Evening News | a16z delegates approximately 40 million UNI voting rights to external organizations; DCG sells part of its Grayscale Ethereum Trust shares at half price

整理：饼干，ChainCatcher

"What Important Events Happened in the Last 24 Hours"

1. DCG Sells About a Quarter of Grayscale Ethereum Trust Shares at Half Price, Raising $22 Million

According to the Financial Times citing U.S. securities filings, Digital Currency Group (DCG) has begun selling its shares in its subsidiary Grayscale's crypto trust fund to raise funds to repay Genesis creditors.

The filings show that since January 24, DCG has primarily sold a quarter of the Ethereum trust fund, raising up to $22 million at a price of about $8 per share, significantly lower than the market price of $16 per share. Additionally, DCG has also started selling smaller shares in its Litecoin Trust, Bitcoin Cash Trust, Ethereum Classic Trust, and Digital Large Cap Fund.

Earlier, ChainCatcher reported that DCG reached a preliminary agreement with Genesis creditors (holding or representing over $2 billion in claims) to exchange $1.1 billion in bonds maturing in 2032 for convertible preferred shares issued by DCG as part of Genesis's bankruptcy plan. (Source link)

2. a16z: Has Unconditionally Delegated About 40 Million UNI Voting Rights to External Groups

Eddy Lazzarin, head of data science and engineering at a16z's cryptocurrency investment team, tweeted that "a16z has unconditionally delegated about 40 million UNI votes to external groups (with no conditions on how they vote), using 15 million UNI to vote (less than half of what was delegated to others)."

Eddy Lazzarin also stated that a16z has voted on 11 other proposals, making it one of the most active members in the Uniswap community. He cited "A Brief Discussion on Cryptocurrency Protocol Governance" to explain that the reason for delegated voting is to achieve broader perspectives, less centralized voting power, and more community participation.

According to ChainCatcher's previous report, a16z controls 41.5 million UNI through 11 wallet addresses, accounting for approximately 4.15% of the supply. (Source link)

3. FTX Japan Reveals About $76 Million in Net Assets and Customer Asset Management

FTX Japan disclosed the status of customer entrusted assets and the company's own assets as of February 7, showing that the company's net assets are approximately 10 billion yen (about $76 million as of the end of September 2022), and the company's cash and deposits are about 17.8 billion yen (about $135 million as of November 21, 2022). FTX Japan also revealed the scale of customer custodial assets in cold wallets and the management of issued tokens.

Regarding system operations, all functions on the FTX JP website and platform have been halted, such as login issues, screen display problems, withdrawal and shipping stoppages, and inability to query.

It is reported that FTX previously applied to the federal bankruptcy court in December 2022 for approval to sell its Japanese subsidiary FTX Japan through auction. (Source link)

4. Hashed Releases Top 10 Trends for 2023, Covering Crypto Wallets, Digital Identity, ZKP, dNFT, AI, and More

Korean crypto venture capital firm Hashed has released the top 10 trends to focus on in 2023, including: 1. Enhancing wallet user experience and driving more adoption; 2. Achieving decentralized social networking based on Web3 digital identity; 3. Optimizing ZKP to achieve privacy in account-based smart contract platforms; 4. Expanding programmable NFT technology represented by Dynamic NFTs; 5. Exploring diverse NFT utilities; 6. Combining blockchain games with strong IP and smooth experience flows to capture more users; 7. NFT-based virtual goods will build the next generation of DeFi resilient infrastructure; 8. Artificial intelligence will play an important role in blockchain game development and other areas; 9. Institutional-level finance will participate in the crypto space through blockchain infrastructure; 10. Emerging markets led by India will challenge the U.S.'s innovation dominance. (Source link)

5. CoW Swap: Attacked Contract Only Stores Weekly Protocol Fees, Trading Users Unaffected

CoW Swap, a decentralized trading protocol launched by Gnosis that is resistant to MEV, tweeted that the attacked settlement contract only stores the fees generated by the protocol in a week, and trading users are not affected. The issue has been mitigated and is under investigation.

It is reported that PeckShield previously monitored and showed that CoW Swap's GPv2Settlement contract was deceived into approving SwapGuard for DAI spending 10 days ago, and SwapGuard was triggered this morning to transfer over 114,000 DAI from GPv2Settlement. (Source link)

6. OpenSea Launches Private Beta Program, Applications Now Open

According to an official announcement, OpenSea has officially launched the OpenSea Private Beta program this month, which is an exclusive, opt-in program that allows users to actively participate in stress testing and shape new user experiences before new features are officially released.

This beta program allows users to access new features in advance, and OpenSea's product engineering team will work to fix bugs and optimize to ensure a more seamless experience and further cover different users. Users can apply to participate in the beta starting today, with applications closing on February 10. (Source link)

7. FTX Urges Politicians Like Nancy Pelosi to Return Previous Political Donations by February 28

According to Insider, the bankrupt FTX stated on Sunday that it is contacting recipients of payments from SBF, other FTX executives, or any affiliated companies that have filed for bankruptcy. FTX employees donated a total of $90 million to politicians, and the debtors are trying to recover this amount to repay customers. FTX is requesting politicians and political action committees to return the donations made by the company's employees by February 28.

According to OpenSecrets, SBF previously donated $40 million to Democratic causes, and in addition, Ryan Salame, the former CEO of FTX Bahamas, donated $23 million, while former engineering director Nishad Singh donated $7.9 million.

Additionally, among the 196 politicians funded by FTX, only five have reported successfully returning funds. Notable politicians Nancy Pelosi and John Fetterman are among the donors who have not yet returned funds. As of the time of publication, it is unclear whether the two have returned their donations. (Insider)

"What Interesting Articles Are Worth Reading in the Last 24 Hours"

1. "Bankless: Why Did Coinbase Stock Surge? What’s the Future Outlook?"

After hitting a low of $31 on January 6, COIN's surge reached an astonishing 179%. This article analyzes the reasons behind COIN's stock surge from two aspects, including the Federal Reserve's conservative remarks and positive legal news. The article also explores other factors that may impact COIN.

2. "Reviewing Subtle Changes and Future Developments in NFT Trading & Aggregation in 2022"

In recent years, the NFT sector has attracted significant attention from investors. Against the backdrop of the bear market in 2022, relevant data for NFTs showed considerable fluctuations, with overall market data continuing to decline since the second half of the year. This article discusses the origins and foundational knowledge of NFTs, summarizes historical milestone events in the NFT sector, introduces the current situation of the NFT market, and narrates recent merger activities on the trading front; it also summarizes the latest policy updates and changes in royalty handling across various platforms, deeply analyzes the latest relevant technological updates in the field, and provides an overview of the entire sector and its future development direction.

3. "CoinFund: Overview and Thoughts on the Web3 Security Service Sector"

While auditing is a crucial pillar of Web3 security, there were 167 major hacking incidents in 2022. Half of these targeted audited smart contracts, indicating a need for more security infrastructure and automation in the field. This article presents CoinFund researchers' understanding of the Web3 security service sector and their outlook for the future.