Web3 Daily | Hotbit announces cessation of operations; Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission to hold media briefing on virtual asset trading platforms.
Top News:
1. Hotbit announced today that it will cease operations. Users must withdraw their assets before 12:00 on June 21st.
2. Vitalik Buterin: Opposes excessive loading of external applications and protocols into Ethereum consensus.
3. The attacker of Tornado Cash has released a new proposal for recovery governance, and it is not yet clear what their true motives are.
4、Instagram plans to launch a decentralized social platform in June that can interoperate with Mastodon.
5、Pudgy Penguins plush toys achieved $500,000 in sales within 48 hours.
6. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission will hold a media briefing on Tuesday regarding virtual asset trading platforms.
Funding Information
Web3 MOBA competitive game Arena of Faith recently announced that it has completed a $1.75 million seed round of financing led by Chain Hill Capital and followed by Initiate Capital. Arena of Faith focuses on serving the MOBA esports ecosystem and building a decentralized event system. It is committed to adapting to the current user needs of the MOBA market through the Web3 business model, and providing a new commercial idea for KOLs, content creators, event organizers, esports clubs, and esports enthusiasts.
The core team of Arena of Faith is composed of Tencent Interactive Entertainment's esports game publishing producer, former Ubisoft senior expert, Tencent TiMi Studios senior developer, and Cosmos ecosystem technology core contributors. They have more than 10 years of experience in the game development field. Chain Hill Capital believes that "we believe that Arena of Faith has a deep understanding of the MOBA track and Web3, and they are expected to combine Web3 business models and decentralized spirit to achieve breakthroughs in the MOBA track."
Narwhal Finance completed a strategic round of financing with a valuation of $25 million, with participation from Animoca Ventures and others.
The decentralized perpetual trading platform Narwhal Finance, running on Arbitrum and BNB Chain, announced that it has completed a strategic financing round with a valuation of $25 million. The round was participated by Animoca Ventures, Hailstone Ventures, and angel investors. Narwhal Finance also announced a partnership with Pyth Network to establish an oracle service and a partnership with Wormhole to establish a token bridging service.
Project Updates
Hotbit announced today that it will cease operations and users need to withdraw their assets before 12:00 on June 21.
The encrypted trading platform Hotbit announced in a post that it has stopped all CEX operations as of 12:00 today and hopes that all users will withdraw their remaining assets before 12:00 on June 21. BlockBeats previously reported that on August 10, 2022, the encrypted trading platform Hotbit announced the suspension of deposit and withdrawal as well as trading functions, and the specific recovery time is currently unknown. The reason is that in April of this year, former Hotbit management participated in a certain project, and law enforcement agencies now believe that the project may have violated criminal law. Since the end of July, several senior Hotbit management personnel have been summoned by law enforcement agencies and are assisting in the investigation. In addition, law enforcement agencies have frozen some of Hotbit's funds, causing Hotbit to be unable to operate normally.
V God: Oppose Overloading External Applications and Protocols into Ethereum Consensus
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has released an article titled "Don't Overload Ethereum's Consensus". The article points out that it is risky to overload external applications and protocols onto Ethereum's consensus, as this can pose a high risk to the ecosystem. While reusing validation nodes for other purposes (such as the ultimate oracle and re-staking protocols represented by EigenLayer) is low-risk, attempting to use Ethereum's social consensus to achieve the application's own goals is high-risk and should be resisted.
Buterin argues that blockchain minimalism should be adhered to and that caution should be exercised when application layer projects expand the "scope" of blockchain consensus beyond verifying core Ethereum protocol rules.
小幽灵 Weirdo Ghost Gang parent company ManesLAB launches Web3 fashion brand CutUp and decentralized identity protocol MID.
BlockBeats News, on May 22nd, ManesLAB, the parent company of Weirdo Ghost Gang, launched the Web3 native trend brand CutUp and officially launched the ManesLAB decentralized identity protocol MID. CutUp will continue to launch trend products with Web3 culture as the theme, and will integrate more Web3 gameplay to create a new paradigm of Web3 e-commerce. ManesLAB will continue to expand its ecosystem based on the MID protocol and its ".mid" identity system. It is reported that ManesLAB had previously received a seed round financing of $1.8 million, led by YZB Investment.
Tornadosaurus-Hex, a member of the Tornado Cash community, stated in the forum that the Tornado Cash attacker has released a new proposal for restoring governance, and "it is very likely that it will be executed". In the malicious proposal, the attacker used his own TORN as "lockedBalance-s" and reset it to 0. The true motive behind this is currently unclear.
If the proposal is passed, the malicious code integrated into the protocol by the attacker will be removed, and token holders will regain control of Tornado Cash's DAO governance. Tornadosaurus-Hex stated that he or someone else needs to propose an update to the governance contract. Tornadosaurus-Hex is ready to fix the logic, but needs to verify the storage layout to ensure that the proxy upgrade does not break the contract. Tornadosaurus-Hex also stated that "we are well aware that there is no choice for this proposal, but it is still very important".
Pudgy Penguins physical dolls achieved $500,000 in sales within 48 hours.
According to NFTEvening, Pudgy Penguins plush toys achieved $500,000 in sales within 48 hours of being launched on Amazon, with over 20,000 toys sold. As previously reported by BlockBeats, on May 19th, Pudgy Toys, the physical plush toys of the NFT project "Pudgy Penguins," were listed on Amazon. Each stuffed animal comes with an official NFT certificate and allows for a customized digital penguin experience in "Pudgy World."
According to TechCrunch, Instagram plans to launch a text-based decentralized social platform in June. The platform will exist as a separate app, but will be partially integrated into Instagram. Additionally, the platform will be interoperable with Mastodon, a decentralized social platform built on the ActivityPub protocol.
The app will use the same community guidelines as Instagram, and text posts can contain up to 500 characters. Users can also upload photos, links, and videos up to five minutes long. Some high-profile public figures are expected to have early access to the app.
BitMEX will launch BitMEX Hong Kong for Hong Kong users.
The cryptocurrency trading platform BitMEX will launch BitMEX Hong Kong for Hong Kong users as a transitional service when applying for a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license. BitMEX stated that starting from May 29, 2023, Hong Kong users will no longer be able to access the BitMEX website or API, and all account balances will be transferred to BitMEX Hong Kong accounts. Users will need to access these services through the new BitMEX Hong Kong mobile app.
In addition, starting from May 29, 2023, the existing BitMEX trading platform will no longer accept any new Hong Kong users, and Hong Kong users will only be able to open accounts through the dedicated BitMEX Hong Kong mobile app.
MetaMask development company ConsenSys responded to questions about "withholding tax service terms" on social media: "We noticed that inaccurate information about ConsenSys service terms is circulating on Twitter. It needs to be clarified that MetaMask does not impose taxes on cryptocurrency transactions, and we have not made any changes to our terms and conditions for this purpose. At ConsenSys, our goal is to make Web3 universally easy to use, access, and build through our product suite."
ConsenSys continued: "It is worth noting that the terms mentioned in the tweet are not new. They apply to products for which we need to pay sales tax. The tax section of our terms and conditions belongs to the 'Fees and Payments' section, which only concerns the products and payment plans provided by ConsenSys. For example, Infura's credit card developer subscription includes sales tax."
Earlier, Anton Bukov, co-founder of 1inch, said that ConsenSys updated its terms of service in April, which included tax-related sections, mentioning that "each party will be responsible for determining and paying all taxes and other government fees and charges (including any fines, interest, and other additional fees) related to that party's transactions or related to the agreement, as required by applicable law. Unless otherwise stated, all fees you are responsible for paying do not include taxes. We reserve the right to withhold taxes when necessary."
Mina launches incentive testnet Testworld Mission 2.0
The lightweight blockchain Mina announced on its social platform that it will launch the Mina incentive testnet Testworld Mission 2.0, providing validators, zkApp developers, and users with the opportunity to test the Mina blockchain before the upcoming hard fork.
The goal of Testworld Mission 2.0 is to conduct Battle testing of the network under all conditions to ensure that SnarkyJS and zkApp-related code run as planned. To achieve these goals, the testnet will take four different paths: zkApp end-to-end (E2E) testing, external security audits, protocol and performance testing, and hard fork preparation. Currently, zkApp end-to-end testing has been completed, external security audits, protocol and performance testing are in progress, auditors and node operators have been identified and will be launched soon and run for about 2 months, and hard fork preparation will begin soon.
BlockBeats news, SushiSwap CEO Jared Grey stated on his social media platform that the recent SushiSwap attack resulted in some Lido protocol participants receiving hundreds of ETH. Sushi has been working with the Lido team to find a solution to recover the stolen funds they have already paid, but some community members believe that Lido is not obligated or empowered to refund these funds, essentially giving the green light to distribute stolen funds to multiple Lido DAO participants. Controversially, Hasu, the strategic advisor of Lido and the strategic director of Flashbots, also supports the above view.
Jared Grey stated that attempting to use the bureaucratic procedures of DAO to confuse and obstruct this process is hypocritical and completely wrong. He hopes to reach a friendly solution with Lido DAO and its supporters to return the funds. In addition, the Lido community recently initiated a proposal to return 39.8 ETH to Sushi, which ended on May 26th and currently has a 98.48% voting rate to not take action, with Hasu voting with 5.2 million LDO to support not taking action.
Earlier news showed that on April 9th, SUSHI RouteProcessor2 was attacked, and the Ethereum staking protocol Lido captured 689.02 ETH of MEV rewards. On April 10th, Jared Grey tweeted that he had confirmed the recovery of over 300 ETH of stolen funds from CoffeeBabe and was in contact with Lido's team regarding the issue of 700 ETH.
Ethereum Layer 2 solution Scroll co-founder Sandy Peng said in an interview with Mr. Block that "we are confident that we will launch our mainnet within the next few months. The specific time has not been set, but it should be in Q3 or Q4."
In addition, Sandy stated regarding Token-related issues, "We will spend a lot of time writing educational blogs to help everyone understand our technology, principles, and concepts. We will now spend a lot of time and energy encouraging builders to create something that everyone can share and use. At the same time, we will also encourage community members to strengthen their learning activities to invest in themselves. In the long run, there will definitely be significant knowledge gains. We still need to do some building-related altruistic activities, which are related to building and organization within the community. Although it is difficult to measure, it is something we have always valued. The first and most important way to achieve higher quality interaction is through self-improvement and learning. The second is to do high-quality entrepreneurship on Scroll."
DATA
Two whales sold a total of 349 MAYC NFTs, and the floor price dropped by 5% in 24 hours.
On-chain data shows that in the past 24 hours, two NFT whales have sold a total of 349 MAYC NFTs. Specifically, the address starting with 0x1a94 sold 158 MAYC NFTs on Blur 11 hours ago for 1506 ETH, while the address starting with 0x032f sold 191 MAYC NFTs on Blur 17 hours ago for 1913 ETH and subsequently withdrew the 1913 ETH from Blur. According to OpenSea data, the current floor price of the Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT series is temporarily reported at 9.65 ETH, with a 24-hour drop of 5%.
Gemini: DCG unpaid debt of about 630 million US dollars due on May 11
Gemini announced that as of May 19th, Digital Currency Group (DCG) had not paid the approximately $630 million debt due on May 11th. Gemini stated that it is working with Genesis, DCG, and creditors to provide a grace period for DCG to avoid default and is considering negotiating in good faith on a mutually agreed-upon transaction. If an agreement cannot be reached, Gemini (along with other parties) is working with Genesis to propose terms for a revised restructuring plan that can proceed without DCG's participation.
To this end, Genesis filed a motion with the bankruptcy court on May 19th seeking an extension of its exclusive period to propose the plan. This will be a plan that receives Gemini's opinion (if not direct support). Meanwhile, Gemini is preparing to file a claim demanding that Genesis return over $1.1 billion in digital assets to its 232,000 Earn users.
The BitVol (Bitcoin Volatility) index launched by financial index company T3 Index in collaboration with Bitcoin options trading platform LedgerX has maintained a downward trend in the past month, falling to 52.88 yesterday, a low level not seen since February of this year, and rebounding 0.74% from the previous day.
BlockBeats Note: BitVol Index measures the 30-day expected implied volatility derived from tradable Bitcoin options prices. Implied volatility refers to the volatility implied by the actual option price. It is calculated using the B-S option pricing formula, which takes the actual option price and other parameters except for volatility as inputs to derive the volatility. The actual price of an option is formed by the competition of many option traders. Therefore, implied volatility represents the market participants' views and expectations of the future market, and is considered the closest to the true volatility at that time.
ORDI reported $9.46 on CEX platform, with a 14% decrease in 24 hours.
According to OKX market information, ORDI is currently trading at $9.46 with a 24-hour decline of 14%. Additionally, according to on-chain trading platform UniSat, the current lowest ask price for ORDI on the chain is $10.5 USD.
According to CoinGecko data, the total trading volume of the global cryptocurrency market on May 21 was 22.006 billion US dollars, which increased by 17.92% compared to May 20's 18.661 billion US dollars.
This week's unlocked data overview: AVAX will unlock tokens worth $137 million
Token Unlocks data shows that this week RON and AVAX will see large token unlocks, with AVAX unlocking tokens worth $137 million on May 28th.
Data: Exnetwork Capital purchased nearly 7.75 billion LADYS with 50,000 USDC today
According to Lookonchain, Exnetwork Capital purchased nearly 775 billion LADYS for a price of 0.00000006454 USD per token, spending 50,000 USDC approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes ago. On May 11th, Exnetwork Capital bought 327 billion LADYS for 10,000 USDC after Elon Musk's tweet and sold them for 34,651 USDC, earning a profit of 24,651 USD.
Regulation
BlockBeats News, on May 22nd, market news reported that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission will hold a media briefing on Tuesday regarding virtual asset trading platforms.
The Securities Commission (SC) of Malaysia has announced that it has taken enforcement action against Huobi Global Limited and its CEO, Leon Li, for operating a digital asset exchange (DAX) in Malaysia without being registered.
In addition, the SC has ordered Huobi Global Limited to cease its operations in the country, including disabling its website and mobile applications on multiple platforms such as Apple Store, Google Play, and any other digital application platforms. Huobi Global Limited has also been instructed to stop disseminating, publishing, or sending any advertisements to Malaysian investors, and Leon Li, as CEO, has been specifically instructed to ensure compliance with the above instructions.
美联储布拉德将于今晚 20:30 就经济和货币政策发表讲话 Translation:
Federal Reserve's Brad will give a speech on the economy and monetary policy tonight at 20:30. The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Brad, will give a speech on the economy and monetary policy at 20:30 today. Seoul court will hold a second trial for the chairman of Bithumb's board of directors on June 29th. According to a report from South Korean media News 1 citing legal sources, the 5th Criminal Division of the Seoul High Court will hold a second trial for Lee Sang-jun, former chairman of Bithumb Holdings and Bithumb Korea's board of directors, on June 29. In January of this year, a South Korean court ruled Lee Sang-jun not guilty in the case of alleged fraud involving 110 billion won, and the prosecution appealed the verdict. As previously reported by BlockBeats, on April 21, the Financial Investigation Division of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office summoned and interrogated Lee Sang-jun, CEO of Bithumb Holdings, accusing him of accepting kickbacks in exchange for listing certain cryptocurrencies on the Bithumb exchange. Telegram subscription group: https://t.me/theblockbeats Telegram communication group: https://t.me/theblockbeatsApp Twitter official account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community: Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
The committee will hold a plenary session on the 24th and 25th of this month to finally pass the amendment at the plenary session scheduled for the 25th. The Congressional Political Reform Special Committee will also hold its first bill review subcommittee meeting on the same day to deal with a bill that includes cryptocurrencies in legislators' private interest registration. This is to prevent conflicts of interest.
