Headlines
In an interview with CNBC Squawk Box, Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, seemed to have changed his attitude and views on cryptocurrencies from all tokens are securities to tokens lack proper disclosure. (Cointelegraph)
Vitalik Buterin responded to the discussion about Celebrities issuing Meme coins on the X platform, saying: So far, I am very dissatisfied with this round of celebrity experiments.
Financialization is a means to an end, which I can respect if the end is worthy (health care, open source software, art, etc.). But financialization as an end product is deeply unpleasant.
Ashton and Mila’s ‘Stoner Cats’ is far more honorable than anything we’ve seen in the celebrity meme era of 2024 — and at least there’s an actual show being funded. How do we move things in a better direction?”
He also summarized the features that celebrity crypto projects need to have, and he would be more willing to show respect:
“1. Have some kind of public benefit goal other than enriching celebrities and early adopters. In fact, either an art project, a celebrity’s favorite charity, or both;
2. Have some interesting mechanisms other than just trading tokens. As much as I don’t like token voting DAOs, at least they give people something to do and organize. A DAO shouldn’t completely dictate the agenda, but it can have some influence;
3. Make something that lasts 10+ years, not something that is forgotten in a few months;
The North Star should be: have a project that regular people would be happy to have participated in even if all tokens involved eventually went to zero. Regular businesses and charities achieve this all the time. It’s a low bar, but it’s the bar we should be building.”
According to the official website, China (CN) has been added to the Bybit platform user identity authentication countries and regions. Bybit responded to Odaily that this authentication is aimed at providing services to overseas Chinese users.
Industry News
Reuters poll: Most respondents expect Fed to cut interest rates in September
According to a Reuters poll, 74 of 116 economists predicted that the Fed would cut interest rates by 25 basis points for the first time in September, with only five predicting a rate cut in July, down from 11 in the May survey, and no one predicting a rate cut in June. The Fed is in a good position in terms of how restrictive monetary policy is on the economy right now, said Oscar Munoz, chief U.S. macro strategist at TD Securities. 68 of the 116 respondents predicted two rate cuts this year, roughly the same as last months survey. Inflation (especially the PCE price index) has remained high, and coupled with extremely low unemployment, the possibility of an early rate cut is small. The median forecast shows that inflation indicators such as CPI, core CPI, PCE and core PCE are not expected to reach 2% until at least 2026. The unemployment rate will remain tightly around the current 3.9% until at least 2027, indicating that the labor market will continue to be tight. (Jinshi)
U.S. SEC Chairman: Crypto exchanges are doing things that the law would never allow the NYSE to do
According to market news, Gary Gensler, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said that cryptocurrency exchanges are doing things that the law would never allow the New York Stock Exchange or traditional exchanges to do.
Project News
Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms produced 215 BTC in May, a 43% decrease from the previous month.
The reduction in mining revenue is a direct result of the Bitcoin halving on April 20. In anticipation of a drop in Bitcoin production, Riot planned infrastructure upgrades in advance to maintain production after the Bitcoin reward halving.
Riot aims to reach a total hashrate of 31 EH/s by the end of 2024 and 41 EH/s by 2025. To this end, the company has signed a long-term master purchase agreement with MicroBT, which includes an initial order for 33,280 mining machines for the new mine. (Cointelegraph)
Open Campus posted on the X platform that the community has voted to pass the OCP-8 proposal to allocate more EDU rewards to EDU Chain masternode operators.
Specifically, the community has approved the allocation of 150 million EDU tokens, 15% of the total supply, as rewards for active masternode operators. These rewards will be issued over three years to incentivize operators for their efforts in protecting and decentralizing the EDU Chain.
Earlier in late May, Open Campus announced the launch of EDUPool on the X platform to support node operators to stake EDU tokens. Active masternode operators who verify transactions on the EDU Chain will receive token airdrops from partners built on the EDU Chain.
According to official news, Aethir announced the airdrop details of the ATH token: the total supply of ATH is 42 billion, of which 2.52 billion (6%) have been reserved for airdrop rewards.
The Aethir airdrop event will be divided into three Seasons, and Season 1 (Aethir Cloud Drop) ended on May 29.
The rewards for the airdrop season are as follows:
- Season 1: 630,000,000 ATH
- Season 2 (starting in about 8 months): 630,000,000 ATH
- Season 3 (starting in about 16 months): 1,260,000,000 ATH
Aethir Cloud Drop participants are included in the Season 1 airdrop, where 74.5% of the rewards will be reserved for Aethir community members (including Checker Nodes) and 25.5% will be distributed to the external community.
The Aethir Cloud Drop claiming process will be conducted through a dedicated claiming platform on June 12. On that day, all Aethir Cloud Drop participants can claim their ATH allocation through the designated link.
In Season 2 and Season 3, rewards will be reserved for users who actively participate in Aethir mainnet activities, including staking ATH, actively delegating Checker Node licenses to promote the daily operations of the network, and holding the initial reward amount.
Another 50% of the total ATH supply is reserved for the Aethir community, with 15% going to Aethir Checker node rewards and another 35% going to Aethir cloud computing container operators (23% for edge computing providers and 12% for enterprise computing providers).
With the opening of the airdrop on June 12, the official will also launch the Aethir staking function.
Taiko: 10% of total token supply will be allocated in Trailblazers events
According to official news, Taiko has announced that the first phase of the TAIKO airdrop is open for application. For users who are not eligible for the first phase of the airdrop, they can participate in the Trailblazers event. Taiko stated that its upcoming Trailblazers Program will allocate 10% of the total supply of TAIKO tokens.
TAIKO airdrop first phase claims are now open
According to official news, the first phase of the TAIKO token airdrop is now open. Eligible users can now claim 5% of the initial TAIKO supply, which is about 50 million tokens. Eligible users include:
1. Taikos proposer and prover;
2. Taiko bridgoors;
3. Taiko users (including Galxe points holders);
4. Taiko developer;
5. GitHub Contributor;
6. Loopring community member.
Application period: June 5, 2024 to July 5, 2024.
OKX will open Ultiverse (ULTI) spot trading at 18:00 on June 6
According to official news, Ultiverse (ULTI) will soon be listed on the OKX spot trading market, and trading will be open at 18:00 Beijing time on June 6.
Coinbase Smart Wallet is now live, reducing the number of transactions to sign
Coinbase today launched its promised Smart Wallet, a product designed to reduce barriers for new users looking to enter the DeFi space. Smart Wallet enables users to create a free, secure, self-custodial wallet in seconds, simplifies the onboarding process, reduces the number of transactions you need to sign, and allows you to use your Coinbase balance seamlessly, wrote Siddharth Coelho-Prabhu, senior director of product management at Coinbase, in a blog post announcing the release of Smart Wallet. (Decrypt)
UniSat: Pizza minting is complete and will be airdropped within 48 hours
UniSat posted on the X platform that the minting of pizza has been completed and pizza will be distributed within the next 48 hours.
According to previous news, there are more than 200,000 addresses that meet the qualifications for pizza airdrops.
Galxe announces the first batch of GAL staking snapshot time and details
Galxe will snapshot the first batch of GAL staking rewards at 10:00 am Beijing time on June 14. The first batch of rewards will include ARB, MERL, and ZK (Polyhedra). The three rewards will follow different staking rules:
1. ARB, no minimum GAL quantity requirement, the maximum GAL quantity is limited to 200k;
2. MERL: The minimum GAL quantity required for pledge is 200, and the maximum GAL quantity is limited to 5k;
3. ZK (Polyhedra), the minimum GAL quantity required for pledge is 100, and the maximum GAL quantity is limited to 10k.
Modular game Layer 1 Tabi releases public token sale details
Modular game Layer 1 Tabi published a post on the X platform announcing the details of the token public sale. The public sale is scheduled to take place from June 13 to July 13. This public sale has three features: Dutch auction, fair pricing, and a buyback offer.
Nocturne, the privacy protocol in which Vitalik participated, will gradually shut down the company
Nocturne, a privacy protocol in which Vitalik participated, said in a post on the X platform: “After stopping the privacy protocol built earlier last year, we have decided to gradually shut down the company. The front-end app.nocturne.xyz will remain open for withdrawal services until the end of this month. From then on, we will convert the withdrawal process to self-service through this GitHub repository and provide detailed instructions on how to withdraw funds using the CLI tool.”
Earlier in October 2023, Nocturne Labs announced the completion of a $6 million seed round of financing, led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital, with participation from Vitalik Buterin, Bankless Ventures, Hack VC, Robot Ventures and others.
Character*Voice
LayerZero co-founder: I personally hope to have another two months to conduct witch inspections
LayerZero co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino said in a post on the X platform: “I hope to have another two months to deal with the inspection of the witch reports. There are some very obvious large witch clusters, including thousands of addresses, but due to time reasons, I have to give up checking them because they are extremely unlikely to meet the final airdrop qualifications of LayerZero, but I am sure they may get other airdrops.”
Pellegrino added: “It should be noted that this is just my personal venting because I don’t have that much time. The LayerZero TGE timeline remains unchanged.”
In response to Emmanuel Awosika’s comment that “Ethereum in 2024 is like a scientific laboratory experiment, lacking an overall plan,” Vitalik Buterin replied: “I think the challenge is more subtle. We have a very solid consensus on the direction of L1 development. What we lack is a similar common understanding of infrastructure beyond the L1 ecosystem.
If you look at the examples you gave, you will find that 75% of them are not based on L1. This is a higher-level ecosystem construction and standardization challenge. Enshrined bridging, rollup decentralized technology, multi provers... do not have L1 characteristics.
It’s not enough to have a roadmap, we also need the resources to execute it. ERC-7683 is a good step forward, Waku is a good step forward, but we need 10 more similar innovations with a coherent blueprint, knowing what’s missing, who is building them, and making sure they have the resources and motivation to do them.”
Earlier news, Uniswap Labs announced on the X platform that it and Across Protocol proposed a new cross-chain intent standard ERC-7683, which aims to establish a unified framework for specifying cross-chain operations based on intent. It is reported that the standard allows the implementation of a standard API for cross-chain transaction execution systems. The standard provides a common CrossChainOrder structure and a standard ISettlementContract smart contract interface.
Arthur Hayes: A wave of interest rate cuts from central banks is coming
Arthur Hayes, founder of BitMEX, posted on the X platform: The Bank of Canada cut interest rates, the European Central Bank will announce its decision today, and the market expects a rate cut. Take the risk, its yacht time! This summer has been much more interesting than I thought.
Investment and Financing
Tether makes $18.75 million strategic investment in blockchain financial institution XREX Group
According to official news, Tether announced a strategic investment of $18.75 million in XREX Group, a fully regulated blockchain financial institution. The cooperation aims to promote innovation in the digital asset industry, promote USDT-based cross-border payments in emerging markets, and innovate regulatory technology.
XREX will use the new funds to promote compliant, USDT-based cross-border B2B payments in emerging markets, transforming financial transactions by providing businesses with a more convenient, efficient and low-cost way. In addition, XREX will work with the Unitas Foundation to launch XAU 1, a unit stablecoin pegged to the US dollar and backed by Tether Gold (XAUt) excess reserves.
Web3 network security company GoPlus raises $10 million from investors including OKX Ventures
Web3 network security company GoPlus has completed a $10 million private equity financing round, with participation from OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital and Animoca Brands.
GoPlus is building a permissionless, modular Web 3 security layer designed to integrate with any blockchain network to help architects improve user security and protect against cyber threats.
To supplement the growth of its security layer, GoPlus also plans to launch a token that will be used primarily to pay for gas fees and incentivize developers to use GoPlus services. (CoinDesk)
Stablecoin protocol M^0 completes $35 million Series A financing, led by Bain Capital
Stablecoin protocol M^0 has completed a $35 million Series A financing round led by Bain Capital, with participation from Galaxy Ventures, Wintermute Ventures and GSR. (Fortune.com)
Nubit, a modular blockchain project, announced on X platform that it has successfully raised $8 million in seed round financing. This round of financing was led by Polychain Capital, and other institutional investors included Nomad Capital, Spartan Group, L2 IV, Big Brain Holdings, GCR, Protagonist, Gate Ventures, Animoca and Mask Network. So far, Nubits total financing amount has reached $12 million.
Security incidents
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on X: “We have received two independent confirmations that a well-known supplier commonly used by cryptocurrency companies to manage mailing lists may have been hacked. We will not release any names until the investigation is complete, but please be wary of all emails received about airdrops in the past 24 hours.”
CoinGecko co-founder Bobby Ong posted on X: An email address book provider is under attack... CoinGecko may also be affected, and we are actively working with the provider to investigate to determine the impact of this leak. We have found some phishing emails impersonating CoinGecko. We currently have no plans to issue CoinGecko tokens, so dont be fooled by these phishing emails.
