Weekly Report | Summary of Vitalik's Speech at EthCC; Review of 9 Emerging Crypto Venture Capital Firms
Telegram raised $210 million through bond issuance; the U.S. SEC will decide this week whether to approve the listing applications for six Bitcoin spot ETFs, including those from BlackRock and WisdomTree.Organizer: Biscuit, ChainCatcher
"What Important Events Happened This Week (7.17-7.23)"
1. The U.S. SEC Will Decide This Week Whether to Approve Bitcoin Spot ETF Applications from BlackRock, WisdomTree, and Others
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will decide this week whether to approve or reject six applications for Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including those from BlackRock, Bitwise, Fidelity, WisdomTree, VanEck, and Invesco Galaxy.
Additionally, the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF was submitted to the federal register on May 15, and the SEC has extended the approval deadline. Valkyrie's spot Bitcoin ETF has not yet appeared in the federal register, but the SEC accepted their application on Monday.
Last week, the SEC released a document seeking public consultation on Bitcoin ETFs, and the review process officially begins only after the filing documents are published in the register. Initially, the deadline was set at 45 days but can be extended up to 240 days. (Source link)
2. Crypto VC Polychain Capital Announces It Has Raised Approximately $200 Million for Its Fourth Fund, Completing Half of Its Total Fundraising Goal
According to Fortune, venture capital firm Polychain Capital has raised approximately $200 million for its fourth fund while laying off three members of its research team under new investment priorities. The firm still plans to raise a total of about $400 million for the fourth fund.
According to Pitchbook data, Polychain has raised three funds with assets under management of approximately $2.6 billion. (Source link)
3. New U.S. Senate Bill: VCs Investing Over $25 Million in DeFi Projects Must Be Held Accountable for Sanction Violations by DeFi Platforms
ChainCatcher reports that U.S. Democratic Senators Jack Reed and Mark Warner, along with Republican Senators Mike Rounds and Mitt Romney, have jointly introduced a new Senate bill that will impose strict anti-money laundering (AML) requirements on DeFi protocols. The bill also plans to require DeFi protocols to implement bank-like controls over their user base, requiring entities controlling DeFi to review and collect information about their customers, maintain AML programs, report suspicious activities to the government, and prevent sanctioned individuals from using their protocols.
The bill will also require venture capital firms and other large investors to be held accountable for sanction violations occurring on DeFi platforms in certain circumstances, to prevent criminals from using DeFi to launder money and evade sanctions. If a sanctioned person (e.g., a Russian oligarch) uses DeFi services to circumvent U.S. imposed restrictions, those controlling the DeFi project will be held liable for facilitating the violations. If no one controls the service, this liability will shift to investors who have invested over $25 million in the project. (Source link)
4. Telegram Raises $210 Million Through Bond Issuance, with Investments from Founder Pavel Durov and Others
According to TechCrunch, Telegram has raised $210 million through bond issuance, with the founder and several well-known funds purchasing these bonds, although the specific names of the funds have not been disclosed. Founder and CEO Pavel Durov stated that he purchased about a quarter of the bonds. Currently, Telegram is not yet profitable, and the new financing aims to bring it closer to breaking even, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade to keep the app running.
Currently, Telegram has over 800 million users, having gained more than 300 million users in the past two and a half years, attracting 2.5 million new registered users daily. (Source link)
5. Sources: ConsenSys Recently Communicated with Potential Investors Regarding Financing
ChainCatcher reports that, according to sources cited by The Block, MetaMask's parent company ConsenSys has been in talks with potential investors in recent weeks. A ConsenSys spokesperson stated that while the startup sometimes considers "adding investors," it still has a large amount of cash and does not need new funding.
Additionally, two individuals familiar with ConsenSys's recent financing indicated that the new round of financing might lower its valuation, but the ConsenSys spokesperson stated that existing shareholders would not accept equity dilution below the valuation of the Series D financing, and any claims that ConsenSys would lower its valuation are inaccurate. Furthermore, the ConsenSys spokesperson mentioned that ConsenSys has been using its own funds to buy back shares.
According to the crypto data platform RootData, ConsenSys completed a $450 million Series D financing at a valuation of $7 billion on March 15, 2022.
6. Lens Protocol Officially Releases V2 Version, Adding Support for External Smart Contracts and Other Features
Web3 social protocol Lens Protocol officially released its V2 version during the Ethereum Paris EthCC conference, focusing on "openness and composability, shared interests, trust, and security." Users can now perform external smart contract operations directly within Lens publications, and the Lens V2 has added the ability to interact with smart contracts within social media.
The new version of Lens Protocol also integrates the platform with the ERC-6551 token standard, allowing NFT ownership to be attached to other assets and interact with applications. New third-party contract operation permissions include adding whitelist functionality, minting NFTs on Sound.xyz (Ethereum mainnet), and minting NFTs on Opensea (Polygon), among others.
Additionally, Lens Protocol has added asset management features, including delegating operations to any wallet, allowing users to perform operations using other wallets rather than being limited to a single wallet; storing profiles directly on hardware wallets, which can be used in another wallet; and supporting the storage of DAO or community profiles in multi-signature wallets, which can be accessed from one or more addresses. This ensures the security and access control of profiles and allows multiple addresses to be associated with them. (Source link)
7. Hubei Police Solve the Nation's "First Virtual Currency Case," Involving a Flow of 400 Billion
According to reports from the Ping An Hubei public account, the main suspects in a cross-border online gambling case involving a flow of 400 billion have been sent for legal review. Police discovered that all transactions by participants were settled using a single virtual currency. The special investigation team successfully identified multiple involved virtual currency accounts through tracing.
The special investigation team coordinated with the virtual currency issuing institution to freeze the relevant involved virtual currency accounts, preventing $160 million (approximately over 1 billion RMB) worth of involved virtual currency from flowing into the hands of the suspects.
In October 2022, the Shayang County People's Court ruled to confiscate part of the frozen virtual currency. This case has become the first in the country to have virtual currency confiscated by court ruling. (Source link)
8. Indonesia's National Cryptocurrency Exchange Has Officially Started Operations
ChainCatcher reports that, according to a statement from Indonesia's Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (CFTRA), the national cryptocurrency exchange opened on July 20. The platform is regulated by CFTRA and will be the only platform in the country allowed to legally trade digital assets. Additionally, CFTRA's decree also stipulates the establishment of a futures clearing house alongside the exchange. The clearing house essentially acts as a mediator between buyers and sellers, ensuring smooth transactions.
Previous news indicated that Indonesia's Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappebti) announced plans to launch a cryptocurrency exchange this month. Bappebti head Didid Noordiatmoko stated that once the exchange is launched, all cryptocurrency transactions will only be conducted through the exchange. Meanwhile, KYC and various processes will be regulated. (Source link)
9. Data
- a16z and CMS Holdings have recently continued to sell over 33,000 MKR.
- Since November 2022, MakerDAO co-founders have cumulatively sold 13.57 million LDO and repurchased over 30,000 MKR.
- The market capitalization of stablecoins has fallen to $127 billion, a two-year low; USDT's market capitalization has reached $83.8 billion, a historical high.
- Celsius has sold a large amount of altcoins, including 1.27 million LINK, 2.83 million SNX, and 4.45 million 1INCH.
- Dragonfly Capital has deposited 37.5 million unlocked 1INCH into Coinbase and OKX.
- Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis only received $11 million from a previous $150 million financing, with the company's valuation dropping to $1.95 billion.
"What Interesting Articles Are Worth Reading This Week (7.17-7.23)"
1. "RootData: 9 Emerging Crypto VC Firms Not to Be Ignored in a Bear Market"
In recent months, the crypto investment market has been sluggish, with financing amounts hitting new lows, with a total financing amount of only $507 million in June, even lower than some single project financing amounts at the beginning of 2022. Behind this is a conservative investment strategy adopted by crypto VC firms during market fluctuations, even pausing investments, trying to adjust their investment strategies when the market becomes clearer.
However, while the overall market is declining, many emerging crypto VC firms have also emerged, providing richer options for early crypto projects. They are going against the trend, helping projects grow with a faster investment frequency during the bear market cycle, betting on hundredfold projects for the next bull market. In this context, crypto VC firms may also face a new round of reshuffling.
In this article, RootData will review emerging crypto VC firms established or becoming active in 2022, introducing 9 promising new VC firms.
2. "Summary of Vitalik's EthCC Speech: Account Abstraction Makes Managing Crypto Wallets as Easy as Email"
Vitalik described account abstraction as allowing Ethereum accounts to be controlled by smart contract code instead of private keys.
His vision is that in the future, everyone will switch from current EOA wallets to smart contract-based wallets. If successful, managing crypto wallets will become as simple as managing email accounts.
3. "Interview with Kyros Ventures Co-founder and CEO: Axie is Still the Most Respected Web3 Builder in Vietnam"
As a gateway for international crypto projects entering the Vietnamese market, what unique advantages does Kyros Ventures, born from crypto media and thriving in venture capital, possess? What considerations lie behind its investment strategy, which is enthusiastic about gaming projects while also focusing on DeFi and infrastructure? How does the Vietnamese crypto market, primarily based on gaming guilds and GameFi ecosystems, respond to the current bear market? Regarding these questions, ChainCatcher invited Zane (Thuat Nguyen), co-founder and CEO of Kyros Ventures.
4. "Short-term Benefits vs. Signs of Recovery: Is Solana Summer Here Again?"
The warming on the Solana chain has ignited optimistic sentiments in the community, with calls of "SOL GOOD," even believing this marks the reopening of "Solana Summer." But is the continuous growth of Solana's TVL due to short-term regulatory policy benefits and FOMO sentiment, or is Solana truly making a comeback, and is this a good start?
This article reviews the development dynamics of the Solana ecosystem over the past six months to explore whether Solana's recovery is genuinely traceable.
5. "Which zkEVM Performs Best? How Should Developers Choose?"
As the holy grail of scalability, zkEVM has a crucial impact on developers' contract deployment experiences. Faced with a plethora of ZK rollup projects, how should developers choose?
By deploying smart contracts (one Solidity smart contract and one NFT contract) on currently popular ZK rollup projects, the performance of zkEVM for Taiko, Polygon, Linea, Scroll, and ZkSync Era has been tested, comparing their respective advantages and disadvantages and L2 to L1 transaction times, providing a practical guide for developers looking to deploy layer two contracts.
Last week, StarkNet v0.12, officially named the "Quantum Leap" version, was finally launched on the mainnet. Following the successful upgrade of StarkNet v0.12, community feedback has been mixed.
On one hand, the time required for StarkNet's transaction success has significantly reduced from 10-30 minutes before the upgrade to a matter of seconds, with community users exclaiming that StarkNet has transitioned from the "old ox pulling the cart era" to the "flying era"; on the other hand, StarkNet's gas fees remain higher than most layer 2 solutions, with some users facing gas fees exceeding 1 U.
Moreover, the most commonly used wallet in the StarkNet ecosystem, "Flip-Flop" (Argent), encountered severe bugs due to the mainnet upgrade, causing many users to lose their wallets, raising concerns and criticisms about its interaction security.
Despite the criticisms, this milestone upgrade has significantly increased StarkNet's TVL. Currently, StarkNet's TVL has surpassed $100 million, with an increase of over 43% in a week, and its ecosystem projects are gradually becoming active following the upgrade.
Recently, StarkNet has been quite active, not only with network upgrades but also officially announcing the upcoming launch of application chains. According to StarkNet's roadmap, it will continue to complete upgrades addressing transaction fees, fee markets, and other issues before the end of the year. Coupled with community expectations for a token airdrop before the end of the year and the upcoming Cancun upgrade, StarkNet's ecosystem is expected to usher in a new round of prosperity.
7. "Interview with Compound Founder: How Will Superstate Bring RWA into the Crypto World?"
In a recent episode of Empire, Jason invited Rob Leshner, the former founder of Compound, to discuss his newly founded company, Superstate.
The episode explores the challenges and impacts of bringing real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain, Superstate's listing strategy and competitive landscape, and the upcoming stablecoin battlefield.
8. "After Airdropping NFTs, What Work Does zkSync Still Need to Do Before Issuing Tokens?"
Recently, zkSync announced that it would "randomly" select 10,000 from 179,365 active community members to airdrop the "LIBERTAS OMNIBUS" series NFTs. Although the recent NFT airdrop has sparked community interaction enthusiasm, zkSync's path to decentralization (and token issuance) remains challenging, but this also means users still have the opportunity to deeply engage with its ecosystem and potentially receive airdrop rewards.
9. "Caroline's Diary Exposed: FTX Collapse Felt Like a Relief, She Feels Happy"
The Wall Street Journal accessed Google documents from Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, through informed sources, which recorded many of her feelings and thoughts. She seemed to suffer greatly during events such as taking over as CEO and breaking up with SBF, to the extent that she felt happy when FTX collapsed.
