Weekly Highlights | "Snow Crash" author Neal Stephenson and others jointly launched the metaverse blockchain Lamina1; NFT project mfers founder announces retirement

Organizer: Linqi, Chain Catcher

Important News

1. Forbes Releases 2022 Fintech 50 List, 9 Crypto Companies Including FTX and OpenSea Make the Cut

On June 7, Forbes announced the 2022 Fintech 50 list (the most innovative fintech companies of 2022), which includes 9 crypto companies: FTX (latest valuation $32 billion), OpenSea ($13.3 billion), Alchemy ($10.2 billion), Ava Labs (token AVAX market cap $8.5 billion), Circle ($9 billion), Chainalysis ($8.6 billion), Fireblocks ($8 billion), Paxos ($2.4 billion), and TRM Labs ($600 million). (Source link)

2. Bloomberg: U.S. SEC Investigates Binance Coin (BNB) Initial ICO

On June 7, sources revealed that U.S. SEC investigators are looking into whether the 2017 initial coin offering constituted the sale of securities that should have been registered with the agency, potentially violating securities rules.

Sources mentioned that for Binance, facing multiple investigations in Washington, the scrutiny of BNB's inception could be unsettling. The SEC has taken dozens of enforcement actions regarding ICOs. Another source indicated that besides BNB, the SEC is also investigating potential trading abuses by Binance insiders and whether the U.S. subsidiary Binance.US, established in 2019, has appropriately separated from its global counterparts. (Bloomberg)

3. STEPN to Launch Multi-Chain Decentralized Exchange DOOAR, Implementation in Three Phases

On June 10, STEPN announced the launch of a multi-chain decentralized exchange DOOAR, which will be implemented in three phases:

Phase one of DOOAR will be integrated into the STEPN app without a standalone front end, with exchanges only serving users of the STEPN app; phase two will introduce a front end, allowing any user to provide liquidity for GST/USDC and GMT/USDC; phase three will also have a front end, enabling any user to create liquidity pools for other tokens.

It is reported that exchanges within the STEPN app will charge a 1% transaction fee, with 0.3% rewarded to liquidity providers, 0.6% returned to the STEPN ecosystem, and 0.1% allocated for future development work. (Source link)

4. NFT Project mfers Founder Announces Retirement, Smart Contracts to be Transferred to Community

On June 10, the founder of the NFT project mfers, sartoshi, announced on social media in a post titled "mfers next era & end of sartoshi" that the smart contracts of mfers will be transferred to the community via an unofficial multi-signature address (0x21130E908bba2d41B63fbca7caA131285b8724F8), granting the community 50% of future mfers royalty income. Additionally, sartoshi stated that he would release his final artwork titled "end of sartoshi," which will have a 12-hour minting window priced at 0.069 ETH, and that he would "disappear forever" at some point during the minting period. (Source link)

5. Neal Stephenson, Author of "Snow Crash," Co-Launches Metaverse Blockchain Lamina1

On June 9, Neal Stephenson, author of "Snow Crash," and cryptocurrency pioneer Peter Vessenes announced the launch of Lamina1, a blockchain designed for the metaverse, with both serving as chairman and CEO, respectively. The Lamina1 testnet is planned to launch later this year, with the ultimate goal of creating an immersive 3D virtual world inspired by the novel itself. (Source link)

6. Optimism Hacker Indicates on-chain Message Will Return 18 Million OP

On June 10, according to on-chain data from Optimism, the hacker behind the 20 million OP loss incident sent another transaction to Vitalik's wallet, stating, "Hello, Vitalik, I trust you, just wanted to know your thoughts on this. By the way, please help verify the return address, and I will return the remaining OP tokens after this. Hello Wintermute, sorry, I only have 18 million OP, which is what I can return. Stay optimistic!" (Source link)

7. Terra Ecosystem Cross-Chain Stablecoin Bank Orion Money to Gradually Shut Down in 12 Months

On June 7, Orion Money, a cross-chain stablecoin bank in the Terra ecosystem, announced it would gradually shut down over the next 12 months. For the next three months starting today, Orion Money will focus on maintaining the Web UI to provide users with withdrawal opportunities (UST, ORION, xASTRO). The team will also upgrade the Orion smart contract to allow users to withdraw their tokens directly from the smart contract after the Web UI is removed; three months later, users will be able to withdraw their tokens directly from the smart contract over the following nine months.

Additionally, the Orion Money team will continue to work with Terra Builders Alliance, TFL, and Astroport teams to find ways to distribute new LUNA and ASTRO token airdrops to Orion Money users, allocated based on the deposit ratio on the snapshot day. (Source link)

8. Optimism Reflects on Airdrop Incident: Severely Underestimated Traffic, Will Enhance Communication Transparency and Service Redundancy

On June 7, Optimism published a reflection on the high load during the OP airdrop that caused severe delays in the mainnet and remote procedure calls (RPC), stating that the internal team is working closely with partners and infrastructure providers to alleviate the issues and provide compensation to all users attempting to access their tokens.

Regarding this issue, Optimism reflected that it greatly underestimated the traffic generated by the airdrop and later realized that the capacity of public endpoints needed to be increased by seven times. Lessons learned include regularly conducting load tests, replacing drops with oversupply, requiring partners to scale capacity in advance, prioritizing concurrent batch submissions, etc. Furthermore, Optimism is currently subsidizing the ecosystem's reliance on public endpoints to exit the endpoint business and increase additional vendors and redundant services. In the event of similar issues, status pages will be quickly updated within minutes to gain community trust through timely and transparent communication. (Source link)

9. PayPal Now Allows Users to Transfer Bitcoin and Ethereum to External Wallets

On June 8, PayPal announced that it now allows users to transfer Bitcoin and Ethereum to external wallets, with plans to open this feature to all users in the U.S. within the next week or two.

It is reported that PayPal first launched its crypto products at the end of 2020, allowing users to buy, sell, and hold four cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin—but not to transfer funds to external destinations like MetaMask, Coinbase, or hardware wallets. (Source link)

10. Former Terraform Labs Employee: Do Kwon Transferred About $80 Million Monthly Before UST Collapse

On June 10, the U.S. SEC recently conducted remote video interviews with some Terra employees, and a former employee confirmed to the SEC that Do Kwon transferred about 100 billion won (approximately $80 million) of company funds monthly to secret crypto wallets and foreign bank accounts, suspected of money laundering.

Additionally, the employee predicted the collapse of LUNA and UST and warned Do Kwon about the potential dangers of design flaws in the Terra ecosystem, but Kwon ignored these warnings.

The SEC has been investigating Do Kwon for violations of securities laws since May of last year, believing that enabling Terra to purchase U.S. stocks through blockchain services violated securities laws. If these allegations are confirmed, Do Kwon could face penalties under U.S. law. (Source link)

11. STEPN Releases "Action Plan for Game Economy" to Update Its Economic Model

On June 8, STEPN updated its economic model and released the "Action Plan for Game Economy," which includes the following:

1. Cross-chain energy intercommunication: 1. Each Realm will initially calculate energy based only on the shoes of the current Realm; 2. Each Realm can provide 1 point of energy to another Realm as long as it has shoes; 3. During the first month of each Realm's opening, the total energy received from other Realms will be a maximum of 3 points, 2 points in the second month, 1 point in the third month, and then stop providing cross-chain energy.

2. Pure minting revenue: 1. Allow players who actually use the app to have a chance to obtain minting scrolls from mystery boxes (MB). The official will increase the grade of MB from 5 to 10; 2. The minting cooldown time will be increased to 72 hours, and the minting cost will be raised.

3. Dynamic minting costs: 1. The GST portion of minting will be a constant, while the GMT portion will be dynamically adjusted; 2. When the GST price gradually rises, in addition to GST and base GMT, additional GMT will also need to be consumed.

4. Shoe and gem recycling mechanism: 1. Five pairs of shoes of the same quality can be synthesized into higher-quality sneakers; 2. Shoe synthesis will always succeed, but a certain GST and GMT fee will be charged; 3. The type of new shoes (Walker / Jogger / Runner / Trainer) will have a probabilistic relationship with the types of the 5 shoes put in; 4. The maximum and minimum attribute values of new shoes will be increased by 20% under the influence of their quality; 5. Users can engrave permanent text on new sneakers. (Source link)

12. OpenSea Updates NFT Copyright Protection Plan, Releases 4 Specific Measures

On June 9, OpenSea stated in an official blog that it will make efforts in the second half of the year to protect OpenSea users and NFT copyrights in technical areas, specifically including:

1. Theft and fraud issues: OpenSea will automatically hide suspicious NFT transactions to reduce their visibility. 2. Internet intellectual property infringement issues: Plans to build proactive solutions in the next quarter, such as creating stronger protection features around NFT transactions, reducing spam, and collaborating with third parties and creators. Furthermore, there will be significant expansion in the future to automatically delete image detection models. 3. Scaling review and management issues: OpenSea has established a dedicated review team and is adding key automated detection methods for copyright issues and other fraudulent media. 4. Shortening key response times: Investing more funds in critical areas of user issues to reduce average response times to under 24 hours. (Source link)

13. Proposal Initiated by ApeCoin Community to "Keep APE in the Ethereum Ecosystem" Passes with 53.59% Support Votes

On June 9, the proposal initiated by the ApeCoin community to "keep APE in the Ethereum ecosystem" ultimately received 53.59% of the votes in favor, with ApeCoin participants advocating for continued presence in Ethereum for the foreseeable future. It is reported that this proposal garnered a total of 7.1 million votes, including 3.8 million in favor and 3.3 million against. Additionally, this result is not final, as the community can submit new proposals for further consideration within a three-month grace period. Previously, the ApeCoin community initiated proposal AIP-41, hoping to keep APE in the Ethereum ecosystem. (Cointelegraph)

Important Financing/Venture Capital News

1. Binance Labs Announces Strategic Investment in PancakeSwap

On June 6, Binance Labs announced a strategic investment in PancakeSwap by purchasing its utility and governance token CAKE, with the specific investment amount not disclosed. A spokesperson for Binance Labs stated, "PancakeSwap has been leading the development and mass adoption of BNB Chain. Given that PancakeSwap is the most widely used dApp and the DeFi project with the highest TVL on the BNB chain, we have been and will continue to provide strong support for this project."

It is reported that PancakeSwap is a decentralized trading platform (DEX) based on the BNB chain. It uses an automated market maker (AMM) model, allowing users to trade, swap, and stake BEP-20 tokens. PancakeSwap also features a decentralized NFT marketplace powered by BNB. (Source link)

2. Decentralized Lottery Project PoolTogether Completes $1.4 Million Litigation Fundraising Goal

On June 6, decentralized lottery project PoolTogether announced that it has completed its fundraising goal for litigation costs, raising 788.4 ETH (approximately $1.474 million) in just over ten days, with around 4,200 wallet addresses participating. It is reported that the campaign will continue for another 16 days.

Previous report indicated that PoolTogether Inc. was accused of operating an illegal lottery in New York and violating related injunctions, leading to a lawsuit. Subsequently, it launched an NFT sale to fund the ongoing litigation. (Source link)

3. Sources: BlockFi is Raising Funds at a $1 Billion Valuation, Down 66% from Previous Valuation

On June 7, three sources revealed that crypto financial services company BlockFi is concluding a funding round at a lower valuation compared to previous rounds. Sources stated that the new funding round will be led by venture capital firm Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from DST and Valar. It is reported that this round's valuation has decreased by over 66% from previous valuations.

BlockFi was founded in 2017 by Zac Prince and Flori Marquez to provide a way to borrow against crypto assets, announcing a $350 million raise at a $3 billion valuation in March 2021. At that time, the company promoted high growth metrics, such as a $10 billion loan book and 265,000 retail accounts. (Source link)

4. Decentralized Custody Solution Entropy Completes $25 Million Financing, Led by a16z

On June 9, decentralized custody solution Entropy announced the completion of a $25 million financing round, led by a16z, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Robot Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Ethereal Ventures, Variant, and Inflection. It is reported that Entropy aims to disrupt the way digital assets are held through its decentralized self-custody solution. (Techcrunch)

5. Optimism's 231 Million OP Incentive Fund Now Open for Applications

On June 10, Optimism's OP Stimpack (governance fund phase one) is now open for applications. This 231 million OP grant program aims to fund builders and projects within the OP ecosystem, with funds allocated through Token House voting. The Token House voting process will run on a bi-weekly basis.

Voting cycle 1 will run from June 9 to June 22, voting on the GovFund phase 0 proposal, which will allocate millions of OP to projects that have been driving OP growth since day one; the second voting cycle will be from June 23 to July 6, voting on the new GovFund phase 1 proposal. Additionally, Optimism will delegate 35 million OP voting rights to dozens of individuals and groups across the ecosystem.

In early May, Optimism announced the establishment of the OP Stimpack fund to provide funding for projects on Optimism, allocating 231 million OP to the fund and initiating an airdrop for builders. The amount of OP tokens a project can claim will first be determined by its TVL and daily trading volume, and then open to any project that aligns with Optimism's vision, with this phase starting after the first round of retrospective airdrop distribution. (Source link)

6. Near Decentralized Trading Protocol Orderly Network Completes $20 Million Financing, Sequoia China Participates

On June 10, the Near-based decentralized trading protocol Orderly Network completed a $20 million financing round, with participation from Three Arrows Capital, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly Capital, IOSG Ventures, Sequoia China, Jump Crypto, Alameda Research, GSR Ventures, and MetaWeb.VC.

It is reported that Orderly Network was established in April 2022, incubated by NEAR and WOO Network, providing a platform equipped with a risk engine, matching engine, and shared asset pool for DApp construction through an on-chain order book. To further enhance liquidity, Orderly Network will launch community loan pools, allowing token holders to lend assets to market makers while enjoying the benefits of unilateral liquidity provision. (Coindesk)

7. NFT Bidding Platform PartyBid's DAO Organization Completes $16.4 Million Financing, Led by a16z

On June 10, the decentralized organization PartyDAO behind the NFT bidding platform PartyBid completed a $16.4 million financing round, led by a16z, with participation from Standard Crypto, Compound Crypto, Dragonfly Capital, Uniswap Ventures, and others.

It is reported that PartyDAO's main application, PartyBid, allows multiple people to purchase and own or partially own digital assets by pooling funds and sharing ownership. (The Block)