Evening News | Social products Damus and Amethyst based on the distributed social media protocol Nostr are officially launched; eligible Celsius users can withdraw about 94% of their custodial assets, while the remaining 6% will be decided by the court
Voyager creditors reject Alameda's recovery of $446 million loan; FTX had a cash balance of $1.43 billion at the end of last year, up from $1.24 billion on November 20.Organizer: Xi Angxiang, ChainCatcher
"What Important Events Happened in the Last 24 Hours"
1. Jack Dorsey: Social products Damus and Amethyst based on the distributed social media protocol Nostr are officially launched
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted that the social products Damus and Amethyst, based on the distributed social media protocol Nostr, are officially launched on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. (Source link)
2. Celsius: Eligible users can withdraw about 94% of custodial assets, the remaining 6% will be decided by the court
Cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius tweeted that it has provided an update regarding the upcoming withdrawal process for certain assets in some custodial accounts. Eligible custodial users will be able to withdraw about 94% of their eligible custodial assets. Whether eligible users can withdraw the remaining 6% will be decided by the court later.
Additionally, eligible users will receive specific information related to GAS and transaction fees associated with the withdrawal activity. Qualified users who do not have sufficient assets in their accounts to cover these fees will not be allowed to withdraw their assets. Eligible users are expected to receive emails and communications from Celsius through the Celsius app on February 15. (Source link)
3. Voyager creditors reject Alameda's attempt to recover $446 million loan repaid for the latter
Court documents show that the defunct cryptocurrency trading company Alameda Research attempted to recover its $446 million loan repaid for the bankrupt Voyager Digital, but was rejected by the creditors' committee and Voyager.
Voyager creditors stated that Alameda's "unfair and fraudulent conduct" caused Voyager and creditors to lose between $114 million and $122 million. Creditors cited previous case law stating that the court could "rearrange the priority of creditor interests and subordinate the claims of wrongdoers in whole or in part to achieve a just result." (Source link)
4. Bloomberg: FTX held a cash balance of $1.43 billion at the end of last year, up from $1.24 billion on November 20
According to Bloomberg, based on interim financial updates, the bankrupt FTX Group held $1.43 billion in cash at the end of last year, up from $1.24 billion on November 20, with the latest data from one entity, the defunct trading company Alameda Research, being $876.6 million, compared to $401 million in November. Management is screening assets to understand how much can be returned to creditors.
Additionally, FTX's employee count decreased from 320 at the time of bankruptcy on November 11 to 195 by the end of December, a reduction of nearly 40%. (Source link)
5. Celsius spent at least $558 million to manipulate CEL trading prices
According to a report released by independent examiner Shoba Pillay in the Celsius bankruptcy case, Celsius sold a total of 203 million CEL tokens during its initial coin offering and private sale in 2018, raising only $32 million from the ICO instead of the expected $50 million. Celsius also spent at least $558 million to purchase CEL, using a strategy called "flywheel," which involved selling CEL tokens in private over-the-counter trades and offsetting purchases in the public market to influence its trading price.
Moreover, Celsius repeatedly exceeded credit limits, including billions of dollars in loans provided to Tether. As of July 2021, one-third of Celsius's institutional loan portfolio was completely unsecured, and over half of the collateral was insufficient. (Source link)
6. South Korea's Financial Commission requests five major trading platforms to delist "Token-type securities"
According to Hankyung, South Korea's Financial Commission has instructed the heads of the country's five major cryptocurrency trading platforms (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax) to cancel the listing of "Token-type securities" after classifying them.
Reports suggest that the Financial Commission's directive may stem from the nature of virtual assets with securities characteristics, which are considered "Token-type securities" regardless of how they are issued, rather than "securities-type Tokens." If this policy is implemented, a significant portion of Tokens currently listed on existing virtual asset trading platforms may be delisted or potentially transferred to securities firms. (Source link)
7. Blur creates a new NFT trading system using OpenSea's Seaport, bypassing OpenSea's blacklist control
Web3 data analyst Panda Jackson tweeted that the NFT marketplace Blur has created a new NFT trading system by utilizing OpenSea's Seaport, bypassing OpenSea's blacklist control. Since Seaport is not on OpenSea's blacklist, NFT projects that were blacklisted by Blur can now be traded through the new system, enforcing royalties. (Source link)
8. zkSync 2.0 development tool Fair Onboarding Alpha is about to be released, allowing developers to test code in a closed environment
The Ethereum Layer 2 network zkSync, based on ZK Rollup, tweeted that the next milestone of zkSync 2.0, Fair Onboarding Alpha, is coming soon, allowing developers to test code in a closed environment. The new fee model can ensure that transaction and block scaling consider the overall system costs, improve proof generation performance, and address all audit findings.
It is reported that the duration of Fair Onboarding Alpha will be determined in conjunction with ecosystem projects. During the Fair Onboarding Alpha period, the system will be closed to external users, and after completion, it will enter the Full Launch Alpha phase and open to external users. (Source link)
"What Interesting Articles Are Worth Reading in the Last 24 Hours"
No one is not troubled by today's social network applications, which are cumbersome, complex, overly commercialized, monopolized, and increasingly heavy in experience with stricter reviews. This is the dissatisfaction of all social app users worldwide. As the founder of the largest social platform globally, Jack's perception far exceeds ours, and his vision for decentralized networks is much greater than we imagine. Today, Jack excitedly announced on Twitter the launch of Damus, a client product of the decentralized social protocol Nostr, becoming a new player in the decentralized social network.
Since the second half of last year, zk-Rollup scaling projects have begun to focus their efforts, and related solutions and projects have started to emerge. As competitors, Optimistic has become somewhat restless, leading to the first public confrontation between ZKR (zk-Rollup) and OR (Optimistic Rollup) at the beginning of 2023.
The Arbitrum development team Offchain Labs tweeted to pour cold water on ZK Rollup and zkEVM, but their somewhat arrogant and indiscriminate comments directed at zk-Rollup projects sparked an "exciting debate." Engineers from the former zero-knowledge proof development company Mir, Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang, and zkSync co-founder all participated to express their views.
3. “A recap of the 5 projects funded in the first round of the ETH Research Grant”
The first round of funding for the Ethereum Research Grant (ETH Research Grant) has successfully concluded on the DoraHacks.io platform. Among the 19 BUIDL teams that applied in the first round, 5 BUIDL teams were selected: Eigen Network, ERC 1155 Delta, EthStorage, SoulWallet, and ZKSAFE Password, each receiving a total of $5,000 in project funding.
4. “Behind Uniswap's cross-chain expansion is a war between top venture capital firms a16z and Jump”
During the community governance vote from January 27 to January 31, Wormhole won the vote to become the cross-chain bridge between Uniswap and BNB Chain. However, it should be noted that the struggle between behind-the-scenes investors may influence the cross-chain bridge used in Uniswap's next actions. As of now, Wormhole seems to be a choice, but this is not the final result.
