ChainCatcher news, Bitcoin mining company Stronghold announced that its shareholders voted "in favor" of the upcoming merger between Stronghold and Bitfarms Ltd. by an overwhelming majority. The merger agreement and plan are set to be signed on August 21, 2024, and will be revised thereafter.After the merger agreement proposal is approved, the company expects the merger to be completed by March 2025, subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the remaining closing conditions. The final report of the special shareholders' meeting results will be submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the form of an 8-K.

ChainCatcher message, Lens Chain tweeted that it plans to use Aave stablecoin GHO as the protocol Gas fee to ensure that transaction costs are predictable, stable, and cost-effective.

ChainCatcher message, AAVE announced on X that the Aave native stablecoin GHO is now live on Base.

ChainCatcher news, mining company Stronghold Digital has violated energy market rules while prioritizing its Bitcoin mining business, agreeing to pay over $1.4 million in fines and refunds.Stronghold has a contractual obligation to provide available power to the PJM grid to help ensure the reliability of the grid. However, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's enforcement office found that Stronghold failed to meet this obligation from June 2021 to May 2022, instead diverting power to its Bitcoin mining operations.Stronghold and Scrubgrass will repay PJM $678,635 in improperly earned capacity revenue and pay a civil penalty of $741,365 to the U.S. Treasury. The company must also submit compliance reports for at least two years and provide market rules training for its personnel.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, Hong Kong stocks showed mixed performance on the first trading day of the Year of the Snake. In the afternoon, driven by technology stocks, both the Hang Seng Index and the Hang Seng Tech Index rebounded after hitting lows. By the close, the Hang Seng Index narrowed its decline to 0.04%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index turned up 0.29% at the end of trading.Specifically, sectors such as semiconductors, chips, and AI concepts rose throughout the day, with Kingsoft Cloud performing exceptionally well, surging 31% during the day. SMIC closed up 10%, and Alibaba rose 6%. In contrast, sectors like cryptocurrency and pharmaceuticals continued to remain sluggish in the afternoon.

ChainCatcher news, according to PR Newswire, the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Bitnomial announced plans to launch a derivatives clearing organization and stablecoin clearinghouse Bitnomial Clearinghouse regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on January 30, 2025.It is reported that during the transition period, Bitnomial will gradually cease trading of old clearing products on its platform, including processing all legacy contracts expiring on January 29 and listing all BNCH clearing contracts on January 30, involving physically settled Bitcoin futures and options.

ChainCatcher news, the Financial Office of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee recently issued the "Action Plan for Further Promoting the Digital Renminbi Work in Guangzhou" (referred to as the "Digital Currency 2.0 Plan"). The "Action Plan" clarifies the main tasks of the pilot work from seven aspects.Further leverage the functional roles of the member units of the Guangzhou Digital Renminbi Work Leading Group. Each unit will formulate work plans for innovating and promoting digital renminbi application scenarios in their respective fields, implementing no less than one application scenario in their areas of responsibility.Explore promoting the use of digital renminbi as a payment method for prepaid services citywide.Vigorously create various digital renminbi application demonstration zones.Further enrich and improve application scenarios for digital renminbi in the transportation sector.Promote innovative digital renminbi application scenarios in the port and shipping sector.Actively advance the application of digital renminbi in cross-border payment and other businesses. Actively promote the participation of digital renminbi operating institutions and related enterprises in the pilot testing of the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge in the Guangzhou area. The Guangzhou Commodity Exchange's commodity trading platform and the Guangzhou Shipping Exchange's digital renminbi application will be implemented.Vigorously enhance the foundational strength of the digital renminbi industry.

ChainCatcher news, according to official information, the Web3.0 security company CertiK has recently released the "Hack3d: 2024 Annual Security Report."The report shows that in 2024, the total losses in the Web3.0 sector due to security incidents exceeded $2.363 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 31.61%. A total of 760 security incidents occurred throughout the year, with phishing and private key leaks being the two main attack methods, causing losses of $1.05 billion and $855 million, respectively. Losses from phishing attacks accounted for nearly 50% of the total losses for the year, making it the biggest threat to industry security.

ChainCatcher news, according to Spot On Chain monitoring, a certain whale continues to expand its long position while AAVE's price is retracing. In the past 8 hours, this whale borrowed 3 million GHO and used a total of 3.18 million dollars in GHO and WBTC to purchase 9,702 AAVE.Since October 13, this whale has accumulated a total of 96,800 AAVE at an average price of 183.4 dollars, with a total investment of 17.8 million dollars, currently realizing a profit of 15.31 million dollars, yielding a return of 86.2%.

ChainCatcher news, Stronghold Digital has agreed to pay $4.75 million and 25 bitcoins to settle a class action lawsuit accusing it of exaggerating its bitcoin mining capabilities during its 2021 IPO. According to court documents, the settlement agreement was reached after a year of mediation and will be paid in installments over the next 24 months in bitcoin.The lawsuit was filed in April 2022 by plaintiffs in the Southern District of New York. Under the proposed settlement agreement, Stronghold and the underwriters (the group of investment banks responsible for Stronghold's 2021 IPO) agreed to pay compensation in cash and bitcoin after a year of mediation. The value of the bitcoin portion is based on the current bitcoin price (around $90,000), amounting to approximately $2.2 million.

ChainCatcher news, the cryptocurrency mining company Bitfarms has signed a second hosting agreement with the American Stronghold Digital Mining to expand its operations at its facility in Pennsylvania. The initial terms of the agreement will expire on December 31, 2025, after which it will automatically renew annually. Additionally, Bitfarms will pay Stronghold 50% of the miner profits each month.Bitfarms CEO Ben Gagnon stated that the 20,000 miners on site will enhance efficiency and continue to improve the overall efficiency of the company. Previously, Bitmain signed the first hosting agreement with Stronghold in September, when it added an initial 10,000 miners to its Panther Creek facility in Pennsylvania. (Cointelegraph)

ChainCatcher news, according to Lookonchain monitoring, a certain whale is going long on AAVE. 9 hours ago, it bought 31,173 AAVE (approximately 4.8 million USD) and deposited it into Aave, then borrowed 2.7 million GHO from Aave and exchanged it for USDC.After that, the whale deposited USDC into Coinbase to purchase more AAVE.

ChainCatcher news, according to a statement from the Australian police, the Australian police seized $6.4 million worth of cryptocurrency in an operation against the encrypted communication network Ghost, which authorities described as "specifically designed for organized crime." The seized cryptocurrency has been transferred to a secure cryptocurrency storage of AFP, and authorities will seek permanent forfeiture.

ChainCatcher message, in response to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik's high praise for Celo, on-chain detective ZachXBT commented: "I have yet to see a real user of Celo; it is a 'ghost chain' integrated into the Optimism stack."Additionally, he expressed agreement with the views mentioned in the comments regarding Metal DAO and Celo utilizing the superchain mechanism to obtain OP ecosystem incentives.

ChainCatcher news, according to Scam Sniffer monitoring, about 3 hours ago, a trader lost $610,000 worth of rETH and stkGHO due to signing multiple "approve" phishing transactions.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms announced a hosting agreement with Stronghold Digital Mining to add 10,000 Bitmain T21 mining machines to its Panther Creek mining facility in Pennsylvania, with operations set to begin on October 1, 2024, which will increase Bitfarms' hash rate by 2.2 EH/s.It is reported that Bitfarms will pay Stronghold a fee equivalent to 50% of the profits generated by the miners, which will be renewed annually according to the terms of the hosting agreement until either party decides not to renew the contract.

ChainCatcher message, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated on social media, "I have never sought a ghostwriter, whether for long articles or tweets."

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, Aave Labs has proposed a temperature check proposal aimed at updating the GHO Stable Module (GSM) to integrate it with BlackRock's tokenized fund BUIDL. The main function of the GSM is to ensure that Aave's native stablecoin GHO maintains a 1:1 convertibility with other assets. The proposal suggests building a new instance of GSM that supports external integrations and related control mechanisms, specifically to support BlackRock's BUIDL. Currently, the proposal is in the temperature check phase and is receiving feedback from Aave governance members. If the community feedback is positive, AAVE token holders will vote on its implementation.BUIDL is a tokenized fund representing traditional assets such as cash and U.S. Treasury bonds. The proposal plans to achieve a 1:1 fixed exchange ratio between USDC and GHO, utilizing users' remaining USDC to mint equivalent dollar BUIDL shares. This could provide users with monthly BUIDL dividends, while the exchange fees will accumulate in the form of GHO stablecoin. Aave Labs stated that this implementation plan could enhance the capital efficiency of GSM while maintaining high standards of support, as USDC continues to back GHO. Furthermore, the integration of BUIDL with GSM could open new revenue streams for Aave DAO, expanding into the realm of physical assets and creating opportunities for future collaboration with leading global financial institution BlackRock.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cryptoslate, Aave Labs has proposed an update to its GHO Stable Module (GSM), which involves using shares of the BlackRock tokenized fund BUIDL to help maintain the dollar peg of its GHO stablecoin.According to the proposal, the new GSM will allow Aave to exchange user-provided USD Coin (USDC) for BUIDL shares to mint its ecosystem's native dollar-backed stablecoin GHO. These tokens will be held in a smart contract until users redeem their GHO for USDC. The value of BUIDL shares is stabilized at $1 per token, with daily returns paid to investors monthly. The fund allocates its assets to cash, U.S. Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements. According to data from RWA.xyz, BUIDL's assets under management (AUM) exceed $502 million.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms has announced its agreement to acquire competitor Stronghold Digital (SDIG) for $175 million.Bitfarms stated in a press release that the offer includes exchanging 2.52 shares of Bitfarms stock for each share of Stronghold, representing a 71% premium over Stronghold's 90-day volume-weighted average price on Nasdaq as of August 16. Stronghold indicated in May that it was exploring strategic alternatives, including the sale of the company.Previous news, as reported by Bloomberg citing informed sources, Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms is negotiating to acquire Stronghold Digital Mining Inc. for approximately $164 million, while also fending off acquisition attempts from Riot Platforms Inc.