Weekly Report | Governments around the world hold a total of over 470,000 bitcoins, accounting for 2.6% of the total circulation; Russia will launch international crypto payments by the end of the year; Qatar will implement a crypto framework by the end of 2024
Dialogue with GaiaNet CEO: Challenging the giants, creating a decentralized "ChatGPT"; Full text of the Federal Reserve's decision: Keeping interest rates unchanged, no signal of rate cuts; Meme carnival night, Trump was "defeated" by a dog.Organizer: Luan Peng, ChainCatcher
"What Important Events Happened This Week (7.29-8.4)"
1. CoinGecko: Governments Worldwide Hold Over 470,000 Bitcoins, Accounting for 2.6% of Total Circulation
According to ChainCatcher, a research report from CoinGecko shows that governments around the world hold a total of 471,380.6 BTC, valued at approximately $32.7 billion, accounting for 2.6% of the total circulating supply of Bitcoin.
Among them, the U.S. government holds the largest amount of Bitcoin among national governments, with 213,297 BTC, worth about $14.82 billion. A significant portion of the Bitcoin held by the U.S. government comes from the seizure of the dark web "Silk Road."
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2. Russia Exchanges Two Prisoners for Some Russians Detained by the U.S. and Its Allies, Including BTC-e Founder Vinnik
According to ChainCatcher, Protos reports that Russia exchanged Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and a former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan for some Russians detained by the U.S. and its allies, including Alexander Vinnik, the founder of the BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange.
Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan were taken to a location outside of Russia yesterday. According to Business Insider citing TASS, Vinnik and others will be sent in another direction, and their names have been removed from the FBI's electronic database.
It is reported that in May of this year, Vinnik pleaded guilty during his time at BTC-e, admitting to conspiring to launder money. He is responsible for approximately $121 million in losses and encouraged criminals to use the platform to launder and store illegal proceeds. Gershkovich and Whelan were arrested in March 2023 and December 2020, respectively, on espionage charges, which the U.S. denies.
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3. OKX CEO Star Criticizes Some Token Projects for "Harvesting Users," Says Exchanges Should Not Be Accomplices
According to ChainCatcher, OKX CEO Star retweeted @xiaomucrypto's tweet "aevo project has harvested users" and stated: "What is the original intention of cryptocurrency exchanges to list tokens? Some token projects, after being listed on exchanges, only do things like releasing, reducing holdings, and harvesting users. Exchanges should not be accomplices to such projects, and OKX has not done well in this regard. Without temporary regulation on listings and reductions, how can we protect this market? This is something the entire industry should reflect on."
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4. Forbes Reporter: Harris Campaign Team to Meet with Crypto Industry Leaders Next Monday in Washington
According to ChainCatcher, Forbes reporter Eleanor Terrett disclosed on X that California Congressman Ro Khanna will host another meeting in Washington on Monday, with representatives from the crypto industry, Democratic politicians, and the Harris campaign team attending.
Eleanor Terrett stated that this move represents an effort by pro-crypto Democrats to re-establish a new starting point with the industry.
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5. Bitwise CIO: Market "Not Optimistic Enough," Investors Need to Rethink Potential Upside of Mainstream Cryptocurrencies
According to ChainCatcher, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan believes that the market is "not optimistic enough" about Bitcoin, and after the Bitcoin 2024 conference, investors need to rethink the potential upside of this mainstream cryptocurrency.
Hougan believes that political support may be due to the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies among Americans. The strong lobbying influence of the industry in Washington has prompted many politicians to publicly support Bitcoin, even if their support is more about attracting its growing visibility rather than a true belief in its value.
This shift in perspective and the growing popularity of Bitcoin have led Hougan to "rethink what is possible." Hougan pointed out that ideas once considered far-fetched are becoming increasingly likely: G20 countries adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets to outpace the U.S., comprehensive crypto legislation passing quickly due to bipartisan support, and Wall Street's large-scale acceptance of crypto.
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6. Russian Central Bank Governor: Russia to Launch International Crypto Payments by Year-End
According to ChainCatcher, the governor of the Russian Central Bank stated that Russia plans to launch international cryptocurrency payments by the end of this year to combat Western sanctions. The central bank is prepared to take flexible measures and has already been discussing the conditions of this initiative with various ministries, agencies, and businesses.
Additionally, the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) has preliminarily approved legislation allowing businesses to use cryptocurrencies for international payments.
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7. Tancheng County Public Security Bureau Dismantles a Criminal Gang Using Virtual Currency for Money Laundering, Arrests 4 Suspects
According to ChainCatcher, the Tancheng team of the Linyi City Public Security Bureau reported on their official account that they recently dismantled a criminal gang that laundered money for scammers, arresting 4 suspects. On July 1, after receiving a tip from a local resident, Ms. Li, about a possible investment fraud, the police immediately contacted her. Ms. Li admitted that she had been lured by a "successful man" to recharge over 600,000 yuan on a fake investment platform a month ago.
The police identified the suspects and pursued them overnight for over 1,500 kilometers, successfully capturing suspects Li and Qiu in Changning, Hunan, and later arresting suspects Zeng and Miao, who were counting cash in the outskirts of Tancheng.
Investigations revealed that the criminal gang used virtual currency transactions to conspire multiple times with overseas scam suspects to transfer the scammed funds and illegally profit over 50,000 yuan.
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8. Data: TRY Trading Volume Exceeds $10 Billion for 8 Consecutive Months, the Longest on Record
According to ChainCatcher, data from Kaiko shows that the trading volume of the Turkish Lira (TRY) has demonstrated resilience against the volatility of the cryptocurrency market this year, exceeding $10 billion for 8 consecutive months, marking the longest period on record.
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9. Qatar to Implement Crypto Framework by End of 2024
According to ChainCatcher, Henk Jan Hoogendoorn, head of the financial services department at the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), stated that Qatar has established a solid framework for tokenizing various real-world assets, including securities, debt capital market instruments, investments, Islamic bonds, and other asset classes. This framework is expected to be completed and issued in the fourth quarter of this year.
Additionally, QFC has recently established a digital asset lab to encourage innovation and research in the financial and digital asset sectors.
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10. ByBit Exchange Suspends Operations in France
According to ChainCatcher, ByBit announced in a press release on August 1 that it would cease operations in France and restrict account functions for French users.
ByBit stated that starting August 2, French users' accounts will be "restricted to closing positions only," preventing the opening of new positions or depositing new funds in their ByBit services and products.
Starting August 13, all open positions will be automatically liquidated, and banking services for French customers will also be suspended, allowing customers to withdraw any remaining funds in their ByBit accounts.
ByBit concluded the announcement by stating that it looks forward to returning to the French market once it obtains the appropriate regulatory licenses as required by French law.
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"What Great Articles Are Worth Reading This Week (7.29-8.24)"
From founding the mining giant Bitmain to creating Asia's largest crypto asset management platform Matrixport, Wu Jihan and Ge Yuesheng seem to adhere to a basic principle of avoiding reinventing the wheel.
They prefer to operate in blue ocean markets, relying on original eye-catching products to capture market share and become market leaders.
In 2013, Bitmain quickly dominated the market as one of the first companies to engage in Bitcoin mining, once controlling over 30% of the network's hash rate, with founder Wu Jihan seen as the only person with a chance to control Bitcoin.
In just over five years, Bitmain achieved a valuation of hundreds of billions of dollars, becoming the top crypto unicorn.
At the end of 2018, after leaving Bitmain, Wu Jihan and Ge Yuesheng targeted the still-developing Asian crypto asset management sector, founding Matrixport and quickly launching a pioneering crypto financial product, "Dual-Currency Wealth Management," to make a strong market entry.
Two years after its establishment, Matrixport successfully joined the ranks of unicorns. Now, with over $3 billion in custody and asset management, Matrixport has become one of the most important leaders in the crypto asset management market.
2. “Coinbase Q2 2024 Earnings Report: Revenue of $1.45 Billion, Net Profit Down 97% Quarter-on-Quarter”
Coinbase announced its second-quarter earnings today, reporting revenue of $1.45 billion, a decrease of 11% quarter-on-quarter but over 100% year-on-year, nearly in line with analysts' expectations of $1.37 billion. Net income was $36 million, down 97% quarter-on-quarter. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was $596 million. Coinbase has achieved positive revenue growth for four consecutive quarters.
Total trading volume for Coinbase in the second quarter was $226 billion, a 28% decrease from the first quarter, with trading revenue of $781 million, down 27% quarter-on-quarter. Subscription and service revenue grew 17% to $599 million. Total operating expenses were $1.1 billion, up 26% quarter-on-quarter. Coinbase made good progress in diversifying its revenue in the second quarter, with subscription and service revenue reaching nearly $600 million. The balance sheet increased to $7.8 billion.
Notably, Coinbase's custody fee revenue in the second quarter was $35 million, a 7% increase quarter-on-quarter. The main driver was the average cryptocurrency asset price in the second quarter being higher than in the first quarter, benefiting from its role as a custodian for BTC ETF products. Additionally, Coinbase generated $240 million in interest income from USDC stablecoins in the second quarter, a 22% increase quarter-on-quarter.
On July 31, Eduard, the founder of the leading StarkNet derivatives platform ZKX, announced the shutdown of the platform due to the inability to find a viable economic path, stating that all user funds would be refunded to trading accounts.
According to CoinGecko data, since the announcement of the shutdown, the ZKX token has dropped over 50%, currently priced at $0.01.
However, the news of ZKX's shutdown has been fermenting in the crypto community, as the project had just issued the ZKX token weeks prior and announced a significant $7.5 million financing supported by top institutions like GCR, Amber Group, and Crypto.com, making the shutdown quite unexpected.
Investor @Ye Su posted on social media that as an investor, he had not received any prior notice before ZKX's closure.
He added that the team claimed they were out of money, refused to provide any financial or expenditure details, and were unwilling to communicate with investors. Most projects consider how to pivot and actively communicate during difficult times; in contrast, Edward took money from early supporters without any communication, showing a lack of ethical standards and losing the right to start a business in the industry in the future.
4. “Interview with GaiaNet CEO: Challenging Giants to Build a Decentralized 'ChatGPT'”
In 2015, Matt Wright became involved in crypto after helping a leading UK bank, Barclays, host a blockchain hackathon, and he has now been in the crypto space for nearly a decade.
Matt Wright previously worked at JPMorgan, where he participated in the development of the open-source blockchain platform Quorum. After Quorum was acquired by Consensys, Matt Wright joined Consensys as the community lead and later managed Consensys's DAO organization and its accelerator, Fellowship.
Most of the time, Matt Wright has been dealing with developers. With the development of AI technology, more and more developers around him are getting involved in AI-related projects.
However, Matt soon realized that the current AI field is dominated by a few centralized organizations in Silicon Valley, leading to many issues such as censorship and bias in closed-source models, high model training costs, user privacy, and IP ownership.
Therefore, Matt decided to lead his team to create a truly democratic AI infrastructure that can solve these problems, and Gaia was born in May this year. As an open-source distributed AI infrastructure project, Gaia aims to be a decentralized alternative to AI giants, intending to decentralize AI Agent software so that AI data content providers can have rightful ownership and compensation for their data content.
The first use case of GaiaNet emerged from academia. Dr. Yang, director of the FHL Vive Center at the University of California, Berkeley, is using GaiaNet's distributed network to create a decentralized teaching assistant by integrating all his courses, writings, and student feedback.
In addition to building network infrastructure, GaiaNet is also seeking cooperation with academic institutions that have valuable data, trying to enable them to have their own AI Agents.
From its inception, GaiaNet secured $10 million in seed funding, with major strategic advisors including Lex Sokolin from Generative Ventures, Brian Johnson from Republic Capital, Shawn Ng from 7RIDGE, Kishore Bhatia, EVM Capital, Mantle EcoFund, and ByteTrade Lab.
The Federal Reserve has maintained the federal funds rate target range at 5.25%-5.50% for the eighth consecutive time and reiterated that it will not lower rates until it has greater confidence in inflation, stating that the committee will focus on both inflation and employment risks.
On July 29, "499,000 COMP tokens worth $25 million" were "legally" transferred from the Compound treasury to a strange and unmonitorable multi-signature address through a community vote, triggering a DAO governance attack.
After the proposal to transfer COMP was approved, the price of COMP tokens fell nearly 7% within 24 hours, from $50 to $46.6.
On July 30, Compound's growth officer Bryan Colligan stated that after communicating with the whale behind this proposal, they launched a staking product for COMP tokens called Stake COMP (stCOMP), which will be controlled by Compound DAO, with 30% of the new market reserve funds added to the Compound protocol each year allocated to COMP stakers as a condition for canceling the proposal.
Currently, the "Value $24 Million COMP Transfer" proposal 289 has been canceled, and in response to this news, the price of COMP tokens rose over 13% in a single day, currently priced at $51.4.
7. “Vitalik Buterin's EDCON 2024 Speech Highlights: The Next Decade of Ethereum”
Since its inception, Ethereum has led the innovation and development of blockchain technology. Since the Ethereum blockchain officially launched on July 30, 2015, it has attracted the attention of developers worldwide with its unique charm, collectively drawing the blueprint for a decentralized future.
At EDCON 2024, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin once again stood in the spotlight, delivering a keynote speech on "The Next 10 Years of Ethereum," reviewing Ethereum's significant progress in fees, transaction inclusion times, and wallet security, and predicting that smart contract wallets will be widely used in the next five years.
8. “Meme Night: Trump 'Defeated' by a Dog”
As the annual Bitcoin conference in the cryptocurrency circle has always attracted attention from all walks of life, coupled with the high-profile announcement of Trump, a key figure in the U.S. election, to give a speech, this conference naturally became one of the hottest events recently.
However, the hottest meme winner that night was not the Trump concept but the new Shiba Inu, Neiro, from the owner of the original Doge prototype, Kabosu.
On July 28, Beijing time, the three-day Bitcoin 2024 (Nashville) conference came to a close.
Bitcoin 2024 is destined to leave a significant mark in crypto history. Coinciding with the critical time of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, this Bitcoin technology forum has become one of the largest political stages.
Compared to previous years' focus on Bitcoin's technological innovations, Bitcoin 2024 saw a gathering of politicians, with the market's attention almost entirely on the crypto commitments of politicians.
U.S. presidential candidates Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and several U.S. senators participated in the conference, proposing key strategies for Bitcoin and the future direction of the crypto market.
After more than a decade of development, the Bitcoin conference has evolved from a forum focused solely on tech geeks to a political stage filled with politicians, reflecting the expanding influence of cryptocurrencies, finally gaining entry into mainstream discourse.
Bitcoin may not need politicians, but politicians now need cryptocurrencies.
Humpy, the main leader of Golden Boys, has previously initiated "hijackings" through DAOs on multiple DeFi protocols.
