According to CoinDesk, U.S. federal prosecutors have charged four cryptocurrency "market makers" and their employees with market manipulation and fraud. The companies include Gotbit, CLS Global, MyTrade and ZM Quant, and the prosecutors allege that they secretly provided wash trading services to crypto projects, inflating trading volumes and selling tokens at artificially high prices. This allowed them to profit, and they also benefited by convincing exchanges to lower their trading fees. The defendant list also includes several crypto asset promoters, involving tokens such as Robo Inu, VZZN and Saitama. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were also involved in the investigation, and are expected to recover $25 million in illegal proceeds.
Rumor debunked: "The digital RMB platform will distribute digital asset dividends" is a rumor
According to Tencent News' "Yixian", recently there have been reports that unscrupulous individuals have impersonated the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China to release a fake announcement, stating that "with the joint approval of the Ministry of Finance and the National Data Bureau, the digital RMB platform will distribute digital asset dividends to users who have received exclusive withdrawal channels" and "the second batch of asset registration review and green channel quota subscription will be opened". It is reported that such "announcements" and "platforms" are forged, and the relevant information is all untrue.
Relevant parties have reminded that the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China has never issued the above information, and has never organized the registration or subscription of "digital assets" or the distribution of "digital asset dividends". Relevant units, enterprises and the general public are advised to be vigilant and strengthen identification to avoid being deceived.
Binance CEO Richard Teng posted on the X platform saying: "I previously received a question about the Launchpool quota on X Spaces. I hope this explanation can make it clear. The project quotas in Launchpool are strictly for Binance users, and Binance will not profit from these quotas that should be used for users. The final allocation of project quotas is decided by the project parties. We have implemented strict control measures, including setting a maximum token holding limit for each Launchpool and Pre-Market user, so that the projects can reach a wide range of users while providing protection measures. Of course, this also includes our strict token review process and a dedicated market monitoring team to monitor trading activities on Binance."
According to a motion filed by U.S. prosecutors in the 2016 Bitfinex hack case, prosecutor MATTHEW M. GRAVES stated that the government wishes to provide public notice of the defendant's guilty plea, so that any individuals claiming to be potential crime victims can assert their rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA). Aside from Bitfinex (the victim cryptocurrency exchange), the government does not know of any other individuals who qualify as CVRA victims or as compensation recipients under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA), but out of an abundance of caution, the government still seeks such relief to provide notice to the public, especially to former account holders of VICTIM VCE, and to give them an opportunity to assert potential victim rights and/or compensation claims under CVRA, MVRA and related laws. The defendant's attorneys have conferred on this motion. Defendants Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Rhiannon Morgan do not oppose the motion and maintain that if there are any CVRA or MVRA victims, Bitfinex is the only one that qualifies.
Sky: Users can now earn SKY token rewards
The decentralized finance lending platform Sky (formerly MakerDAO) stated on the X platform that users can now earn SKY token rewards. Go to the Sky Token Rewards page and choose between SKY tokens and Chronicle Protocol credits. After selecting the reward, provide your USDS and you will immediately receive the reward, which accumulates by the second and can be withdrawn at any time, without losing control of your assets or meeting any minimum requirements. If users have joined Sky.money's early bird program and chosen to receive SKY, they will automatically receive a 100% SKY bonus reward from the wallet used during the campaign. These bonus rewards will be received in the same wallet at a later date. In certain jurisdictions (including the U.S.), Sky.money cannot access certain Sky Protocol features, such as Sky Token Rewards and Sky Savings Rates.
VanEck launches a $30 million venture fund VanEck Ventures to support the crypto and AI industries
According to The Information, asset management firm VanEck has launched VanEck Ventures, a $30 million fund focused on investing in early-stage cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence startups, to expand its existing lineup of cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds and private funds. The fund is managed by Wyatt Lonergan and Juan Lopez, who both come from the venture capital department of stablecoin issuer Circle, Circle Ventures. They will primarily invest in projects related to stablecoins.
Animoca Brands: Will acquire more PROS tokens from the open market
According to the official announcement, Animoca Brands has disclosed today that it plans to acquire more PROS tokens from the open market. PROS is the utility token of Prosper, which has been redesigned to bring institutional-grade Bitcoin mining capabilities on-chain and seeks to provide comprehensive exposure to Bitcoin hash rate and the broader Bitcoin ecosystem.
Animoca Brands stated that this acquisition demonstrates the company's support for Prosper's new strategic direction, which will bring new utility to the PROS token, and also reflects its commitment to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Web3 gaming studio Dragonz Lab announces $9 million funding round
Decentralized AI infrastructure platform OpenGradient completes $8.5 million seed round
The settlement amount between crypto companies and U.S. regulators has reached $32 billion so far
According to CoinGecko's statistics, the settlement amount between crypto companies and U.S. regulators has reached $32 billion so far, with the largest being FTX and Alameda at $12.7 billion, followed by Celsius ($4.7 billion), Terraform Labs ($4.5 billion), Binance ($4.3 billion), Genesis ($2 billion), Voyager ($1.65 billion), Telegram ($1.24 billion), Coinbase ($100 million), BlockFi ($100 million), and BitMEX ($100 million).
According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, since yesterday afternoon, the CHZ project Chiliz has cumulatively withdrawn 1.473 billion tokens from Binance, worth $103 million, accounting for 16% of the circulating supply. The withdrawal may be related to the PEPPER airdrop, but it is uncertain why they need to withdraw to the chain; CHZ is the token of the Chiliz-developed club platform Socios.com, which has risen 38% in the past month.
According to Cointelegraph, data from blockchain data platform Artemis Terminal shows that the number of monthly active addresses on Solana has surged to over 100 million, a new all-time high for the network. This represents a significant leap from the 509,000 monthly active addresses recorded by Artemis in early 2024. However, supporting metrics indicate that most of the active wallets on the Solana network do not hold any SOL tokens, leading skeptics to attribute this explosive growth to bots artificially inflating the metrics. According to data from Solana data provider Hello Moon, over 86 million wallets have held 0 SOL in the past month, around 15.5 million wallets held less than 1 SOL, and around 1.5 million wallets held less than 10 SOL. Keyrock's Asia-Pacific business development manager Justin d'Anethan stated that "the lifetime value of most Solana addresses is below $10, suggesting that while the ecosystem is indeed very active and the token has performed very well, this is not entirely legitimate or organic." Dan Hughes, the founder of decentralized finance platform Radix DLT, believes that interactions with centralized exchanges (CEXs) or decentralized finance applications (DeFi) may be a possible reason for the large number of zero-balance active wallets. Bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 4.12% to 92.05 T yesterday CloverPool data shows that the Bitcoin mining difficulty saw an adjustment at block height 864,864 (2024-10-09 14:46:39), with the mining difficulty increasing by 4.12% to 92.05 T. The current network average hashrate is 596.30 EH/s. Ethereum Foundation sells another 100 ETH, obtaining around 242,828 DAI According to Spot On Chain monitoring, the Ethereum Foundation sold another 100 ETH last night, obtaining 242,828 DAI. This is its first ETH sale in October. In September, the Ethereum Foundation sold 1,250 ETH (approximately $3.06 million).
