Evening News | Zhejiang Government Service Center states that differential electricity pricing is a supporting penalty policy; Luna Foundation Guard raises $1 billion through OTC sales
Former TenX CEO denies being the hacker of The DAO incident; Web3 social protocol Atem Network completes $3 million seed round financing.Organizer: Linqi, Chain Catcher
"What are the truly important news today?"
1. Zhejiang Government Service Center responds to differential electricity price policy for virtual currency mining: It is a supporting penalty policy, and mining activities are still not allowed
In response to the recently released differential electricity price policy for virtual currency "mining", the Zhejiang Government Service Center stated to the reporter from the "Huaxia Times" on February 22 that, after verification by the Hangzhou Shangcheng District Development and Reform and Economic Information Bureau, virtual currency "mining" activities are still not allowed. This document is a supporting penalty policy, and the units that have been investigated need to pay the increased electricity fees during the period of illegal activities, which is executed by the power grid companies.
"This policy does not mean that 'mining' is legal under high electricity costs, but rather that once discovered, the electricity fees for previous mining activities will be calculated according to the differential electricity price policy and banned." The "Huaxia Times" reported (source link).
2. zkSync 2.0 public testnet officially launched
The zkSync 2.0 (zkEVM) public testnet has officially launched, making it the first EVM-compatible ZK Rollup on the Ethereum testnet. It is reported that zkSync 2.0 allows developers to build and deploy decentralized applications in a low-cost, highly scalable second-layer environment using Ethereum's native programming language, Solidity.
The zkSync 2.0 public testnet features L1 → L2 smart contract messaging, support for ECDSA signatures, and support for Solidity 0.8.x, among other functionalities, with plans to offer zkPorter, L2 → L1 smart contract messaging, and support for the Vyper programming language in future upgrades.
Currently, the infrastructure supporting zkSync 2.0 includes wallets such as Metamask, Argent, Numbio, MyKey, and imToken, indexing protocols like Graph Protocol and Covalent, oracles like Chainlink, and cross-chain bridges like Celler, Connext, ZigZag, Orbiter, Hop Exchange, and LayerZero. (source link).
3. Luna Foundation Guard raises $1 billion through OTC sales to establish reserves for UST
The Terra ecosystem development organization Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) has raised $1 billion through OTC sales of LUNA, led by Jump Crypto and Three Arrows Capital, with participation from Republic Capital, GSR, Tribe Capital, DeFiance Capital, and others. The LUNA unlocking period is four years. This funding will be used to establish a foreign exchange reserve for the Terra stablecoin UST, priced in Bitcoin. The organization stated that the reserves created by the $1 billion investment will effectively act as a "release valve" for UST redemptions, aiming to ensure that the stablecoin's price remains pegged to the US dollar during significant sell-offs in the crypto market. (source link).
4. Tether releases quarterly reserve report: Total assets approximately $78.6 billion, with other investments including digital tokens accounting for 6.3%
Tether, the issuer of USDT, today released its comprehensive reserve report for the fourth quarter of 2021, which has been certified by the accounting firm MHA Cayman. The report shows that as of December 31, 2021, Tether's total consolidated assets were at least $78,675,642,677, with total consolidated liabilities of $78,538,305,451, of which $78,480,852,949 were related to the issued digital tokens.
Specifically, of Tether's total consolidated assets of $78.6 billion, cash and cash equivalents and other short-term deposits and commercial paper accounted for approximately $65.8 billion, secured loans (not provided to affiliated entities) approximately $410 million, corporate bonds, funds, and precious metals approximately $3.62 billion, and other investments (including digital tokens) approximately $5.02 billion. (source link).
5. Former TenX CEO denies being the hacker behind the theft of 3.6 million ETH in The DAO incident
Former TenX CEO Toby Hoenisch denied the allegations made by former Forbes journalist and Unchained host Laura Shin regarding his theft of 3.6 million ETH, stating that her statements and conclusions are inaccurate. Currently, neither Shin nor Hoenisch has responded to media requests for comments.
Previously, former TenX CEO Toby Hoenisch was suspected of being the hacker who stole 3.6 million Ethereum in the 2016 The DAO incident. (Decrypt).
6. Secret Network responds to network performance decline: Engine unable to effectively handle long computations, delaying transaction execution
The privacy public chain Secret Network responded today in the governance forum to the recent network performance decline, stating that around 11 PM UTC on February 21, the Shade Protocol launched an airdrop, which involved many participating users. The project heavily used secp256k1 signature verification in its contracts, which is computationally expensive. Due to the time required to compute each block, these transactions slowed down the blocks, filling the memory pool and delaying transaction execution. Another impact is that queries also slow down because the current nodes cannot compute blocks and service requests simultaneously.
The project stated that the abnormal behavior of the network was mainly due to nodes running an outdated WebAssembly engine, which cannot effectively handle long computations. Additionally, gas calculations did not account for this inefficiency, further exacerbating the issue. Therefore, Secret Network will upgrade query nodes in the coming days and develop a more efficient engine. The project also plans to utilize fast built-in contract building blocks and a better contract execution engine through a hard fork.
Previously, multiple L1/L2 networks experienced network failures, with Boba Network, Solana, Harmony, and Arbitrum all encountering outages. How to handle high-concurrency transactions has become a common dilemma for new public chains. (source link).
7. AssangeDAO core members vote on proposals regarding JUSTICE minting activities and future plans
Core members of AssangeDAO initiated two proposal votes regarding JUSTICE minting activities and future plans. The two proposals are: 1. Should the JUSTICE minting activities be permanently closed? 2. Should AssangeDAO continue to focus on "doing everything necessary to free Assange" or engage in other activities?
It is reported that the voting for both proposals will open on the 24th at 00:55 (UTC+8) and will last for three days. (source link).
8. Web3 social protocol Atem Network completes $3 million seed round financing, led by INCE Capital
Web3 social protocol Atem Network announced the completion of a $3 million seed round financing, led by INCE Capital, with participation from GSR Ventures, Mask Network, Mirana Ventures, A&T Capital, Atlas Capital, Foresight Ventures, Zonff Partners, and Michael Zhang, co-founder of Zhihu.
It is reported that the funds will be used to build a Web3 social platform that combines decentralized communities and supports multi-chain transactions. On the platform, users can initiate group spaces based on tokens and NFTs, where they can chat, trade, and govern. (source link).
"What articles are the editors of Chain Catcher reading?"
In the second half of 2021, the public chain track experienced a collective explosion trend driven by the development of the DeFi ecosystem, intensifying competition and reconstructing the valuation logic of public chain ecosystems. This report mainly organizes the existing ecological development situation of the decentralized Layer 1 blockchain protocol and smart contract platform NEAR Protocol from the perspectives of underlying technology, ecological progress, and financing situation for reference.
2. "In-depth Study of StarkWare: Technical Route, Development History, and Current Status"
StarkWare is one of the star projects in the Ethereum scaling track. What is the story behind StarkWare's entrepreneurship and development? What pain points exist in Ethereum today, and what opportunities does L2 scaling bring? As engineering entrepreneurs, what reference significance does their entrepreneurial journey hold? These are several questions this article attempts to explore.
Tether, the issuer of USDT, today released its comprehensive reserve report for the fourth quarter of 2021, showing that the company's total assets were $78.67 billion, while liabilities related to digital tokens were approximately $78.53 billion, and stated that total assets exceed total liabilities to prove that USDT has sufficient asset reserves. This article provides a comprehensive interpretation of the composition of Tether's reserve assets.
4. "In-depth Investigation: Who Stole 3.64 Million Ethereum?"
Who hacked The DAO in 2016 and misappropriated 3.6 million Ethereum? Former Forbes journalist and Unchained host Laura Shin identified the apparent hacker by tracking complex crypto transaction clues and using previously undisclosed privacy-breaking forensic tools, pointing out that the renamed hacker is former TenX CEO Toby Hoenisch. This article presents a comprehensive account of her investigation process.
