BlockBeats will organize the key industry news content of the week (7.29-8.4) in this article, and recommend in-depth articles to help readers better understand the market and learn about industry trends.
Important News Review
Fed: August interest rates remain unchanged; September rate cut "may be on the agenda"; Bank of England cuts interest rates by 25 basis points
On August 1, the Federal Reserve maintained the benchmark interest rate at 5.25%-5.50% for the eighth consecutive time, in line with market expectations. Chairman Powell released dovish remarks about a possible rate cut in September at the press conference after the meeting, which led to a surge in US stocks. The S&P 500 rose 1.58%, and Nasdaq rose 2.64% under the leadership of technology stocks such as Nvidia and TSMC. Bitcoin, however, did not rise but fell, falling below $63,000 this week, driving Altcoin such as ETH and SOL to fall across the board. Related reading: "Powell Talks About a Rate Cut in September, Bitcoin Did Not Rise But Fall"
On the same day, the Bank of England announced a 25 basis point rate cut to 5.00%, in line with market expectations and the first rate cut since March 2020. The Bank of England needs to ensure that inflation remains low and be careful not to cut interest rates too quickly or too much. Bank of England Governor Bailey said that the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee will act with caution. Related reading: "The United States is about to cut interest rates, and the UK has cut interest rates, but why is Bitcoin falling?"
ZKX suspension questioned: investors were not informed in advance; the market maker was blamed for the price crash; the use of $7.6 million in funds is unclear
On July 30, Starknet ecosystem derivative DEX ZKX announced the closure of the protocol due to a serious imbalance between income and expenditure. However, some community users questioned the suspension of operations. More than a month ago, it was announced that it had raised $7.6 million in financing, and TGE was shut down just a few weeks after it started, which seemed unreasonable. Founder Eduard responded that the previous $7.6 million in financing was raised from 2021 to 2024 and used for various expenses. All user funds have been refunded, and more than 80% of users have withdrawn from the agreement. KOL then stated that the team had engaged in opaque spending of funds and selling of tokens. On August 4, investors and market makers who had participated in the recently suspended ZKX project stated that they were surprised by ZKX's closure announcement and had not received any news in advance. Related reading: "ZKX Suspension Questioned: Blaming Market Makers, Unknown Use of $7.6 Million in Funds"
Binance Labs Fund announces the first batch of projects to be incubated in the seventh season and announces investment in Monad ecosystem projects aPriori and Particle Network
On July 30, Binance Labs Fund announced the first batch of projects to be incubated in the seventh season. The pledge asset liquidity protocol Astherus, the chain abstraction liquidity aggregation protocol CYCLE NETWORK, the scalable data availability network DILL, and the EigenLayer-based data and DeFi system EigenExplorer were shortlisted. Related reading: "Binance Labs' first batch of incubation projects in the seventh season was announced. How to participate in the interaction?"
On the same day, Binance Labs announced that it would invest in Monad ecosystem project aPriori through its incubation program. On August 1, Binance Labs announced its investment in modular blockchain Particle Network.
At the same time, according to the official announcement on July 30, starting from the next Launchpool, the decentralized BNB assets of the Binance Web3 wallet will be included in the Launchpool reward calculation.
Doge prototype Shiba Inu Kabosu owner's new pet with the same name meme coin exploded, coin price hits record highs
Last weekend, Trump attended the Bitcoin conference and gave a speech, which attracted the attention of many crypto users. Just after Trump's speech, a meme that had nothing to do with his speech suddenly became popular. The coin is Neiro, the meme coin of the same name as the new pet of the owner of Kabosu, the prototype of the Doge meme. Neiro is deployed on both Ethereum and Solana, and there are even dozens of copycat memes with the same name. Kabosu's owner then responded that he only recognized DOGE, and all others were unrelated projects. Despite this, Neiro's rise could not be stopped. On August 1, the Meme project Neiro (NEIRO) on the Ethereum chain broke through $0.2, setting a new record high, with a 24-hour increase of 193%, a market value of over $200 million, and a 24-hour trading volume of $16.43 million. Related readings: "Review of Meme's new coin Neiro: market value of nearly 50 million US dollars in two days, with the entry of the order master Ansem to boost the market" , "The "Dog King" becomes the "Rat King": NEIRO's insider trading share is as high as 130 million US dollars, and KOLs collectively build momentum"
The makenow.meme platform is hot, and the CTO issued the token and the transaction volume was 32 million US dollars within 3 hours of going online
makenow.meme is a new MEME coin issuance platform. It only takes one tweet to issue a token for free. The CTO is Raydium, which issues Meme coins on the platform. On August 1, according to market information, CTO traded $32 million in 3 hours after going online. On the same day, makenow.meme announced that it would conduct a retroactive airdrop of MNM. There are no advisory tokens, no behind-the-scenes deals, and no KOL discounts. It's just a retroactive airdrop based on the user's early interactions with these indicators found on the profile page. Those who create tokens with a higher market value will receive more rewards. Related reading: "Pump.fun's new competitor, what's the fun of MakeNow.Meme?"
SEND has distributed SEND token airdrops to Solana phone pre-orders this week
On August 1, Solana Blinks ecosystem project SEND posted on the X platform that it is airdropping to top communities on Solana. Addresses holding Solana mobile phone reservation token Chapter2 Preorder Token can receive 500 SEND tokens for free, which will only be open for 24 hours.
The U.S. government and Mt.Gox holding addresses have seen large transfers this week
On July 30, the US government address transferred 29,799.99 BTC, about $2.02 billion. As of press time, the US government address currently still holds 183,439 BTC, about $12.35 billion. The next day, the Mt. Gox address in Mentougou transferred 33,963.888 bitcoins to two addresses, worth about $2.25 billion. As of press time, the Mt. Gox address in Mentougou holds 32,899 BTC, about $2.1 billion.
Market News: SEC modifies lawsuit against Binance and no longer considers SOL and other tokens as securities
On July 30, according to market news, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took action to amend the complaint against Binance, seeking to no longer prove that tokens such as SOLANA are securities. It is reported that according to the definition of the SEC in its general objection to the defendant's motion to dismiss (Dkt. No. 172), this move makes it unnecessary for the court to rule on the charges against these tokens at present. The next day, Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, published an article on X stating that the SEC no longer considers tokens such as SOL as securities and does not increase the probability of approval of its spot ETFs such as SOL. To pass the ETF approval, one of the following conditions must be met: a long enough history of SOL futures trading on CME; a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework and administrative changes.
Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) has launched cryptocurrency trading services on August 1, including spot trading pairs of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USD and HKD.
On August 1, Futu Hong Kong officially launched virtual currency trading services, becoming the first brokerage firm in Hong Kong to launch zero-commission virtual currency trading. The group's application "Futu Niu Niu" has begun to provide virtual currency trading services. The threshold is HK$80 or US$10. Futu's virtual currency trading functions include 4 spot trading pairs including Bitcoin, Ethereum and US dollars and Hong Kong dollars. It also provides Hong Kong and US stock spot ETF trading, Hong Kong and US stock futures ETF trading, and related investment categories such as blockchain concept stocks. Xie Zhijian, managing director of Futu Securities, said that Futu has full confidence in the future of Hong Kong's Web3.0 industry. According to the bank's survey, more than 40% of investors who have never traded virtual assets expressed their desire to trade on Futu Niu Niu, and nearly 75.6% of experienced investors are also happy to see Futu launch virtual asset trading services on the platform.
Harris is reported to be in contact with top encryption companies recently
On August 1, according to Cailian News, Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, is approaching the U.S. cryptocurrency industry to ease tensions between the Democratic Party and the crypto industry. According to comprehensive reports, Harris' team has recently contacted some people related to major cryptocurrency companies, including well-known companies such as Coinbase, the largest crypto exchage in the United States, Circle, a stablecoin company, and Ripple Labs, a blockchain payment company. Harris' team hopes to have a more constructive dialogue with the crypto industry and establish a regulatory framework that is conducive to the development of cryptocurrencies. This is also an important step for her to win the support of the crypto industry and thus weaken Trump's strong momentum in the industry.
Trump Launches Limited Edition Sneakers That Accept Bitcoin Payments
On July 31, Trump posted on social media that he would launch a limited edition pair of sneakers that support Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, with "Trump, Crypto President" printed on the shoe body. As soon as the news came out, the most popular high-top Bitcoin orange-themed sneakers, originally priced at $499, sold out within three hours. Subsequently, scalpers appeared on the shopping website eBay, with more than a dozen orders placed, with the highest price reaching $2,500. Related reading: "Trump "promotes" Bitcoin-themed sneakers, scalpers speculate to $2,500"
Russia's parliament passes new law to legalize cryptocurrency for international payments
On July 30, according to RIA Novosti, the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, passed the Digital Currency Cross-Border Payment Law today, which allows the use of cryptocurrencies for settlement within the framework of the experimental system. Elvira Nabiullina, Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, said that she is already discussing the terms of the trial with various ministries and enterprises, and the first payments are expected to be made before the end of this year.
Vitalik delivered a keynote speech at EDCON 2024: "The Next Decade of Ethereum"
On July 30, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin attended the global Ethereum summit EDCON 2024 and delivered a keynote speech entitled "The Next Decade of Ethereum". Vitalik not only briefly reviewed the changes that have taken place in Ethereum over the past 10 years, but also used his forward-looking perspective to paint a picture of the infinite possibilities of Ethereum in the next 10 years. Related reading: "Vitalik's latest speech at EDCON 2024: Ethereum's ten years of change and outlook for the next decade"
Early bird tickets for the documentary "Vitalik: An Ethereum Story" are now available for sale at $20
On August 1, Ethereum Stories announced that the documentary "Vitalik: An Ethereum Story" will be released on September 20, 2024. Early bird streaming tickets are now open for minting and cost $20. The early bird price will last until August 23.
Telegram founder: Because of sperm donation, he has more than 100 "biological children" in the world, and plans to open source DNA to facilitate future generations to recognize each other
On July 31, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov posted on his personal channel that although he is not married, he has been told that he has "more than 100 biological children" in the world because of his long-term sperm donation (as early as 15 years ago). The owner of the clinic persuaded him that there is currently a shortage of "high-quality sperm" and it is his civic responsibility to anonymously help more couples donate more sperm. Currently, Pavel Durov has helped more than 100 couples in 12 countries to successfully give birth in past donation activities. Pavel Durov plans to open source his DNA so that his biological children can find each other more easily. He does not regret becoming a donor, because the shortage of healthy sperm has become an increasingly serious problem, and Pavel Durov is proud of his contribution.
Shaanxi police in China cracked a virtual currency investment fraud case and arrested 4 people
On July 31, according to Shaanxi police reports, the Public Security Bureau of Jingbian County, Yulin, Shaanxi Province successfully cracked a virtual currency investment fraud case and arrested 4 criminal suspects, involving a case value of 410,000 yuan. In July 2024, when the victim Wang was chatting with others online, he was recommended to invest in virtual currency on a certain APP to make money. The other party claimed that he knew the system loopholes of the APP and that the investment was a sure win. Under the temptation of high returns, Wang invested a total of 410,000 yuan in a certain APP. The criminal suspect Zhai, together with Wang, Li, and Li, drove a car to make a profit of more than 50,000 yuan. At present, the four criminal suspects have been criminally detained according to law, and the case is under further trial.
A 29-year-old man was kidnapped and killed in Kiev, Ukraine after 3 bitcoins were stolen
On July 29, The Block reported that a 29-year-old Bitcoin holder was kidnapped and killed in Kiev, Ukraine. Four men aged between 24 and 29 were detained on suspicion of "carefully" planning to kidnap the victim and steal three Bitcoins worth about $207,000. "Information about the man's kidnapping reached the capital's police department around midnight. Residents of a house in the Solomeyan district heard screams and saw several unidentified people beating and forcibly pulling a man into a car," the police station wrote in a statement. The police investigation found that the attack was premeditated.
This week's hot articles
Silicon Valley Turns Right: Peter Thiel, A16Z, and the Political Ambition of Cryptocurrency
As if overnight, public opinion in Silicon Valley began to turn to the Trump camp, and after Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential candidate, Silicon Valley became increasingly divided. Public support for Trump was once a taboo in Silicon Valley, but now this blue fortress is shaken by frustration with Biden and the Democratic government. In the past two years, Silicon Valley's technology giants have begun to participate in politics in a more high-profile way. Just like "software eats the world", these kingmakers are changing the power structure in Washington through capital and influence.
"Inside Silicon Valley: AI panic, cult culture, and the political shift of technology leaders"
Silicon Valley is gradually shifting from a one-party Democratic trend to more Republican voices. Some well-known tech figures, such as Marc Andreessen, have begun to publicly support Trump. Amjad believes that this change is partly due to concerns about technology regulation and the influence of people like David Sacks. (Amjad Masad is a Jordanian-American technology entrepreneur. Recently, he was a guest on the podcast of Tucker Carlson, a famous American TV host, and provided unique insights from an insider on hot topics such as the development of AI, technology ethics, and the changes in the political atmosphere in Silicon Valley.)
Silicon Valley Darling and His Billion-Dollar Prediction Market
Welcome to the future of betting markets, where you can bet on almost anything, from Bitcoin's 2024 peak price to how fast Trump and Biden will climb the stairs, and even the gender of Hailey and Justin Bieber's newborn. On the Polymarket platform, about $446 million is currently being bet on the outcome of the November presidential election. Although betting on election results is prohibited in the United States under Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulations because it is considered not in the public interest, Polymarket, headquartered in New York City, has become a prediction market phenomenon due to the global attention paid to American politics.
When talking about DAO in the Chinese community, Wang Chao is a name that cannot be avoided. In 2020, after he stepped down as a partner of Bitpie Wallet, he focused his main energy on studying and researching the then emerging DAO. Since his daily work when making wallets was to communicate with a large number of teams, he continued this style in studying and researching DAO. Over the years, he has talked to two or three hundred teams working on DAO. In this process, he wrote down what he saw and thought, and became a guide for many people to understand and participate in DAO.
"Exclusive interview with crypto AI investor Jasmine: It is more cost-effective to develop applications with PMF than to follow the trend of developing infrastructure"
How can crypto AI projects gain the favor of VCs? In addition to VC financing, are there other better ways to obtain funds? Recently, BlockBeats had a conversation with Jasmine. Jasmine shared her observations and thoughts on the current status of primary investment in crypto AI, and provided suggestions from an investor's perspective to the founders of crypto AI projects.
After the latest FOMC meeting ended yesterday (1), the Federal Reserve (Fed) maintained the federal benchmark interest rate at 5.25%~5.5% for the eighth time as expected by the market. Fed Chairman Powell also said at the press conference that the long-awaited rate cut is imminent. Many investors may feel frustrated. Why is the market not responding to the increasingly clear expectations of rate cuts, but instead falling? This article uses data to analyze whether rate cuts can really stimulate the venture capital market every time?
"The bull market is already halfway through, does the Bitcoin ecosystem still have a chance?"
The market's high expectations for the Bitcoin ecosystem also brought about setbacks. The inscription craze quickly cooled down, and the highly anticipated Runes "runes" performed below expectations after they were launched. With the rise of Memecoin, market attention was also greatly diverted. This wave of ups and downs in the Bitcoin ecosystem is just like the "high temperature annealing" process in semiconductor technology. This process is designed to release the internal stress of the material and increase its ductility and toughness.
There will be frequent activities in the cryptocurrency field from August to September this year, including Token 2049 and other industry summits. In order to facilitate readers to attend the conference and understand the conference information, BlockBeats provides readers with a conference BlockBeats. These conferences not only bring together pioneers in the industry, but also become the intersection of innovative ideas and future trends. Among them, Korea Blockchain Week (KBW2024), WebX2024 Japan Conference, Singapore TOKEN2049, etc. are worth paying attention to.
Solana has been leading in data in all dimensions recently. Previously, an article introduced the rapid development trend and pattern of its ecological liquidity staking track. In addition to these projects on the front stage, the validators behind Solana seem to have always been relatively mysterious. How much can you earn as a validator on Solana? What is the level of investment?
Solana: Hidden Concerns Beneath the Surface of Prosperity
My timeline has been flooded with $SOL nonsense mixed with memecoin subterfuge lately. I started to believe the memecoin supercycle was real and Solana would replace Ethereum as the primary L1. But then I started digging into the data and the results are worrying to say the least… In this post I lay out why Solana might be a house of cards.
During the three days of the Bitcoin Conference, BlockBeats' frontline reporters were on site and reported the situation to us as soon as possible. This year, two Bitcoin Conferences were held. The conference held in Hong Kong was attended by Chinese people. The conference held in Tennessee was attended by almost no Chinese people, but each booth was basically staffed with Chinese employees. In addition, the mining companies and BTC L2 each took up about 40% of the booths. Michael Saylor, the founder of MicroStrategy, was one of the most popular guests besides Trump. Many participants lined up to take photos with him when they saw him.
"How credible is Trump's Bitcoin conference promise?"
Trump attended the 2024 Bitcoin Conference as a top guest. Under the spotlight, he made a series of promises that crypto enthusiasts considered "sweet words", expressing his "love" for Bitcoin almost without reservation. Many people think that Trump's frequent gestures of goodwill towards crypto assets are good news, while others think that this is just a "play" to win votes. After becoming president, he will "pull up his pants and leave" or even "burn the bridge after crossing the river". So how credible are Trump's sweet words? Who is right and who is wrong? Everything has to start with the propositions and values of the two major camps of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the United States...
This article takes a fundamentals-driven approach to take a deeper look at L1 and L2, analyzing the top 4 L1 and L2 by revenue, and then diving into how much revenue these blockchains actually retain. The article defines revenue as total revenue minus token issuance (the number of native tokens distributed to users) and operating expenses (the cost of developing, maintaining, and upgrading the protocol) in a simple and easy-to-understand way.
In the first half of 2024, Starknet and zkSync completed their airdrop plans, and the four major Layer2 projects have issued tokens. In addition, some new Layer2 projects also performed very well in 2024. For example, Base achieved significant traffic growth in the first half of 2024, surpassing Optimism to become the second largest Layer2. Although the Layer2 field shows a strong growth trend, the market still has doubts about the authenticity of its data. Previously, zkSync's average daily transaction volume and number of active addresses have been questioned. So, do these superficial prosperity truly reflect the actual usage of the network?
ETH core developers criticize Ethereum for becoming more centralized, Vitalik Buterin strikes back
Péter Szilágyi, head of the Ethereum core development team, recently tweeted to criticize the direction of Ethereum's development and expressed concerns about Ethereum's upcoming PeerDAS upgrade. He criticized Ethereum for going astray and that the research team fully accepted all centralized ideas as long as they could be verified. On the surface, it was decentralized verification, but in essence it was centralized control. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also responded to his accusations through a series of tweets on the 27th, flatly denying any intention to centralize the Ethereum network, and emphasizing that the Ethereum team has been deeply involved in discussions aimed at minimizing centralization, rather than promoting centralization.
On July 30, at the Ethereum developer conference EDCON 2024 held in Tokyo, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin presented us with a speech on "The Next Decade of Ethereum". He not only briefly reviewed the changes that have taken place in Ethereum over the past 10 years, but also used his forward-looking perspective to paint a picture of infinite possibilities for Ethereum in the next 10 years.
《A list of several new Telegram games worth paying attention to》
With the development in the past few months, the number of mini-games on the Telegram platform has exploded, and the TON chain ecological game has entered an unprecedented stage of prosperity. It is understood that there are at least more than 100 mini-games running on Telegram, and this number is expected to increase to more than 2,000 by August. Telegram mini-games have not only attracted the attention of many players, but also attracted the attention of a large number of investors and developers. BlockBeats has selected several Telegram mini-games that have just been launched and have strong team and financing backgrounds to introduce to you.
On July 30, Binance Labs announced the first batch of projects selected for the seventh season of incubation, including Astherus, CYCLE NETWORK, DILL and EigenExplorer. Their concepts and businesses are relatively cutting-edge, and the former two have launched early interactive activities, which are linked to future airdrops. This article will analyze the business, characteristics and interactive activities of each protocol.
"I play 100k meme coins on the chain and make 80,000 yuan a month"
Four months ago, the meme coin BOME on Solana attracted many crypto novices to start playing memes with its market value rising from 0 to 1.5 billion US dollars in three days, an increase of more than 100 times. Lu Qi was one of them. "When I played memes, I put about 30,000 to 40,000 yuan in my wallet. I haven't added money in the past few months. I can make 70,000 to 80,000 yuan a month." Most of the tokens they traded came from Pump.fun, a coin issuance platform on Solana. For several months, Pump.fun has maintained an average daily income of more than 600,000 US dollars, and more than 10,000 new tokens appear on Pump.fun every day. Many people shuttle between the fragmented liquidity and seek stage-by-stage deterministic returns in various ways.
On July 31, Bubblemaps revealed that there were a large number of internal rat warehouses in the $NEIRO tokens issued on Ethereum, with about 78% of the tokens being allocated in advance and then transferred to more than 400 wallet addresses. Even with the exposure, the price of NEIRO tokens continued to rise under the severe FOMO sentiment. According to the market value of 170 million US dollars on August 1, NEIRO's rat warehouse share will be as high as 130 million US dollars, which is the largest rat warehouse among MEME coins.
"Pump.fun's new competitor, what's so fun about MakeNow.Meme?"
The market has given a new answer on how to play memes more extreme. This time, you can send a meme by sending a tweet. Sending a tweet in the format required by MakeNow is equivalent to sending meme coins, but you must wait for MakeNow's official reply to be considered successful. The reply will include the token contract. Since the official agreement was launched, MakeNow has launched more than 2,600 meme tokens in just one day (about 26 hours) and earned more than 230+ SOL.
"Party in a Wild Casino Where Memes Are Buried"
Meme Token is fun and wild, but I think this feeling is becoming, or has become, a generation gap. What remains unchanged is that we can still witness "seeing him build a tall building, seeing him entertain guests, and seeing his building collapse" again and again within 24 hours or even shorter. What has changed is that the fun and relaxation are gradually disappearing, and the tense and naked fighting is becoming more and more obvious.
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