Evening News | BitMEX confirms it has liquidated Three Arrows Capital positions; Babel Finance suspends product redemption and withdrawal functions

Organizer: Cookies, Chain Catcher

"What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?"

1. BitMEX confirms it has liquidated Three Arrows Capital positions, insiders say the shortfall is about $6 million

According to The Block, three insiders revealed that after Three Arrows Capital failed to meet margin call requirements, crypto trading platforms FTX, Deribit, and BitMEX have liquidated Three Arrows Capital's positions over the past week. One of the sources indicated that Three Arrows Capital owes BitMEX $6 million.

A BitMEX spokesperson has confirmed this news but declined to comment on the specific amount, stating that BitMEX's legal department is in contact with Three Arrows Capital regarding next steps.

Additionally, a spokesperson from Bitfinex stated that Three Arrows Capital closed positions at a loss without needing liquidation and has withdrawn all funds from the Bitfinex platform, with Bitfinex not suffering any losses. (The Block)

2. Babel Finance suspends product redemptions and withdrawals due to significant liquidity pressure

Crypto financial service provider Babel Finance announced that due to recent market volatility and risk events affecting some industry institutions, Babel Finance is facing significant liquidity pressure. To prevent further deterioration and to protect customers from losses, the company is closely communicating with various stakeholders for solutions and has suspended product redemptions and withdrawal functions, with a recovery timeline to be announced later.

Previously, Chain Catcher reported on May 25 that Babel Finance completed a $80 million financing round at a valuation of $2 billion, with participation from Dragonfly Capital and others. (Source link)

3. BMAN and Huobi co-founder Du Jun jointly launch a $400 million fund ABCDE

BMAN announced on Twitter that it has co-founded a $400 million fund ABCDE with Huobi co-founder Du Jun, dedicated to investing in builders of Web3. (Source link)

4. BitMEX founder: More illiquid companies will sell unlocked assets, altcoins may drop over 50%

BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes pointed out in a recent article that many crypto companies are borrowing short-term funds from retail holders at high interest rates and locking them long-term in DeFi yield farming strategies. When retail users recently requested their funds back, the mismatch in terms destroyed these companies' business models. These companies are forced to liquidate any assets not locked in certain long-term yield strategies, leading to more indiscriminate sales of all liquid assets on their loan books to return assets to their retail depositors.

In the next 6 to 12 months, the state of fiat liquidity will be brutal, with many hedge funds and other cryptocurrency businesses liquidating positions in the face of liquidation or severe downsizing of their activities, and these tokens may drop another 50% or more. (Source link)

5. AEX exchange announces resumption of withdrawals, daily limit of 500 U

AEX exchange announced that it has fully resumed withdrawals, with a current daily withdrawal limit of 500 U, and expects to lift the restrictions within 90 days. Previously, on the 16th, AEX reported that the delay in withdrawals was due to the short-term inability to redeem assets configured for the medium to long term. (Source link)

6. MakerDAO takes multiple measures to prevent risks from Celsius bankruptcy

MakerDAO has voted to disable the DAI direct deposit module (D3M) of the lending platform Aave to prevent risks from Celsius's bankruptcy. Additionally, the MakerDAO community has also voted to approve a proposal to use rETH as collateral. This proposal was prompted by recent market panic caused by stETH, with community members believing that different ETH staking derivatives need to be added to diversify the ETH staking pool options.

It is reported that Aave's D3M consists of 200 million DAI, of which 100 million has been borrowed by Celsius. If Celsius goes bankrupt, it will be liquidated on Aave, and Celsius may sell its stETH to fulfill its obligations, which would force stETH to further decouple. At the same time, this would prevent the Maker protocol from reclaiming the DAI borrowed by Celsius. (cointelegraph)

7. Panama president vetoes law regulating Bitcoin, which will return to the National Assembly for debate

According to local media La Prensa, the president of Panama has vetoed the law regulating Bitcoin, stating that "it needs to adapt to the regulations of our financial system." The bill will return to the National Assembly for debate.

Earlier, at the end of April, Panama's legislative body approved a bill to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies. Under this bill, digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and Stellar will become valid payment methods for "any legal civil or commercial operation," including paying taxes, fees, and duties to the government. The bill also formally recognizes DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) as legal entities and sets a framework for the country to issue tokenized securities and commodities (such as gold and silver) through Security Token Offerings (STOs). (Decrypt)

"What excellent articles are worth reading in the past 24 hours?"

1. "How the top white hat hacker in the crypto industry, samczsun, was born?"

In 2021, at least 90 DeFi projects suffered various attacks, with initial losses exceeding $1 billion, causing significant losses to ordinary users. samczsun is the most well-known white hat hacker in the crypto industry, bar none. Over the past few years, samczsun has privately messaged project teams to help at least twenty projects identify system vulnerabilities in advance, avoiding losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, including Sushiswap, ENS, Rari, Tokenlon, and others. So how did samczsun become the top white hat hacker today? Chain Catcher will outline and summarize his past experiences through publicly available information in this article.

2. "From Celsius to Three Arrows: The domino effect of crypto giants and the epic depletion of liquidity"

Since May of this year, the crypto market has not seen peace. In just one month, we witnessed the overnight collapse of the $40 billion financial empire Luna, the decoupling of ETH 2.0's largest decentralized node Lido derivatives, the largest crypto bank in the U.S., Celsius, pausing withdrawals, and then the liquidation of Three Arrows Capital, which reportedly once held $18 billion in crypto assets. This article connects these events, revealing the subtle relationships between Luna, stETH, Celsius, and Three Arrows, as well as the development clues intertwined among them.

3. "70 charts detailing Machi Big Brother Huang Licheng's 'ten sins' in the crypto world"

Huang Licheng (Jeffrey Huang), known as Machi Big Brother by netizens, is a former American-Taiwanese musician and tech entrepreneur. In 2018, he misappropriated 22,000 ETH from Formosa Financial, and over the next four years after its collapse, he launched more than ten failed token and NFT projects. This article will introduce Huang Licheng's many "dark histories" in the cryptocurrency field, including an overview of Formosa and his subsequent projects, along with other participants and factual evidence.

4. "Analyzing StarkWare's architecture and ecosystem: The scaling potential valued at $8 billion"

ZK Rollups have two leading projects: StarkWare and ZKSync. Both have strong technical capabilities and numerous ecosystem projects on testnets, but they use different ZK Rollup technologies, resulting in varying product capabilities and progress. Among them, StarkWare has a more impressive capital background: it recently completed a $100 million Series D financing at an $8 billion valuation, ranking first among the four major mainstream Rollup projects. Why is StarkWare so favored by capital, and what scaling effects can its technical capabilities achieve? This article will attempt to analyze StarkWare's architecture and ecosystem to understand its future prospects.