ChainCatcher news, DeFiance Capital founder and CEO Arthur Cheong stated on his social platform, "Despite the overall market weakness, AAVE's price is approaching its cycle high. This may be due to institutional buying behavior, aiming to claim they hold Aave in year-end reports------as one of the best-performing DeFi assets and an important representative of the financial future."

ChainCatcher news, according to the official announcement, Hyperliquid Labs has stated that it is aware of reports regarding the activities of so-called North Korean hacker addresses. In fact, Hyperliquid has not suffered any attacks from North Korean hackers—nor has any form of attack occurred. All user funds are being managed properly.Hyperliquid Labs takes operational security very seriously. No party has disclosed any vulnerabilities. As always, Hyperliquid Labs offers a generous reward program for vulnerability reports and adheres to industry best standards for blockchain analysis.Previously, someone claimed to be from the security side and attempted to contact Hyperliquid Labs. To clarify, Hyperliquid Labs has never received any allegations regarding attacks on its platform. This party added a fraudulent account to the group chat and subsequently communicated with us using insults and profanity. Given the level of professionalism displayed, Hyperliquid Labs confirmed with trusted parties to ensure that it is following best practices.

ChainCatcher news, citing The Wall Street Journal via Cryptoslate, a new survey shows that among 160 crypto hedge funds, about 120 funds reported issues with basic banking services over the past three years. These funds invest in digital currencies and blockchain technology companies.The other 20 alternative investors surveyed (in areas such as real estate and private credit) reported no similar issues. Banking problems include poor communication and direct termination of partnerships. Among the crypto hedge funds facing issues, more than half were explicitly informed by banks that they would terminate their partnerships.However, the reasons for these decisions are often vague or nonexistent. When banks provide explanations, they state a desire to limit their risk exposure to cryptocurrency clients or the industry.

ChainCatcher news, Luxembourg has passed the "Blockchain Law 4," aimed at making the adoption of DLT for securities easier. This is the country's fourth blockchain law.According to the current DLT securities law, Luxembourg adopts a two-tier concept, including a central account manager, similar to a Central Securities Depository (CSD), but less cumbersome. The second tier involves account managers, i.e., custodians.EU credit institutions or investment firms or Central Securities Depositories (CSD) can act as control agents. There is no need to obtain a license in Luxembourg, but the regulatory authority (CSSF) must be notified several months in advance.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Workers' Daily report, the Beijing People's Procuratorate has released the work situation of the "Procuratorial Protection for Enterprises" special action and published typical cases. In a case of embezzlement, the defendant defrauded the company of over 140 million yuan, and the procuratorial authorities tracked the virtual currency to recover losses.Between 2020 and 2021, Feng, taking advantage of his position at a certain technology company's service provider and regional operations growth department, conspired with Tang and Yang to defraud the company of service provider bonuses totaling over 140 million yuan. Subsequently, Feng directed Tang and Yang to use eight overseas virtual currency trading platforms to convert the involved funds from yuan to virtual currency, obfuscating the source and nature of the funds through overseas "mixing" platforms, and transferring them in multiple layers. Part of the involved funds flowed into accounts controlled by Feng and others in yuan form, while some were concealed by Feng and others in virtual currency form.In response to the defendants' distribution of profits using virtual currency and the obfuscation of fund flows through overseas "mixing" platforms, the procuratorial authorities conducted a line-by-line comparison and two-way review of virtual currency and legal tender, accurately identifying the flow of funds. This ultimately prompted Feng to return 92 bitcoins, recovering over 89 million yuan in illicit gains, maximizing the economic losses recovered for the victimized unit.On September 14, 2024, the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court issued a judgment, sentencing defendant Feng and seven others for embezzlement, with prison terms ranging from 14 years and 6 months to 3 years, along with corresponding fines. The judgment has taken effect.

ChainCatcher news, Osprey Funds announced the launch of the Osprey BNB Chain Trust fund (ticker: $OBNB), which is now trading on the OTCQX market.This is the first publicly traded BNB-based fund in the United States. The fund provides U.S. investors with the opportunity to access BNB through traditional brokerage accounts or IRA accounts, which is one of the few ways to invest in BNB given that it cannot be traded on centralized exchanges in the U.S. BNB, as the native token of the BNB Chain, underpins decentralized applications, DeFi protocols, and smart contracts.

ChainCatcher news, MicroStrategy co-founder and chairman Michael Saylor stated that once the current fundraising plan is exhausted, the company will shift from a leveraged Bitcoin proxy plan to a more focused approach on fixed-income securities to raise funds for purchasing cryptocurrencies.When asked how he expects to fund future cryptocurrency purchases, Saylor expressed this preference during an interview. So far, MicroStrategy has utilized a combination of new stock and convertible bond sales to fund purchases, the latter of which has provided returns to shareholders as its stock price has risen to levels that can be converted into shares.Saylor said, "We have $7.2 billion in convertible bonds, but $4 billion of that is essentially equity, trading through exercise prices and call prices, with a delta of about 100%, looking like equity. We want to go back and build smarter leverage to benefit our common stock shareholders."He indicated that the company uses regulated exchanges like Coinbase to purchase Bitcoin. MicroStrategy's stock price has risen about 500% this year, far exceeding Bitcoin's approximately 150% increase.Hedge funds have been looking for its fixed-income securities to implement convertible arbitrage strategies, buying bonds and shorting stocks, essentially betting on the volatility of the underlying stock. This demand has driven MicroStrategy to issue $6.2 billion in convertible bonds this year.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, Lido announced on Monday that it will stop Polygon staking services and informed users that they can withdraw funds before June 16, 2025. The announcement also stated that after June 16, 2025, users will withdraw through a browser tool.The announcement indicated that multiple factors prompted Lido to reassess and ultimately exit the staking service on the Polygon PoS chain, including limited user adoption, insufficient rewards, resource-intensive maintenance requirements, and changes in ecosystem dynamics.

ChainCatcher News: Japanese listed company Metaplanet Inc. announced the issuance of its fourth series of ordinary bonds, with a total amount of 4.5 billion yen (approximately 30 million USD). The raised funds will be used to accelerate the purchase of Bitcoin.The bond has an annual interest rate of zero and is expected to mature on June 16, 2025. The redemption funds for the bonds will mainly be paid through the proceeds from the exercise of previously issued warrants. In addition, Metaplanet plans to further expand its capital operation capabilities through multiple issuances of private bonds, totaling up to 5 billion yen.

According to ChainCatcher news and IntoTheBlock data, as users extensively use WBTC and WETH as collateral to borrow stablecoins, the DeFi lending market is experiencing a new wave of enthusiasm, with lending rates exceeding 10%, and some projects reaching as high as 40%, setting a new high since the 2022 bull market. The largest lending protocol on Ethereum, Aave, saw a net inflow of funds reaching $500 million this week.

ChainCatcher news, the latest calculations from OKG Research at OKEx Research indicate that based on BlackRock's recent research report "The Size of Bitcoin in a Portfolio," if the global asset management industry allocates 1%-2% of its funds to Bitcoin in 2024-2025 as recommended.As of the end of 2023, the global asset management industry manages assets totaling $118.7 trillion. Assuming an annual growth rate of 10%, if the allocation ratio reaches 2%, the potential influx of funds could amount to approximately $3.05 trillion. This influx of funds could drive the price of Bitcoin up to around $247,000.

ChainCatcher news, Indian crypto exchange WazirX tweeted that it is undergoing asset rebalancing. During this process, users may notice fund movements between cold wallets. The official statement indicates that the temporary consolidation of assets is a necessary step for the final allocation to ensure the security of cold wallets. Once the rebalancing and wallet management tasks are completed, a complete list of all cold wallets and their respective held tokens will be shared.

ChainCatcher news, former JPMorgan Chief Equity Strategist and Fundstrat Capital Chief Investment Officer Tom Lee stated that he agrees that a wave of regulatory reform is indeed coming as he discussed the expected changes following Trump's presidency, emphasizing that Bitcoin is the most obvious indicator of future change.He said, "Perhaps the best way to measure this is through Bitcoin's performance, as Bitcoin has faced significant regulatory burdens over the past few years, and now the White House is embracing digital assets. The new U.S. SEC Chair, FTC Chair, and new Secretary of Commerce, I believe these are actually seen as favorable for businesses. But I think a good alternative approach is to focus on Bitcoin."Lee also mentioned the "reasonable target for BTC in 2025": "We believe it will follow a similar halving cycle that we have seen in the past, which means the BTC price will be around $250,000 in 2025."

ChainCatcher news, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju stated, "According to the realized market cap metric, Bitcoin currently attracts about $80 billion in inflows each month. Nearly half of the funds accumulated in the Bitcoin market over the past 15 years were added this year. If you don't understand what this means, then you still don't understand Bitcoin."

ChainCatcher news, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley revealed on social media that a Spanish bank has allocated 2% of its funds managed through its fund to the Bitwise Aptos Staked ETP (trading code: APTB) listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX). Horsley stated that an increasing number of professional investors from financial institutions are entering the cryptocurrency space, and crypto assets are gradually moving towards mainstream adoption.

ChainCatcher news, CreatorBid on the Al Launchpad on Base stated that the public sale originally scheduled for December 9 at Fjord Foundry was thwarted by a DDoS attack and system attacks such as evading maximum purchase limits on the eve of the sale, resulting in the sale's failure. CreatorBid will fully refund the funds received during the sale to legitimate participants. CreatorBid stated that it will work with KYC provider Fractal to conduct AML/KYC reviews of participants' wallets to ensure that funds are not returned to malicious actors. The current team is evaluating the next steps for the newly launched token.In response, crypto detective ZachXBT commented: "I hope you know that Fractal leaked the KYC of thousands of people earlier this year; if you call it trustworthy, then your team seems to have done no basic due diligence."