Daily Report | Stripe acquires stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion; Trump reiterates plans to significantly lower interest rates; Xu Zhengyu: Hong Kong authorities suggest expanding eligible asset categories to include virtual assets, etc
Highlights of October 21Organizer: Luan Peng, ChainCatcher
Important News:
- Stripe acquires stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion, the largest acquisition in the crypto space
- Musk: $1 million awarded to each of the two Pennsylvania voters who signed the petition
- Trump reiterates plans to significantly lower interest rates
- South Korea's CBDC real-time trading tests expected to officially start early next year
- Sources: Harris transition team reviewing candidates, Brummer and Williams may be potential SEC chair nominees
- Data: A trader made 300 times profit trading CURTIS on ApeChain in the past 30 hours
- Truth Terminal founder: Personal holdings of GOAT will not be sold, will temporarily hold AI's wallet
- Japanese Democratic Party leader promises to cut cryptocurrency taxes if elected
"What important events happened in the past 24 hours"
According to The Block, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington posted on X that payment company Stripe has acquired stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion.
This is Stripe's largest acquisition to date and the biggest acquisition in the history of the crypto industry. Bridge had previously raised $58 million, including a $40 million Series A round at a valuation of $200 million.
Bridge was founded by entrepreneurs Sean Yu and Zach Abrams, providing software tools to help businesses accept stablecoin payments. The two founders previously sold Evenly, a competitor to Venmo, to Block in 2013; Abrams is also a former senior employee at Coinbase.
Musk: $1 million awarded to each of the two Pennsylvania voters who signed the petition
Elon Musk posted on X that two Pennsylvania residents have each received a $1 million reward for signing a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments, with one $1 million winner announced each night going forward.
Previously reported, Musk announced at an event in Pennsylvania that from that day until November 5, the U.S. election day, he would randomly award $1 million to a registered Pennsylvania voter who signed the "America PAC" petition each day.
Trump reiterates plans to significantly lower interest rates
According to Bloomberg, former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reiterated that if elected again on November 5, he would significantly lower U.S. interest rates, although he did not elaborate on any policy measures.
This statement was made in response to audience questions about housing affordability at a town hall event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Trump stated, "We need to significantly lower interest rates to improve the economy; right now, it's impossible to get a loan."
South Korea's CBDC real-time trading tests expected to officially start early next year
The Bank of Korea, the Financial Services Commission, and the Financial Supervisory Service plan to conduct real trading tests of the CBDC with 100,000 ordinary citizens and commercial banks in December, which has been postponed to early next year due to the banks' system reforms. Actual trading tests will be conducted after the bank system restructuring and security checks are completed, followed by beta testing.
According to sources, the Harris transition team is reviewing candidates to succeed Gary Gensler as chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Unchained has learned that two potential successors are Georgetown University law professor Chris Brummer and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) chair Erica Williams, who are said to have a more favorable view of cryptocurrencies than Gensler.
Vice President Harris has not publicly or privately committed to replacing Gensler, and it is unclear whether she is seriously considering Brummer, Williams, or other candidates. Currently, Harris's team is more focused on campaigning, as she has just become a candidate and has other policy issues to prioritize.
A spokesperson for the Harris transition team stated, "The transition team will not make any personnel appointments before the election. Instead, we are focused on building the necessary infrastructure to be prepared."
Data: A trader made 300 times profit trading CURTIS on ApeChain in the past 30 hours
According to Lookonchain monitoring, in the past 30 hours, a trader executed 18 transactions of Meme coins on ApeChain, capturing CURTIS and achieving 300 times profit.
Andy Ayrey, founder of the AI robot Truth Terminal, posted on X:
- I hold 1.25 million GOAT, which was given to me by others; I airdropped some to friends and AI researchers, and since it started to go crazy and attract hype (both good and bad), I haven't traded it at all— I know too much about how it operates internally, which is unfair;
- The wallet of truth_terminal is managed by me and will be transferred to a legal entity (trust or similar) designed to meet its needs; no adjustments will be made to its token holdings until a transparent governance process is in place;
- truth_terminal wrote all the tweets itself. I did not inject information into its prompts;
- There are many nuances in how language models work, the evolution of AI personalities, and how audience capture affects agency behavior that are difficult to communicate. Misunderstandings about this could lead to significant price increases or decreases, and I will not adjust or liquidate any of my GOAT positions until I publish the roadmap for ToT (entity) and related projects, along with a research paper that delves into this process and statements from artists regarding the broader project and narrative.
The token is a community meme generated around my work, and while I certainly hope to benefit from it, trading based on my internal knowledge of how the token operates for personal gain goes against my integrity and broader mission. I am releasing this disclosure to protect those who may follow the hype without fully understanding all the cross-system dynamics at play.
Japanese Democratic Party leader promises to cut cryptocurrency taxes if elected
Japanese Democratic Party leader Yuichiro Tamaki proposed a cryptocurrency tax plan that would lower the tax on crypto gains to 20% if he is elected.
Tamaki stated in a post on X: "If you believe that crypto assets should be taxed separately at a 20% rate rather than treated as miscellaneous income, please vote for the People's Democratic Party."
However, the plan may be far from realization, as the Democratic Party currently holds only 7 of the 465 seats in the Japanese House of Representatives.
According to Tamaki's plan, exchanging one cryptocurrency for another would not trigger any tax events.
According to Cryptonews, Blockchain.com executives have been subpoenaed for failing to submit financial reports on time, with co-founder and president Nicolas Cary and operations executive Al Turnbull receiving subpoenas from the company registry in May.
The case against Blockchain.com executives was brought before the Cardiff Magistrates' Court on September 25 and is scheduled for a next hearing on November 26 to continue the litigation.
It is reported that Blockchain.com only submitted its 2020 year-end financial statements this month. Meanwhile, the legal action relates to its failure to submit financial statements for the period ending December 2022.
The Russian government and domestic crypto miner BitRiver announced plans to build mining data centers in BRICS countries. The initiative involves the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), with both parties releasing relevant news at the BRICS Business Forum in Moscow on October 18.
BitRiver CEO Igor Runets stated that the plan will focus on building infrastructure based on crypto mining to enhance global computing power to support the development of AI projects.
Currently, BitRiver has 21 data centers in Russia and is constructing 10 new centers. Although specific details of the transaction with BRICS countries have not been disclosed, both parties believe there is a shortage of space for energy-intensive data centers globally. RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev emphasized that developing AI computing capabilities is a priority for Russia and its BRICS partners.
The People's Court of Yian County, Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province disclosed a case of reselling U coins using a grab order model.
The suspect, Wang, used the "U Dock" APP account to resell U coins in a grab order model, receiving payments for buying and selling U coins using 11 other people's bank cards, six of which received a total of 564,000 yuan in fraudulent funds, from which Wang profited over 60,000 yuan, all of which he squandered.
The court found that the defendant Wang committed the crime of concealing and disguising criminal proceeds and sentenced him to one year and eight months in prison, along with a fine of 15,000 yuan, which has now taken effect.
Coinbase CEO calls on Massachusetts residents to vote for crypto-friendly lawyer John E Deaton
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong posted on X: "Residents of Massachusetts should vote for lawyer John E Deaton, who supports the crypto industry.
Cryptocurrency holders in the state should be aware that it was Senator Elizabeth Warren who got Gary Gensler his job (as SEC chair) and encouraged him to (illegally) attempt to stifle the U.S. cryptocurrency industry. Fortunately, they did not succeed, and we and others in the industry fought back.
Warren opposes freedom, believes the government should manage all financial services, and has caused significant harm to the U.S."
According to Financial界, Hong Kong Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Xu Zhengyu stated in a blog post that the government plans to optimize the current tax incentives provided to the asset and wealth management industry in multiple ways to elevate the market.
Regarding the expansion of eligible asset categories, Xu Zhengyu mentioned that the authorities suggest broadening the eligible asset categories to align with the overall financial development strategy of the Treasury, adding carbon emission derivatives/quotas, insurance-linked securities, loans, private debt investments, and virtual assets, allowing for tax exemptions on the trading of such assets. On the other hand, it is suggested that anyone operating financial institution business, insurance business, or lending business in Hong Kong who holds 10% or more beneficial interest in a fund will be deemed to have obtained taxable profits from income derived from loans or private debt investments in that fund. If the fund is a related party of that person, any percentage of beneficial interest will apply. The next step is for the Treasury to release a consultation document on the overall proposal, collect and analyze opinions, and then propose relevant legal amendments to implement various optimizations, adding momentum to industry development.
Vitalik responded to comments about the "level of governance in Zuzalu, Apecoin governance forum, and Arbitrum DAO," stating: "Technically, any currency is permissioned: you need to get permission from an existing holder to become a holder.
This indicates that there is actually a continuous trade-off between the permission levels of Apecoin and ZuVillage, and we can imagine a structure in between: becoming a member requires permission from multiple existing members, but it is still very open.
For example, you can imagine a mechanism like secondary financing, weighted by existing member points, to accumulate membership points. This is what I hope to see in OP Citizen Home, Zuzalu community, and other DAOs that are experimenting. Formalizing and measuring membership is upstream of any formal governance, and it would be really cool if there were more ways to gain highly decentralized and permissionless formal membership, but not just through token holding."
Criminals impersonate Megabit platform to scam, users should verify carefully
According to official news from Megabit, criminals have created counterfeit follow-trade websites under the names "Megabit," "MG," and "Megabit," conducting scams through phishing messages, impersonating customer service to privately create groups, and inducing users to follow trades, severely threatening the financial safety of users and investors.
Users and investors should remain vigilant, discern the authenticity of information, avoid clicking links or investing indiscriminately, and verify the authenticity of information through official channels to avoid falling into scam traps. Megabit will take measures to cooperate with relevant departments to combat fraudulent activities and protect users' legitimate rights and market order.
"What are the exciting articles worth reading in the past 24 hours"
On October 21, payment unicorn Stripe finalized its acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion, marking the largest acquisition in the history of the crypto industry and Stripe's largest acquisition to date.
As a beneficiary of this acquisition, Bridge aims to provide a platform that integrates stablecoin payment technology support for businesses. Just in August of this year, it announced the completion of a $54 million financing round, with a valuation of only $200 million at that time. However, in just two months, Bridge's market value skyrocketed nearly sixfold, ultimately being acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing projects in the crypto world.
As the funding party for this acquisition, Stripe recently resumed support for USDC crypto asset payments on Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon at the beginning of this month. This acquisition of Bridge will undoubtedly add a sharp sword to Stripe's capabilities in the crypto payment space. What remarkable new changes will emerge in the crypto payment sector with the strong partnership between the two?
After a 110% pump storm, leading meme coin halves in value; is ApeChain still worth the wait?
Yesterday, Yuga Labs, the parent company of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which had been quiet for many days, initiated a series of major actions.
Yuga Labs officially announced the launch of the Layer 2 public chain ApeChain. Following that, the on-chain version of "pump.fun" and the one-click token issuance platform Ape Express also went live.
To attract users to participate in the ApeChain ecosystem, ApeChain launched the cross-chain bridge Ape Portal and provided an automatic yield model for stablecoin holders on the chain. Stablecoins crossed to ApeChain will be converted to DAI and deposited into sDAI, accumulating yields based on MakerDAO's savings rate.
In addition, ApeChain has reached a strategic partnership with Wire Network, a universal infrastructure designed for the AI agent economy, to explore new areas where AI agents can perform complex tasks on behalf of humans.
With the issuance of the first batch of meme coins like CURTIS and DOOKEY on ApeChain, it quickly sparked FOMO sentiment in the community.
Blowing up luxury cars, issuing "blank" coins; why are memes becoming increasingly abstract?
In the early hours of the day before yesterday, two special Pump.Fun Memecoins began to surge on the Solana chain, both of which were launched almost simultaneously, and the token names and icons were completely blank, reaching market values of $4 million and $6 million respectively within two hours of launch.
In the recent meme market, the sudden surge of new coins often has intriguing angles and backgrounds behind them.
What exactly happened? Deep Tide TechFlow found that both "blank Memecoins" are related to the anonymous artist @SHL0MS, whose past experiences also exhibit a strong performance art style.
20 Lessons for Crypto Founders: Start with Small Problems
Don't aim for a huge market right from the start; instead, focus on solving a small, specific problem. This approach often contradicts the advice of VCs, who tend to push for solving big market problems. Instead, you should focus on issues that affect a smaller user group—by using crypto products daily, you can experience these problems firsthand. Amid the continuous launch of thousands of new products, use as many of these products as possible to understand the pain points faced by everyday users. In this way, you will identify actionable problems that truly need solving.
Starting small allows you to gain deep insights into user needs and optimize products without the noise and complexity of a large market.
The options market fully demonstrates the ruthless and rapidly evolving nature of the DeFi market.
