headlines
86 U.S. members of Congress have pressured the Biden administration to detail how it plans to prevent militant groups from using cryptocurrencies to finance terrorism. Led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Roger Marshall and Representative Sean Casten, they sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department and the National Security Committee on October 17 stating that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were involved in several attacks on Israel several days before Hamas attacked Israel. A huge amount of money has been raised via cryptocurrencies over the past month. According to the Wall Street Journal, the groups raised more than $130 million in cryptocurrency from August 2021 to June of this year, and PIJ sent more than $12 million in cryptocurrency to Hezbollah since 2023. “As Congress considers legislative proposals aimed at mitigating the risks of cryptocurrency money laundering and illicit finance, we urge the administration to act quickly to forcefully curb illicit cryptocurrency activity and protect the security of the nation and our allies,” the lawmakers wrote.
U.S. SEC Chairman: SEC is still weighing proposal for Bitcoin spot ETF
U.S. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said that the SEC is still weighing the proposal for a Bitcoin spot ETF, and the SEC is still communicating with companies applying for a Bitcoin spot ETF.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a crypto exchange and its operator involving Hamas
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a Hamas-related crypto exchange and its operator, two senior Hamas officials, and six individuals who helped manage the group’s investment portfolio in Gaza, Algeria, Sudan, Turkey, and Qatar. Secretary of State Janet Yellen said in a statement: The U.S. Treasury Department has a long history of effectively combating terrorist financing, and we will not hesitate to use our tools to combat Hamas. We will continue to take all necessary steps to dismantle Hamas. Mas terrorists’ ability to raise and use funds to commit atrocities and terrorize the Israeli people.”
Industry News
Coinbase issued a statement saying that all types of currency, whether fiat, gold or cryptocurrencies, should not be used to support Hamas or other terrorist organizations. Coinbase is focused on rooting out bad actors who seek to use cryptocurrencies for illicit purposes, with 400 compliance, legal and investigative officers across the company working closely with the U.S. government’s national security and law enforcement agencies. Coinbase’s sanctions screening tools enable it to quickly detect and stop sanctions-related transactions (especially those related to terrorist groups) and report them to authorities before they occur. The team conducts sanctions screening and KYC checks on customer registration and throughout the lifecycle, monitors and reports suspicious transactions to regulators, and closely monitors and blocks IP addresses associated with banned regions. Coinbase said blockchain is a tool in the fight against terrorist financing and that the cryptocurrencys immutable ledger system makes such transactions easier to track, thus acting as a deterrent to bad actors. Hamas digital asset-related financial flows are linked to offshore entities that are not subject to U.S. laws, including anti-money laundering and sanctions regulations, making it easier for them to engage in such conduct. This is why clear regulation is needed in the United States.
Investment bank Berenberg said in a research note on Tuesday that Coinbases U.S. cryptocurrency trading volume appeared to be weaker than expected in the third quarter as the crypto bear market continued. Citing data from The Block, the report stated that Coinbase’s trading volume fell by approximately 17% month-on-month and approximately 52% year-on-year. It is reported that Coinbase will announce its third quarter results on November 2. Analysts represented by Mark Palmer said: “The main reason why we are cautious about Coinbase Global is not that we are worried about the company’s operating performance in the next few quarters, but that we are worried about the various regulatory actions and risks it faces in the United States. The threat of litigation to its business and other threats it may face in the future as regulators continue to crack down on the cryptocurrency industry.”
Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis releases a research report on the Central, Northern and Western Europe (CNWE) region. According to the report, the CNWE region has become the second largest cryptocurrency economy in the world, second only to North America. The region accounted for 17.6% of global transaction volume between July 2022 and June 2023. And the UK tops CNWE’s list of largest cryptocurrency economies and ranks third in terms of global trading volume, behind the United States and India. The UK completed $252.1 billion in cryptocurrency transactions in the past year. Other large cryptocurrency economies in the CNWE region include Germany and Spain, which respectively completed approximately $120 billion and $110 billion in cryptocurrency transactions over the past year.
The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on Examining the SECs Agenda: Unintended Consequences for U.S. Capital Markets and Investors at 10:00 local time on October 24.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, the team of Israeli blockchain IaaS platform Orbs Network appears to be selling ORBS tokens after the token price increased. 2 wallets that received ORBS from the team deposited a total of 81.8 million ORBS tokens (approximately $4.25 million) into OKX in the past 16 hours.
The address starting with -0x C 1 3A received 134 million ORBS (approximately $7 million) from the Orbs team and founding partner wallets, and deposited 61.8 million ORBS (approximately $3.2 million) into OKX.
The address starting with -0x 33 B 5 received 94.3 million ORBS (approximately $4.9 million) from the Orbs long-term reserve wallet and deposited 20 million ORBS (approximately $1.04 million) into OKX.
These two wallets still hold 153 million ORBS (approximately $8 million) and may continue to sell ORBS.
A whale transferred 7416 ETH to Binance for sale, and withdrew USDT to repay the loan on Aave.
According to on-chain analyst Ember’s monitoring, a whale transferred 7,416 ETH (approximately $11.64 million) to Binance last night for sale, and then withdrew 12.34 million USDT to repay the loan on Aave. The whale was leveraged long ETH from June 12 to July 5: he borrowed 18.9 million USDT from Aave by staking ETH and transferred it to Binance, and then withdrew 10,460 ETH at an average price of $1806. The whale’s leveraged long ETH loss was approximately US$1.22 million (-6.5%).
Coinbase opens perpetual contract trading to non-U.S. retail investors
Coinbase has opened perpetual contract trading to eligible non-U.S. retail investors through the Coinbase Advanced platform. The open perpetual contract trading pairs include four currencies: BTC, LTC, ETH and XRP. All perpetual contracts are settled in the USDC stable currency. The contract will initially offer 5x leverage (up to 3x for XRP), and Coinbase plans to add more coins in the coming months.
Project News
THORChain: RUNE fully allocated to protocol and reserves, VC investors exited
Decentralized cross-chain trading protocol THORChain announced that its token RUNE has been fully allocated to the protocol and reserves. The treasury holds only 7 million tokens (2% of circulating supply) to fund its ecosystem. All OG seed/team/investor tokens were unlocked months ago and all participating VC investors have exited.
Reddit will shut down its blockchain-based Community Points program on November 8. Reddit said that while there were some opportunities with the program, the resources required would be too great to be sustainable. Additionally, changes in the regulatory environment have exacerbated this dilemma. The team has launched or is actively developing a number of products that will make adoption easier.
OpenSea data shows that the sales of the NFT project Winds of Yawanawa reached $3.9 million (approximately 2,493 ETH) in the past week. The transaction volume of Winds of Yawanawa on OpenSea yesterday was 451 ETH, accounting for approximately 25% of the total Ethereum NFT transaction volume (denominated in ETH) on OpenSea. The current floor price of this series of NFTs is approximately 11.399 ETH. The total number of Winds of Yawanawa series NFTs is 1,000, and the largest holder is Huang Licheng (Machibigbrother) address, holding 34 NFTs in the series.
Worldcoin’s 5 market makers hold a total of 40.39 million WLD on the chain
According to statistics from on-chain analyst Ember, the on-chain currency holding data of the five market makers of Worldcoin (WLD) are as follows:
- Since October 1, Wintermute, Flow Traders, and GSR Markets have withdrawn 4.67 million WLD on the chain from CEX;
- Currently, 5 market makers hold a total of 40.39 million WLD on the chain;
- Currently, the one holding the closest amount to the borrowed amount on the chain is GSR, and the one with the largest difference in amount is Amber Group.
The public chain project Shardeum white paper will be released on November 8
WazirX co-founder Nischal Shetty posted on the X platform that the public chain project Shardeum white paper will be released on November 8 by Omar Syed, the project’s technical co-founder. According to previous news, Shardeum completed a US$18.2 million seed round in October last year, followed by a US$5.4 million strategic financing in July this year.
Hope Lend was suspected of being hacked and lost 526 ETH
According to X user Spreek, Hope Lend was suspected of being hacked and lost 526 ETH. After the original attacker launched the attack, a frontrunner preempted the transaction. The two split the proceeds equally and paid a bribe of 263 ETH.
Investment and Financing
DeFi protocol Elixir Protocol has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding at a $100 million valuation, led by Hack VC, with participation from NGC Ventures, AngelList Ventures, Bloccelerate, and angel investors from Ledger Prime, Genesis Trading, and Hudson River Trading. It is reported that Elixir allows users to provide liquidity directly to trading pairs on order book exchanges and receive market maker rewards similar to AMM.
Animoca Brands announced that its subsidiary Darewise Entertainment has completed a $3.5 million private placement round through pre-sale of upcoming tokens, with participation from Gamefi Ventures, London Real Ventures, Citizen Capital, Blocore, Animoca Ventures and Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu. . The new Darewise ecosystem token is expected to be released on the Bitcoin network in early 2024, with the upcoming AAA MMO game Life Beyond being its first adopter. Previously, in September, Darewise Entertainment, a developer owned by Animoca Brands, announced that it was partnering with Horizen Labs to launch a Bitcoin-based Metaverse ecosystem token.
Digital identity solution Prove Identity has raised $40 million in funding, led by MassMutual Ventures and Capital One Ventures. Prove Identity will use the funding from this round to launch new business support and anti-fraud use cases and continue to expand Prove’s business globally.
global policy
Ong Shouren, deputy chief prosecutor of the Attorney-Generals Chambers of Singapore, said that overall, there are two main forms of technology crimes. One is technology-enabled crimes, that is, crimes directly related to technology, such as hacking into computer systems; The first is technology-facilitated crimes, which are traditional crimes assisted by technology, such as digital forgery, online harassment and fraud. The Attorney-General’s Chambers formally established two task forces this year to deal with new challenges, namely the Technology Crime Task Force and the Virtual Currency Task Force. The Technology Crime Working Group mainly deals with computer or technology-assisted crimes, as well as processing digital evidence and other matters. The Virtual Currency Working Group focuses on various issues arising from virtual currencies as assets, including assisting the Singapore Police Force in tracking, seizing and disposing of such assets.
France’s National Assembly passed the “Sorare Bill” on Tuesday, introducing the first regulatory framework specifically for video games leveraging NFTs and cryptocurrencies. This bill is part of the SREN Digital Space Regulation Law of the French National Assembly. A total of 561 MPs voted on it, of which 437 supported its passage and 77 opposed it. The bill, known as the “Jonum Regime,” or games with monetized digital items, is intended to promote French startup innovation and user protection. The law clearly defines “Jonum” for the first time, paving the way for a possible regulatory framework specifically for crypto gaming, making it different from gambling and traditional video games.
Character *Voice
SBF met with Clinton, New York City mayor and top Saudi Arabian officials before FTX went bankrupt
FTX founder SBF met with several prominent political leaders before FTX went bankrupt, according to phone records provided by prosecutors to Manhattan federal court. FBI Special Agent Richard Busick testified that the SBF met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Saudi Arabia’s Investment Minister HE Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund President HE Khalid Al-Falih and other political figures. Records show that SBF and FTX general counsel Ryne Miller met with Eric Adams at Osteria La Baia restaurant in March 2022 and hosted a high-end dinner at Osteria La Baia.
Vitalik: Never “sold” ETH for personal gain since 2018
Vitalik Buterin posted on the Warpcast platform: “If you see an article saying ‘Vitalik sends XXX ETH to (exchange)’, it’s not actually me selling, but almost always me donating to some charity. Institutions, non-profits, or other projects donate; and recipients of funds are selling tokens because they need them to pay fees. I have never sold ETH for personal gain since 2018. Previous news, Regarding the transfer data of vitalik.eth transferring 14.93 million USDC to the exchange Gemini on October 16, a spokesperson of the Ethereum Foundation stated that the transfer was a transfer signed by the domain name address of Vitalik Buterin from the charity multi-signature wallet, and the actual funds were It never leaves Vitalik Buterins wallet.
Justin Sun: I believe multi-chain is the future and do not think Tron and Ethereum are competitors
Sun Yuchen posted on the Globalization needs, because the needs vary greatly around the world. Sun Yuchen further said: I always remind myself not to focus too much on a specific field when building blockchain products. The biggest advantage of blockchain is the ability to provide global services . We develop products with the goal of serving everyone around the world. In the end, blockchain shares the same core value as the Internet: connecting people around the world. Although we may have cultural differences, we share fundamental values such as Safety, transparency and efficiency are universal.”
Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, wrote on the Therefore, even if Grayscale GBTC wins, the SEC controls its fate to a certain extent. According to previous news, Grayscale issued a statement in response to the U.S. SEC’s decision not to seek an appeal, saying: “The Grayscale team is ready to convert GBTC into an ETF once it is approved by the SEC.”
