Weekly Highlights | Alliance DAO announces 16 Web3 accelerator projects; Hong Kong Monetary Authority launches "e-HKD" pilot program

整理：饼干，ChainCatcher

1. Bloomberg: Hashkey Group plans to raise $100 million to $200 million at a valuation of over $1 billion

According to sources cited by Bloomberg, Hashkey Group is in early-stage negotiations to raise $100 million to $200 million at a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Currently, Hashkey operates one of only two licensed digital currency exchanges in Hong Kong.

The source added that the deal is progressing, but terms such as scale and valuation may change as they have not yet been finalized. (Source link)

2. Alliance DAO announces 16 Web3 accelerator projects, including Caldera, Wallchain, and others

According to ChainCatcher and reported by Techcrunch, Alliance DAO has announced 16 projects selected for the Web3 accelerator and builder community (ALL10), including the blockchain data ChatGPT platform Teablocks, Bitcoin wallet Xverse, ZK rollups as a service Snapchain, carbon credit proof of labor protocol Glow, ZK-based AI project Modulus Labs, Web3 AI community management tool AwesomeQA, on-chain composable games Primodium, wallet management tool Fountain, perpetual synthetic options Itos, user research tool Dataleap, Layer2 development platform Caldera, anti-MEV solution Wallchain, application chain payment solution Singularity, dApp communication solution Hashmail, blockchain data platform Defined, and Web3 fraud prevention plugin Pocket Universe.

It is reported that Alliance DAO invites Web3 founders to participate in a three-month program twice a year, with a record 1,692 applications this time, an increase of 77.5% compared to before. (Source link)

3. Scroll co-founder: The top priority is to launch the mainnet as soon as possible, with over 4 million unique wallet addresses on the testnet

Scroll co-founders Ye Zhang and Sandy Peng shared the recent project progress and ecological development of Scroll in Anna Rose's Zero Knowledge Podcast, as well as the Scroll team's construction, the current Layer2 landscape, achievements in Scroll hardware acceleration, and future technical roadmap.

Ye Zhang stated that Scroll's top priority is to launch the mainnet as soon as possible, and the team has sent the circuits to the auditing company. The next step will be to achieve decentralized proofers, followed by designing decentralized sorters.

Sandy mentioned that the current Scroll testnet has over 4 million unique wallet addresses, processing over 500,000 transactions daily, with more than 100 projects submitting information to the official team. (Source link)

4. OpenAI CEO seeks nearly $100 million in funding for his crypto project Worldcoin, plans to launch in the coming weeks

According to sources cited by the Financial Times, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's cryptocurrency company Worldcoin is in deep negotiations to raise $100 million in new funding, preparing to launch in the coming weeks and start trading within six weeks. Investors include Khosla Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz's crypto fund.

Worldcoin was founded by Alex Blania and Altman in 2019, planning to create a global identification system using iris scanning technology, which can be used to access its own global currency, Worldcoin, for free. According to The Information, a $100 million token sale early last year valued the company's total token supply at $3 billion. (Source link)

5. Li Lin responds: Hopes Huobi will provide evidence, if true will personally compensate 10 times the HT

Sun Yuchen tweeted, "Li Lin's brother Li Wei has repeatedly obtained a large amount of zero-cost HT through abnormal means, and has historically sold off on the Huobi platform, making huge withdrawals, which not only tarnished Li Lin's reputation accumulated over many years in the country but also harmed the interests of every member of the HT community. Following the resolution of the Huobi Global Advisory Committee and the HT DAO community, we will pursue the HT obtained by Li Wei at zero cost for recovery and destruction. The HT destruction will be publicly announced in the HT community. Such behavior will not be tolerated."

Li Lin responded, "I regret that the discussion about Huobi is being conducted in this manner regarding the so-called abnormal means by my brother Li Wei to obtain HT (including historically). I hope Huobi will provide evidence. If it is confirmed that the zero-cost HT was obtained through illegal means, I will personally compensate Huobi with 10 times the HT. If it is not true, I hope Huobi will return the users' legitimate assets :) I believe this should be a misunderstanding, and I hope Huobi continues to improve in the future." (Source link)

6. Optimism will unlock approximately 154 million OP tokens on May 31, worth about $278 million

Token Unlocks data shows that Optimism will unlock 154,618,822.65 OP tokens on May 31, worth approximately $278 million, accounting for 3.6% of the total supply. Among them, 81,604,379 OP tokens are unlocked for core contributors, and 73,014,444 OP tokens are unlocked for investors.

Previously, Optimism tweeted that the circulation of OP will increase on May 31, and users may notice a large number of on-chain transfers in the two weeks prior, which are planned transactions for distribution. (Source link)

7. Hong Kong Monetary Authority: Launching "Digital Hong Kong Dollar" pilot scheme, application scenarios include Web3 transactions and tokenized asset settlements

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today the launch of the "Digital Hong Kong Dollar" pilot scheme. Sixteen selected companies from the finance, payment, and technology sectors will conduct the first round of trials within this year. The potential use cases of the digital Hong Kong dollar will be explored in six categories, including comprehensive payments, programmable payments, offline payments, tokenized deposits, Web3 transaction settlements, and tokenized asset settlements.

HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue stated: "Although the HKMA has not decided whether or when to launch the digital Hong Kong dollar, we are pleased to initiate the pilot scheme. This is a good opportunity for the HKMA to explore innovative use cases in collaboration with the industry and to prepare for the potential launch of the digital Hong Kong dollar in the future." (Source link)

8. ParaSpace co-founder Jay and others apologize to the community and resign

Jay, co-founder and advisor of the NFT lending protocol ParaSpace, tweeted: "Earlier today, I and other team members resigned from my position at ParaSpace. While we are still working hard to complete our solutions, I want to take a moment to apologize to the community because our internal affairs have affected our users—this was never intended to be a public issue and should have been resolved internally. I am sorry that it was not the case. I sincerely hope Yubo and ParaSpace move forward."

Earlier, ParaSpace founder Yubo tweeted that they have been closely working with institutional partners to increase platform liquidity and reduce interest rates. In the future, they will form an international team and bring more transparency to the community.

It is reported that ParaSpace has successfully deployed the protocol on the Arbitrum network and will collaborate further with the Arbitrum team. (Source link)

9. Tornado Cash suffers governance attack, attacker has extracted and sold about 10,000 TORN

Paradigm researcher Samczsun tweeted that on May 20, 2023, at 15:25, Tornado Cash suffered a governance attack, where the attacker granted themselves 1.2 million voting rights through a malicious proposal, surpassing about 700,000 legitimate votes, gaining governance control.

This means the attacker can: withdraw all locked votes; deplete all tokens in the governance contract; disable routers. However, the attacker still cannot deplete individual liquidity pools.

As of now, the attacker has extracted and sold about 10,000 TORN. (Source link)

10. Axie Infinity launches iOS version in Latin America and Asia, AXS briefly rises over 17%

Axie Infinity: Origins is now available on the Apple App Store in select markets. While publisher Sky Mavis plans to launch the iOS version globally, players in Latin America and Asia, including Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, will be the first to gain access.

According to market data, the Axie Infinity token AXS briefly rose over 17%, currently priced at $7.95. (Source link)

11. Offchain Labs allocates approximately $700 million worth of ARB tokens to 34 addresses

According to Spot on Chain data, over the past 12 days, a total of approximately 602 million ARB (worth $698 million) has been allocated to 34 addresses (possibly investors). Currently, the addresses receiving ARB have not shown any further transfer activity. (Source link)