This Week's Key News Preview | Trump and Musk will be interviewed; Democratic crypto supporters plan to hold an online town hall meeting; U.S. CPI data will be released on Wednesday
Highlights of the week from August 12 to August 18.Organizer: Fairy, ChainCatcher
Key News:
- Trump to have an interview with Musk
- Bybit to cease services in France, all remaining open positions will be closed on August 13
- OKX to exit the Nigerian market on August 16 due to changes in local regulatory environment
- Democrats launch "Crypto for Harris" campaign to counter Trump, planning a meeting this week
- FTX customers must choose between Bahamas or U.S. options by 4:00 AM on August 17
- U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) to be announced on Wednesday
- Immutable plans to shut down Immutable X marketplace on August 13
August 12 (Monday)
Trump to have an interview with Musk on Tuesday morning
According to Jinshi, former U.S. President Trump stated that he will have an interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday morning.
Aleph Zero to launch EVM mainnet on August 12
Layer1 privacy-enhanced blockchain Aleph Zero announced it will launch its EVM mainnet on August 12.
dYdX community initiates on-chain vote on whether to add Zerolend on dYdX Chain, deadline August 12
The dYdX Foundation announced on social media that an on-chain vote regarding whether the dYdX community should add Zerolend on the dYdX Chain has begun, with voting ending at 15:16 UTC on August 12, 2024.
Currently, the vote count stands at 46,707,390 DYDX, with 100% of votes in favor of the proposal.
August 13 (Tuesday)
Binance to suspend Conflux (CFX) token deposits and withdrawals on August 13 to support network upgrade and hard fork
Binance is expected to suspend Conflux (CFX) token deposits and withdrawals at 13:30 on August 13, 2024, UTC+8, to support its network upgrade and hard fork. The upgrade and fork will occur at block height 247,480,000.
Immutable plans to shut down Immutable X marketplace on August 13
According to NFT Plazas, Immutable recently announced it will shut down its Immutable X marketplace on August 13 and cease operations entirely on September 27. The Immutable X marketplace was initially launched to showcase the capabilities of the Immutable SDK, and will now focus on supporting third-party markets rather than maintaining its own trading platform.
However, users of the Immutable marketplace do not need to take any additional steps regarding their assets, as all NFTs and tokens are stored on the blockchain, linked to the user's wallet address, and can be accessed across different markets using the Immutable global order book.
Bybit to cease services in France, all remaining open positions will be closed on August 13
Bybit announced in a press release on August 1 that it will cease operations in France and restrict account functionalities for French users.
Bybit stated that starting August 2, French users' accounts will be "restricted to closing only," preventing the opening of new positions or deposits of new funds in Bybit's services and products.
From 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 from 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.
FireNow Asia Web3.0 Institutional Summit hosted by New Fire Technology to be held in Hong Kong on August 13
The inaugural "FireNow" Asia Web3.0 Institutional Summit, hosted by New Fire Technology Holdings Limited (stock code: 1611.HK), will officially open at The Ritz-Carlton in Hong Kong on August 13. The summit invites top entrepreneurs, investors, experts, and scholars from the global Web3 industry to gather in Hong Kong to discuss the hottest topics and cutting-edge investment & technology trends in the current Web3 industry.
The conference will focus on six hot topics, including exploring the "Hong Kong plan" for spot ETF on virtual assets, how to build a future-oriented Bitcoin ecosystem, investment strategies for the second half of the cycle, how crypto asset management can enter traditional markets, and the compliance journey of virtual asset exchanges.
The conference has invited industry leaders such as Professor Wang Yang, Vice President (University Development) of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Sailor Zhong, founder of ChainUp, BMAN, partner at ABCDE, Wong Siu-ki, CEO of Hashkey Exchange, Sun Yuchen, founder of TRON, and Dr. Yu Jianing, president of Uweb, along with representatives from many well-known institutions.
August 14 (Wednesday)
gm.ai: GM to launch on August 14
gm.ai announced on social media that GM will launch on August 14. This week, the official list of CEX/DEX, Launchpads, and partners will be gradually revealed, and the airdrop for presale participants will begin approximately 24 hours before trading.
U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) to be announced on Wednesday
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) to be announced next Wednesday is expected to rise by 0.2% compared to June, both in overall data and in the so-called core index excluding food and energy.
Marinade Finance to launch staking auction market delegation on August 14
Marinade, a liquid staking protocol on Solana, announced a roadmap update on X, stating that Marinade Finance will launch a delegation based on the Staking Auction Market (SAM) on August 14, with a rewards report generator launching in Q3 and native instant unstaking, SAM-based accelerated delegation, and staking recommendations in Q4.
Scroll to deploy Darwin upgrade on Scroll Sepolia testnet on August 14
According to an official announcement from Scroll, the Ethereum Layer 2 network Scroll will launch the highly anticipated Darwin upgrade on August 21, 2024. This upgrade aims to reduce gas fees by 34% through a single aggregate proof, bundling multiple batch proofs into a single validity proof, thus lowering verification costs. This improvement will be achieved by introducing a new batch encoding format and bundling concept.
The specific timeline for the upgrade includes:
Deployment of the upgrade on the Scroll Sepolia testnet on August 14.
Execution of contract upgrades on the Scroll mainnet on August 21.
The security of this upgrade has been audited by Trail of Bits.
August 15 (Thursday)
Optimism announces Retro Funding 5 will open for applications on August 15, allocating 8 million OP
Optimism announced that the fifth round of retroactive public goods funding (Retro Funding 5: OP Stack) will open for applications on August 15 and close on August 29, with 8 million OP allocated to reward OP Stack contributors from October 2023 to August 2024. The review process for this round of applications will take place from August 30 to September 13, with voting occurring from September 14 to September 28, and results announced and funds distributed on October 3.
Peter Mintzberg to take over as CEO of Grayscale effective August 15
Barry Silbert, CEO of DCG, the parent company of Genesis Global Capital, expressed on social media his pleasure in welcoming Peter Mintzberg as the new CEO of Grayscale, effective August 15. Peter joins from Goldman Sachs, bringing over 20 years of experience from well-known asset management firms including BlackRock, OppenheimerFunds, and Invesco.
Thanks to Michael Sonnenshein for leading the company to exponential growth over his 10 years and overseeing its critical role in bringing a spot Bitcoin ETF to market, paving the way for the broader financial industry.
Earlier news reported Grayscale's appointment of Peter Mintzberg as the new CEO.
Coinbase International Exchange to launch perpetual futures contracts for Degen, EOS, and SATS
According to an official announcement, Coinbase International Exchange and Coinbase Advanced will add support for perpetual futures contracts for Degen, EOS, and SATS. The DEGEN-PERP, EOS-PERP, and 1000STATS-PERP markets will open at or after 17:30 Beijing time on August 15, 2024.
August 16 (Friday)
Arbitrum community initiates vote on "Unlocking token utility by enabling ARB staking," deadline August 16
According to the Snapshot governance page, Frisson, head of market operations at Tally, initiated a proposal vote in the Arbitrum community on "Unlocking token utility by enabling ARB staking," with voting ending on August 16.
The proposal suggests unlocking ARB utility and improving governance and security of the Arbitrum protocol by enabling ARB staking, but will not temporarily open up fee distribution to token holders. By staking ARB, tokens will be delegated to users actively participating in governance, allowing token holders to capture value. The proposal also plans to implement a liquid staking ARB token (stARB) through the Tally protocol, which can automatically compound any future rewards and can be (re)staked, being compatible with DeFi. Additionally, the proposal initiators stated they will collaborate with the Arbitrum DAO to determine whether and how to fund rewards and distribute them between token holders and delegators.
OKX to exit the Nigerian market on August 16 due to changes in local regulatory environment
According to Cointelegraph, crypto exchange OKX revealed in an email sent to Nigerian customers on July 17 that it will exit Nigeria and cease providing services to all Nigerian customers.
OKX stated that the primary reason for stopping services in the country is "recent changes in local laws and regulations," and set a deadline for users to access platform functionalities until August 16, 2024. After the deadline, Nigerian users will only be able to access the platform to withdraw funds or close positions.
Solana ecosystem derivatives platform Drift Protocol to close airdrop claim window on August 16
Drift Protocol, a derivatives platform in the Solana ecosystem, announced on Twitter that the DRIFT airdrop claims are now live. The claims period will last for 3 months and will close at 18:00 UTC on August 16, 2024. The official DRIFT contract address is: DriFtupJYLTosbwoN8koMbEYSx54aFAVLddWsbksjwg7. The airdrop for all eligible users includes two parts: initial allocation and reward allocation. The initial allocation will be available at the start of the event, while the reward allocation will unlock linearly over 6 hours.
August 17 (Saturday)
FTX customers must choose between Bahamas or U.S. options by 4:00 AM on August 17
The liquidators of FTX Digital Markets Ltd. have initiated the next phase of the liquidation process. Customers of FTX.com need to choose whether to participate in the official liquidation process in the Bahamas ("Bahamas process") or the U.S. Chapter 11 case ("U.S. process") and must make their choice by 4:00 AM on August 17.
The liquidators of FTX Digital Markets will hold a Q&A session to help customers understand the selection process. The first Q&A session will be held on July 31 at 19:00 Beijing time, with no prior registration required.
Specific Time Undetermined
Democrats launch "Crypto for Harris" campaign to counter Trump, planning a meeting this week
According to FOX Business, the U.S. Democrats have launched the "Crypto for Harris" campaign and plan to hold a virtual town hall meeting this week, featuring speakers including billionaire entrepreneur and cryptocurrency advocate Mark Cuban, SkyBridge Capital founder and Trump critic Anthony Scaramucci, and several minority Democratic members of the House. The meeting will be open to the public to discuss ways to support Harris's campaign and fundraising.
The "Crypto for Harris" campaign aims to attract 40 million American voters with digital assets and demonstrate the Democrats' stance on promoting the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. The Republican influence among cryptocurrency voters is rising, with Trump promising to reduce regulations and establish a Bitcoin reserve at a Bitcoin conference. However, Harris's campaign team has recently brought in former advisors from Binance and Ripple, showing its emphasis on the cryptocurrency industry.
