Evening News | Vitalik: The Ethereum mainnet merge will not quickly affect prices; Solana-themed store will open in New York

Organizer: AChai, Chain Catcher

"Important Events in the Last 24 Hours"

1. Vitalik: Ethereum's mainnet merge upgrade will not immediately complete the PoS transition, so it will not quickly affect prices
In an interview, Vitalik Buterin stated that, from both market and psychological perspectives, Ethereum's price is unlikely to rise quickly before or after the merge. The merge is most likely to occur on September 19, but the PoS transition will not be immediately completed with the merging of the Ethereum mainnet and the beacon chain.

Ideally, the upgrades Surge, Verge, Purge, and Splurge are crucial to the "merge." It is expected that there will be a waiting period of 6-8 months before actual price fluctuations occur under "appropriate conditions." After the merge, Ethereum will experience deflation.

Previously, Vitalik mentioned that the Merge, Surge, Verge, Purge, and Splurge are not different phases but will occur in parallel. Ethereum has successfully completed its tenth shadow fork, and the Ethereum testnet Goerli/Prater merge began on August 4 in two phases. (Source link)

2. Meta's Q2 revenue is $28.822 billion, with Reality Labs in the metaverse sector losing $2.8 billion
According to Meta's Q2 earnings report, Meta's revenue for the second quarter was $28.822 billion, a 1% decrease from $29.077 billion in the same period last year, with a 3% year-over-year increase when excluding the impact of exchange rate fluctuations; net profit was $6.687 billion, a 36% decrease from last year's net profit of $10.394 billion; diluted earnings per share were $2.46, down 32% from $3.61 in the same period last year.

Additionally, in the second quarter, Meta's core metaverse strategy department Reality Labs generated revenue of $450 million, down from $695 million in the first quarter, with a loss of $2.8 billion, slightly less than the $2.9 billion loss in the first quarter. (Source link)

3. Algorithmic stablecoin protocol Nirvana suffers an attack, token plummets 90%
The decentralized algorithmic stablecoin protocol Nirvana, based on Solana, appears to have suffered an attack, with its stablecoin NIRV price dropping from $1 to as low as $0.09, currently rebounding to $0.11, with a maximum drop of over 90%; the price of the ANA token fell from $8.9 to as low as $1.5, a drop of up to 85%.

Nirvana's page information shows that its Stablecoin pool liquidity is nearly exhausted, with reserves of USDC, DAI, USDT, and USDH almost at 0, leaving only 7.105 million protocol Stablecoin NIRV.

SlowMist's monitoring analysis indicates that Nirvana suffered a flash loan attack with a total loss of about $3.9 million, and the attacker may have exploited a price calculation loophole in ANA for arbitrage. (Source link)

4. The Federal Reserve raises the benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points to a range of 2.25%-2.50%
The Federal Reserve raised the benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points to a range of 2.25%-2.50%, marking the second consecutive 75 basis point increase. (Jin Shi)

5. Web3 information aggregation platform Coinfeeds raises $2 million in seed funding, with investments from FTX and Coinbase
Web3 information aggregation platform Coinfeeds has raised $2 million in seed funding, with investors including FTX Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Protocol Labs, Huobi Ventures, and Y Combinator. Coinfeeds was co-founded by former Uber data scientist Moyi Dang and senior professionals from Uber, Robinhood, and Microsoft, and has developed a crypto news summary bot and API to help users monitor social media dynamics of Web3 and NFT projects. (Source link)

6. Lido initiates an updated treasury diversification proposal, planning to sell 10 million LDO with a 1-year lock-up period to Dragonfly Capital
The Lido Finance community has initiated an updated treasury diversification proposal, planning to sell half of the original purchase amount (2% of the total LDO supply) to Dragonfly Capital, which amounts to 1% of the total LDO supply (10 million LDO), with the remaining 1% to be processed at a future date. Additionally, these tokens will have a 1-year lock-up period. The proposal will be submitted for voting around 22:00 UTC on July 27, and upon completion of the vote, Dragonfly Capital will choose the higher price between the previous weighted average price plus a 50% premium (approximately $1.45) and the 7-day weighted average price plus a 5% premium. If the LDO price exceeds $2.25 within the voting timeline, Dragonfly will be able to withdraw from the purchase commitment.

Previously reported, the vote on Lido Finance's sale of 1% of tokens to Dragonfly Capital (at a trading price of $1.452153, totaling 14.52 million DAI) was not passed, with 66.61% against and 33.31% in favor. (Source link)

7. Solana-themed store to open in New York
The Solana-themed store Solana Spaces will open in New York, with Solana hoping to establish this offline store as a cultural center and embassy for Solana. For customers entering the store, staff will introduce how Web3 and Solana work, assist in setting up Phantom wallets, obtaining their first NFT, and guide users through their first on-chain transaction. In addition to NFT and Phantom wallet tutorials, the space will also offer interactive art installations and sell Solana-branded merchandise, including limited edition Blanksoles sneakers. (Source link)

"What are the exciting articles worth reading in the last 24 hours?"

1. “Ethereum Merge is Approaching: A Review of Ethereum's Crowdfunding 8 Years Ago”

After years of testing, research, and development, there is excitement about the potential timeline for Ethereum's transition to proof of stake (PoS) through the merge. This merge can be considered the largest protocol-level change in Ethereum's history, eliminating mining and introducing a validator system where validators will stake their ETH to earn rewards by creating and validating new blocks.

2. “The Paradox of Standardization and Innovation: How Web3 Builders Balance the Two?”

Standardization is undoubtedly very friendly for both developers and users, whether from the perspective of development costs or adoption costs. This is true in the world of Web2, and the same applies to Web3. The EVM, with its strong first-mover advantage and consensus, has become the "standard" for decentralized application development in the Web3 industry.

However, the EVM also somewhat limits innovation in the Web3 industry. For example, EVM contracts can only define 16 local variables, which greatly restricts the implementation of complex application logic.

3. “zCloak Network: A New Force Entering the Privacy Computing Race from Browser Plugins”

The "usable yet invisible" functionality of privacy computing is still seen as a black technology of the future in the eyes of the public, but the privacy computing track exploded in 2020, with high hopes for reconstructing the data world. However, to date, the privacy computing track has not produced a batch of visible or even perceivable landing cases for the public.

zCloak shows us this possibility, as it can solve our most common data privacy issues with just a browser plugin.