Evening News | U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Approves Binance.US Acquisition of Voyager; OKX Ventures Announces Strategic Investment in Scroll

Organizer: Xiangxiang Xi, ChainCatcher

"What Important Events Happened in the Last 24 Hours"

1. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Approves Binance.US to Acquire Voyager for $1.3 Billion

According to Reuters, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles approved Voyager's reorganization plan at a hearing in New York, allowing it to sell its assets and transfer its customers to Binance.US. Wiles rejected the previous "vague" objections from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which had investigated Binance.US for operating an unregistered securities exchange. However, Wiles was not persuaded, stating that the agency failed to provide any evidence and should not wait until the last minute to raise specific issues.

Binance has agreed to pay Voyager $20 million in cash and accept the cryptocurrency assets held by Voyager's customers. According to Voyager, the customers' crypto assets were valued at $1.3 billion in February, accounting for most of the transaction's valuation. However, Voyager can still abandon the deal. Its financial advisor stated in court on Friday that the company would need up to four weeks to review new questions regarding Binance.US's commitment to the acquisition, its regulatory compliance, and the safety of Binance.US customer deposits. The deal also faces additional scrutiny from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is investigating national security risks related to foreign investment in Voyager. (Source Link)

2. OKX Ventures Announces Strategic Investment in Scroll to Support Improvements in Ethereum Performance

OKX Ventures announced a strategic investment in Scroll, a Layer 2 ZK Rollup scaling solution for Ethereum, to support Scroll in improving Ethereum's performance issues.

It is reported that Scroll is developing zkEVM-based zk-Rollups (ZKR) with the goal of building a ZK-Rollup that is EVM-compatible and has a robust proof network. The Scroll Alpha testnet has already launched on Goerli, with over 180,000 unique wallets participating in the testing and completing 665,000 transactions. The team stated that the mainnet is expected to launch in the next 3-4 months.

Previously, Scroll completed a $50 million funding round, with investors including Polychain Capital, Sequoia China, Bain Capital Crypto, Moore Capital Management, Variant Fund, Newman Capital, IOSG Ventures, and Qiming Venture Partners. This round of funding will be used for product development, launching the mainnet, and expanding the ecosystem, with plans to increase the team size from 60 to nearly 100 people. Sources indicate that Scroll's valuation in this funding round reached $1.8 billion. (Source Link)

3. PeckShield: U.S. Law Enforcement Transfers 49,000 BTC from Seizures, Over 9,800 BTC to Coinbase Address

According to monitoring data from PeckShield, U.S. law enforcement-related addresses transferred 49,000 BTC (worth approximately $1 billion) to Coinbase (over 9,800 BTC), an address starting with bc1qf2 (over 30,000 BTC), and an address starting with bc1qe7 (about 9,000 BTC).

It is reported that this portion of BTC was seized by U.S. law enforcement in November 2021 and March 2022 from Silk Road's illegal proceeds. (Source Link)

4. Game Company Believer, Founded by Former Riot Executives, Completes $55 Million Funding Round Led by Lightspeed, with Participation from a16z

According to TechCrunch, game startup Believer, founded by former Riot executives Michael Chow and Steven Snow, has completed a $55 million funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bitkraft Ventures, Riot Games, 1Up Ventures, Cleveland Avenue by Don Thompson, and Michael D.

Believer will initially develop original IP, narratives, and technical games. The founders of Believer stated that it is unlikely to launch any products within the next 3-5 years. Steven Snow mentioned that the company hopes to leverage generative AI to do more. (Source Link)

5. Analyst: Grayscale's Ruling with SEC May Take Three to Six Months, Grayscale's Odds at 70%

Grayscale has engaged in oral arguments regarding its lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for rejecting its application to convert the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF. Bloomberg senior litigation analyst Elliott Z. Stein raised Grayscale's odds from 40% to 70% after hearing the arguments and stated that the ruling between Grayscale and the SEC may take three to six months. If Grayscale's application is ultimately approved, it would unlock $5.5 billion in value for GBTC. (Source Link)

6. Stability AI Co-Founder Cyrus Hodes Announces Launch of AIGC Chain

According to an official tweet, Stability AI co-founder Cyrus Hodes announced the launch of AIGC Chain to enter Web3, with test node applications opening on March 21.

It is reported that AIGC Chain is the first public chain based on AI content co-training and generation, allowing anyone to train their own small AIGC models and achieving distributed large model training, aiming to build the world's largest AI co-training public chain system. (Source Link)

7. Meituan's Wang Xing to Personally Participate in Wang Huiwen's Startup "Beyond Light Years" A Round Investment and Serve as Director

According to The Paper, Meituan founder Wang Xing stated in his social media post that he will personally participate in the A round investment of Wang Huiwen's startup "Beyond Light Years" and serve as a director.

Wang Xing expressed, "The AI large model excites me with the immense productivity it will create, yet I worry about its future impact on the world. Lao Wang and I have been on the entrepreneurial journey together for nearly twenty years, and since he is determined to embrace this wave, I must support him."

Previously, former Meituan co-founder Wang Huiwen invested $50 million to enter the AI field, claiming to build China's OpenAI. His post revealed plans to establish Beijing Beyond Light Years Technology Co., with a $50 million investment and a valuation of $200 million. (Source Link)

8. Bloomberg: Silvergate in Talks with FDIC Officials on Ways to Salvage the Bank

According to Bloomberg, citing informed sources, Silvergate is in discussions with officials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) on ways to salvage the bank. One source indicated that one option may involve recruiting investors from the crypto industry to help improve Silvergate's liquidity. The Federal Reserve authorized FDIC examiners to visit Silvergate's headquarters in La Jolla, California, last week, as the Federal Reserve is Silvergate's primary federal regulator. (Source Link)

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

1. “Hardcore Women in Web3: What Projects Have They Created?”

According to authoritative reports, only 13% of founding teams in Web3 are women, and only 7% of founders are female. Companies founded by men have raised nearly four times the funding of those founded by women. We can't help but ask, is there really a lack of brilliant female entrepreneurs and powerful female leaders in the Web3 space? On this special day, ChainCatcher, in collaboration with the data platform RootData, has highlighted numerous female project entrepreneurs through a compilation of [Web3 Projects Founded by Women], hoping to showcase the shining women in the Web3 field.

2. “More DeFi Protocols Attempt to Solve Impermanent Loss Issues; What Are the Specific Effects?”

Impermanent loss is one of the unavoidable risks for DeFi liquidity providers. According to Dune data, decentralized exchanges (DEX) have surpassed $50 billion in trading volume each month, making the management of impermanent loss a significant challenge for AMM protocols. Currently, there are several DeFi projects aimed at reducing or mitigating impermanent loss in the market. This article analyzes the feasibility and robustness of several protocols, including Clipper Finance, Tarot Finance, Tsunami Finance, Deltadex, Vader protocol, Krypton exchange, Platypus Finance, and Shieldex.

3. “7 Low Market Cap Innovative Projects Worth Noting in the Optimism Ecosystem”

As the cryptocurrency market continues to develop, more people are beginning to pay attention to Layer 2 solutions in the Ethereum ecosystem. Optimism, as an efficient and scalable Layer 2 expansion protocol, can bring faster transaction speeds and lower transaction fees to the Ethereum network. This article will introduce seven low market cap innovative projects deployed in various segments such as lending, options, and stablecoins within the Optimism ecosystem.