Headlines
▌Trading platform eToro plans to IPO in the US
Sources familiar with the matter revealed that the online brokerage firm eToro, which provides cryptocurrency and stock trading, is working with Goldman Sachs Group to prepare for an initial public offering in the US. eToro is considering going public as early as the second quarter, although this timeline may change. The company said its IPO valuation could be higher than the $3.5 billion achieved in last year's private fundraising. Sources said the timing of the offering and other details may change, and more banks may join the list. Previously, eToro had tried to go public with a valuation of $10.4 billion by merging with a special purpose acquisition company led by serial dealmaker Betsy Cohen, but the parties mutually agreed to terminate the transaction by the end of 2022.
▌Fed's Harker: It may be time for the Fed to slow the pace of rate hikes
Federal Reserve's Harker said on Friday that the Fed may be time to slow the pace of interest rate hikes. She believes the Fed's policy rate may not be much higher than the neutral level. Harker noted that financial markets expect the Fed to cut rates only once in the next two meetings, and said this expectation is consistent with her view. She said inflation, economic growth and the labor market remain stronger than the Fed's projections in September. Harker's speech is one of the clearest indications from a Fed official recently that the central bank's policy stance may no longer be very firmly focused on cooling inflation and economic growth.
Market
As of the time of writing, according to Coingecko data:
BTC's latest trading price is $100,274, with a daily change of +2.7%;
ETH's latest trading price is $4,002.63, with a daily change of +3.1%;
BNB's latest trading price is $735.77, with a daily change of +0.9%;
SOL's latest trading price is $236.44, with a daily change of -3.0%;
Doge's latest trading price is $0.4382, with a daily change of +0.3%;
XRP's latest trading price is $2.48, with a daily change of +0.7%.
Policy
▌Czech Republic agrees to abolish capital gains tax on Bitcoin held for over 3 years
The Czech Republic parliament unanimously passed a bill to abolish capital gains tax on Bitcoin held for over 3 years.
▌Consequences of South Korea's martial law could spur calls for crypto market reform
Minho Leem, a digital asset analyst at Shinhan Securities, said that after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol issued a brief martial law, the South Korean crypto market experienced volatility, which could prompt calls for regulatory reform. In the long run, this incident has exposed the vulnerability of the crypto market in dealing with South Korea's unique situations. South Korea accounts for nearly 11% of global cryptocurrency trading volume, and its closed structure remains a concern. The South Korean government may explore ways to ensure exchange liquidity and improve transparency through a real-time anomalous transaction monitoring system.
Blockchain Applications
▌OpenAI's second day of presentations: Launches Reinforcement Fine-Tuning Research Program to enable customized expert models
OpenAI's 12-day presentation series entered its second day, introducing the Reinforcement Fine-Tuning Research Program today. The program aims to enable developers and machine learning engineers to create customized expert models. The new model customization technology allows developers to use tens to thousands of high-quality tasks to customize models, and grade the model's responses against provided reference answers. This reinforces the model's ability to derive similar problem-solving solutions and accuracy on specific tasks. OpenAI stated that research institutions, universities and enterprises are encouraged to apply, and expects positive results in areas like law, insurance, healthcare, finance and engineering, as the model performs well on tasks with objectively "correct" answers that most experts would agree on.
▌Slow Mist Cosine: A bot platform was found to have a vulnerability that may lead to private key leakage
Slow Mist Cosine posted that a well-known bot platform was found by a white hat to have a vulnerability that could potentially lead to private key leakage. The white hat reported it, but there seems to have been some controversy over the bug bounty. The white hat is concerned that if this bot platform is hacked in the future like DEXX, the investigation may trace back to the information he provided at the time, so he is trying to prove his innocence. Cosine specially noted that the term "white hat" in this case may not necessarily mean a white hat, as it's not yet verified who is right or wrong. If this bot platform is hacked in the future, the information shared by this white hat can be used for verification.
Cryptocurrencies
▌Stablecoin market fragmentation, "regional stablecoins" will be used to connect markets
At a recent industry roundtable, industry insiders shared their views on the current state and future direction of stablecoins. True Exchange founder and former USDC head at Circle, Vishal Gupta, said: "Given that mass adoption of stablecoins is happening, we will see the market become more fragmented with a proliferation of stablecoin varieties." Celo Foundation's special projects lead, Kevin Tharayil, pointed out that the infrastructure is now in place to make issuing stablecoins as simple as launching a memecoin on Pump.fun, and there will be a lot of "regional stablecoins" to support different regions' currencies, like Celo's decentralized stablecoin platform Mento. Former Binance executive and Schumann Finance founder, Eduardo Morrison, said that given the EU's clear regulations on stablecoins, his company is particularly interested in euro-tokenization. He believes there is untapped potential, especially in connecting various cross-border business payment channels between Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the European market.
▌Musk's companies now hold $2 billion worth of Bitcoin
According to Arkham monitoring data, Musk's companies now hold Bitcoin worth $2 billion, with Tesla holding 11,509 BTC ($1.17 billion) and SpaceX holding 8,285 BTC ($842 million). The average purchase price of these Bitcoins is $34,980 per coin, meaning they have already made $130 million (186%) in profits.
▌Grayscale: DeFi fund did not add or remove any new tokens as of December 4
Grayscale posted on X platform that as of December 4, 2024, the Grayscale DeFi fund did not add or remove any new tokens, with the assets and weightings being: UNI (57.8%), AAVE (18.86%), MKR (9.47%), LDO (9.04%), SNX (4.83%).
▌UK FCA issues warning against Pump.fun, saying it may be providing financial services or products without authorization
According to the official website, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a warning against Pump.fun, stating that "the firm may be providing financial services or products without our authorization. You should avoid doing business with this firm and be wary of scams." Previously, Pump.fun had banned UK users from using the platform due to local legal and regulatory issues.
Important Economic Dynamics
▌Fed's Daly: Supports gradualism, ready to address economic uncertainty
Federal Reserve's Daly said the Fed has adjusted policy through rate cuts, and the current rate level is "roughly appropriate", and she supports a gradual approach. Daly emphasized the uncertainty in the current economic environment, noting the unclear pace of inflation returning to the 2% target and the continued strength of the labor market. She mentioned that the Fed should carefully monitor economic data and be ready to raise rates again if necessary. At the same time, the synchronization of global central bank policies has diminished significantly, and future policies need to focus more on changes in actual economic conditions.
▌US stocks close mixed, crypto-related stocks broadly rise
The U.S. stock market closed mixed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 0.28%, the Nasdaq Composite rising 0.81%, and the S&P 500 index gaining 0.25%. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 index reached new closing highs. Tesla rose more than 5%, as Bank of America raised its 12-month target price for Tesla to $400 and maintained a buy rating, citing the company's positive outlook in FSD and artificial intelligence. Bitcoin returned above $100,000, and cryptocurrency concept stocks performed strongly, with Jananet Technology surging over 35%, Bit Digital rising more than 9%, and Coinbase gaining over 7%.
