Daily Report | Trump family's crypto project built on Aave and Ethereum; Penpie suffers a hack with a loss of 27 million dollars; a16z launches a 30 million dollar investment plan

整理：Fairy，ChainCatcher

Important News:

• The Ethereum Foundation research team will hold an official AMA tomorrow at 21:00
• DeFi project Penpie suffers a hack with a loss of $27 million
• Trump-related crypto project World Liberty Financial will be built on Aave and Ethereum
• a16z gaming fund launches a $30 million investment plan, application deadline is September 30
• Polygon developers have converted MATIC tokens to POL
• On this day in history: It has been exactly 7 years since China officially halted ICOs on "September 4"
• Insiders: a16z closed its Miami office in May
• Zurich Cantonal Bank, with assets of $290 billion, launches Bitcoin and cryptocurrency products

"What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours"

Insiders: a16z closed its Miami office in May

According to Bloomberg, insiders revealed that venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) closed its Miami office in May 2024. The company had established a branch in Miami Beach in 2022, aiming to promote the city as a tech hub in the tropics.

This move by a16z highlights the cooling of Miami's tech boom. Since the collapse of FTX in 2022, the local cryptocurrency industry has been severely impacted. a16z representatives confirmed that the company no longer has an office in Miami but declined to comment further. Insiders indicated that the closure was due to insufficient employee usage.

Zurich Cantonal Bank, with assets of $290 billion, launches Bitcoin and cryptocurrency products

According to Bitcoin Magazine, Zurich Cantonal Bank, with assets of $290 billion, has launched Bitcoin and cryptocurrency products.

Zurich Cantonal is a universal bank primarily providing banking and financial products to individuals and institutions in the Zurich area, such as savings and mortgages. In 2017, the total assets of the Zurich Cantonal Bank reached 162.71 billion Swiss francs, ranking sixth in the Swiss banking industry.

The Ethereum Foundation research team will hold an official AMA tomorrow at 21:00

Ethereum Foundation core researcher Justin Drake posted on X that at 21:00 Beijing time on September 5, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) research team will hold an official AMA on Reddit, where EF researchers will answer various questions from the community.

This is reportedly the 12th official AMA in the team's history, with the last one held in January of this year (before the Cancun upgrade).

DeFi project Penpie suffers a hack with a loss of $27 million

The independent decentralized finance protocol Penpie, built on Pendle, suffered a hack this morning, resulting in a loss of approximately $27 million in customer funds.

Previously, Penpie had suspended all deposit and withdrawal operations, while a Pendle spokesperson confirmed that customer funds are safe and all contracts have been suspended until the issue is resolved.

According to Immunfi, over $1.2 billion has been stolen through 154 hacking and exploitation incidents in 2024 alone. Immunfi founder and CEO Mitchell Amador stated that while most vulnerabilities occur in the DeFi space, vulnerabilities in CeFi infrastructure have caused the most significant economic losses.

PeckShield reported that losses from hacks in August 2024 exceeded $313 million, with two major attacks stealing approximately $238 million in Bitcoin and $55 million in Dai.

A report from Scam Sniffer indicated that losses from phishing attacks in August 2024 surged by 215%, with a single attack stealing $55 million.

Trump-related crypto project World Liberty Financial will be built on Aave and Ethereum

The Trump-associated crypto project World Liberty Financial will be built on the decentralized finance platform Aave and the Ethereum blockchain, utilizing a non-transferable governance token WLFI and a credit account system. The project is reportedly inspired by the DeFi protocol Dough Finance, although it has not been confirmed whether its codebase will be used. Dough's co-founders Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro are also involved in the project's operations. Members of the Trump family, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Barron Trump, are all involved in the project's planning. The Trump family has warned the public about potential scams and stated that official announcements will be made through their channels.

On this day in history: It has been exactly 7 years since China officially halted ICOs on "September 4"

Seven years ago, on September 4, 2017, seven central government departments in China halted ICO activities, with Bitcoin closing at $4,100 that day, and subsequently dropping to $2,817 on September 15, 2017.

On September 4, 2017, up to seven Chinese government departments issued a notice titled "Announcement on Preventing Risks of Token Issuance Financing," halting ICOs and classifying them as illegal financial activities. All domestic virtual currency trading platforms were ordered to close within a specified period and stop new user registrations.

a16z gaming fund launches a $30 million investment plan, application deadline is September 30

Andrew Chen, head of a16z's gaming fund Games Fund One, posted on X, stating, "We will invest $30 million in the next 30 days. I will co-host our new project in San Francisco in January 2025 with members from the a16z SPEEDRUN team, which will include guest speakers, personalized mentoring, and substantial funding support.

Applications are now open, with a deadline of September 30. a16z focuses on newly launched startups, including B2B/infrastructure startups focused on AI, 3D, game engines, and gaming studios focused on Web3, VR, AI, Discord, etc.

Each selected startup can receive an investment of $750,000, along with 12 weeks of course guidance (from January 6 to March 21, 2024), including offline talks, office hours, personalized mentoring, and events."

Former Mt.Gox CEO to launch new cryptocurrency exchange platform EllipX this month

Former Mt.Gox CEO Mark Karpeles plans to launch his new cryptocurrency exchange platform later this month, focusing on transparency and user-friendliness. The upcoming platform, named EllipX, is set to launch in Europe later this month, with its headquarters in Poland.

Karpeles stated that the structure of the new trading platform will be similar to that of the New York Stock Exchange, but aimed at cryptocurrencies. To ensure transparency, Karpeles plans to separate the different operational entities of the trading platform. Karpeles is also preparing to launch a non-profit organization called Ungox, which will provide a rating system for cryptocurrency projects and exchanges.

Important Ethereum Foundation member Justin Drake: It is a good thing that EF's role in the entire ecosystem is decreasing

Recently, important Ethereum Foundation member Justin Drake appeared on the "Developer Stories" segment launched by OKX Web3 and ChainCatcher, discussing various topics such as the technical improvements of Ethereum 2.0, consensus mechanisms, scalability, security, DeFi, user experience, ecosystem, environmental impact, and future development and strategy; he stated that in promoting ecosystem development, EF (Ethereum Foundation) is often seen as "governing by doing nothing," a style that has faced some controversy. He believes that it is a good thing that EF's role in the entire ecosystem is decreasing. Justin Drake stated that EF's responsibilities are now mainly limited to:

• 1) Hosting one Devcon or Devconnect each year, which is now just one of many conferences, with many side events being more important than the main venue.
• 2) An execution client: Geth, one of the five execution clients, but EF does not maintain any consensus clients.
• 3) Providing funding: Offering tens of millions of dollars in unconditional funding to the broader community each year, which has led to a decrease in EF's ETH financial reserves. In the long run, a decrease in ETH held by the Ethereum Foundation is a good thing; EF currently controls 0.23% of the ETH supply, and bringing this number close to 0% over the next few decades is healthy, as it promotes the decentralization of the Ethereum ecosystem.
• 4) Coordinating calls: Many conference calls are hosted by EF members, such as All Core Devs (ACD) hosted by Tim Beiko, All Devs Consensus (ACDC) hosted by Alex Stokes, RollCall hosted by Ansgar Dietrichs and Carl Beekhuizen, Sequencing and pre-meeting hosted by himself, and MEV-boost conference calls hosted by Alex Stokes.
• 5) Research: This may still be one of the centralized areas, but it is possible that some EF research teams will become independent.
• 6) Roadmap formulation: Vitalik updated the roadmap diagram, followed by dozens of tasks being developed in parallel by different teams.

Polygon developers have converted MATIC tokens to POL

According to The Block, the Polygon development team announced that MATIC tokens have been converted to POL. POL is now the native gas and staking token on the Polygon PoS chain, with major exchanges expected to list it soon. This migration is a key step for Polygon towards developing ZK chains and integrating with AggLayer, aiming to consolidate liquidity and state across multiple chains.

POL will maintain the original tokenomics model, distribution method, and total supply of 10 billion of MATIC. Holders of MATIC on the Polygon PoS chain do not need to take any action, as the tokens will automatically upgrade to POL. However, holders of MATIC on Ethereum, Polygon zkEVM, or centralized exchanges will need to actively convert their tokens to POL through a migration contract.

Sun Yuchen: $8 million SUN token burn completed

TRON founder Sun Yuchen stated that SunPump has completed the burn of $8 million worth of SUN tokens, with another $4 million worth of tokens still pending destruction.

Samsung's fund announces investment in Soneium development team Startale Labs

Samsung Electronics' investment company Samsung Next officially announced today that it has invested in the Soneium development team Startale Labs.

Insiders: OpenAI plans to raise hundreds of billions to build AI infrastructure in the U.S.

According to insiders, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman plans to attract global investors to support the construction of AI infrastructure, with a focus on launching in various states in the U.S., expected to cost hundreds of billions. Types of projects under discussion include building data centers, increasing energy capacity and transmission through turbines and generators, and expanding semiconductor manufacturing. Supporters may include investors from Canada, South Korea, Japan, and the UAE. Other private companies are also expected to participate in the project. Microsoft's investment in OpenAI may be a potential partner, although Microsoft did not specifically comment on the project but stated it is aware and involved in the company's broad efforts related to infrastructure.

Over Protocol has launched its mainnet and will conduct an airdrop at the end of September

According to BeInCrypto, the lightweight node protocol Over Protocol has activated its mainnet and will update its ecosystem applications OverFlex (an application combining OverWallet with the RWA market) and OverScape (the renamed version of OverNode) at the end of September. OverProtocol founder Ben Kim stated that after the update at the end of September, a large-scale airdrop will also be conducted to reward community members who have contributed to the ecosystem over the past year.

"What are the exciting articles worth reading in the past 24 hours"

Arthur Hayes' new article: The bull market will be delayed, and the Fed's policy shift may trigger a market change in September

Like the dog in Pavlov's conditioning reflex, we all think that the correct response to interest rate cuts is "buy the f***ing dip" (BTFD). This behavioral response stems from memories of low inflation during the Pax Americana era. *Whenever there is a threat of* deflation, it is bad news for holders of financial assets (i.e., the wealthy), and the Fed will decisively turn on the money printing machine. As the world's reserve currency, the dollar creates a loose monetary environment for the world.

The global fiscal policy response to COVID (or the scam you think it is) ended the era of deflation and ushered in an era of inflation. Central banks around the world have been slow to acknowledge the inflationary impact of COVID-19, adjusting monetary and fiscal policies and raising interest rates. The global bond market, especially the U.S. bond market, believes in the central banks' determination to control inflation, thus not pushing yields to extremely high levels. However, it is highly uncertain in the current political environment whether central banks will continue to meet the bond market's expectations by raising interest rates and reducing the money supply.

I will focus on the U.S. Treasury market because the dollar, as the global reserve currency, makes it the most important debt market in the world. Any debt instrument issued in any currency will be influenced by U.S. Treasury yields. Bond yields reflect the market's expectations for future economic growth and inflation. The ideal economic state is growth accompanied by low inflation, while a bad state is growth accompanied by high inflation.

Compared to WeChat, how long will it take for TON to achieve mass adoption?

Mass adoption has always been the core challenge of Web3. However, the market often tends to focus on short-term wealth effects, neglecting the sustainability of projects and the key factors for achieving mass adoption. Since the launch of BTC in 2009, among many sectors, only centralized exchanges like Binance have surpassed 200 million users, becoming the typical product to achieve mass adoption in the Web3 space.

With the approval of the BTC ETF, the market has welcomed a bull market unique to BTC OGs and believers. In contrast, due to insufficient liquidity, new coins have performed poorly, and altcoins have not shown the flourishing phenomenon of the last bull market, with most Web3 users not enjoying the prosperity of the bull market. In the last bull market, the number of crypto users grew rapidly from less than 50 million in 2019 to 420 million in 2022, an increase of about 10 times. However, from the beginning of 2024 to now, the global number of crypto users has only increased by 30 million, with growth far below that of the last bull market.

zkSync founder's open letter: Why are we laying off employees?

I just sent a message to the Matter Labs team:

Today, I want to announce the most difficult transformation for Matter Labs in six years. We are undergoing an organizational restructuring and have to say goodbye to many excellent team members (about 16% of the team). We have communicated individually with each affected employee.

As the founder and CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision and all previous decisions. To those colleagues who are about to leave: I regret that we have to come to this point. Saying goodbye to talented employees for reasons unrelated to performance pains me. I will explain the reasons for this decision, how we will care for the departing team members, and what this means for the future of Matter Labs.