This Week's Key News Preview | Exchange Fairdesk will close; HashKey Group's token HSK will officially launch; the Federal Reserve will release the minutes of the November monetary policy meeting
Highlights of the week from November 25 to December 1.Organizer: Fairy, ChainCatcher
Key News:
- Taiwan will implement the registration system for virtual asset service providers starting November 30
- Sonic will take a snapshot of wallets holding six different Sonic Shards on December 1
- The Federal Reserve will release the minutes of the November monetary policy meeting on November 27
- Cryptocurrency exchange Fairdesk announces it will close on November 30
- WCT claiming and staking will go live on November 26
- HashKey Group's ecological token HSK will officially launch on November 26
November 25 (Monday)
Coinbase announces it will stop supporting direct crypto paycheck deposits starting November 25
Coinbase announced that it will stop supporting the direct crypto paycheck deposit feature starting November 25. The company advises users to remove their Coinbase accounts from their payroll accounts to avoid delays in receiving their salaries.
A Coinbase spokesperson told Decrypt that the company has decided to gradually phase out this feature but plans to launch a more optimized retail direct deposit experience in the future. The new feature, called "Coinbase Wallet Direct Deposit," will be rolled out to eligible users in the coming months, allowing customers to receive their salaries directly in cryptocurrency and deposit it into their Coinbase wallets.
This decision has sparked dissatisfaction among users, many of whom rely on this feature for regular cryptocurrency investments and have expressed their disappointment on social media. The Coinbase support team acknowledged that the service interruption would indeed cause limitations but hopes it will lead to long-term improvements.
Currently, Coinbase has not announced a specific launch date for the new wallet service, which may result in a service gap between the discontinuation of the current feature and the activation of the new one.
SSV Network: Plans to upgrade mainnet Alan on November 25
The official SSV Network, an Ethereum staking infrastructure, announced on the X platform that it will upgrade to Alan at block height 327,375 on the mainnet, scheduled for around 20:00 on November 25. This upgrade will bring various performance and scalability enhancements, significantly reducing resource consumption such as CPU time and bandwidth.
Zircuit: Will lift ZRC token transfer restrictions and plans to launch significant product updates
Layer2 project Zircuit announced it will officially lift ZRC token transfer restrictions on November 25 and plans to launch significant product updates.
South Korea plans to implement a 20% crypto tax starting early 2025, with the Democratic Party set to vote on November 25 in the parliamentary tax subcommittee and on November 26 in the full session
According to the Seoul News, South Korea's ruling party intends to push forward with plans to tax cryptocurrency gains starting early 2025, rather than approving further delays.
Initially, a 20% tax on cryptocurrency gains (plus local taxes for a total of 22%) was set to take effect on January 1, 2022. Due to strong opposition from investors and industry experts, the plan has been postponed twice to January 1, 2025. Despite discussions and proposals for further delays, including suggestions to implement it starting in 2028, the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) remains committed to timely implementation of the tax plan.
However, the party is modifying the plan to raise the tax exemption limit for cryptocurrency gains below 2.5 million KRW (1,795 USD) to 50 million KRW (35,919 USD). The Democratic Party plans to vote on the tax plan in the parliamentary tax subcommittee on November 25 and in the full session on November 26.
November 26 (Tuesday)
WCT claiming and staking will go live on November 26
Pedro Gomes, founder and CEO of WalletConnect, stated on social media that WCT claiming and staking will go live on November 26.
Bitcoin ecological public chain Side Protocol: SIDE token genesis airdrop registration will open on November 26
The details of the genesis airdrop for the Bitcoin financial public chain Side Protocol have been announced, with 100 million SIDE tokens to be distributed to eligible users, including:
- Active Bitcoin users (network spending greater than 0.005 BTC)
- NFT communities: Pudgy Penguins, Milady, Mad Lads, Bitcoin Puppets, NodeMonkes, Ordinal Maxi Biz, Bitcoin Frogs, Pizza Ninja, Quantum Cats, Runestone, Bad Kids, Celestine Sloth
- ATOM stakers and public goods
- Testnet point users, etc.
Airdrop registration will officially start at 18:00 Beijing time on November 26, 2024, with a first-come, first-served mechanism. Each address will receive generous rewards without the need for staking, completely free of charge. Users can check the airdrop through the genesis.side.one website.
It is reported that Side Protocol is developed by former members of the Chainspace core team in collaboration with early members of Binance Labs. It is a high-performance L1 public chain fully compatible with Bitcoin, supporting various innovative products such as native Bitcoin lending.
HashKey Group's ecological token HSK will officially launch on November 26
HashKey Global announced that it will soon launch HashKey Token (HSK). HSK, as the ecological token of HashKey Group, will carry the value of the entire HashKey ecosystem and attract widespread participation from the global Web3 community. HashKey Global will open deposits on November 7 and officially start HSK/USDT spot trading on November 26.
Starknet mainnet STRK staking feature will be enabled on November 26
The official Starknet, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, announced that it will launch the STRK token staking feature on the mainnet on November 26. This feature has been extensively tested on the Sepolia testnet and is about to enter the first phase of deployment.
According to the official announcement, there are two ways to participate in staking: to become a validator, one must stake at least 20,000 STRK and run a full node; to become a delegator, one only needs to hold STRK tokens and choose from the available validator list. Both validators and delegators will have a 21-day lock-up period for unstaking.
November 27 (Wednesday)
Starknet mainnet will upgrade to version v0.13.3 on November 27
Starknet tweeted that its mainnet will upgrade to version v0.13.3 on November 27. At that time, the Blob Gas price on Starknet will be five times cheaper. Some node operators running Juno instances will need to upgrade to version v0.12.4 to synchronize with v0.13.3 blocks; if using Pathfinder > v0.14.2, no action is required.
The Federal Reserve will release the minutes of the November monetary policy meeting
The Federal Reserve will publish the minutes of the November monetary policy meeting at 3:00 on November 27.
November 28 (Thursday)
ZetaChain launches a 10 million ZETA validator delegation program, applications close on November 28
ZetaChain announced its validator delegation program will delegate 10,000,000 ZETA, aimed at supporting its ecological partners and helping to protect and develop the universal blockchain. Limited to 15 validators, applications close on November 28, 2024.
OKX will launch MAJOR (Major) spot trading on November 28
According to the official announcement, OKX will launch MAJOR (Major) spot trading. The MAJOR/USDT spot trading will open at 8:00 PM (UTC+8) on November 28.
Major is a Play to Earn game on Telegram, and the MAJOR token will be used for game mechanics and for renting Telegram usernames and phone number NFTs.
November 30 (Saturday)
Cryptocurrency exchange Fairdesk announces it will close on November 30
Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Fairdesk recently announced that it will permanently close all services on November 30, 2024. Customers must clear their accounts by October 17, at which point futures and spot positions will be closed, and the platform will only retain withdrawal functionality, which will continue until November 30.
Ethena will finalize parameters for activating the fee switch before November 30
The Ethena Foundation announced that the proposal to "enable ENA fee conversion" put forward by Wintermute has been approved by the risk committee. The foundation will work with the risk committee to finalize the parameters for activating the fee switch before November 30, with specific implementation mechanisms to be announced later.
Taiwan will implement the registration system for virtual asset service providers starting November 30
According to Juheng News, Taiwan will implement the registration system for virtual asset platforms and trading businesses (VASP) starting November 30 this year. The head of Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission recently stated that 26 companies have already obtained compliance declarations under anti-money laundering laws, with another 20 to 30 applications pending. The head of Taiwan's Inspection Bureau indicated that four companies were inspected last year, revealing four major types of deficiencies, and inspections of six VASP practitioners are scheduled for November and December this year.
December 1 (Sunday)
Sonic will take a snapshot of wallets holding six different Sonic Shards on December 1
Sonic Labs announced that it will take a snapshot of each wallet holding six different Sonic Shards at 20:00 Beijing time on December 1. Once the chain is live, all eligible wallets will be whitelisted to mint exclusive NFTs on Sonic, which will be used to earn points for the upcoming airdrop of approximately 200 million S tokens.
Shard obtained through secondary markets (such as PaintSwap) will also be eligible, provided they are held before the snapshot date. The team will reveal the exclusive NFT design closer to the minting release.
