headlines
Ethereum has reached the scheduled height of Cancun upgrade and entered a new era of low-fee L2
Beaconscan data shows that the time slot height (Slot) of the Ethereum beacon chain (Beacon) has reached 8626176, which is also the scheduled position of Dencun upgrade, and the upgrade has officially started.
Odaily Note: Dencun upgrade is the collective name for the two upgrades Deneb and Cancun. The former is oriented to the consensus layer, and the latter is oriented to the execution layer. The Chinese translation of Cancun is the Cancun upgrade that the Ethereum community has long awaited.
The Dencun upgrade includes a total of nine Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), the core of which is EIP-4844. This upgrade aims to introduce a new transaction type Blob transaction to Ethereum, through the Ethereum main network. An additional temporary data space Blob is added to the block specifically for processing Layer 2 related transactions, thereby significantly reducing Layer 2 transaction fees.
In response to the attack, Polyhedra Network stated that after investigation, the incident had nothing to do with the security of Polyhedra Networks bridge. Its bridge has been audited by multiple auditing companies and is currently operating normally, and users do not have any asset security issues. This incident was a man-made theft and was not caused by a contract loophole, and the relevant personnel will be held legally responsible.
According to Paidun monitoring, the attack was caused by a key leak.
According to previous news, according to Cyvers Alerts monitoring, the Web3 full-stack interoperability infrastructure Polyhedra Network was attacked by a wallet access vulnerability on the BNB chain. The attacker withdrew $1.4 million, including $700,000 worth of THE tokens, which he then used. All tokens are exchanged for BNB. The attackers funds came from Tornado Cash.
L2 BEAT: zkSync is the first L2 to use Blobs, reducing its sorter cost by approximately 88%
L2 BEAT posted on the X platform that zkSync is the first L2 to use Blob, and more projects will follow in the next few days.
In addition, data disclosed by its researcher donnoh.eth shows that before using Blob, the cost of using Calldata for the zkSync Era sequencer (sequencer) was about 0.11 ETH. After using Blob, its cost dropped to about 0.013 ETH, a decrease of about 88 %.
MicroStrategy plans to issue $500 million in convertible senior notes and buy more Bitcoin
MicroStrategy filed for a $500 million convertible senior note offering on Wednesday afternoon and plans to use the proceeds to buy more Bitcoin.
Assuming Bitcoin prices remain at current levels around $73,000, MicroStrategy will be able to use the funds from this latest raise to purchase an additional 6,800 Bitcoins.
According to previous news, MicroStrategy completed the issuance of US$800 million in convertible senior notes and purchased 12,000 Bitcoins for US$821.7 million between February 26 and March 10. The average price of each Bitcoin was US$68,477. As of March 10, MicroStrategy and its subsidiaries held a total of approximately 205,000 Bitcoins, with a total purchase price of $6.81 billion, and an average purchase price of $33,706 per Bitcoin.
Industry news
The U.S. Treasury Departments unit responsible for combating terrorist financing said that multiple financial institutions have reported $165 million in potential cryptocurrency transactions that may be related to Hamas.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) analyzed suspicious activity reports filed between January 2020 and October 2023, according to a letter signed by U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Adewale Adeyemo. FinCEN discovered that more than 200 cryptocurrency addresses may have been used in these transactions.
The U.S. Treasury Department is still conducting “ongoing analysis” to assess the potential threats that cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency services may pose. We continue to assess Hamas and other terrorists preference for traditional financial products and services, but we remain concerned that as we cut off their access to traditional finance, these groups will increasingly turn to virtual assets, the letter states.
Bakkt receives delisting warning from NYSE as share price continues to fall below $1
Bakkt faces delisting from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as its share price falls below the $1 threshold. Bakkt is a cryptocurrency platform created and two-thirds owned by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
Bakkt announced in a document on Wednesday that the New York Stock Exchange issued a notice saying that the company does not comply with the provisions of Section 802.1C of the New York Stock Exchange Listed Company Manual. Because as of March 12, 2024, the average closing price of the companys Class A common stock The price is less than $1.00 per share for a 30-day trading period. This notification will not immediately result in the delisting of its common shares from the New York Stock Exchange.
On March 13, Bakkt notified the New York Stock Exchange of its intention to resolve the issue of its share price being below $1 and return to compliance with the NYSE’s continued listing standards.
Bakkt shares closed at $0.5978 on Wednesday, with a market capitalization of only $80 million, well below the $40 per share trading price in October 2021.
According to monitoring by Farside Investors, yesterday Grayscales GBTC had a net outflow of US$276.5 million, VanEcks HODL had a net inflow of US$16.5 million, and WisdomTrees BTCW had a net inflow of US$2.3 million.
U.S. judge rejects motion to dismiss SEC lawsuit against Gemini Earn project
A U.S. district judge has rejected a motion by crypto exchange Gemini and crypto lending company Genesis to dismiss a case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the Gemini Earn project. Judge Edgardo Ramos of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said in an order on Wednesday that the SEC reasonably alleged that Genesis Global Capital, LLC and Gemini Trust Company, LLC offered and sold unregistered securities to retail investors through Gemini Earn. securities. The judge cited the Howey test and the Reves test, which present a multifactor test for determining whether an asset falls within the scope of securities laws.
Under Howey and Reves, the SEC reasonably alleged that defendants offered and sold unregistered securities through the Gemini Earn program, Judge Ramos said. Accordingly, defendants motion to dismiss is denied.
Foreign media: Thailand approves income tax exemption for income from investing in tokens
Thailand’s cabinet on Tuesday approved tax exemptions on cryptocurrency gains to encourage financing through investment tokens, multiple local news outlets reported. Under this exemption, holders of investment tokens that have had 15% capital gains tax withheld are not required to include profits in calculating income tax, essentially ending double taxation.
Kulaya Tantitemit, director of the Thai Tax Department, said: “The Ministry of Finance, through the Tax Department, recognizes the importance of digital tokens for investment (investment tokens), which will become another tool for operators in the country to raise funds.”
Binance published a blog post stating that it hopes to continue investing in Nigeria and cooperate with Nigerian law enforcement agencies to promote responsible growth. Binance said its policy is to cooperate with and comply with all lawful information requests and legal inquiries made by government, local regulatory and law enforcement agencies in connection with investigations, prosecutions and seizure actions. Between June 2020 and February 2024, the Binance Financial Crimes Compliance (FCC) team responded to 626 requests for information from Nigerian law enforcement agencies or related to Nigeria-related investigations, taking an average of 37.4 hours from submission to resolution, provided The information helps numerous agencies including the Nigeria Police Force, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Interpol Nigeria to combat crimes ranging from scams and fraud to money laundering, extortion and more. Binance added that it looks forward to continuing constructive cooperation in the future.
MicroStrategy shares top $1,700, up nearly 150% in the past month
After the US stock market opened, MicroStrategys stock price continued to rise and exceeded US$1,700. It currently touches US$1,705, with an intraday increase of 6.73% and an increase of 148.54% in the past month. Based on current stock prices, MicroStrategys market value exceeds $29 billion.
BlackRock IBIT asset management grew nearly 50% in less than 10 days
The latest data from BlackRock shows that as Bitcoin rises to new highs, its spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) assets under management (AUM) have increased by nearly 50% in less than 10 days.
Since the US SEC approved the launch of the Bitcoin spot ETF in January this year, IBIT has been the largest of the nine new ETFs (excluding the converted Grayscale GBTC ETF). (CryptoSlate)
According to yesterdays news, as of March 11, IBITs Bitcoin holdings exceeded 200,000 BTC, touching 203,754.83728 BTC, with a market value of approximately US$14.76 billion, and the current number of shares in circulation is 344,040,000.
Project News
Vitalik Buterin: Basic Rollup expansion milestone has been achieved
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on Warpcast that the basic rollup scaling milestone has been achieved, and the next milestone may be Verkle Trees and History Expiry.
Several L2 tokens rose before the Ethereum DenCun upgrade, with ARB rising 8.74% in 24 H
With just hours left before the Dencun upgrade goes live on the Ethereum mainnet, tokens native to second-tier networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism and Polygon are all seeing gains. The OKX market shows that Arbitrums native token ARB is currently trading at 2.171 USDT, an increase of 8.73% in 24 H; Optimisms native token OP is currently trading at 4.473 USDT, an increase of 2.51% in 24 H; Polygons native token MATIC is currently trading at 1.2482 USDT, an increase of 4.9% in 24 H.
PancakeSwap lead developer Chef Mochi revealed that the PancakeSwap v4 code will be released under an open source license, expected later this year, and this version will launch four key features:
1. Hooks, or externally deployed contracts, allow developers to add customizable add-ons. The add-on allows changing the trade charge type and trade order type (e.g. limit or market order). Hook creators can keep the fees themselves or distribute them to stakeholders.
2. Custom pool types can provide users with multiple types of liquidity pools, aiming to provide better pricing for listed assets. This will help prevent the token’s price from fluctuating significantly during periods of demand or sales, ensuring it is priced more appropriately during market pressures.
3. Singleton, this function can merge all pools into one contract to reduce 99% of deployment costs. Since there is no need to transfer tokens between separate contracts, the gas cost of the swap or the fees paid per blockchain transfer is further reduced.
4. Flash accounting can reduce Gas consumption and centrally settle a large number of transactions. During periods of market volatility, gas fees tend to spike and become expensive, potentially limiting users ability to conduct transactions.
After the Ethereum Dencun upgrade is completed, core developer Tim Beiko said in response to the communitys question about what is the next plan that EIP-7600 will be discussed at tomorrows all core developer meeting.
It is reported that the code name for the EIP-7600 series Pectra upgrade is the same as the Dencun upgrade, which is actually the collective name for the two upgrades Deneb and Cancun. The Pectra upgrade is the collective name for the two upgrades Prague and Electra, of which Prague is the Prague upgrade that the community is relatively familiar with.
The Pectra upgrade is expected to include four Ethereum improvement proposals, namely EIP-2537, EIP-6110, EIP-7002, and EIP-7549.
Investment and Financing
Fjord Foundry completes $4.3 million in seed round led by Lemniscap
Token sales platform Fjord Foundry announced the completion of a US$4.3 million seed round of financing, led by Lemniscap, with participation from Mechanism Cap, Zee Prime Cap, Castle Capital and others. The team at Fjord Foundry stated that the platform offers a range of token sale methods, including its unique Liquidity Bootstrapping Pools (LBPs), which are designed to achieve fair distribution and reduce the risk of market manipulation and bot trading by large traders.
Cryptocurrency clearing platform Cleartoken announced on Wednesday the completion of more than $10 million in seed round financing, with participation from Nomura Securities’ Laser Digital, liquidity providers Flow Traders and GSR, as well as digital asset companies LMAX Digital and Zodia Custody. ClearToken will provide digital assets with the benefits of horizontal clearing and settlement, the company said.
ClearToken plans to be fully regulated in the UK and has begun work on obtaining a clearing house license from the Bank of England. The company plans to offer initial settlement services this year and central counterparty clearing (CCP) services within the next 12-18 months.
