Daily Report | a16z Crypto announces 21 selected companies for the Fall Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), including PIN AI, Dot, etc.; Singapore police investigate Worldcoin account transactions and have arrested five people
September 10 News OverviewOrganizer: Luan Peng, ChainCatcher
Important News:
- Web3 game platform Moku completes $5.35 million funding, led by Sky Mavis and others
- 10x Research: Short-term volatility in the crypto market intensifies, Trump's potential re-election and FTX payouts may boost year-end price increases
- Binance adjusts leverage and margin tiers for U-based perpetual contracts like FET/USDT and RDNT/USDT
- OKX to delist FRONT/USDT and FRONT/USDC spot trading pairs
- Texas judge dismisses class action lawsuit against DeFi project Bancor, ruling it is not under U.S. jurisdiction
- SEC Chief Accountant: SEC's stance on restricting banks from providing crypto custody services remains unchanged
- Half of the fees generated since the launch of friend.tech have gone to the project's development team
- Singapore police investigate Worldcoin account transactions, five arrested
"What important events occurred in the past 24 hours"
Web3 game platform Moku completes $5.35 million funding, led by Sky Mavis and others
Web3 game platform Moku announced on the X platform that it has completed a $5.35 million funding round, led by Sky Mavis, A16Z GAMES, and A16Z GAMES SPEEDRUN, with participation from Arca, Framework Ventures, 32-Bit Ventures, among others. The team is committed to giving publishing power back to gamers and creators.
According to Web3 asset data platform RootData, Moku is a Web3 game platform that helps players connect with game guilds, NFT casting pages, game strategy communities, and more.
Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, stated in an interview with CNBC that more short-term volatility is expected in the cryptocurrency market, but Trump's potential re-election and the upcoming FTX creditor payouts will support prices by year-end.
Binance's contract platform updated the leverage and margin tiers for multiple USDⓈ-M perpetual contracts on September 10, 2024, at 15:30 (Beijing time).
This adjustment involves contracts such as FETUSDT, RDNTUSDT, 1000FLOKIUSDT, AAVEUSDT, ZROUSDT, SUNUSDT, TAOUSDT, and VIDTUSDT.
OKX to delist FRONT/USDT and FRONT/USDC spot trading pairs
OKX announced it will delist the FRONT/USDT and FRONT/USDC spot trading pairs, which will officially go offline on September 13, 2024, from 4:00 PM to 4:30 PM (UTC+8).
A federal judge in Texas dismissed a class action lawsuit against the operators of the DeFi project Bancor. Judge Robert Pitman agreed with the opinion that the plaintiffs failed to prove U.S. courts have jurisdiction over foreign defendants.
This ruling indicates that Bancor's foreign operations are not subject to U.S. securities laws, and the plaintiffs cannot sue Bancor in the U.S. for its suspension of investment protection features. The judge also noted that Bancor and its founders do not have sufficient ties to the U.S., suggesting that plaintiffs could file a lawsuit in Israeli courts.
Paul Munter, Chief Accountant of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), stated that the SEC's stance on restricting banks from providing crypto custody services remains unchanged.
On September 9, Munter reiterated the views of SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121 (SAB 121) at a banking conference, emphasizing that financial institutions need to record liabilities for custodial crypto assets on their balance sheets. Munter pointed out that although some arrangements do not comply with this standard, the SEC still believes that regulated financial institutions should not provide crypto custody services.
Nate Geraci, president of ETF Store, stated on the X platform: "The SEC's position on SAB 121 seems unwavering. They are clearly reluctant to allow regulated financial institutions to have the capability to custody cryptocurrencies."
According to data compiled by 21.co, friend.tech has generated $81.2 million in fees since its launch a year ago, with half of these fees going to the project's development team.
Previous reports indicated that the Friend.Tech team relinquished control over the smart contract after growth stagnated.
Singapore police investigate Worldcoin account transactions, five arrested
Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced that the police are investigating seven individuals suspected of providing Worldcoin account and token trading services. This investigation involves potential violations of the 2019 Payment Services Act.
Deputy Prime Minister Wong clarified in response to questions from Members of Parliament Rachel Ong and Derrick Goh that, according to data from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Worldcoin does not meet the definition of payment services under the PS Act, and activities involving Worldcoin accounts and tokens may involve payment services.
Last month, police arrested five individuals suspected of providing services for buying or selling Worldcoin accounts and tokens. Three men were suspected of recruiting individuals to create Worldcoin accounts on behalf of multiple entities, then controlling these accounts and tokens in exchange for cash. These assets were subsequently handed over to a fourth man and a woman, who are believed to be involved in the purchase and management of the transfer of these assets. During the operation, police seized over 200 mobile phones as evidence.
The Worldcoin project aims to create a global digital identity, but the collection of its biometric data has raised global privacy concerns. Regulators in France, the UK, Hong Kong, Colombia, and Argentina are investigating this matter.
Compass Mining activates 3,000 Bitcoin miners in Iowa, plans to add another 1,000 in September
Mining company Compass Mining has activated 3,000 Bitcoin miners at its newly partnered hosting facility in Iowa and plans to install another 1,000 machines in September. This expansion will increase the facility's capacity by 12.5 megawatts (MW).
According to Compass Mining, this move is part of its strategy to expand operations. By the end of 2024, the company plans to manage approximately 30 megawatts of power across multiple locations in the U.S., including Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, and Texas.
Musk may face summons from UK Parliament
According to the Financial Times, Musk may face a summons from the UK Parliament due to his role on the X platform.
The social media giant has become a focus for lawmakers, who are pushing for him to take on a key role as chair of a crucial House of Commons committee.
a16z Crypto announced the 21 selected companies for the 2024 Fall Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) program. The companies cover various aspects of the crypto tech stack, including AI, DeFi, infrastructure, and consumer applications like photo sharing and mapping. The 21 selected companies include:
- Anera Labs: Building infrastructure to unify all on-chain liquidity;
- Banyan: Using AI to bridge communication gaps in the workplace, bringing clarity to businesses;
- Blocksense: Supporting the creation of oracles that utilize internet data and CPU/GPU computing;
- Cork Protocol: A risk pricing protocol that accelerates on-chain credit;
- Dot: Transforming user-created pixel art into game elements for on-chain games;
- Fermah: Building a universal zero-knowledge proof generation layer;
- Future Primitive: Creating a new home for internet photo enthusiasts;
- Kuzco: LLM reasoning marketplace;
- MeshMap: Building a 3D map of the world and an AR content network;
- Opacity Labs: Private verification of web2 data through zkTLS;
- OpenGradient: Building a blockchain designed to bring world computing on-chain;
- PIN AI is building an open personal AI platform (data + agents);
- Pod: A new L1 primitive, no blocks, no leaders, relaxing the concept of total ordering of transactions;
- Sekai: Easily create, share, and monetize interactive narratives;
- Skyfire: An open payment protocol that enables AI agents to pay for anything;
- Suave: Enabling DApps to accept any token from any wallet on any blockchain;
- t1: Real-time proof generation, unifying Ethereum;
- TACEO: MPC cryptographic computing for Web3;
- Term Labs: A DeFi lending platform matching fixed-rate borrowers and lenders;
- vlayer labs: Trusted and verifiable data infrastructure powered by zero-knowledge proofs;
- zkSpin: Building a highly parallel blockchain to run high-demand DApps on-chain;
a16z CSX will invest at least $500,000 in each selected company. The program will conduct an 8-week training in New York City, where selected companies will gain firsthand experience from top crypto founders, receive guidance and support from the a16z crypto investment and operations team, and connect with other companies and the broader a16z network.
"What are some great articles worth reading in the past 24 hours"
Bitcoin spot ETF ends 8-day consecutive net outflow, will the market turn bullish?
From August 27 to September 7, Bitcoin continued to decline, falling below $60,000, triggering panic in the market. According to Coingecko data, Bitcoin dropped from about $64,265 on August 26 to $53,923 on September 7, during which the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF experienced a net outflow for 8 consecutive trading days, totaling approximately $1.2 billion, with total net assets of the ETF shrinking by about $8.8 billion, a rare occurrence since the launch of the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF.
On the evening of September 9, Bitcoin stopped falling and rebounded, while Sosovalue data showed that the daily net inflow of the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF turned positive, indicating an improvement in market sentiment. However, Trading View's technical analysis shows that the market sell signal remains strong.
Digital asset research platform 10x Research released a report today, predicting that Bitcoin's price will drop to $45,000. Bitcoin financial services platform NYDIG stated that Bitcoin investors should prepare for a "seasonal slump" in September, "as historically, September has the worst average returns."
Grayscale Research's report pointed out that the selling pressure from major market institutions has basically passed, and Bitcoin's fundamentals are improving. Future price performance should focus on the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts and political changes surrounding the cryptocurrency industry in the U.S.
AI infrastructure company PIN AI announced today that it has completed a $10 million pre-seed funding round, with participation from notable VCs and angel investors including a16z CSX, Hack VC, and Blockchain Builders Fund (Stanford Blockchain Accelerator). PIN AI is developing the world's first open-source personal intelligence network (PIN), enabling AI developers to provide very everyday and practical AI services such as shopping, organizing travel, and financial planning.
This article is a systematic introduction to the project co-authored by three co-founders of PIN AI, and ChainCatcher has compiled the full text.
How much does it cost to run an L2?
Galaxy Research recently published that "since the Cancun upgrade, revenue from Layer 2 Ethereum mainnet protocols has been almost zero." Ethereum is moving further down the path of scalability, but how much does it actually cost to run an L2? Through this article, we can understand the true costs of "one-click chain" L2 projects.
In the past year, with technological advancements, attention to specific application scenarios, and strong community participation, the number of new Layer 2 (L2) solutions has significantly increased. While this development is encouraging, the main challenge remains how to scale these blockchains in a more cost-effective manner. Running application chains has become a key means to address this issue, as application chains can control the operational costs of blockchains through various initiatives in a modular infrastructure stack.
Although specific measures taken by L1—Ethereum have significantly reduced transaction costs on the blockchain, major rollup and infrastructure service providers are also vigorously promoting further scalability improvements to unlock use cases that are currently too costly to execute on-chain.
We can categorize and analyze these developments into three types: a) L1 practices, b) L2 practices, and c) modular infrastructure practices, all of which have made meaningful contributions to reducing the barriers to entry for on-chain transactions.
In the past two months, nine institutions that deposited large amounts of ETH into CEX have transferred over $8.58 billion. Among them, Grayscale, Wintermute, and the Arbitrum Foundation were the main transfer forces, with ETH outflows accounting for over 80% of the total; while Grayscale, Cumberland DRW, and Jump Trading had relatively higher average deposit prices, the Ethereum Foundation was closer to the peak of the phase.
In the past two months, nine institutions that deposited large amounts of ETH into CEX have transferred over $8.58 billion. Among them, Grayscale, Wintermute, and the Arbitrum Foundation were the main transfer forces, with ETH outflows accounting for over 80% of the total; while Grayscale, Cumberland DRW, and Jump Trading had relatively higher average deposit prices, the Ethereum Foundation was closer to the peak of the phase.
Crypto dreams shattered? Why are more and more people quietly exiting?
After experiencing a rather dismal summer for cryptocurrencies, I am publishing the third part of a series of articles, with previous articles including: "There is no excuse to show that these things work or will work in the future" and "Financial Nihilism: The Spirit of the Age for Young Americans." This is a roughly 10-minute read titled "The Universal Quiet Exit."
I have been focused on the cryptocurrency space for seven years and have operated Ikigai for over six years. I have a fairly extensive network in the U.S. cryptocurrency circle and regularly communicate with dozens of industry insiders.
I have recently observed or heard about an attitude or stance so frequently that it has become a trend. The cryptocurrency space is experiencing a widespread phenomenon of "quiet exit."
