ChainCatcher news, Microsoft detailed a group of North Korean hackers in a blog post, known as "Sapphire Sleet," who disguise themselves as recruiters and venture capitalists with the aim of stealing cryptocurrency from individuals and companies. After contacting targets with bait or initial outreach, the North Korean hackers would arrange a virtual meeting, but the meeting is actually designed to load abnormally.In the scenario of impersonating VCs, victims are forced to download malware disguised as a fix for the virtual meeting tool. In the activities of impersonating recruiters, potential candidates are asked to download and complete a skills assessment, which actually contains malware. Once installed, the malware can access other information on the computer, including cryptocurrency wallets. Microsoft stated that within just six months, the hackers stole at least $10 million in cryptocurrency, and have stolen billions of dollars in cryptocurrency over the past decade.

ChainCatcher news, according to DL News, Jackie Sawicky, the founder of the Texas Anti-Crypto Mining Coalition, announced the dissolution of this organization with 800 members, ending its three-year campaign against crypto mining. Sawicky stated that Trump's election as president and his pro-crypto policies would make this work more difficult.The coalition had protested multiple times against the pressure that Bitcoin mining companies put on the local power grid and water resources, as well as the substantial tax incentives they enjoyed. It is estimated that Bitcoin mining companies in Texas consume 2,600 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 2.6 million homes. Additionally, their high energy consumption and noise issues have also sparked dissatisfaction among environmental organizations and residents.Sawicky criticized that the Texas government attracts mining companies through cheap energy and policy incentives, exacerbating this phenomenon. She admitted, "Efforts have been completely undermined, and I am tired of the endless struggle."

ChainCatcher news, OKX's General Manager for Europe, Erald Ghoos, announced on the X platform: "OKX has officially launched products and services in Belgium. Starting today, Belgian users can experience our carefully crafted localized services."Currently, Belgian users can trade over 200 crypto assets and more than 60 trading pairs of cryptocurrencies with the euro on the OKX platform. Previously, OKX successfully entered the Dutch market and announced the establishment of a MiCA compliance center in Malta, further enhancing its compliance capabilities in Europe.

ChainCatcher message, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin commented on the newly launched on-chain accountability protocol Commit, saying, "This is so cool! I think we need an interface to use it to sign up for events." The protocol aims to hold participating users accountable through cryptocurrency staking. If a user fails to fulfill their commitment, their staked share will be shared by the fulfillers.

ChainCatcher news, according to court documents, Celsius Network is distributing $127 million to eligible creditors in its second payout under bankruptcy proceedings after its collapse in July 2022.The latest distribution raises the total recovery rate to 60.4% of the eligible claims amount, based on the initial payout in January 2024, when approximately 57.65% of eligible claims were paid in liquid crypto assets or cash. The second distribution is primarily composed of liquid crypto assets, with funds converted to Bitcoin at an average price of $95,836.23 to match the claim values.Payments cover various categories of creditors, including retail deposit claims, general income claims, and unsecured loan claims. Former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky will begin a jury trial on January 28, 2025, following a pre-trial hearing on January 16, 2025.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, the on-chain art platform Art Blocks announced that 90% of its artworks are now fully visualized on the Ethereum blockchain, no longer relying on the company's backend generator.This means that as long as the Ethereum blockchain exists, these artworks will always be accessible and appreciated, regardless of whether the Art Blocks company continues to operate.

ChainCatcher news, according to an investigation by ZachXBT, hacker Serpent initiated a meme coin scam by controlling 9 accounts, including McDonald's and Kabosu, on X platform and Instagram, stealing approximately $3.5 million, and using part of the funds for online casino gambling.Serpent was a professional Fortnite player in Australia and was released by the esports organization Overtime in 2020 for alleged cheating. In March 2022, he co-founded the NFT project DAPE, but the project later experienced a rug pull. In March 2024, Serpent launched another project called ERROR, which also experienced a rug pull, leading to his ban from the X platform.Previous news, ZachXBT stated that attacks on social media accounts of McDonald's and the owner of Kabosu over the past few months have resulted in losses exceeding $3.5 million.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, the annualized quarterly PCE price index for the United States in the third quarter was revised to 1.5%, the previous value was 1.5%.The annualized quarterly core PCE price index for the United States in the third quarter was revised to 2.1%, expected 2.2%, previous value 2.20%.The actual personal consumption expenditures quarterly rate for the United States in the third quarter was revised to 3.5%, expected 3.7%, previous value 3.7%.

ChainCatcher news, the annualized quarterly rate of the actual GDP in the United States for the third quarter was revised to 2.8%, expected 2.80%, previous value 2.80%.

ChainCatcher news, the privacy-first social protocol Rarimo has announced the completion of a $2.5 million Vision round funding, specifically for founders. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Celestia co-founder Nick White, RiscZero co-founder Brian Retford, Gnosis co-founder Stefan George, Aleo co-founder Alex Pruden, Monad co-founder Keone Hon, Aztec co-founder Zac Williamson, Arnaud Schenk, Aztec co-founder and Zcash contributor Ariel Gabizon, Alpen Labs founder Liam Eagan, Polygon Zero co-founder Daniel Lubarov, and Distributed Labs co-founder Pavel Kravchenko are among the project founders participating in the investment.According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, Rarimo is a protocol that enables the interoperability of assets, identities, and dApps across multiple chains, making it easier to operate across different chains, allowing users to perform actions such as transferring tokens, staking tokens, and providing cross-chain proof of ownership. The project is developed by Rarify Labs.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, analyst Van Straten cited Glassnode data showing that in the past two days, short-term holders who have held their coins for less than 155 days transferred approximately 83,000 bitcoins to centralized exchanges at a loss, worth about $7.8 billion, setting a new historical high.Van Straten pointed out that when short-term holders transfer more than $2 billion worth of bitcoins to exchanges at a loss, it usually indicates the formation of a local bottom. The data shows that currently about 678,000 bitcoins are in a state of loss. The current price of bitcoin is only down 7% from its historical high, with only investors who bought in the past week being in a state of loss.

ChainCatcher news, blockchain research and infrastructure provider Flashbots has launched BuilderNet to address the centralization issues in the Ethereum block building process, aiming to distribute control of the process more evenly among different operators.Flashbots hopes to adopt a collaborative block building approach that claims to encourage multiple operators to work together to securely share and process order flow. The initiative is named BuilderNet, with initial partners including Flashbots, block builder Beaverbuild, and Ethereum client provider Nethermind. The strategy of BuilderNet is to adopt a multi-operator system that allows parties to manage the same block builder.

ChainCatcher news, Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) stated on social media that tasks such as AI data labeling are very suitable for completion through blockchain, leveraging global low-cost labor and enabling instant payments via cryptocurrency, breaking geographical limitations.He also mentioned that BNB Chain's Greenfield provides storage support, but currently, more tools are needed, calling on developers to collaboratively build a decentralized AI data processing ecosystem.

ChainCatcher News, the People's Bank of China and seven other departments jointly released the "Action Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of Digital Finance," which clarifies the acceleration of the digital transformation of financial institutions, the improvement of the digital financial governance system, the promotion of key areas such as technology finance, green finance, and inclusive finance, support for the digital yuan pilot, and the enhancement of the quality and efficiency of financial services. At the same time, it emphasizes strengthening risk prevention and data security, optimizing the payment environment, and striving to basically establish a modern financial system that adapts to the development of the digital economy by the end of 2027.Among the efforts to create an efficient and secure payment environment, it is mentioned to steadily advance the digital yuan pilot, continuously improve the acceptance environment for the digital yuan, and enrich the usage scenarios of the digital yuan. Strengthen anti-money laundering supervision of digital financial services.

ChainCatcher news, Matrixdock, a leading RWA tokenization platform under Matrixport, announced a partnership with Avalon Finance, making its gold token XAUm the first RWA token supported for collateralized lending by Avalon Finance. XAUm holders can stake XAUm on the Avalon Finance platform on the BNB chain to borrow USDT or USDC, with a collateralization ratio of 70%.Avalon Labs is building a premier on-chain financial center for the Bitcoin ecosystem, offering a seamless ecosystem that includes lending services backed by BTC, Bitcoin-supported stablecoins, yield-generating accounts, and diversified products such as credit cards.Matrixdock will continue to explore collaborations with industry ecosystem projects to create more application scenarios for its high-quality DeFi collateral asset XAUm, helping investors achieve higher capital utilization.

ChainCatcher news, according to official information, Australia's Monochrome spot Bitcoin ETF (IBTC) held 258 BTC as of November 26, with an AUM of approximately $37.425 million.

ChainCatcher News: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump nominated Kevin Hassett as the Director of the National Economic Council and Jamieson Greer as the U.S. Trade Representative on Tuesday local time, filling two key positions in his economic team.These two positions will directly influence much of Trump's economic agenda: imposing new tariffs and tax cuts. Greer is a longtime protégé and deputy of Robert Lighthizer, who served as Trump's U.S. Trade Representative for four years. His selection underscores that tariffs will play a central role in Trump's economic agenda. Hassett is also a veteran of Trump's White House, having served as a senior advisor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He is a strong advocate for the Republican Party's signature tax policies, and Trump has vowed to extend these policies when many tax cuts expire next year. (Jinshi)

ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain data, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated 320 ETH (approximately 1.06 million USD) to the crypto think tank Coin Center.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Morocco plans to re-legalize cryptocurrency, after the country imposed a comprehensive ban on cryptocurrency transactions since 2017.