Weekly Report | U.S. SEC initiates legal action, classifying Ethereum as a security; BlackRock launches the first tokenized asset fund on the Ethereum network BUIDL; Bank of Japan raises interest rates for the first time in 17 years, officially ending the 8-year era of negative interest rates;
U.S. SEC initiates legal action, classifying Ethereum as a security; BlackRock launches the first tokenized asset fund on the Ethereum network BUIDL; Bank of Japan raises interest rates for the first time in 17 years, officially ending an 8-year era of negative interest rates; Interview with Solana Foundation Chair Lily Liu; What’s behind the surge of TON?Organizer: Elvin, ChainCatcher
"What Important Events Happened This Week (3.18-3.24)"
1. Fortune Magazine: U.S. SEC Initiates Legal Action to Classify Ethereum as a Security
According to ChainCatcher, Fortune Magazine reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is initiating legal action to classify Ethereum as a security, based on subpoenas received by U.S. companies related to the investigation. The SEC's investigation into Ethereum involves requesting all documents and financial records related to dealings with the Ethereum Foundation.
A source from a company that recently received a subpoena revealed that the SEC's investigation into the Switzerland-based Ethereum Foundation began shortly after the blockchain transitioned to a new governance model called "Proof of Stake" in September 2022. The SEC stated in response to Fortune's request for comment: "The SEC does not comment on the existence of potential investigations."
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2. Meme Project SLERF, Which Raised Over 50,000 SOL, Founder Accidentally Destroyed LP Tokens and Cannot Airdrop Tokens
According to ChainCatcher, the founder of the meme project SLERF, @Slerfsol, stated on the X platform that he accidentally destroyed the LP and airdrop reserved tokens due to an operational error, and the minting rights have been revoked, leaving him powerless.
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3. OKX's Xu Mingxing: The Listing Team's Purpose is to Discover Valuable Early Utility Tokens for Clients, Not Accepting Listing Recommendations
According to ChainCatcher, OKX CEO Xu Mingxing clarified on social media that the vision of the OKX listing team is to discover valuable early utility tokens for clients. "We do not accept listing recommendations; we research potential projects from the market and track token performance over the long term. Our listing committee will make independent decisions. Continuing to push tokens to OKX team members on Twitter will not be helpful; please stop doing so."
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4. BlackRock Launches First Tokenized Asset Fund BUIDL on Ethereum Network
According to ChainCatcher, BlackRock launched its first tokenized fund issued on a public blockchain this Wednesday—the BlackRock U.S. Dollar Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (acronym BUIDL). BUIDL will be subscribed to by Securitize Markets, LLC, providing qualified investors with the opportunity to earn dollar returns.
Tokenization remains a key focus of BlackRock's digital asset strategy. Through the tokenization of the fund, BUIDL will bring significant benefits to investors by enabling ownership issuance and trading on the blockchain, expanding investor access to on-chain products, providing instant and transparent settlement, and allowing cross-platform transfers. BNY Mellon will enable interoperability between the digital and traditional markets for the fund.
It is reported that BUIDL is a stable asset pegged to the U.S. dollar, with BlackRock directly paying daily accrued dividends as new tokens into investors' wallets. The fund will invest 100% of its total assets in cash, U.S. Treasury bonds, and repurchase agreements, allowing investors to earn returns while holding tokens on the blockchain.
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5. Bitcoin L2 Project BEVM Announces Completion of Seed Round and Part of Series A Financing of Tens of Millions of Dollars, Post-Money Valuation Reaches $200 Million
According to ChainCatcher, the Bitcoin Layer 2 project BEVM announced that it has completed seed round and part of Series A investment, raising tens of millions of dollars. Investors include nearly 20 institutions such as RockTree Capital, Waterdrip Capital, Arkstream Capital, ViaBTC Capital, Satoshi Lab, Web3port, Cogitent Ventures, MH Ventures, Mapleblock, Electrum Capital, Zephyrus Capital, Lotus Capital, 7UPDAO, and TimeTells, with a post-money valuation of $200 million.
The funds will be used to develop the Bitcoin ecosystem based on the Taproot consensus. BEVM will launch "BEVM-Stack" (BTClayer2 as a service) to help developers launch BTClayer2 with one click. Additionally, BEVM will develop the DBFX (Decentralized Bitcoin Forex) protocol to seamlessly connect native BTC to any DeFi protocol on any chain.
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6. BlackRock Executive: The Company Has No Intention to Launch Other Crypto Products Besides Bitcoin and Ethereum
According to ChainCatcher, BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, discussed the asset management company's views on other crypto products, stating: "For our clients, Bitcoin is absolutely the top priority. Then there is Ethereum, and almost nothing else." He mentioned that the crypto community hopes to see BlackRock launch more other crypto products, but "this is not our focus."
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7. Bank of Japan Raises Interest Rates for the First Time in 17 Years, Officially Ending Eight Years of Negative Interest Rate Era
According to ChainCatcher, the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate from -0.1% to 0-0.1%, in line with market expectations, marking the first rate hike since 2007 and officially ending the eight-year negative interest rate era.
Previously, Nikkei reported that the Bank of Japan would experience its first rate hike in seventeen years and end the YCC policy.
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8. Azuki Founder: I Am Chinese and Hope to Better Connect Eastern and Western Communities
According to ChainCatcher, Azuki founder Zagabond recently attended an Azuki event in Shanghai, stating that he is Chinese, born in Harbin, and this is his first return to China in over five years since the pandemic, hoping to better connect Eastern and Western communities.
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9. Ava Labs Founder: Beware of Junk L2 Projects; The Key is Whether the Project Can Solve the Biggest Problems in Cryptocurrency Today
According to ChainCatcher, Ava Labs founder Emin Gün Sirer tweeted a warning that the cryptocurrency space needs to remain highly vigilant against junk L2 projects. It is now very easy to build junk L2 networks, which can change every other day like some chains, and some people are just imitating those who are genuinely doing things while wanting to take photos with Vitalik.
He listed several characteristics of junk L2 projects, such as:
Project narratives do not align with technical realities. For example, centralized orderers and L2 networks lacking fraud proofs are contrary to cryptocurrency principles.
Projects sell tokens to raise funds, but future technologies are not clearly defined; such actions may constitute securities issuance.
Founders sell personal tokens before release, violating team restrictions. Eight-digit sales under the pretext of "thanking employees" are similar to SBF's behavior.
Circulating tokens are very few and may be manipulated through lending.
Founders complain about running out of cocaine, which is unethical.
He suggested assessing the value of projects by checking whether they can solve the biggest problems currently facing cryptocurrency.
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10. Data
- The number of active addresses on the TON network exceeded 320,000, with a month-on-month increase of 128.7%
- The Ethereum staking rate has reached 26.64%
- Nine spot Bitcoin ETFs, excluding GBTC, hold over 470,000 BTC
- The Base network's TVL has surpassed $2 billion, with a 7-day increase of 43.61%
- Since January 11, Grayscale has transferred out 266,470 BTC for GBTC redemptions
- The HECO Bridge attacker has transferred over 40,000 ETH to Tornado Cash in nearly 8 days, amounting to approximately $145.7 million
- SPACE ID will unlock 30.15 million ID tokens on March 22, accounting for 1.51% of the total supply
- Grayscale's Bitcoin holdings have decreased by 45% since January
- OKB completed its 23rd burn, totaling 11,476,883.02 tokens
"What Exciting Articles Are Worth Reading This Week (3.18-3.24)"
1. “Interview with Solana Foundation Chair Lily Liu: Expectations and Surprises of Solana”
In the second half of 2023, Solana made a strong recovery, with significant increases in some core data metrics: TVL, on-chain activity, daily DEX trading volume, and NFT trading volume, even surpassing Ethereum and the overall trading volume of L2 multiple times.
The Solana ecosystem continues to demonstrate its remarkable vitality. In addition to flourishing in areas like LSD, DeFi, and DePIN, the Solana ecosystem has recently sparked a new wave of meme frenzy, attracting a large influx of users with astonishing wealth myths. The price of Solana tokens has also broken the $200 mark for the first time in 27 months.
What has Solana done right? What strategic plans are in place for 2024?
Recently, Lily Liu stated in an interview with ChainCatcher that continuous technological innovation and community building are the core of Solana's resilience. In 2024, Solana will focus on payments, stablecoins, RWA, DePIN, and the AI+Crypto space.
With Hong Kong's opening up to the crypto market, Solana will also actively expand its Chinese-speaking community, aiming to become the go-to and preferred public chain for Asian applications.
2. “What is the New Asset 'Digital Object' on Bitcoin Layer 2 CKB that Rose Over 200 Times in 5 Days?”
Recently, the Bitcoin Layer 2 Nervos Network (CKB) ecosystem proposed a new asset concept—DOB (Digital Object), and its first DOB asset, Unicorn Box, has attracted market attention due to a surge in its floor price.
Since its launch on March 15 on the JoyID wallet, the floor price of Unicorn Box has reached 77,000 CKB (approximately $1,520), up over 200 times from the mint cost of 340 CKB. The total transaction volume of Unicorn Box on the JoyID MarketPlace has also exceeded 20 million CKB.
As the floor price of Unicorn Box rapidly rises, the airdrop party SeeU has been promoting it on the X platform, stating that they will destroy the remaining 80% of Unicorn Box (16,800 units), reducing the total number to no more than 4,200, and expressing the hope that Unicorn Box will become the golden shovel of the CKB and RGB++ ecosystem.
3. “Ultimate Research Report on Solana: Like Apple, But Different from Apple”
With the popularity of memes on Solana, it has garnered increasing attention in the market, with many considering Solana to be a major competitor alongside Ethereum. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the Solana ecosystem, discussing its narrative, development history, key technologies, and various projects within the ecosystem. This article will give readers a well-rounded understanding of Solana.
4. “What Applications on Solana Are Worth Noticing Amid the MEME Craze?”
Since the MEME token BOME (Book of Meme) set a market cap record of over $2 billion in just three days, "issuing MEME tokens on Solana and funding unfamiliar addresses with SOL" has become a new trend. The significant wealth effect has caused crypto community users to completely FOMO, with unfamiliar addresses easily raising millions or even tens of millions of dollars in SOL within a few hours.
The wealth effect of MEME tokens has brought tremendous traffic and attention to Solana, attracting a wave of external applications to the Solana ecosystem. In fact, prior to the MEME hype, hotspots on the Solana chain had never ceased, from last year's DePIN craze to the MEME dog Bonk, and a series of airdrops from projects like the oracle Pyth Network, DEX platform Jupiter, and cross-chain protocol Wormhole. As community users say, Solana chain never lacks opportunities; it is truly the "chain for the poor to get rich."
Besides MEME tokens, what other opportunities in the Solana ecosystem are worth participating in and paying attention to? This article will outline the active representative projects on the Solana chain.
5. “Interpreting the Current Status and Six Major Trends of National Debt RWA Projects”
On-chain asset tokenization is becoming an important long-term trend with enormous prospects. Among them, national debt RWA is becoming an important branch. This sector achieved nearly 7 times growth in 2023, and after a brief pullback at the end of 2023, it quickly returned to an upward trajectory.
This Bing Ventures research article will discuss the current status of national debt RWA and significant development trends in the entire RWA sector.
6. “Confirming Airdrops: Why is BounceBit, the BTC Staking Narrative, So Attractive?”
In 2024, the popularity of the re-staking market has surged. To date, Ethereum remains the main battlefield for the re-staking narrative, primarily due to the "re-staking" concept pioneered by EigenLayer on Ethereum. According to DeFiLlama data, as of the time of writing, the TVL of Ethereum's liquid re-staking protocols exceeds $6.5 billion. However, the cryptocurrency industry has always experienced cycles of imitation and narrative rotation. With Ethereum's re-staking being so hot and providing users with additional returns, Bitcoin naturally needs its own re-staking infrastructure to improve the asset utilization of BTC holders, unleash greater potential of BTC, and increase profitability. This article will introduce BounceBit, the first native re-staking chain in the BTC ecosystem.
7. “a16z: Why We Invested in the Shared Orderer Network Espresso?”
On March 21, 2024, a16z announced it led a $28 million Series B financing for the shared orderer network Espresso. a16z partner Ali Yahya published an article explaining why a16z invested in Espresso.
This article is a handbook prepared by Coinbase for institutional investors, detailing previous Bitcoin halving events to gain insights into past trends. However, due to the recent entry of Bitcoin ETFs into the market and Bitcoin reaching historical highs before the halving, this halving appears slightly different.
9. “Why Did TON Surge?”
How can a public chain that hasn't listed on Binance and whose ecosystem hasn't grown maintain a high market cap? This may be a question many practitioners want to ask. Since TON was listed on the OKX exchange, the K-line trend of Toncoin has formed a clear "W" shape during the small cycle from 2022 to 2024, creating a favorite W bottom for K-line enthusiasts.
Additionally, from trading data, TON's price has risen over 200% in 2024 alone, and over 400% in six months. As the price rises, token trading volume has surged, with the trading volume in the past three weeks being about four times that of a month ago.
Even more strikingly, as the price surged to $4.5, TON's total market cap exceeded $15 billion, ranking 11th in the cryptocurrency leaderboard (excluding stablecoins and pegged coins), highlighting its value performance.
When comparing these tokens in the top 30 rankings, we also find that TON is the only token that has not listed on Binance. Without the liquidity support of the world's largest exchange, TON has already occupied a high market cap position with its current circulating supply.
In comparison to other ecosystems, the number of projects in the TON ecosystem is not large. So what has driven the token price up and allowed TON and its ecosystem to stand out?
10. “A Comprehensive Analysis of the MEME Track: How to Become a Golden Dog Hunter?”
MEME plays a core role in Web3 culture, quickly resonating within the digital currency community through its unique dissemination methods and widespread popularity. These often humorous and satirical digital images or concepts not only deepen the connections among community members but also serve as important means of expressing opinions, emotions, and market trends.
MEME can cross language and cultural barriers, achieving widespread dissemination at a very low cost, thus playing an indispensable role in promoting awareness and participation in Web3 projects.
Recently, the performance of MEME tokens in the market has attracted widespread attention. According to CoinMarketCap data, both the market cap and trading volume of MEME tokens show significant growth, reflecting the popularity of these types of tokens and the high interest from investors. Additionally, MEME tokens often revolve around light-hearted and humorous themes, making them easy to spread rapidly on social media, thereby attracting more attention and participation.
