Evening News | Ethereum mainnet completes merger upgrade; crypto market maker Portofino Technologies completes $50 million financing

Organizer: Runsheng, Chain Catcher

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

1. Ethereum mainnet reaches scheduled height, merge upgrade officially completed

OKLink data shows that the Ethereum block height has reached the scheduled merge height of 15537393, and the Ethereum merge has officially been completed. The merge represents the combination of Ethereum's existing execution layer (i.e., the current mainnet) with its new proof-of-stake consensus layer, the beacon chain, marking the end of Ethereum's proof-of-work mechanism. (Source link)

2. Crypto market maker Portofino Technologies completes $50 million financing, Valar Ventures and others participate

According to The Block, crypto market maker Portofino Technologies, founded by former Citadel Securities executives Leonard Lancia and Alex Casimo, has completed a $50 million financing round, with participation from Valar Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and Coatue.

It is reported that Portofino Technologies was established in April 2021 and is developing high-frequency trading technology for digital assets, having completed billions of dollars in transactions across CEX, DEX, and OTC markets. The company may compete with other crypto market makers such as Wintermute, B2C2, and Jump Trading. (The Block)

3. Security token infrastructure company Ownera completes $20 million Series A financing, JPMorgan and others participate

According to CoinDesk, security token infrastructure company Ownera has completed a $20 million Series A financing round, with participation from JPMorgan, LRC Group, Draper Goren Holm, tokentus Investment AG, Accomplice Blockchain, Polymorphic Capital, and The Ropart Group, Archax.

Ownera is developed based on the open-source protocol FINP2 P, supporting any type of security tokenization engine on any public or private chain as well as traditional ledgers. Clients can access a unified digital securities wallet, allowing users to invest, trade, and lend tokenized assets. (Source link)

4. South Korean prosecutors request the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to revoke the passports of Terra founder Do Kwon and 4 others

According to News1, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office today requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to impose administrative sanctions on Terra founder Do Kwon and 4 others, forcing the revocation of their passports. It is reported that under the country's passport law, passports can be refused for issuance or reissuance for those who have been issued arrest warrants, or orders can be issued to return passports for those abroad.

Chain Catcher previously reported that on September 14, a South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, currently located in Singapore, and core members, with the main charge being the violation of the Capital Markets Act. (News1)

5. OpenSea announces the launch of NFT rarity open standard OpenRarity next week

OpenSea announced on Twitter that it has partnered with Curio, icy.tools, and PROOF to jointly develop the open standard for NFT rarity, OpenRarity. OpenSea stated that the current rarity rankings on the market are generated by closed-source code, lacking transparency, and that tool providers often charge for rarity rankings, which does not provide a fair competitive environment for projects with smaller budgets.

OpenRarity aims to provide a transparent and mathematically sound rarity calculation, making the calculation fully open-source to ensure fairness and transparency, allowing developers to access OpenRarity scores and rankings via API. It is reported that OpenRarity will be launched on OpenSea next week. (Source link)

6. U.S. bankruptcy judge appoints neutral third party to review Celsius's financial status

A bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of New York has approved an order to appoint a neutral third party to review the financial status of the troubled crypto lending platform Celsius. This process was pushed by lawyers from the Department of Justice, securities regulators, and representatives of creditors and consumers seeking to recover losses, and Celsius itself did not oppose this step. (The Block)

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

1. "Beware of 3 scams using 'Ethereum Merge'"

At 14:43 Beijing time on September 15, Ethereum completed the merge of the mainnet and the beacon chain. Before the merge, Steve Bassi, founder of the decentralized security network PolySwarm, told the media that scammers might exploit the Ethereum merge as a market hotspot to launch new scams targeting novice crypto users, including fake ETH2.0 token swaps, fraudulent ETH staking pools, and fake airdrops.

2. "The end of Ethereum's 8-year mining era: Vitalik, Chinese mining, and NVIDIA"
The most traditional mining in the crypto world relies on machine computing power to execute extremely complex calculations. Bitcoin is the pioneer of mining, and Ethereum is also a grandfather-level player. With Ethereum completing the merge upgrade today, it means it has abandoned proof-of-work mining. The end of Ethereum's 8-year mining era also marks the end of mining geographically in China. The author of this article aims to document a piece of history that all Web3 participants should know.

3. "Bankless: How to be a winner in the ETHPoW fork?"
As the countdown to the merge reaches zero, most of the Ethereum ecosystem will transition to the new proof-of-stake chain, while a minority of dissatisfied Ethereum miners have announced a merge fork plan to maintain the proof-of-work version of Ethereum (ETHPOW). If this happens, you may have copies of every existing digital token on the old Ethereum chain's ghost town version. Some of these tokens may have value, but most will not. This article provides a handy checklist of what to watch out for.