself has not responded to these tokens in public. Trump's "pro-crypto" performance is only in various campaign speeches.
"After the CRV liquidation, has CVX become the top choice for whale to buy the dips at the bottom?"
Last week, DeFi ushered in the biggest turning point of this cycle. CRV continued to fall to a low of $0.219, and the lending positions of founder Michael Egorov were gradually liquidated. According to Arkham statistics, in less than half a day, all of Michael's loan positions in 5 agreements were liquidated, worth $140 million. Although the price of CRV has rebounded, the most eye-catching is CVX. On June 17, according to Binance market data, CVX briefly rose to $4.66 and then fell back, up more than 90% in 24 hours.
On June 17, Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, announced the launch of the open platform "Alloy by Tether", which allows the creation of different bound assets supported by Tether Gold. Alloy by Tether aims to combine the stability of the US dollar with the security of gold to provide users with a reliable and versatile digital currency for daily use and asset management. The platform is developed and managed by Moon Gold NA, SA de CV and Moon Gold El Salvador, SA de CV, authorized by the El Salvador CNAD (National Digital Asset Commission), both of which are members of the Tether Group to meet different customer groups and regulatory requirements.
As an L2 network with the grand vision of "leading 1 billion users into the on-chain society", the Base ecosystem is undoubtedly in the first echelon in the industry in terms of its tolerance for various application products. On June 14, Base officially issued a statement hinting that it would reach a relevant cooperation with the world-class sports brand Adidas. For a time, speculation about a new round of Base Onchain Summer once again became the focus of market attention. This article briefly reviews and introduces some representative products of the Base ecosystem for readers' reference.
Arthur Hayes: Memecoins will get even crazier; Dogecoin will get an ETF before the end of this cycle
Recently, Coin Bureau invited Arthur Hayes and Raoul Pal to have an in-depth conversation to discuss market risks, aggressive investment strategies, and annual forecasts. Arthur emphasized the strategy of holding Bitcoin and Altcoin, and shared their family office's successful experience in the Ethena project and the liquid pledge token ecosystem. Raoul shared his investment in Solana and high-end NFTs, pointing out that doing nothing is the best strategy this year. In addition, they explored the cultural value and market potential of memecoins, predicted that Dogecoin might get an ETF, and discussed the impact of the US election on the market and potential risks in the future.
Welcome to BlockBeats the BlockBeats official community:
Telegram subscription group: https://t.me/theblockbeats
Telegram group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App
Twitter Official Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
