BlockBeats will organize the key industry news content of the week (6.24-6.30) in this article, and recommend in-depth articles to help readers better understand the market and learn about industry trends.
US SEC "attacks" Ethereum ecosystem: sues Consensys; accuses Lido and Rocket Pool of securities staking schemes
On June 29, market news indicated that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Consensys. The SEC's complaint stated that since 2016, Consensys has developed and operated a set of crypto-related services under the "MetaMask" brand. Some of the products provided by Consensys to customers perform ancient functions: (1) brokering securities transactions for retail investors and (2) engaging in the offer and sale of securities. Consensys violated federal securities laws by not registering as a broker-dealer and not registering the offer and sale of certain securities, thereby depriving investors of key protections under these laws. Since October 2020, Consensys has acted as an unregistered crypto-asset securities broker through its MetaMask Swaps service. Since January 2023, Consensys has engaged in the offer and sale of unregistered crypto-asset staking plans and acted as an unregistered broker through its MetaMask Staking service. As an unregistered broker, Consensys has collected more than $250 million in fees through these activities.
Consensys later responded to the matter and confirmed that it was sued. "Consensys fully expected the SEC to follow through on its threats against us, claiming that our MetaMask software interface must be registered as a securities broker. The SEC has been pursuing an anti-cryptocurrency agenda through interim enforcement actions. This is the latest example of its regulatory overreach - a transparent attempt to redefine established legal standards and expand the SEC's jurisdiction through litigation. We firmly believe that the SEC is not authorized to regulate software interfaces like MetaMask. We will continue to actively advance our case in Texas because it is not only about our company, but also about the future success of Web3."
In addition, on the same day, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also accused Lido and Rocket Pool of staking programs as securities. The price of LDO fell by more than 20% that day.
Blast airdrop is open for claiming, and large investors are forced to lock up their positions, causing dissatisfaction
On June 26, BLAST tokens were launched, and community members can use the Blast App to claim the first phase of airdrops. The claim period is 30 days. After claiming, community members can claim the ongoing second phase rewards through the app. Four months later, the full wallet function will be launched. Coinbase, Bybit, Bitget, Upbit, and Bithumb announced the launch of BLAST. The distribution of this airdrop is quite controversial, because Blast prefers to airdrop a high proportion of users who have deep interaction with ecological Dapps. Therefore, some users who only pledged but did not interact did not get as much as expected in the airdrop share. In addition, the airdrop rules stipulate that the airdrops of large users will be linearly attributed, that is, the top 0.1% of users (about 1,000 wallets) will linearly attribute part of the airdrop within 6 months. Related reading: "Graveyard of large users, gospel of retail investors, Blast became popular amid scolding?"
According to the token economic model announced by Blast, the total supply of BLAST is 100 billion, 50% of which will be airdropped to the community, with an initial airdrop of 17 billion. 25.5% is allocated to core contributors with a 4-year lock-up period, of which 25% of the core contributors' airdropped tokens will be unlocked 1 year after the release of TGE, and then unlocked once a month; 16.5% is allocated to investors with a 4-year lock-up period, of which 25% of investor tokens will be unlocked 1 year after the TGE date, and then unlocked linearly every month for the next 3 years; 8% is allocated to the Blast Foundation as a reserve fund for ecological development. From the date of TGE, the foundation's grant will be unlocked linearly within 4 years. Related reading: "Blast airdrop has started, which trading platforms will already have BLAST online?"
The Mt. Gox trustee began to repay BTC and BCH in early July. The panic of repayment selling pressure was exaggerated.
On June 24, according to market news, the Mt. Gox trustee said that it has been preparing to repay in BTC and BCH according to the recovery plan. Now that these preparations are in place, the trustee will begin to repay BTC and BCH to cryptocurrency trading platforms that have completed the exchange and confirmed the required information at an appropriate time. Repayment will begin in early July 2024, which means that about 140,000 BTC (and a roughly equal amount of BCH) held by Mt. Gox will begin to flow into the market. These BTC account for 0.72% of the total supply of Bitcoin in circulation, worth approximately $8.54 billion. On June 26, the market was overly concerned that creditors would sell immediately after receiving BTC, and panic caused the price of Bitcoin to continue to fall.
Some institutions have analyzed this: Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, said that the number of tokens ultimately distributed in the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case will be less than people think, and the Bitcoin selling pressure caused by Mt. Gox will be less than expected. Brian Dixon, CEO of Off the Chain Capital, wrote in a report: "Once Mt. Gox is distributed, I believe the market will generally not start selling these assets immediately because I don't see many creditors selling Bitcoin after receiving it, as they did when they received Bitcoin a few years ago." The reason is that Bitcoin has matured quite a bit since Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in 2014. Related reading: "Mt. Gox token repayment starts in July, these things need to be known in advance"
VanEck submits Solana Trust application to stimulate Solana ecosystem token price increase
On June 27, according to the SEC's official website, VanEck submitted an application for the Solana Trust. The VanEck Solana Trust is an ETF that issues equity common shares, which are expected to be listed and traded on the Cboe BZX trading platform company, subject to the issuance notice. The trust's investment objective is to track Solana's price performance, minus trust operating expenses. To achieve its investment objectives, the trust will hold SOL and value its shares daily based on the MarketVectorTM Solana benchmark exchange rate. The new fund, called VanEck Solana Trust, is the first Solana ETF applied for in the United States. Affected by this news, Solana ecosystem memes generally rose. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said that the Solana ETF "came earlier" than expected, but the approval rate is still unknown. Related reading: "VanEck: Why do we apply for SOL ETF?" , "Viewpoint: Why is it so difficult to wait for SOL ETF?"
Trump and Biden held their first debate of the election season at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on the 27th, and Trump's chances of winning hit a new high.
On June 27, the US presidential election candidates Trump and Biden held the first debate of the election season at 9 pm Eastern Time on the 27th. The debate covered topics such as economy, immigration and foreign policy, but did not mention cryptocurrency. On June 28, Trump's winning rate on the prediction market Polymarket hit a new record high, with a huge lead. The possibility of Biden's withdrawal continued to soar. Trump-related meme coins such as TRUMP and MAGA rose in price a week in advance.
Insider: Trump plans to speak at Bitcoin 2024 conference in July
On June 25, technology media Axios cited two people familiar with the matter as saying that former US President Trump is discussing giving a speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville at the end of July. The Bitcoin 2024 conference will be hosted by Bitcoin Magazine and is scheduled to be held from July 25 to 27. Trump is not the only US presidential candidate planning to speak at the conference. US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also plans to speak there.
US SEC Chairman: The approval process for the Ethereum spot ETF is "smooth", and the SEC may approve the Ethereum spot ETF before July 4
On June 26, SEC Chairman GENSLER said that the approval process for the spot Ethereum ETF was "smooth." On June 27, Reuters quoted industry executives as saying that eight asset management companies, including BlackRock, had entered the final stages of negotiations with regulators, with only minor changes remaining. It is expected that the SEC may approve the Ethereum spot ETF as early as July 4. Bitwise Chief Information Investment Officer Matt Hougan said that the U.S. spot Ethereum ETF could attract $15 billion worth of net inflows in the first 18 months after listing. Related reading: "This is a round of ETF bull market"
Ethereum's circulating supply has increased for 73 consecutive days
According to ultrasound.money data on June 26, the total supply of Ethereum has gradually increased by more than 112,000 since April 14. Much of this inflationary activity can be traced back to the March 13 Dencun upgrade, which introduced nine Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), including EIP-4844, which appears to be the cause of the inflation.
10x Research founder: Bitcoin's Double Top pattern suggests BTC could fall to $50,000
On June 24, Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, said, “Technically, Bitcoin appears to be following a Double Top pattern and is currently testing support. Unless the pattern fails, this should be our base case assumption. This pattern could easily lead to a drop to $50,000 or even $45,000. The U.S. election and the consumer price index should be positive later this year, but prices could still see a steeper correction.”
Holdium will be airdropped to addresses that pre-ordered Solana Mobile 2nd Generation phones
On June 27, the Solana ecosystem project Holdium said it would airdrop 5% of the Holdium supply to Solana Mobile Chapter 2 pre-order token holders. That is, anyone who pre-ordered Solana Mobile's second-generation phone "Chapter 2" before July 12 is eligible for the project's special airdrop.
Binance has banned 297 Megadrop witch accounts, one of which has as many as 9,000 smurfs
On June 26, Binance officially disclosed that someone purchased a large number of KYCs to obtain Megadrop rewards in batches. After being controlled by the system, he tried to collect the funds into one account in an attempt to escape, which triggered the risk control again and was frozen. So far, a total of 297 main accounts have been banned in the Megadrop event, one of which even collected up to 9,000 KYC accounts.
WLD will usher in a large amount of linear unlocking next month, unlocking 6.62 million per day for 730 days
According to Token.unlocks data, WLD will usher in a large-scale linear unlocking starting from July 24, with 6.62 million WLD tokens unlocked daily, equivalent to approximately US$18 million, and the unlocking will last for 730 days.
Including community unlocking, initial development team unlocking and investor unlocking.
ZK Nation: The second batch of ZK tokens are now available for claiming by Protocol Guild members, external project contributors, etc.
On June 24, ZK Nation announced that the second wave of ZK token claims is now live, and now members of the Protocol Guild, contributors to external projects, or users nominated by ZKsync native ecosystem projects can check their airdrop eligibility. This claim accounts for 1.91% of the total airdrop, and the deadline is January 3, 2025.
This week's hot articles
《VanEck: Why do we apply for SOL ETF? 》
On Thursday, VanEck filed an application for the first Solana ETF. SOL has long been expected to become the third ETF after Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, the SEC once characterized SOL as a security, hindering the advancement of its ETF. There is no doubt that VanEck's application is exciting news and marks an important first step towards approval. This move not only shows the market's confidence in Solana, but also heralds further development of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. In this article, Matthew, head of digital asset research at VanEck, details why SOL has the potential to become an important digital commodity and VanEck's outlook for its future.
This is a bull market for ETFs
After the Bitcoin spot ETF was approved, BTC, as a representative of digital assets, became the first "logically proven" target in the crypto. Wall Street finally has a formal channel to allocate crypto assets, bringing a large amount of off-market funds to the crypto market. In the context of the market being in a deep bear state and the industry facing high-pressure supervision, BlackRock's ETF single-handedly reversed the situation in the crypto market. The new trends of ETH and SOL spot ETFs this month have brought newer and clearer logic to attracting and creating liquidity in the crypto industry. But will consumers in the capital market pay for crypto assets other than Bitcoin? Regardless of whether the SOL ETF is approved or how the ETH ETF performs in the future, the logic and trend of the ETF bull market seem to have come unstoppably.
"Opinion: Why is it so hard to wait for SOL ETF?"
After the Bitcoin ETF and Ethereum ETF were approved this year, people started to discuss the next crypto ETF, and the majority of people were optimistic about the SOL ETF. However, 0xTodd, co-founder of Ebunker, has always been pessimistic about the SOL ETF. The main reasons are as follows: the ETF fee is too low; the market value of SOL is also low; the number of institutions/retail investors willing to hold SOL naked is small (the Staked SOL APR is as high as 8%, while the ETF is -0.2%). He believes that the product of the three is not enough to cover the fees of these ETF issuers. If it is a non-profitable transaction, who has the motivation to promote it?
In this article, the author analyzes the maximum extent to which BTC can fall in extreme cases in this bull market from the perspective of STH-MVRV (short-term holders) and the market fair price algorithm. The conclusion is: Under the premise that there is no super black swan, even if BTC is affected by other macro factors, the limit of retracement will not be lower than 43,000-44,000. The so-called super black swan must have an impact that challenges human life, but "US economic recession" is not enough. Since it is an extreme value, it means "it is highly unlikely to reach" rather than "it may reach". The author also said that as time goes by, the lower limit of BTC will get higher and higher.
《Blast airdrop has started, which trading platforms will list BLAST?》
On June 26, Layer2's new chain Blast finally announced its token economic model after a month's delay. The total supply of BLAST is 100 billion, 50% of which will be airdropped to the community, and the first phase of airdrops will account for 17% of the total supply. Following LayerZero and ZKsync, the "Top Three Airdrops" drama in the first half of 2024 has come to an end. BLAST has been launched on trading platforms such as Coinbase, Upbit, Bitget, Gate, Bybit, and Bithumb. On the day of its launch, it briefly broke through $0.035 and was temporarily reported at $0.022 as of press time.
As one of the most anticipated airdrop and coin issuance projects by users, after the launch of Blast token economics and airdrop plan, many whale users were dissatisfied because of the forced lock-up of large users and the need to meet certain requirements in the later stage before gradually unlocking the airdrop share, and the airdrop allocated to the NFT platform Blur was far lower than that of Blast. But for small retail investors and studios, even with a small investment, their returns can be doubled at worst. Christian, co-founder of the crypto fund NDV, said that he deposited more than 50 million US dollars on Blast and received 20,912,000 BLAST, worth about 540,000 US dollars, but due to linear unlocking, he can only receive an airdrop of 100,000 US dollars. Christian labeled Blast as a scam project and called its founder Pacman a "continuous rug entrepreneur". Judging from the performance of the coin price, whether Blast can escape the fate of "coin issuance means death" is still unknown. But as Christian said, large users are the group that cannot be offended in the crypto. Although they are few in number, they support the on-chain ecology and coin prices. Blast's airdrop has indeed angered the big investors, and its development after losing the support of big investors is even more unpredictable. Blast has not made any statement on this matter, and even because of this dispute of interests, many people are willing to continue to invest in BLAST. According to Nansen data, Huang Licheng's address has accumulated purchases of BLAST worth 5.37 million US dollars, ranking first on the on-chain purchase list.
Last weekend, the conflict between VC coins, exchanges and retail investors reached its peak under the catalysis of two long articles by Binance co-founder He Yi. On June 20, Lista DAO's project token was launched as the second Launchpad project on Binance Megadrop. However, in the overall weak market, LISTA did not bring any surprises to retail investors but fell all the way. The market's anger gradually spread from dissatisfaction with VC coins to Binance's frequent listing of coins without ignoring the interests of secondary users. On June 21, He Yi responded in an article, saying bluntly that "even if Binance does not list new projects, funds will be diverted due to token unlocking, Meme coins, etc." The next day, He Yi once again wrote an article reviewing the iconic development milestones of the crypto, from ICO, IEO to DeFi nesting dolls, and said, "Today the market has indeed changed again. The internecine struggle between LuMao Studio and L2 project has turned into a farce, and the LuMao era may be coming to an end." These two long articles triggered a two-day debate, and many industry insiders expressed their opinions. In this article, BlockBeats compiled the different views of all parties for readers' reference.
《Dialogue with Justin Sun: Vision Pro and Bitcoin are the wow moments I experienced》
The author of this article was invited to have dinner with Justin Sun, during which they talked about topics such as Nvidia, AI, and space travel. Justin Sun said that Vision Pro, like iPhone, Bitcoin, and Tesla, was a wow moment he had experienced. After getting along with this billionaire who auctioned off lunch for $4.5 million in 2019 and then cancelled it with Buffett, and cancelled it with a certain technology media reporter in early 2024 and was labeled a bad guy, the author found that Brother Sun was actually just an IT guy with a height of about 1.8 meters, good skin, and a slightly hunched back. He doesn't look like a billionaire, but more like an ordinary technology fan.
In early June, a wallet marked as the "German government" began to transfer BTC previously seized from the pirated movie website operator Movie2k to the trading platform. Coincidentally, the US government's BTC holding wallet, which had not been moved for a year, also sent 4,000 BTC to Coinbase on June 27, suspected of starting the coin selling mode. On the other hand, Mt.Gox compensation will begin in July. According to incomplete statistics, from 2018 to date, the governments of China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany have confiscated more than 500,000 BTC from hackers, money laundering criminals, etc. Mt.Gox currently holds 140,000 BTC, and the above number of bitcoins accounts for 3.32% of the circulation of Bitcoin. Although the current governments of various countries basically adopt a batch and small amount method to sell BTC, these countries themselves are not crypto-friendly, and the final method of handling their BTC holdings is BlockBeats to be selling. In this article, BlockBeats will briefly list the current BTC holdings of major institutions and governments, BTC sales, and how to track their addresses for monitoring for readers' reference.
"Solana launches Blinks feature, is Farcaster in danger?"
With the development of blockchain technology, user experience and security have always been the focus of major platforms. Solana launched the Actions and Blinks features this week, which triggered widespread discussion in the community. This also reminds people of the Frames feature on another popular social protocol Farcaster. They both show different paths to improve the convenience of on-chain interactions. Therefore, some people are worried that X will erode Farcaster's first-mover advantage with the help of Blinks. However, Dan, the founder of the Farcaster protocol, said in the community that Blinks can only be used on the web, but 88% of Twitter users are mobile phones, implying that the emergence of Blinks does not pose a threat to Farcaster. In this article, the author explores the advantages, potential risks and future development prospects of these two innovative features. Whether it is the permissionless Frames, or the Actions and Blinks with a registration process to ensure security, these new features are gradually changing the user's on-chain experience and improving the interaction standards of the entire blockchain ecosystem.
"Solana launches ZK Compression, has the Ethereum community been "broken"? "
This week, Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Solana ecosystem development platform Helius, announced on the X platform that ZK Compression is being introduced to Solana, and then Solana ecosystem privacy project Light Protocol announced the launch of ZK Compression. According to Mert, ZK Compression will be carried out directly on L1 without L2, which will greatly improve the scalability of the Solana network. The Ethereum community couldn't sit still after hearing this, and its founder Vitalik also participated in the technical discussion. He said that the technology is more like a stateless client architecture and raised several questions. But Vitalik's questions were not responded to, and his initial call of ZK Compression as a "stateless client architecture" gave supporters including Mert more confidence. Unlike Ethereum, the Solana mainnet is not intended to be a "B2B chain"; it has always been and will always be a consumer chain. But the state compression that ZK Compression enables for Solana, combined with Firedancer, multiple concurrent leaders, asynchronous execution, and an ecosystem of thousands of developers, undoubtedly gives Solana a real chance for crypto.
"Will the starting price of future "large MC memecoin " be $100,000 FDV?"
It has been a long time since the meme large MC memecoin in the crypto was closely related to the dynamic hot spots of projects in the industry. The meme coin with the most amazing increase recently is SC. SC is a small-cap meme token that was demonstrated for trading when Solana's ecological liquidity protocol Meteora demonstrated the blink function. The demonstration tweet was forwarded by Solana founder Toly and was regarded as the number one large MC memecoin of blink hot spots. However, after the attention was ignited and the increase reached 100 times, the market value of SC has not exceeded 10 million US dollars. It can be seen that the liquidity of the meme track has been fragmented. There are more coins, but the number of people buying coins and the liquidity that can be traded have not changed.
"Mt.Gox token repayment starts in July, here are some things you need to know in advance"
On the afternoon of June 24, a piece of news about "Mt.Gox will start BTC and BCH repayments" quickly triggered market concerns about potential selling pressure. The already weak cryptocurrency market was further frustrated, with BTC falling below the $60,000 mark and ETH approaching $3,200. However, there is still a lot of confusion and even rumors about the Mt.Gox repayment incident itself, so that most readers do not understand the full picture of the incident, and are unable to actively assess the potential impact of the incident on the market. This article combines market data and interviews with creditors to clarify this information in the form of questions and answers.
"What is the most profitable crypto track in the first half of 2024?"
The first half of this year is almost over. Since BTC broke through the previous bull market high and rose to 70,000, there has been no exciting glory. Based on the data of Coingecko, this article counts and compares the return rates of different crypto tracks from 2024 to the present. By comparing the average daily price return rate of the top 10 market value tokens in each track with the price at the beginning of the quarter, the data shows that Meme coin is the most profitable track in the first half of this year, with the highest average return rate reaching 2405.1%; the second largest profitable track RWA has a return rate of 213.5% from 2024 to the present; the AI track follows closely with a return rate of 71.6%; DePIN and Layer1 have achieved steady growth; while GameFi, DeFi and Layer 2 have lagged behind.
Market makers are an important part of the crypto world, providing liquidity to the market, but they also hold the power of life and death over the rise and fall of coin prices. This article summarizes the market making situation of seven major market makers such as Jump Trading, Wintermute/Amber Group in this bull market, including information such as capital volume, positions and market making style, for readers to understand and refer to.
"Seize the next 100x rune and teach you how to use Bitcoin ecosystem tools to track smart money"
In the Bitcoin ecosystem, rune market tools have gradually become a "secret weapon" for some investors to achieve high returns. For example, the BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT rune has achieved a return of more than 100 times from the price after the initial casting to the highest point. However, such high-yield opportunities are currently only a "secret" in a small circle, and many community friends who have not deeply cultivated the Bitcoin ecosystem may not be aware of the existence of these opportunities. Therefore, in this article, Blockbeats introduces some tools that Bitcoin ecosystem OGs and senior users are using to help everyone seize the next 100x rune and track the movement of smart money.
This article reviews the development and current status of the projects and technical directions that Vitalik has promoted in the past, and summarizes the reasons behind them and how they have influenced and shaped the current Ethereum. The author believes that as a super public figure whose words and deeds have a significant influence on the pan-Ethereum ecosystem and even the entire Web3 world, Vitalik's public promotions are largely for the purpose of maintaining the "orthodoxy" of Ethereum or ensuring that the development of Ethereum does not derail or stall, and is committed to drawing up an ideal future - the blueprint for further decentralization of Ethereum and the realization of Mass Adoption.
"Continue Capital: Where is the way out for the blockchain business model?"
This article is a discussion of the blockchain business model by Continue Capital. He proposed that the crypto has created a new business model: selling block space, that is, the public chain charges GAS fees and charges block space fees. Consumers purchase access and storage rights to global computing/bandwidth resources at a base price for each transaction. The value Internet of the crypto is the paid Internet. The terms modularization/monopoly chain all originate from Internet technology. They are rarely mentioned in the Internet field, but they are repeatedly promoted as the focus of crypto. In the author's opinion, what is more important than narrative is: how much revenue can this technology bring me? The public chain is a product with revenue, cash flow and profit. Its business model has a way out. The remaining is how to expand revenue, increase market share, reduce costs and other issues that are in line with the business development path through choices.
"High-level witch" reveals: How to avoid witch review and get 6.6 million ZK airdrop? "
It has been many days since ZKsync (ZK) launched the airdrop, but the aftermath of the incident has not subsided. On June 22, user k1z4 posted a screenshot of his holdings on what appeared to be the Binance exchange, showing that the user ultimately obtained a total of 6,605,139 ZKs, worth nearly $1.2 million. k1z4 bluntly admitted that he was "farming the airdrop," but emphasized that the infrastructure he used to farm 350 wallets was more complex than most Layer2s today, so that no one, including ZKsync, could tell the difference between his robot and a real user from the address behavior. In addition, it is not enough to have technical capabilities alone, and a lot of capital costs are required.
Popular Science | To improve your trading success rate, learn these technical indicators first
In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu mentioned Tao, Fa, and Shu. The combination of these three is regarded as an important principle and criterion for guiding people's lives and social development. For the secondary market, we can also divide investment into Tao, Fa, and Shu, and none of them can be missing. Shu: technical analysis, quantitative analysis, and trading psychology of investment. This article analyzes in detail the common trading technical indicators such as MA moving average indicator, BOLL and RSI indicator, flag consolidation variation, etc., for readers to refer to and learn when trading and investing.
"Which well-known Crypto companies are based in Japan and what is their scale?"
In the wave of Crypto going overseas, due to the cheap exchange rate, low threshold for work visas, and easy to obtain permanent residency, many Crypto project parties and exchanges have set up offices in Japan in the past year as offshore offices to serve the global market. This year is also the year when Tokyo and Osaka become special financial zones, and the policy of obtaining permanent residency through investment has officially entered the countdown. This article details the well-known teams based in Japan and their size and number of people for readers' reference.
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