This week in review | Ripple temporarily gains advantage in SEC lawsuit; Multichain forced to cease operations.

BlockBeats will compile industry news highlights for the week (7.10-7.16) in this article, and recommend in-depth articles to help readers better understand the market and stay informed of industry trends.

This Week's Important News Review

Ripple has the upper hand in the SEC lawsuit, and XRP's daily increase is nearly 100%

On the evening of July 13th, Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finally reached a temporary conclusion after a three-year lawsuit. Judge Analisa Torres made a ruling favorable to Ripple Labs, according to the court's ruling, using XRP to invest in others, using XRP to provide funding, and transferring XRP to executives are not considered securities. Influenced by this news, XRP rose nearly 100% that evening. However, some industry insiders pointed out that the court ruling specifically stated that it did not discuss whether the secondary market sales of XRP constituted investment contract sales, because the SEC did not submit this as a direct issue to the court. Therefore, it cannot be concluded from this ruling that the court has determined that XRP is not a security, and the case has not yet been concluded. Related reading: "Retrospect on the three-year-long Ripple case, does the court ruling have epoch-making significance?" and "Analysis: Is XRP really not a security? Let's see what the court's original document says".

Multichain Founder Confirmed to be Taken Away by Officials, Funds Transferred by Family Members

On July 14th, the Multichain team announced that Zhao Jun, the CEO of Multichain, was taken away by the police from his home on May 12th this year and has since lost contact with the Multichain team. As the MPC node servers are actually running on Zhao Jun's personal cloud server account, no one can log in to these MPC servers. Due to the lack of alternative sources of information and corresponding operating funds, the team was forced to stop operations. Related reading: "Multichain Founder Confirmed to be Taken Away by Officials, Funds Transferred by Family Members".

BlackRock, CSOP, and Fidelity's Bitcoin spot ETF applications approved by US SEC

On July 14th, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) just confirmed the Bitcoin spot ETF applications from BlackRock, VanEck, CSOP/GalaxyDigital, Fidelity, and WisdomTree. Previously, Bitwise's spot Bitcoin ETF application had been approved by the SEC for review, officially starting the review process. However, financial analyst Seyffart said, "This is just one step in the process, and even if Gensler/SEC plans to reject them next month, it could still happen."

Binance Launchpad to Launch Arkham (ARKM)

On July 10th, Binance announced the launch of the 32nd project on Launchpad, Arkham (ARKM), and opened the BNB session. The BNB holding snapshot period is from 8:00 am on July 11th, 2023 to 8:00 am on July 17th, 2023 (UTC+8). On the same day, Arkham announced the launch of the on-chain intelligence trading platform, Arkham Intel Exchange. Users can anonymously buy and sell information of any blockchain wallet address owner through smart contracts: buyers can request information from the community through rewards, and bounty hunters can obtain rewards by submitting the requested information. In addition, anyone who has valuable information about a wallet or its owner can sell this information to other users through immediate purchase or auction.

US law enforcement agencies are transferring the 9825 bitcoins seized from Silk Road

On July 12th, according to 0xScope monitoring, US law enforcement agencies are transferring the 9825 bitcoins seized from Silk Road. According to Spot On Chain monitoring data, the 9825 bitcoins transferred by the US government were further distributed to a total of 104 addresses related to the dark web Silk Road, with 101 addresses holding 79.2 bitcoins each, and the other three addresses holding 1118.7 bitcoins, 506.5 bitcoins, and 200.8 bitcoins respectively. There is no further movement of these bitcoins at present.

BlackRock CEO: Cryptocurrency has unique value and will surpass any currency

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink expressed his optimism about cryptocurrency again in an interview with CNBC. Fink stated that cryptocurrency is an international asset with unique value compared to other asset classes, but more importantly, cryptocurrency is quite international and will surpass any currency. Fink added: "Look at the value of the US dollar, the degree of depreciation in the past two months and the degree of appreciation in the past five years. International cryptocurrency products can indeed surpass this point. That's why we believe that there is a huge opportunity for cryptocurrency, and that's why we see investors showing more and more interest in cryptocurrency, and this interest is broad and global."

Binance Celebrates Its Sixth Anniversary, CZ Publishes Open Letter

On July 15th, Binance founder and CEO CZ published an open letter, reviewing Binance's six-year entrepreneurial journey. He mentioned that Binance is now a platform that provides financial services to 140 million users worldwide, and may welcome billions of new users in the future. VCs who sued Binance a few years ago are now LPs of Binance Labs' second fund and have a good relationship with Binance. Today, Binance has listed more than 600 types of tokens, providing services in over 40 languages, and has a customer service team of thousands of people. Now, BNB Chain provides support for decentralized trading platforms and various storage applications.

Google Play's Digital Asset Policy: Allows NFTs in Apps and Games, Prohibits Mining on Devices

On July 13th, Google "suddenly" announced that its app store, Google Play, has adjusted its policy on tokenized digital assets. This is a major policy shift, as developers will now be able to integrate NFTs and other digital assets into apps and games on Google Play. However, mining on devices is prohibited under this policy.

This Week's Popular Articles

"Multichain confirms founder taken away and funds transferred by family members"
Multichain team issued a statement saying that Zhao Jun, the CEO of Multichain, was taken away by the police from his home on May 12th this year and has been out of contact with the team ever since. After the project team's special task force contacted Zhao Jun's family, they learned that all of Zhao Jun's computers, phones, hardware wallets, and mnemonic phrases were confiscated by the police. Since the start of the project, all operating funds and investor investments have been controlled by Zhao Jun. Therefore, all of the team's funds and server access are currently in the hands of Zhao Jun and the police.

"Shen Yu: Three Most Worthwhile Things to Watch in the Second Half of 2023"

Pay attention to three things in the second half of the year. First, once the Ethereum Cancun upgrade is completed, the performance issues that have plagued the entire blockchain industry for the past decade may gradually be resolved. The second consensus is that non-private key wallets based on MPC technology and on-chain AA smart wallets may gradually form a unified standard with the launch of L2, bringing about large-scale promotion and application. The third important issue is the application of traditional institutional ETFs.

"What is Binance's latest IEO project Arkham about?"

On July 10th, 2023, Binance is about to launch its 32nd Launchpad project, Arkham (ARKM). Arkham is a cryptocurrency intelligent analysis platform designed to systematically analyze and de-anonymize blockchain transactions. The goal of Arkham is to generate large-scale intelligence to make the cryptocurrency market more transparent, efficient, and fair.

"Overview of RWA Track: Progress of Top 10 Projects and Summary of 20 Early Projects"

Despite the constant questioning of RWA's old story of cutting new wheels, institutions have been continuously entering the market to "add bricks and tiles" to RWA since the beginning of the year, bringing some highlights to the sluggish cryptocurrency market. Under the narrative of TradFi institutions entering the cryptocurrency market, such as the SEC's regulatory crackdown and BlackRock's application for a bitcoin spot ETF, RWA may once again explode due to compliance context. Recently, there have been a series of highly anticipated events in the RWA field:

"Retracing the three-year long Ripple case, does the court ruling have epoch-making significance?"

On July 13th, Ripple Labs reached a conclusion with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after a three-year lawsuit. Ripple won in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, and Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP is not a security. According to the court's decision, using XRP to invest in others, using XRP for grants, and transferring XRP to executives are not considered securities. As a result, the entire cryptocurrency community was ecstatic. The news had a significant impact on the rise of XRP's value.

"Arkham accused of leaking privacy: establishing anonymous human flesh market? Founder has ties with CIA?"
On July 10th, the blockchain on-chain monitoring platform Arkham became widely known due to the news that "Binance Launchpad will launch Arkham". Afterwards, people began to search for the private messages sent by Arkham inviting them to use its product in their Twitter DMs, and various registration invitation links immediately flooded social media. However, it was also this invitation link that put Arkham in the center of public opinion. Some netizens discovered that Arkham's referral link seemed to have leaked users' email addresses.

"Launchpad+ public airdrop, decoding AlienSwap, the NFT trading platform that OKX invested in twice"

NFT trading platform AlienSwap has received strategic investment, marking OKX Ventures' second investment in AlienSwap since June last year. The new funding will be used to expand AlienSwap's engineering team and develop innovative NFT liquidity tools and trading products. With OKX Ventures investing in AlienSwap for two consecutive rounds, some questions have been raised in the community about what sets AlienSwap apart from other NFT trading platforms such as OpenSea, SudoSwap, and LooksRare. BlockBeats provides a brief introduction to this question.

"After Arkham, what other data tools have not issued coins?"
On July 12th, Binance launched the 32nd project on its Launchpad platform, the Crypto data analysis platform Arkham (ARKM). It was discovered that even data tools that issue coins temporarily can become mainstream, and users don't even need to have a wallet address to interact. Email registration can also provide opportunities to receive airdrops. If data tools can issue coins, what other commonly used tools have not yet issued coins?

"Why are Koreans so Crazy about Cryptocurrency Trading but not Enthusiastic about DeFi?"

In South Korea, almost everyone knows about Bitcoin. In 2017, this country with a population of over 50 million completed 20% of all Bitcoin transactions and became the largest market for Ethereum. Korean students check the price of Bitcoin during their break time, office workers trade while waiting in line for coffee, and elderly people participate in market transactions at home. One explanation for this trend is South Korea's rapid adoption of new technology, but there are also cultural and narrative factors at play.

"Analysis: Is XRP really not a security? See what the court documents say"

After reading the original text from the court, the most crucial question remains unanswered: whether XRP itself is considered a security. The document does not cover all of the SEC's allegations. XRP claims to be a "commodity" similar to gold, silver, and sugar, but the court believes that even so, depending on the sales situation, commodities can also be considered investment contracts. Therefore, the court is reviewing the different sales and distribution situations surrounding XRP, and determining whether these specific situations constitute sales of securities or investment contracts. This means that the conclusion that "air coins are not securities" that many people thought would be reached cannot be drawn.

"Interpreting the new paradigm of public goods donation: How does Gitcoin become self-sufficient through PGN?"
On July 7th, Gitcoin, in collaboration with multiple organizations, launched a second-layer application chain called PGN (Public Goods Network). The network is developed based on OP Stack and aims to explore a new funding mechanism to provide a sustainable source of funding for public goods both within and beyond Ethereum.

"Dialogue with Azuki Community OG: Azuki's Fan Circle and the Community at the Crossroads"

Azuki NFT's new series, Azuki Elementals, has been released, causing a stir in the community. Apart from the brief ten-minute whitelist minting window, the project team will directly transfer 20,000 ETH after the sale ends. The community's most discussed topic is the high degree of overlap between Elements and the first generation of Azuki. This event has left many early Azuki users extremely disappointed, but there are still many holders who support the project and remain enthusiastic, reflecting the crazy fan culture.

《Folius Ventures Founder: Reflections on Web3 Entrepreneurship in Shanghai after Five Months》

Stayed in Shanghai for 5 months and met many excellent Web2 to Web3 app entrepreneurs. The vast majority of projects currently seen in Web3 do not understand 2C products or how to achieve user growth (although CEX is generally doing well). Web2 experience is often very applicable, so people who have had successful Web2 entrepreneurial experience in the past are actually at an advantage.

Welcome to join the official community of BlockBeats by LuDong

Telegram subscription group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram communication group: https://t.me/theblockbeatsApp

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