Headlines
APE breaks through 1.5 USDT, 24H increase of 101%
OKX market data shows that APE has exceeded 1.5 USDT, with a 24-hour increase of 101%.
Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty recently said in the U.S. SECs formal appeal of the Ripple case that the ruling confirming that XRP is not a retail sale security remains unchanged. He wrote on X: This is not surprising at all - once again, everything is clear. The courts ruling that XRP is not a security has not been appealed. This decision is the law of the land.
In its appeal, the SEC challenged several key rulings, including the decision that Ripple executives Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen’s non-cash XRP distribution and sales did not violate securities laws.
Ripple plans to file its own Form C next week as a cross-appeal against the institutional sales ruling. Both sides are preparing for an extended appeal process that could affect how digital assets are classified and regulated in the future. (Bitcoin.com)
Earlier news, the U.S. SEC has formally appealed the XRP ruling made by Judge Analisa Torres. On Thursday, the regulator submitted Form C to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Sandy, a core developer of Scroll, posted on the X platform that he would make a transparent statement regarding the team wallet token distribution that the community is concerned about recently: When users bridge assets or interact with eligible protocols, points are automatically accumulated. This process applies to everyone, including projects and team wallets. Team wallets and treasury wallets hold tokens, sometimes to support continued development and operations within the ecosystem. As part of Scrolls long-term policy to prevent conflicts of interest, these wallets play a key role in running bridge contracts, protecting funds, and managing liquidity to ensure a healthy ecosystem experience. All Scroll co-founders and team members who participated in the development of Scroll Sessions or airdrops will not receive airdrops.
Finally, she stressed: “The community is the only beneficiary of the upcoming token airdrop.”
Industry News
DYDX briefly broke through 1.3 USDT, with a 24-hour increase of 32.8%
OKX market data shows that DYDX briefly broke through 1.3 USDT and is now trading at 1.24 USDT, with a 24-hour increase of 32.8%.
BTC rose nearly 10% in the past week, its best weekly performance in more than a month
BTC moved higher on Monday as strong inflows into bitcoin spot ETFs and optimism about the prospects for U.S. regulation boosted market sentiment.
Data shows that U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows of nearly $2.4 billion in the week ending October 18, partly due to bets that U.S. cryptocurrency regulations will become more friendly after the November 5 presidential election.
David Lawant, head of research at cryptocurrency brokerage FalconX, said the two key market trends that affect BTC are the election and the global macroeconomic environment. He wrote in a report that the Bitcoin options market shows that forward implied volatility is heavily concentrated around Election Day, and weakens in the period before and after Election Day.
Bitcoin rose nearly 10% in the seven days through Sunday, its best weekly performance in more than a month.
Project News
The amount of bets on the US election on prediction market Polymarket has exceeded $2.1 billion.
Data shows that Trumps probability of winning the US presidential election is currently reported at 60.1%, while Harris probability of winning the election is currently reported at 39.9%, with a gap of more than 20 percentage points.
Sushi CEO: A strategic acquisition will be announced soon to introduce innovative DeFi primitives
Sushi CEO Jared Grey said in a post on X that tests have shown that Sushi surpasses major aggregators on competing networks in key indicators such as price, gas, and latency, and that the aggregation volume is also growing steadily month by month.
Additionally, Sushi is about to announce a strategic acquisition that will enable it to bring innovative DeFi primitives with built-in stealth to the AMM and perps vertical.”
According to news earlier today, Sushi posted Tomorrow on X in the early hours of this morning, which may hint at the upcoming announcement of important news.
Bitcoin mining hosting provider Revolve Labs plans to build an artificial intelligence data center in central Minnesota after withdrawing a mining expansion proposal due to community opposition.
Revolve Labs met with the Glencoe Economic Development Authority in September and plans to expand its facilities in the city to accommodate one or two AI data centers, as well as cooling systems and backup generators.
The project is expected to have a capacity of 10 megawatts, employ about 10 people, and cost an estimated $40 million to $60 million. As part of Revolve Labs proposal, they intend to purchase two plots of land totaling 6.2 acres and build a substation for the expansion.
Revolve Labs currently operates a Bitcoin mining facility in Glencoe with a capacity of approximately 20 MW and a hash rate of 537 PH/s. As reported last month, the company had attempted to increase its mining capacity in Winton, Minnesota, but withdrew its application after the community objected due to noise issues.
Investment and Financing
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington wrote on X that payment company Stripe acquired stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion.
Bridge is Stripes largest acquisition to date and the largest acquisition in the history of the crypto industry. Bridge had previously raised $58 million, including a $40 million Series A at a valuation of $200 million.
Bridge, founded by entrepreneurs Sean Yu and Zach Abrams, provides software tools to help businesses accept stablecoin payments. The two founders previously sold Venmo competitor Evenly to Block in 2013; Abrams is also a former senior employee of Coinbase.
Plasma completes $3.5 million financing, Bitfinex leads the investment
EVM-compatible Plasma has raised $3.5 million, led by Bitfinex, with participation from Christian Angermayer and venture capital firms Split Capital, Anthos Capital, Karatage and Manifold Trading. Bitfinex CTO and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino also supported the project. Plasma is trying to support Bitcoin for network gas fees while integrating Ethereums account-based model.
Indico Capital Partners Raises €76 Million for Indico VC Fund II
Indico Capital Partners, the Lisbon-based early-stage venture capital firm, has raised €76 million and announced that Banco de Portugal (BPF) has increased its investment commitment to Indico VC Fund II from €35 million to €50 million.
It is understood that the fund is committed to supporting early-stage technology startups in the global market, with investments covering artificial intelligence, big data, enterprise SaaS, fintech, markets, Web3, etc. Since 2019, Indico has invested 90 million euros in 49 companies, which have received a total of more than 1.9 billion euros in funding from global investors. Indico VC Fund II is committed to supporting early-stage technology startups. So far, the fund has completed 4 investments totaling 14.8 million euros.
AI search startup Perplexity in talks to raise funding at $8 billion valuation
AI search startup Perplexity is in discussions to raise a round that would more than double its valuation to $8 billion. Perplexity has raised two other rounds of funding in 2024 that boosted its valuation to $250 million and then $3 billion.
Character Voice
BlackRock ETF head: 80% of Bitcoin trading product buyers are direct investors
In the past five trading days, spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have seen net inflows of more than $2.1 billion, with BlackRock accounting for half of the sales. Samara Cohen, BlackRocks chief investment officer for ETFs and indexes, said that one of the strategies to attract clients to invest in its funds is to introduce the benefits of exchange-traded products (ETPs) to cryptocurrency investors. Now most investors are new cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Data shows that 80% of current sellers are direct investors, and among these 80% of direct investors, 75% have never held iShares. In addition, a16z found in its recently released report on the state of cryptocurrency that more than 40 million Americans hold cryptocurrencies.
Chris Burniske, partner at Placeholder, said in a post on X: “Whether you believe GOAT was launched by a machine or not, this is a sign that people and machines are beginning to realize the extent to which machines will use blockchain.”
Raoul Pal, a former Goldman Sachs executive and founder of macro research firm Real Vision, responded: “Yes, this demonstrates the power of autonomous genetic artificial intelligence in the future.”
Burakkesmeci, a writer for CryptoQuant, wrote: “As of October 18, 2024, the number of ETH held by Ethereum accumulation addresses exceeds 19 million.
By January 2024, there were only 11.5 million ETH in these addresses, now that has almost doubled, I believe the total will be over 20 million by the end of the year. What is the reason for these addresses to accumulate?
In early 2024, the Ethereum spot ETF was officially approved, marking the arrival of a new era. Regulation has boosted confidence and made Ethereum mainstream. It is no longer just the patent of technology enthusiasts - institutions and individuals alike see it as a key part of the future of finance.
I expect these addresses to hold more than 20 million ETH by the end of the year. At a price of around $4,000, the total value will be over $80 billion, comparable to the market capitalizations of some of the world’s largest companies.”
Meme coin analyst Sibel wrote on X that 248,400 tokens were launched on pump.fun this month, and only 3255 were listed on Raydium. Two of them have a market value of more than $100 million.
MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor recently said on the Markets with Madison show that companies such as Apple may include Bitcoin on their balance sheets, but MicroStrategy will still be unique because the proportion of Bitcoin it holds in its valuation is very high.
