Daily Report ｜Binance launches smart contract platform Neutron token NTRN; Scroll official post hints that its zkEVM mainnet is about to go live
Binance's $1 billion "Industry Recovery Plan" has deployed less than $30 million; Alameda Research minted 39.55 billion USDT, exceeding Alameda Research's asset management scale.Organizer: Grapefruit, ChainCatcher
What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?
1. Binance will launch the smart contract platform Neutron token NTRN at 8 PM
According to ChainCatcher, Binance will list Neutron (NTRN) tonight at 8 PM, opening trading for the NTRN/BTC, NTRN/USDT, and NTRN/BNB spot trading pairs.
According to the crypto data platform RootData, Neutron is a permissionless smart contract platform built using the Cosmos SDK, allowing developers to easily build cross-chain applications through the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol (IBC). It announced the completion of a $10 million funding round in June, led by Binance Labs and CoinFund. (Source link)
2. Scroll official post "The future is open" may hint at the imminent launch of its zkEVM mainnet
According to ChainCatcher, the official Ethereum native zkEVM Layer 2 solution Scroll posted on X platform in Esperanto "La estonteco estas malfermita" (The future is open), which may hint at the imminent launch of its zkEVM mainnet.
Previous report mentioned that in September, Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang stated in an interview at Token2049 that the new zkEVM is expected to launch in a few weeks, having undergone extensive testing and code audits. (Source link)
3. Bloomberg: Binance's $1 billion "industry recovery plan" has deployed less than $30 million
According to ChainCatcher, Bloomberg reports that after the collapse of FTX in November last year, Binance launched the Web3 Industry Recovery Initiative (IRI) and publicly disclosed a wallet address containing 1 billion BUSD. However, wallet analysis to date shows that less than $30 million has been deployed since the project's launch. Only one of the nine designated participants has invested all of their committed funds. The only publicly disclosed investment by Binance as part of this plan was the announcement in February of a $15 million purchase of a majority stake in the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange GOPAX. Binance stated that it is awaiting final approval from local regulators to complete the transaction.
A Binance spokesperson stated that the IRI has funded 14 projects but declined to disclose the names of these projects or the specific amounts funded, and that the IRI is still accepting applications. An insider indicated that cryptocurrency market maker GSR evaluated 60 applications received through the IRI, but none met its strategic criteria. A previous report in March indicated that approximately 985 million BUSD was transferred from Binance's industry recovery fund to Binance.
Meanwhile, the crypto asset industry still lacks cash, and the company is laying off employees to stay afloat. PitchBook data shows that the funds raised in September amounted to $508 million, the lowest level since November 2020. (Source link)
4. "Father of the Metaverse" Matthew Ball: Funding for crypto enterprises in 2023 may only be one-third of that in 2021 and 2022
According to ChainCatcher, Matthew Ball, known as the "Father of the Metaverse," stated on social media that as of the third quarter of 2023, the direct investment amount from venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) in crypto startups is $89.5 billion, with half of the funds occurring after September 2021.
Currently, the funding amount for crypto enterprises in 2023 is less than $9 billion, while it was $30.2 billion in 2021 and $29.3 billion in 2022. The funding for crypto enterprises in 2023 may be one-third of that in 2021 and 2022. (Source link)
5. Data: Alameda Research minted 39.55 billion USDT, exceeding Alameda Research's asset management scale
According to ChainCatcher, Coinbase product manager Conor Grogan tweeted that on-chain data shows that Alameda Research was responsible for minting 39.55 billion USDT, which accounts for 47% of Tether's circulating supply today. According to SBF's data, the amount of USDT minted exceeded the peak asset management scale of Alameda Research. "Part of the reason is that Tether seems to be coordinating off-chain destruction; they don't have deposit addresses, just sending funds directly to the finance department. If we assume that all USDT redemptions from FTX came from Alameda, then they redeemed $3.9 billion of USDT (most of which occurred within two days during the Luna implosion in May)." (Source link)
6. FTX advisor protected over $400 million in assets using his hardware wallet during the FTX attack
According to ChainCatcher, during the hacker attack on FTX last year, FTX advisor Kumanan Ramanathan transferred $400 to $500 million in crypto assets to his personal Ledger Nano hardware wallet to mitigate losses, with these transactions initiated by former CTO Gary Wang.
These assets remained on Ramanathan's device until FTX's cryptocurrency custody provider BitGo was ready for cold storage wallets. (Source link)
"What are the exciting articles worth reading in the past 24 hours?"
Wasm allows developers to write high-performance code in languages such as Rust, Go, C, and C++. In the Web3 world, Wasm has been adopted by blockchain projects like Cosmos, NEAR, and Polkadot. Ethereum considered adopting Wasm but decided to stick with EVM execution.
2. “Social Ponzi, can it recreate the glory of DeFi Summer?”
Friend.Tech has become popular.
This KOL-centered model, which allows fans to buy and sell "shares" of KOLs, is not complicated and somewhat carries a "Ponzi" flavor; however, in a bear market with hotspots and liquidity shortages, Friend.Tech has indeed created a wave of SocialFi.
For example, in the past week, Star Arena, which rapidly rose on the Avalanche chain, has remained the focus of attention despite experiencing extreme ups and downs due to the Avalanche founder's promotion and contract vulnerabilities leading to fund zeroing.
Meanwhile, the trend continues to spread:
Starting from the Base L2, FT's clone projects have quickly emerged on other ecosystems such as Avax, Arbitrum, Solana, Polygon, and Bnb. These projects are making various improvements and innovations based on FT, attempting to capture this hard-won heat;
And opening Twitter, numerous crypto-related topics and accounts are continuously discussing and introducing FT and other projects, creating a sense of FOMO that one might miss out on a fortune if they do not participate.
3. “OP Stack + Zero Knowledge Proof = The ultimate game of L2?”
The current Layer 2 race is exceptionally fierce, with optimistic rollups like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base in the front, and Zero Knowledge Proof-based ZKP rollups like Scroll, zkSync, Starkenet, Scroll, Polygon zkEVM, Taiko, and Linea in the back.
While it seems that the competition in Layer 2 is flourishing, in essence, they all employ the principle of off-chain computation and on-chain proof. Whether it is optimistic fraud proof or ZKP circuit proof, the core difference in engineering practice lies in the different methods of on-chain proof; other principles are actually quite similar.
Thus, Optimism has chosen a unique path, namely modular Layer 2, logically decoupling various components of Layer 2. When OPstack realizes the coupling of various modules of Layer 2, a seemingly outlandish yet logical idea opens up: ZKP on OP Stack, changing the challenger of OP Stack from Optimistic Proof to Zero Knowledge Proof, making OpStack a universal Layer 2 architecture that supports multiple proofs!
