Weekly Report | The rates for 9 Ethereum spot ETFs have been announced; AI company Anthropic completes a new round of financing of $750 million; South Korea's first cryptocurrency regulatory framework is fully effective, focusing on investor protection
Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana ecosystem's re-staking protocol financing heat, which protocols can be gold mines?; Selling Trump: The former president's crypto business circle and "business tactics"; "Election Coin" PK, Ethereum once had the upper hand, can memes help Solana surpass ETH?Organizer: Luan Peng, ChainCatcher
"What Important Events Happened This Week (7.15-7.21)"
1. The general deadline for filing claims in the Terraform Labs bankruptcy case is set for August 9, 2024
According to ChainCatcher, Terra announced on X that the general deadline for filing claims in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases of Terraform Labs Pte Ltd (TFL) and Terraform Labs Limited (TLL) is set for August 9, 2024, at 5 PM (Eastern Time).
If users have any claims against TFL that arose before January 21, 2024, or July 1, they must be submitted before the general deadline.
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2. Google Trends shows a significant increase in "Ethereum" search volume, rising from 57 to 82 points last week
According to ChainCatcher, Google Trends data shows that interest in the term "Ethereum" has significantly increased over the past 30 days, climbing from 57 points (out of 100) on July 14 to 82 points on Monday. Similarly, search queries for "Bitcoin" have also risen, with scores increasing from 71 to 76 points over the past two days.
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3. Chinese businessman Miles Guo convicted of fraud in the U.S., facing decades in prison
According to ChainCatcher, as reported by CoinDesk, exiled Chinese businessman Miles Guo has been found guilty of defrauding his supporters and conducting a $1 billion scam with his company GTV Media Group.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated, "Today, Miles Guo's scheme has been exposed. Just now, the jury unanimously found Guo guilty of extortion and multiple counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. He faces decades in prison."
In addition to the criminal trial, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has also charged Guo with raising $500 million from retail investors to establish a cryptocurrency company called H-Coin, falsely claiming that 20% of the company's assets were backed by gold.
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4. Insiders: AI company Anthropic completes $750 million new funding round, with participation from Menlo Ventures and others
According to ChainCatcher, citing insiders from TechCrunch, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Menlo Ventures is one of the largest investors in AI company Anthropic, participating in a yet-to-be-announced funding round exceeding $750 million.
Previous news reported that Anthropic and Menlo Ventures jointly launched a $100 million AI fund.
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5. The fees for 9 spot Ethereum ETFs have been announced
According to ChainCatcher, after various issuers submitted S-1/A filings for spot Ethereum ETFs to the SEC, the fees for 9 spot Ethereum ETFs have now been announced, with the following details:
- BlackRock spot Ethereum ETF fee is 0.25% (0.12% for the first $2.5 billion or first 12 months), code ETHA;
- Fidelity spot Ethereum ETF fee is 0.25% (no management fee for the entire year of 2024), code FETH;
- Bitwise spot Ethereum ETF fee is 0.20% (0% for the first $500 million or first 6 months), code ETHW;
- 21Shares spot Ethereum ETF fee is 0.21% (0% for the first $500 million or first 12 months), code GETH;
- VanEck spot Ethereum ETF fee is 0.20% (0% for the first $1.5 billion or first 12 months), code ETHV;
- Invesco Galaxy spot Ethereum ETF fee is 0.25%, code QETH;
- Franklin spot Ethereum ETF fee is 0.19% (0% before January 31, 2025, or for the first $10 billion), code EZET;
- Grayscale spot Ethereum ETF fee is 2.50%, code ETHE;
- Grayscale spot Ethereum mini ETF fee is 0.25% (0.12% for the first $2 billion or first 12 months), code ETH.
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6. South Korea's first cryptocurrency regulatory framework fully in effect, focusing on investor protection
According to ChainCatcher, as reported by The Block, South Korea's first cryptocurrency regulatory framework is now fully in effect, focusing on investor protection. The new law, the "Virtual Asset User Protection Act," was officially approved on July 18, 2024, and provides a one-year grace period to refine regulatory details.
The law imposes stricter requirements on digital asset exchanges, which are now required to keep at least 80% of user deposits in cold wallets, thereby isolating user deposits from the exchange's own funds. Exchanges must also entrust user cash deposits to local licensed banks for safekeeping and hold cryptocurrency reserves equivalent to the quantity and type of customer deposits. Additionally, South Korea's crypto services are now required to purchase sufficient insurance or establish reserve funds to address hacking incidents or liquidity crises.
In addition to measures to protect user funds, the law also requires exchanges to establish real-time monitoring systems to report potentially illegal trading activities. Companies that do not comply with the new regulations may face penalties from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) or be suspended from operations.
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7. Putin: Russia must "seize the moment" to create conditions for the circulation of digital assets
According to ChainCatcher, as reported by Bitcoin.com, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that now is the time for Russia to create and enhance the environment necessary for the adoption of digital assets and the Russian CBDC (digital ruble). Over 30,000 transactions have already been conducted during the pilot testing phase of the digital ruble, with more than 7,000 transactions constituting payments for goods and services.
According to Russia's official news agency TASS, Putin stated, "As they say, Russia must 'seize the moment' to timely establish a legal framework and regulations, develop infrastructure, and create conditions for the circulation of digital assets both domestically and in relations with foreign partners."
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8. Vitalik: Blockchain can serve as a "truth machine," but needs other tools to assist in discovering the truth
According to ChainCatcher, Vitalik Buterin responded to a user on X asking "What is a globally universal blockchain," stating that "Blockchain is a 'truth machine' in a certain sense, providing consensus on when messages are sent, which is close to the truth, but it won't tell you 'whether the moon landing was real.' This greatly reduces the attack surface of the blockchain, but it does mean we need other tools to actually execute (or assist) in that kind of truth discovery."
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9. Data: The net inflow into U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs has reached $17 billion year-to-date for the first time, equivalent to the net amount unlocked from GBTC
According to ChainCatcher, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas posted on social media that the net inflow into U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs has reached $17 billion year-to-date for the first time. This is a noteworthy figure as it represents the net amount unlocked from GBTC and has grown essentially without any hype, relying solely on net demand and adoption. While it may decline, it is currently on the rise.
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10. JPMorgan: The cryptocurrency rebound is unlikely to be sustained; Trump's presidency would benefit Bitcoin and gold
According to ChainCatcher, as reported by The Block, JPMorgan analysts stated that any rebound in cryptocurrency prices is likely tactical (temporary and strategic) rather than the beginning of a lasting upward trend. They noted that Bitcoin's current price of around $67,500 is high compared to its production cost of about $43,000 and the volatility-adjusted price of gold (around $53,000).
In a report on Thursday, JPMorgan analysts wrote that the difference between Bitcoin's price and JPMorgan's volatility-adjusted gold price "indicates mean reversion near the zero line, thus limiting the potential for long-term increases in Bitcoin's price."
Analysts reiterated that as the liquidation volume decreases after July, cryptocurrencies are expected to rebound starting in August. They noted that Bitcoin futures have recently performed poorly due to the liquidations of Gemini and Mt. Gox creditors, as well as the German government's sale of seized Bitcoin. Analysts stated that these liquidations may fade after July and expect Bitcoin futures to rebound starting in August, aligning with the recent rise in gold futures.
Analysts stated, "We believe that momentum traders, such as commodity trading advisors, have played a significant role in driving gold futures. Gold's momentum signals surged into the overbought territory of last April in July."
JPMorgan analysts indicated that if Trump were to be re-elected president, gold would likely benefit. Analysts noted that some investors believe Trump is more favorable to cryptocurrency companies and regulation than the current Biden administration. They added that Trump's potential trade policies could lead emerging market central banks, especially the People's Bank of China, to increase diversification investments in gold.
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"What Great Articles Are Worth Reading This Week (7.15-7.21)"
In April, ChainCatcher reviewed the re-staking protocols on Ethereum and LRT protocols in the article “Frequent Capital Injections, Project Airdrops, Re-Staking LRT Track Becomes a 'New Gold Mine',” which includes EigenLayer and LRT protocols based on it, such as Renzo, Ether.fi, Kelp DAO, EigenPie, YieldNest, Swell, Pendle Finance, etc.
Although the issuance of Renzo tokens and the airdrop of EigenLayer are expected to materialize, the market enthusiasm for the re-staking track has remained high over the past three months, with "points wars + one fish multiple eats" still fervent in the crypto community, and large financing rounds in the tens of millions occurring frequently.
For example, on June 18, Renzo announced the completion of a $17 million financing round led by Galaxy Ventures; on June 11, the re-staking project Symbiotic announced the completion of a $5.8 million seed round financing, led by Paradigm and Cyber Fund.
Data shows that among all staked ETH, 16.3% are participating in Eigenlayer, Karak_Network, and other re-staking.
Perhaps seeing the wealth opportunities in re-staking, the narrative of the re-staking track has recently spilled over from its main base of Ethereum to Bitcoin, Solana, and other ecosystems.
It is reported that at least six teams in the Solana ecosystem are building Solana re-staking projects.
Recently, there have been two financing rounds exceeding tens of millions in the Bitcoin ecosystem. On May 30, Babylon completed a $70 million financing round led by Paradigm; on July 2, the Bitcoin re-staking protocol Lombard completed a $16 million seed round financing, led by Polychain Capital.
2. “Selling Trump: The Former President's Crypto Business Circle and 'Business Tactics'”
On July 13 at 6:11 PM Eastern Time, former U.S. President Trump, a leading candidate in the election, was attacked during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, and with the sound of gunfire, the call for Trump to win the election reached unprecedented heights.
As the suspense of the U.S. election gradually becomes clear, this assassination attempt has also become a catalyst for market trends, leading to a rebound in cryptocurrencies, which quickly broke through $60,000 and even surged to $65,000.
Two days after the assassination attempt, Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social that he had chosen Republican Senator JD Vance from Ohio as his vice-presidential candidate. Vance has been a long-time supporter of crypto technology and has publicly disclosed holding over $200,000 in crypto assets. He appreciates the freedom that cryptocurrencies provide through their censorship-resistant properties. This nomination of Vance undoubtedly strengthens Trump's camp's belief in cryptocurrencies.
During his presidency, Trump appointed several officials who were friendly to cryptocurrencies, which may be one reason for the collective rise of crypto assets when Trump's election prospects improved.
3. “How Do ETF Issuers 'Buy' Bitcoin?”
What Exactly Is a Spot Bitcoin ETF?
Spot Bitcoin ETFs have emerged, but how do they actually work?
What happens when people "buy" an ETF? Who gets involved? How does this relate to the buying and selling of the underlying asset (BTC)?
Here is a simplified step-by-step process:
4. “In the 'Election Coin' PK, Ethereum Once Had the Upper Hand; Can Meme Help Solana Surpass ETH?”
After the assassination attempt on Trump, for many meme players, what might be more regrettable than not rushing to FIGHT, FEAR NOT memes earlier is rushing to the wrong chain.
Solana is recognized as the meme king among public chains this year, but in this round of popular election-themed memes, despite Solana having a first-mover advantage over Ethereum's same-name meme, it was once overtaken.
Between July 14 and July 16, the FIGHT and FEAR NOT memes launched on Solana chain were about three hours ahead of their Ethereum counterparts. However, after three days of fermentation, the Fight and FEAR NOT memes on the Solana chain, in terms of market capitalization and peak increase, were once inferior to those on the Ethereum chain.
Data on July 17 showed that the market capitalization of FIGHT and FEAR NOT on the Ethereum chain reached $68 million and $20.5 million, respectively, while the same-name memes on Solana were only $12.5 million and $1.6 million.
Currently, the election-themed coins are still fermenting, and the outcome is uncertain. The emergence of similar rare narrative meme coins may still pose a dilemma for meme players regarding whether to rush to Solana or Ethereum.
The competition between meme coins on the two chains has also been elevated by many crypto users to the rivalry between Solana and Ethereum, the two most prominent public chains.
5. “An Overview of Notable Donors in the Crypto Industry Supporting Trump's Campaign”
Recently, two major channels for Trump's fundraising, the Super Political Action Committees (Super PACs), namely the Trump 47 Committee and America PAC, have submitted disclosure documents to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) regarding the acceptance of donations, revealing contributions from several leaders in the crypto industry or crypto-friendly individuals.
Data shows that from April 1 to June 30, the Winklevoss brothers, Cameron and Tyler, have donated the most to support Trump, contributing over $2.5 million. Sequoia Capital partner Douglas Leone, former PayPal executives, and Kraken co-founders follow closely behind.
As the U.S. election day approaches, Trump's fundraising efforts are intensifying. PANews has compiled a list of notable donors in the crypto industry supporting Trump's campaign based on publicly disclosed information.
In recent years, the importance of "cryptocurrency" in political policy has been increasing, with various jurisdictions considering different bills to regulate participants in blockchain activities. For example, the EU's “Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA)”, the UK's regulatory efforts on stablecoins, and the complex legislative and enforcement attempts by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In my view, most of these bills are reasonable, although there are concerns that the government may take extreme measures, such as classifying almost all tokens as securities or banning self-custody wallets. Due to these concerns, an increasing number of cryptocurrency practitioners have begun to actively engage in politics and almost entirely base their support on the attitudes of parties and candidates toward "cryptocurrency."
In this article, I oppose this trend, particularly because I believe this decision-making approach carries high risks and may contradict the original intentions and values that led you into the cryptocurrency space.
7. “The Current State of the Korean Crypto Market: Retail Frenzy, Regulatory Gaps Remain”
As a technology powerhouse, South Korea occupies an important position in the global cryptocurrency space, thanks to widespread internet access and a tech-savvy population. Retail investors in South Korea are very active, leading to unique market phenomena such as the "kimchi premium" and "listing boosts," reflecting citizens' enthusiasm for cryptocurrency investments. However, these behaviors have also drawn the attention of regulators and market observers, prompting the introduction of new regulations that are expected to impact the global cryptocurrency market.
In this research article, we will (1) review the history of cryptocurrency in South Korea, (2) explore the current state of the industry, particularly the aforementioned phenomena and new regulations, and (3) introduce some key players in the domestic market.
"After more than ten years, I'm not sure if this will really happen, but we finally did it! It's been a long journey, and I'm glad to see we are finally close to the goal, just a little bit more to go…" Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès stated earlier this month.
As of July, Mt. Gox has begun repaying creditors in the form of BTC and BCH. However, according to the trustee's documents, the payment times vary among different cryptocurrency exchanges, with Kraken's payment time potentially taking 90 days, Bitstamp 60 days, and BitGo showing payments within 20 days, while SBI VC Trade and Bitbank will complete payments within 14 days. Therefore, Mt. Gox creditors may have to wait up to three months to receive BTC or BCH. According to a voting survey initiated on Reddit, Kraken is the primary choice for creditors, receiving 64.7% of participant votes.
Currently, some custodians have received compensation funds for creditors. For example, the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank transferred the Bitcoin compensation from Mt. Gox to creditors within hours of receiving it, without waiting for 14 days; Kraken recently also announced that the platform has successfully received creditor funds (BTC and BCH) from Mt. Gox's trustee. Although Kraken will distribute these funds as soon as possible, it is expected to take 7-14 days to credit the funds to creditors' accounts. The amount creditors will receive is determined by the trustee, and Kraken will distribute according to their instructions.
According to a recent notice from Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, as of July 16, the trustee has repaid BTC and BCH to over 13,000 creditors, which exceeds half of the previously disclosed approximately 24,000 creditors. Additionally, CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn recently revealed that 36% of Mt. Gox Bitcoin has been allocated to creditors. As of July 17, the trustee still holds 140,000 BTC, which will be gradually distributed in the future.
For other creditors who have not yet received compensation, Nobuaki Kobayashi recently reminded that these creditors need to confirm account validity, the exchange's acceptance of agreement intentions, and complete discussions with the trustee to ensure that repayments can be safely conducted.
9. “Worldcoin's 'Money Grab' Plan: Price Manipulation, Misleading, and Unexpected Victims”
Worldcoin (WLD) has recently seen a significant price increase, rising about 45.1% over the past week. However, according to crypto researcher DeFi^2's revelations on X, this surge was orchestrated by the Worldcoin team for high-level sell-offs. Here are the details.
Worldcoin is expected to begin internal unlocks within seven days, making it one of the lowest circulating tokens in crypto history, with only about 2.78% of tokens in circulation. Considering this, it makes sense to delve into how the project achieved this state. This article reveals how the Worldcoin team secretly controls prices to maintain an FDV of around $30 billion when internal unlocks begin.
First, some background. When Worldcoin was first launched, the foundation's circulating supply was 1.4%, or 140 million WLD. While there were concerns that such a low circulation would lead to a very high FDV at launch, the team allocated 100 million WLD to market makers and provided them with call options, allowing them to repurchase large amounts of tokens at slightly above $2 at the end of the contract, aiming to prevent prices from soaring too high. Allocating supply to market makers to create favorable prices is not uncommon in the industry.
10. “SEC Detailed Explanation: Why MATIC, MANA, CHZ, SAND, and LUNA Are Classified as Securities?”
Consensys's crypto assets have become targets of SEC enforcement actions due to being classified as securities. These crypto assets include, but are not limited to, the following: AMP (AMP token, offered through MetaMask Swaps since October 2020), AXS (Axie Infinity Shards, offered since November 2020), BNB (native token of the BNB Chain ecosystem, offered since March 2021), CHZ (details below), COTI (COTI token, offered since October 2020), DDX (DerivaDAO token, offered since December 2020), FLOW (FLOW token, offered since November 2020), HEX (HEX token, offered since October 2020), LCX (LCX token, offered since October 2020), MANA (details below), MATIC (details below), NEXO (NEXO platform token, offered since October 2020), OMG (OMG Network token, offered since October 2020), POWR (Powerledger token, offered since October 2020), SAND (details below), LUNA (details below), RLY (Rally token, offered since October 2020), XYO (XYO token, offered since October 2020).
Here are some details about certain crypto asset securities that Consensys traded on behalf of investor accounts through its MetaMask Swaps platform (non-exhaustive list).
Since their initial issuance or sale, each of these crypto asset securities has been issued and sold as investment contracts, thus being classified as securities. For each crypto asset security, the statements of the issuers and promoters reasonably lead investors to expect profits from the management or entrepreneurial efforts of these issuers and promoters (and related third parties). This reasonable expectation exists whether investors acquire these crypto asset securities through the initial issuance, from previous investors, or through crypto asset brokerage platforms, including MetaMask Swaps.
