Daily Report | SBF convicted on all 7 charges; Venture capital fund Ex/Ante completes $33 million financing

整理：bayemon.eth, ChainCatcher

"What Important Events Happened in the Last 24 Hours"

1. ProShares Launches Short Ether Futures ETF

According to Reuters, ProShares announced on Thursday that it is launching the first ETF that allows investors to short Ethereum. The ProShares Short Ether Strategy aims to provide the opposite daily performance of the S&P CME Ether Futures Index.

In other words, if the index falls by 1%, the ETF will seek a 1% return. Like other cryptocurrency ETFs, the new product is linked to Ethereum's futures contracts rather than the spot price of the tokens. (Source link)

2. Aragon Association Announces Dissolution, ANT Holders Can Exchange Tokens for ETH

The Aragon Association, part of the DAO management platform Aragon, announced its dissolution, allowing ANT holders to exchange ANT for ETH at a fixed rate of 0.0025376 ETH/ANT.

To this end, the Aragon Association is deploying 86,343 ETH to a redemption contract on the Ethereum mainnet. Due to legal restrictions, particularly regulatory risks arising from token speculation and market manipulation, this decision could not be submitted for public vote. Future missions will continue in a product-centric structure, using remaining funds for product development. (Source link)

3. SBF Found Guilty on All 7 Charges, Faces Up to 115 Years in Prison

A U.S. jury found FTX founder SBF guilty on all seven charges brought against him by the U.S. government. The seven charges include wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX customers, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Alameda Research's lenders, conspiracy to commit securities fraud against FTX investors, conspiracy to commit commodity fraud against FTX customers, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

SBF faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison for defrauding FTX customers of approximately $8 billion. Additionally, in a trial currently scheduled for March 2024, SBF still faces five additional charges, including fraud against FTX customers in derivatives trading, securities fraud against FTX investors, and three conspiracy charges: bank fraud, operating an unlicensed money transfer business, and violating bribery regulations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. (Source link)

4. SBF Expected to Appeal Verdict, Sentencing Set for March 28, 2024

According to Reuters, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has set SBF's sentencing for March 28, 2024. SBF's defense attorneys opposed several of Kaplan's rulings before and during the trial and are expected to appeal the verdict.

Previous report, SBF was found guilty on all 7 charges and faces up to 115 years in prison. (Source link)

5. Venture Fund Ex/Ante Completes $33 Million Financing, Will Invest in AI, Web3, Digital Identity, and More

According to Forbes, the venture fund Ex/Ante, spun off from Google’s former chief Eric Schmidt's philanthropic venture capital arm Schmidt Futures, has completed $33 million in financing and will invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups. The fund has received support from companies such as Cendana Capital, Marc Andreessen, the Ford Foundation, and Union Square Ventures.

Reportedly, the fund's partner Michael Mosier was a top lawyer for cryptocurrency startups Espresso Systems and Chainalysis, as well as a former senior official at the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments. The fund will focus on "agentic technology" related to human agency and rights in the digital age, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data infrastructure, digital identity, fintech, and Web3. (Source link)

6. Unibot: Trading Resumes Normal, Refunds Fully Compensated

Unibot stated on social media that the token approval vulnerability encountered on October 31 has been fully resolved, and Unibot trading has resumed normal operations. The issue was only related to transactions involving router contracts deployed in vulnerable new deployments.

It was noted that the issue was limited to tokens and did not affect ETH balances, and refunds have been processed. The vulnerability resulted in approximately $600,000 in losses, which Unibot has fully compensated. (Source link)

7. Bloomberg: Alameda CEO, FTX Co-Founder, and FTX Engineering Head Have Pleaded Guilty, May Receive Leniency for Cooperating with Prosecutors

According to Bloomberg, Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and FTX engineering head Nishad Singh are key witnesses in SBF's trial. All three stated that SBF instructed them to transfer billions of dollars of FTX customer funds to Alameda (a hedge fund in which SBF holds a 90% stake) for fraudulent purposes.

As part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, these three have pleaded guilty. Cooperative witnesses typically receive leniency, especially if they help the government convict SBF. Several criminal defense attorneys following the case indicated that based on the testimonies of Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh, they may not serve prison time or have a very low probability of doing so. (Source link)

8. A Virtual Currency Fundraising Fraud Case in Shenzhen Involves Over 85.83 Million Yuan, Transferred to Luohu District People's Procuratorate for Prosecution

According to the Luohu District People's Procuratorate in Shenzhen, the case of suspect Hu Rong for fundraising fraud has been transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution by the Luohu Branch of the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau. The investigation agency determined that starting in 2017, Jiang Wei (already prosecuted), Huang Xiaofei (already prosecuted), and suspect Jiang Wanhao (alias: Jiang Guoqing, handled in another case) held promotional meetings and forums in multiple locations, promoting a blockchain virtual currency project launched by Hong Kong Zhichuang Technology Co., Ltd., boasting high returns to lure participants to invest continuously.

Reportedly, suspect Hu Rong, as a key member of this criminal group, actively promoted to investors and collected their investment funds. According to the complaint materials and the hierarchy chart from China Enterprise News, Hu Rong's studio received a total of 85,834,460.63 yuan, paid out 24,294,316.93 yuan, and netted 61,540,143.70 yuan from investors. (Source link)

9. OKLink: October Security Incidents Resulted in Approximately $42.81 Million in Losses, Number of Security Incidents Decreased by 267% Month-on-Month

According to the October security incident summary analysis released by OKLink, the total losses from security incidents across the network in October amounted to approximately $42.81 million, significantly decreasing compared to the number of incidents in September. Among them, REKT incidents accounted for 39% of the losses, with the most severe incident being the leakage of the private key of the Fantom Foundation wallet, resulting in a loss of $700,000, accounting for about 16.35% of the total losses in October. The second most common were RugPull incidents, accounting for about 25% of the total losses.

Additionally, scams and phishing incidents on official social media remain active, with 38 occurrences. OKLink reminds users to enhance their community security awareness to avoid unnecessary financial losses. (Source link)

10. Data: Approximately 1.35 Billion USDT Transferred from Address Starting with TDqSq to Binance Cold Wallet

According to on-chain data from Arkham, an address marked as a Binance address (starting with TDqSq) transferred 1.347 billion USDT to a Binance cold wallet starting with TWd4W. (Source link)

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

1.《Detailed Explanation of the New ZKP Bridge Solution: Introducing Optimistic into the zk "Requester-Prover" Separation Model》

Optimistic ZK assumes that all state transitions are correct and do not require immediate validity proofs. This design reduces the overall proof costs for ZKP projects while ensuring security through incentivizing decentralized challenger monitoring systems and challenging fraudulent behavior.

2.《Solana's "Post-Disaster" Rebuilding This Year: What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Stronger》

Now, after surviving the crisis, Solana is making a comeback, with multiple indicators showing growth, and its technical foundation and ecosystem development are recovering and even breaking through. As summarized in Messari's Q3 Solana ecosystem report, "the momentum is stronger than when it first entered the bear market." Perhaps more people are willing to believe that Solana, the "Ethereum killer," is writing a story of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger" as it approaches two cycles of bull and bear markets.

3.《Pantera Partner: Optimistic About Social, Modular, and Bitcoin Ecosystem Development》

From the emergence of AI + blockchain use cases to the increasingly important role of stablecoins in financial markets, to the maturity of zero-knowledge proofs, I believe that despite market fluctuations, these areas remain resilient. In this article, Paul Veradittakit from the well-known crypto VC Pantera will explore some areas they are closely monitoring.

4.《SBF Found Guilty on All Seven Charges, FTX Chapter Finally Comes to an End》

In the development of the cryptocurrency industry, SBF and his FTX have written a dramatically significant chapter, with FTX being an innovator that brought a new world to the industry, as well as an empire that dragged the market into darkness and chaos. SBF was a dreamer in the bull market and a "greedy fraudster" after the collapse. Regardless, this glorious page of FTX has now turned.