Daily Report | Data: In July, the financing amount in the cryptocurrency market was $547 million, an increase of 7.8% month-on-month; Curve's founder has sold a total of 54.5 million CRV today, recovering $21.8 million

"What Important Events Happened in the Last 24 Hours"

1. Data: July Crypto Market Financing Amounts to $547 Million, Up 7.8% Month-on-Month

According to RootData, a total of 76 projects disclosed completed financing in July, with a cumulative financing amount of $547 million, representing a 7.8% increase compared to June, reversing the downward trend in financing amounts that had persisted since February of this year. However, compared to July of last year, the crypto sector raised $1.499 billion in 143 rounds of financing, with this month's financing rounds and amounts still down 47.5% and 63.5% year-on-year, respectively.

In terms of sectors, infrastructure, DeFi, and NFT sectors ranked in the top three for financing amounts, with the infrastructure category securing $228 million in financing across 24 projects in July, a 7% increase month-on-month. The NFT sector raised $69.85 million, rebounding from $12.35 million in June. The social sector saw a significant increase in financing rounds, rising from 3 in June to 11.

The five projects with the highest financing amounts are Flashbots, Futureverse, RISC Zero, Cosmic Wire, and hi. Among them, the MEV protocol Flashbots raised $60 million in a Series B funding round led by Paradigm, achieving a valuation of $1 billion. The AI metaverse Futureverse completed a $54 million Series A financing.

Additionally, seven blockchain projects with AI concepts received financing this month, namely Futureverse, Tromero, Giza, AwesomeQA, SuperSight, Aspecta, and Web3Go. (Source link)

2. Curve Founder Has Sold a Cumulative 54.5 Million CRV Today, Raising $21.8 Million

According to Twitter user Yu Jin's monitoring, Curve founder Michael Egorov has sold a cumulative 54.5 million CRV today, raising $21.8 million in funds.

It is reported that 12.5 million CRV were sold to DWFLabs; 3.75 million CRV were sold to Huang Licheng; 2.5 million CRV were sold to Cream.Finance; 2.5 million CRV were sold to an address starting with 0xb0b; 2.5 million CRV were sold to another address starting with 0xb0b; 1.25 million CRV were sold to an address starting with 0xcb5; and 250,000 CRV were sold to an address starting with 0x9db. (Source link)

3. MicroStrategy's Bitcoin Holdings Increase to 152,800 Worth $4.5 Billion, Q2 Impairment Expense of $24.1 Million

According to MicroStrategy (MSTR)'s latest earnings report, as of July 31, 2023, MicroStrategy's Bitcoin holdings increased to 152,800, valued at approximately $4.5 billion, with an addition of 12,333 coins in the second quarter, marking the largest quarterly increase since Q2 2021.

Additionally, the report showed that the impairment expense for Bitcoin held by the company in the second quarter was $24.1 million, compared to $917.8 million in the same period last year and $18.9 million in the first quarter. The impairment reflects the decline in Bitcoin's current price relative to its purchase price.

According to Executive Chairman Michael Saylor's tweet, the company acquired 12,333 Bitcoins for $347 million in cash between April 29 and June 27, and purchased an additional 467 Bitcoins for $14.4 million in July.

4. Litecoin Halving Less Than 16 Hours Away

According to Litecoinhalving data, the Litecoin (LTC) block reward halving is only 15 hours and 49 minutes away, expected to occur around 1 AM Beijing time on August 3, 2023, when the block reward will decrease from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC. (Source link)

5. OKX Officially Launches AA Smart Contract Wallet

OKX has announced the official launch of the AA Smart Contract Wallet, which will initially support users in creating AA smart contract wallets on seven popular public chains: Ethereum, OKTC, Polygon, Arb, Op, BNB, and Avalanche. Users can directly pay Gas with stablecoins USDT/USDC, and multiple functions such as one-click completion of on-chain DEX and DeFi interactions have improved wallet usability.

6. Block CEO Jack Dorsey Responds to "Coinbase Considering Integrating Lightning Network," Expresses Willingness to Collaborate

Former Twitter CEO and current Block CEO Jack Dorsey responded to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's reply to his tweet, stating: "There is no doubt that Coinbase has introduced Bitcoin to more people, for which I am grateful. It would be amazing to allocate more resources to Bitcoin and Layer 2 technologies that you initially focused on, and we would love to collaborate. We want an open internet currency transmission protocol that is not controlled by any single individual, company, or government."

In a previous report, Jack Dorsey tweeted asking "Why has Coinbase been ignoring Bitcoin Lightning Network payment solutions?" to which Armstrong replied that "they are exploring how to integrate the Lightning Network, and Coinbase is willing to move towards supporting Bitcoin payments." (Source link)

7. Grayscale: The Outlook for the Crypto Market May Depend on Whether the U.S. Economy Can Achieve a Soft Landing

According to Bloomberg, Zach Pandl, the new Managing Director of Research at Grayscale Investments and former Goldman Sachs strategist, believes that if the U.S. economy can achieve a soft landing, there may still be room for a rebound in the cryptocurrency market this year.

In a report, Pandl wrote that low inflation and stable growth could help risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, by allowing the Federal Reserve to lower real interest rates. However, he stated, "If the central bank decides to further raise real interest rates, or if the monetary tightening policies so far lead to an economic recession, then the recovery of cryptocurrencies may pause in the short term." (Source link)

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

1. "After Bald Became the 'Rug Pull Leader,' Can the Base Ecosystem Create Another Meme Craze?"

Recently, the meme leader Bald on Base skyrocketed, sparking heated discussions in the crypto community. Just as everyone was pondering whether Bald would create a new myth of wealth, its rapid rug pull hit crypto users hard.

After experiencing extreme volatility, Bald only responded on Twitter, stating, "It seems that the Base chain can handle heavy loads well," implying that the release of the Bald project was merely to test the actual load handling capacity of the Base chain, denying the sale of tokens and stating, "Since deployment, only operations such as adding and removing liquidity and purchasing tokens have been conducted."

However, Bald's mysterious operations have led to much speculation in the crypto community about the forces behind it. More importantly, as liquidity withdraws from Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 trending projects, more on-chain funds are beginning to move. With the upcoming launch of the Base mainnet in August and Bald's "rug pull" breaking through, can Base create a new meme craze?

2. "Data Interpretation of OP Mainnet's Development Status: Overall Still Lacks Competitive Advantage, OP Stack's Brand Cooperation Strategy Benefits the Ecosystem"

As the Ethereum Cancun upgrade approaches, the market heat for Layer 2 sectors is rising. Recently, Optimism (now renamed OP Mainnet) has achieved significant growth in various on-chain data through its killer feature OP Stack, becoming the focus of market attention. So, what is the current development status of OP Mainnet? How is it creating its differentiated advantage in the Layer 2 battlefield?

3. "Exclusive Interview with 1inch: How to Innovate in the DEX Field Under the Shadow of Uniswap's Monopoly?"

Born from the 2019 hackathon, 1inch rose to prominence with the boost of DeFi Summer in 2020. Under the leadership of two Russian youths, Sergej Kunz and Anton Bukov, 1inch steadily climbed to the top position in the DeFi aggregator sector with its efficient and low-cost trading methods.

On June 13 of this year, the Uniswap team announced the launch of its fourth-generation version V4, introducing two new concepts: "Hooks" and "The Singleton." Among them, the former, Hooks, has garnered particular attention. Many see it as a killer feature that could enable Uniswap to defeat all DEXs. At the subsequent ETHCC conference, Uniswap also launched UniswapX, launching an attack on the liquidity aggregator field. In light of these successive impacts, many DeFi entrepreneurs have expressed sentiments like "abandon DEXs, join Hooks."

Last week, during the ETHCC conference in Paris, BlockBeats conducted an exclusive interview with 1inch co-founder Anton Bukov, delving into the development history of 1inch, views and thoughts on DeFi innovation, and how to respond to Uniswap's attacks.