author | Wu Blockchain about blockchain
Top 10 News of the Week
1. Federal Reserve officials: The time for rate cuts may be the end of the year
Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said that "Bank of America's forecast that the Fed will cut interest rates once this year, but not until December, is a reasonable forecast. The Fed is now in a very favorable position to slowly obtain more inflation data, more economic data and labor market data before making any decisions. But if there is only one rate cut, which is the median forecast, then the time of the rate cut is likely to be at the end of the year.
2. Consensys:SEC will not charge ETH sales as securities transactions
Consensys said that it had received notice from the SEC that they would end their investigation into Ethereum 2.0, which means that the SEC will not accuse the sale of ETH of securities trading. Consensys wrote to the SEC on June 7, asking it to confirm that the approval of the ETH ETF in May, which is based on ETH as a commodity, means that the agency will end its investigation into Ethereum 2.0. In addition, Consensys said that the struggle is still going on, and in the lawsuit, it also seeks a declaration that providing the user interface software MetaMask Swaps and Staking does not violate securities laws.
It is worth noting that in the SEC’s lawsuit against Kraken , the SEC claimed that 11 tokens including SOL, ADA and ALGO were securities.
3. German government addresses deposited a total of 1,400 BTC to Kraken, Bitstamp and Coinbase
On June 19 at 16:47 UTC+8, the German Government transferred a total of 2,000 BTC (500 BTC each) to Kraken, Bitstamp and Coinbase exchanges and the unmarked address 139PoP…H7ybVu, worth about $130 million. The German Government also transferred 200 BTC to Coinbase and 1,500 BTC to the unmarked address 139PoP…H7ybVu at 21:17 UTC+8. As of press time, the German government address has withdrawn 310 BTC from the Kraken withdrawal address and 10 BTC from the unmarked address bc1qulc6…parj8, with a total net transfer of 1,400 BTC to exchanges and a net transfer of 3,390 BTC in two days, with a total value of about $220 million. There are currently 47.179k BTC in the German Government address, worth about $3.06 billion.
4. Certik and Kraken Rashomon
On June 20, CertiK released an official response to the serious vulnerability of the Kraken exchange. CertiK emphasized that they notified Kraken immediately after discovering the vulnerability, and the latter classified it as "critical". Although the vulnerability fix was initially successful, Kraken's security team subsequently threatened CertiK employees and asked them to return the unmatched amount of cryptocurrency without providing a repayment address. CertiK stated that in order to protect the security and transparency of users, they decided to make the incident public and called on Kraken to stop threatening white hat hackers and jointly maintain the secure future of Web3.
According to the Certik Withdrawers addresses related to the Kraken incident disclosed by @tayvano_ and @CyversAlerts, Certik Withdrawer: 0x3C6…97bb3 withdrew 154k MATIC (about 114,000 US dollars), 553,506k USDT and 60.332 ETH (about 223,000 US dollars) from the Kraken hot wallet on June 7 and 8, and then exchanged 553,506k USDT for 149.364 ETH on the chain and deposited 154k MATIC into the currency mixing platform ChangeNow; Certik Withdrawer: 0xDC6…776BC withdrew 353.895k USDT and 30.532 ETH (about 113,000 US dollars) from the Kraken hot wallet on June 7 and 8, and then exchanged 353.895k USDT for 149.364 ETH on the chain and deposited 154k MATIC into the currency mixing platform ChangeNow. Exchanged on-chain for 95.477 ETH and transferred 2 ETH to ChangeNow; Certik Withdrawer: 0xC60…3a599 withdrew 45 ETH from Kraken hot wallet on June 9, and then transferred 44.98 ETH to ChangeNow. Although the remaining assets in these Certik Withdrawer addresses were returned to Kraken Deposit on June 19, the transfer of part of the assets to the mixing platform ChangeNow, the exchange of assets on the chain, and the holding for about two weeks still aroused widespread doubts. According to the traceability of the deposit test transaction published by Certik, the Certik test address: 0x5a…285C conducted a Tornado Cash test before the Kraken vulnerability withdrawal function test on June 6, and transferred 1.2k MATIC (about 872 US dollars) to Tornado Cash. The purpose of doing so is still unclear.
According to Cyvers CTO @Meir_Dv, an unknown address: 0x1d…7ac9 created a contract: 0×45…CeA9 on the Base network on May 24 and conducted related activities, and the Certik test address: 0x5a…285C also used the same signature hash 0xa04a4c3b of the unknown address: 0x1d…7ac9, which questioned Certik's claim that the vulnerability was discovered on June 5. Further investigation found that the contract: 0×45…CeA9 deployed on Base was suspected to be testing OKX and Coinbase on May 24 to see if there was the same vulnerability as Kraken.
CertiK published a series of questions and answers on the CertiK-Kraken white hat incident. CertiK stated that no real Kraken users' assets were directly involved in the research activities. In the communication with Kraken (via email and video conference), CertiK always assured them that the funds would be returned. All funds currently held have been returned, but the total amount is different from Kraken's requirements. CertiK returned: 734.19215 ETH, 29,001 USDT and 1021.1 XMR, while Kraken required the return of: 155818.4468 MATIC, 907400.1803 USDT, 475.5557871 ETH and 1089.794737 XMR. CertiK disclosed the details of the vulnerability to Kraken in detail and it was fixed within 47 minutes. After the test, CertiK promptly notified Kraken through various means and sent a detailed report. CertiK did not participate in Kraken's bounty program and did not mention any bounty requests. The focus was on ensuring that the problem was resolved. In addition, CertiK stated that it conducted multiple large-scale tests to test the limits of Kraken's protection and risk control. After multiple tests over multiple days, nearly three million worth of cryptocurrency did not trigger any alarms, and it still did not figure out the limits.
According to security researcher @tayvano_, the 734.19215 ETH, 29,001 USDT and 1021.1 XMR returned by Certik can be verified on the chain, but the returned 29,001 USDT was withdrawn from Binance on June 19, and there are doubts about some data, such as Certik sent 47 ETH to ChangeNow and received 61 ETH from ChangeNow; the amount of XMR does not match (it may have been consumed by a privacy transaction); why the 907,000 USDT withdrawn by Certik should be exchanged for 244 ETH. Kraken requested Certik to return 155818.4468 MATIC, 907400.1803 USDT, 475.5557871 ETH, and 1089.794737 XMR. The main difference between Certik and Kraken and the one that still has great doubts is the MATIC asset.
5. Coinbase announces the launch of the Pre-Launch market
Coinbase International Exchange and Coinbase Advanced announced that they will launch the Pre-Launch market to trade tokens before they are issued and participate in price discovery. The Pre-Launch market allows users to trade perpetual futures contracts for tokens that have not yet been launched. Qualified institutional users and retail traders can access the Pre-Launch market through Coinbase International Exchange and Coinbase Advanced, respectively.
6. Standard Chartered Bank sets up spot cryptocurrency trading desk for Bitcoin and Ethereum
According to Bloomberg, Standard Chartered Bank has set up a spot cryptocurrency trading desk for Bitcoin and Ethereum, which will soon begin operations and will become part of the bank's foreign exchange trading department. Standard Chartered Bank said it has been working closely with regulators to support institutional clients' demand for Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions, which is in line with its strategy to support a broader digital asset ecosystem, from access and custody to tokenization and interoperability.
7. Japanese cryptocurrency exchange BitFlyer is in talks to acquire bankrupt FTX Japan
Japanese cryptocurrency exchange giant BitFlyer is negotiating to acquire FTX Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of bankrupt FTX Trading, and will take over its business. FTX Trading filed for Chapter 11 protection of the U.S. federal bankruptcy law in November 2022 due to deteriorating operations, including about 130 group companies. The acquisition is expected to involve billions of yen and will depend on the progress of the bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. court.
8. MicroStrategy purchased approximately 11,931 more bitcoins between April 27 and June 19
Michael Saylor said that MicroStrategy used the proceeds from convertible notes and excess cash to purchase another 11,931 BTC at an average price of approximately $65,883, worth approximately $786 million. As of June 20, 2024, MicroStrategy held 226,331 BTC at an average price of $36,798, worth approximately $8.33 billion.
9. Ethereum NFT market sees both coin-based and U-based prices fall
Ethereum NFT categories are experiencing a general decline again. As of press time, among the mainstream Ethereum NFTs, Cryptopunks, PudgyPenguins, BAYC, Azuki, Milady, and DeGods have floor prices of 24.45, 8.44, 8.84, 2.99, 5.17, and 0.80 ETH, respectively. In terms of Ethereum, their price increases and decreases over the past week were -16.98%, -20.87%, -19.41%, -22.70%, +13.63%, and -15.63%, respectively. This may be related to the upcoming end of Blur Season 3.
10. LayerZero airdrop is online, users must donate $0.10 for each ZRO received
On June 20, LayerZero airdrop was officially launched, and its ZRO token was listed on mainstream exchanges such as Binance, OKX, Coinbase, Upbit, etc. LayerZero distributes airdrops from multiple dimensions such as the number of public chains used and the number of L0 protocols, Stargate voting rewards, LP, ONFT and OFT users. LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino said that a total of 1.28 million addresses are eligible for airdrops, and nearly 10 million ZRO tokens that would have been owned by sybil are now allocated to users. The LayerZero RFP allocates 30 million ZRO tokens, of which Stargate received 10 million ZRO allocations, and Pudgy Penguins and Kanpai Pandas each received 1 million ZRO allocations. All projects in the RFP allocate their own quotas to their own communities according to their own wishes.
In addition, LayerZero has launched a new claim mechanism called "Proof-of-Donation", which will donate approximately $18.5 million to the Protocol Guild, a collective funding mechanism for Ethereum developers. To claim ZRO, users must donate $0.10 in USDC, USDT, or native ETH per ZRO. This small donation will go directly to the Protocol Guild. The LayerZero Foundation will match all donations, up to a maximum of $10 million.
Key financing events
Modular blockchain development platform Particle Network announces $15 million Series A funding
Solana Layer 2 Sonic Completes $12 Million Series A Funding
Binance Labs announces investment in Rango
Liquidity re-pledge agreement Renzo announces completion of $17 million in financing
Memecoin leveraged trading protocol Wasabi completes $3 million in financing
UK Web3 and XR gaming company Saltwater Games receives investment from Animoca Brands
For more industry financing events, please visit crypto-fundraising.info.
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