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Weekly Review: ZKX Suspended Operations Without Investors’ Knowledge, Cryptocurrency Price Plummeted and Market Makers Were Blamed; Fed’s September Rate Cut “May Be on the Agenda”
Summarized by AI
BlockBeats will organize the key industry news content of the week (7.29-8.4) in this article, and recommend in-depth articles to help readers better understand the market and learn about industry trends.
Important News Review
Federal Reserve: Interest rates remain unchanged in August; September rate cuts "may be on the agenda"; Bank of England cuts interest rates by 25 basis points
On August 1, the Federal Reserve kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5.25%-5.50% for the eighth consecutive time, in line with market expectations. Chairman Powell released dovish remarks about a possible rate cut in September at the press conference after the meeting, leading to a comprehensive surge in U.S. stocks, with the S&P 500 up 1.58% and the Nasdaq up 2.64% led by technology stocks such as Nvidia and TSMC. Bitcoin, however, fell instead of rising, falling below $63,000 this week, driving down altcoins such as ETH and SOL. Related reading: "Powell eases interest rate cut in September, Bitcoin falls instead of rising"
On the same day, the Bank of England announced a 25 basis point interest rate cut to 5.00%, in line with market expectations, the first interest rate cut since March 2020. The Bank of England needs to ensure that inflation remains low and be careful not to cut interest rates too quickly or too much. Bank of England Governor Bailey said that the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee will act cautiously. Related reading: "The US interest rate cut is imminent, the UK interest rate cut has landed, but why is Bitcoin falling? 》
ZKX suspension questioned: investors were not informed in advance; the coin price plummeted and blamed the market maker; the use of $7.6 million in funds was unclear
On July 30, Starknet ecological derivative DEX ZKX announced the closure of the agreement due to a serious imbalance between income and expenditure. However, some community users questioned the suspension of operations. It seemed unreasonable that the $7.6 million in financing was announced more than a month ago, and the TGE was suspended just a few weeks after it started. Founder Eduard responded that the previous $7.6 million in financing was raised from 2021 to 2024 and used for various expenses. All user funds have been refunded, and more than 80% of users have withdrawn from the agreement. Subsequently, the KOL stated that the team had behaviors such as opaque fund spending and selling tokens. On August 4, investors and market makers who had participated in the recently shut down ZKX project said they were surprised by the ZKX shutdown announcement and did not receive any advance news. Related reading: 《 ZKX shutdown questioned: blame market makers, $7.6 million in funds used unknown》
Binance Labs Fund announces the first batch of projects to be incubated in the seventh season, and announces investment in Monad ecosystem projects aPriori and Particle Network
On July 30, Binance Labs Fund announced the first batch of projects to be incubated in the seventh season. Astherus, a pledged asset liquidity protocol, CYCLE NETWORK, a chain abstraction liquidity aggregation protocol, DILL, a scalable data availability network, and EigenExplorer, a data and DeFi system based on EigenLayer, were shortlisted. Related reading: "Binance Labs announces the first batch of projects to be incubated in the seventh season, how to participate in the interaction?"
On the same day, Binance Labs announced that it would invest in aPriori, a Monad ecosystem project, through an incubation program. On August 1, Binance Labs announced its investment in the modular blockchain Particle Network.
At the same time, according to the official announcement on July 30, starting from the next Launchpool, the decentralized BNB assets of the Binance Web3 wallet will be included in the calculation of Launchpool rewards.
Doge prototype Shiba Inu Kabosu owner's new pet meme coin with the same name is popular, and the coin price has repeatedly hit record highs
Last weekend, Trump attended the Bitcoin Conference and delivered a speech, attracting the attention of many crypto users. Just after Trump's speech, a meme that had nothing to do with his speech suddenly became popular. The coin is Neiro, the meme coin with the same name as the new pet of the owner of the Doge meme prototype Shiba Inu Kabosu. Neiro is deployed on both Ethereum and Solana, and there are even dozens of copycat memes with the same name. Later, Kabosu's owner responded that he only recognized DOGE, and all others were unrelated projects. Despite this, it could not resist the rise of Neiro. On August 1, the Ethereum Meme project Neiro (NEIRO) broke through $0.2, setting a new record high, with a 24-hour increase of 193%, a market value of over $200 million, and a 24-hour trading volume of $16.43 million. Related reading: Review of the new Meme coin Neiro: The market value is nearly 50 million US dollars in two days, and the master of leading orders Ansem joins the game to boost it, "The "Dog King" becomes the "Rat King": NEIRO's insider trading share is as high as 130 million US dollars, and KOLs collectively create momentum"
makenow.meme platform is hot, issuing tokens CTO went online for 3 hours and traded 32 million US dollars
makenow.meme is a new MEME coin issuance platform. It only takes one tweet to issue a token for free. CTO is Raydium's Meme coin issued on the platform. On August 1, according to market information, CTO went online for 3 hours and traded 32 million US dollars. On the same day, makenow.meme announced that it would conduct a retroactive airdrop of MNM. There are no advisor tokens, no behind-the-scenes transactions, and no KOL discounts. It's just a retroactive airdrop based on the user's early interaction with these indicators found in the profile page. Those who make tokens with higher market value will receive more rewards. Related reading: Pump.fun New Competitor, Where is MakeNow.Meme Fun? 》
SEND has issued SEND token airdrops to Solana mobile phone preorderers this week
On August 1, Solana Blinks ecological project SEND posted on the X platform that it is airdropping to the top communities on Solana. Addresses holding Solana mobile phone preorder tokens Chapter2 Preorder Token can receive 500 SEND tokens for free, which will only be open for 24 hours.
The U.S. government and Mt.Gox holding addresses have seen large transfers again this week
On July 30, the U.S. government address transferred 29,799.99 BTC, about $2.02 billion. As of press time, the U.S. government address currently still holds 183,439 BTC, about $12.35 billion. The next day, the Mt. Gox address in Mentougou transferred 33,963.888 bitcoins to two addresses, worth about $2.25 billion. As of press time, the Mt. Gox address in Mentougou holds 32,899 BTC, equivalent to about $2.1 billion.
Market News: SEC Modifies Lawsuit against Binance, No Longer Considers SOL and Other Tokens as Securities
On July 30, according to market news, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took action to modify its complaint against Binance, seeking to no longer prove that SOLANA and other tokens are securities. It is reported that according to the definition of the SEC in its general objection to the defendant's motion to dismiss (Dkt. No. 172), this move makes it unnecessary for the court to rule on the charges against these tokens at present. The next day, Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, published an article on X stating that the SEC no longer considers tokens such as SOL as securities and does not increase the probability of approval of spot ETFs such as SOL. To pass ETF approval, one of the following conditions must be met: a long enough history of SOL futures trading on CME; a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework and administrative changes.
Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) has launched cryptocurrency trading services on August 1, including spot trading pairs of Bitcoin, Ethereum and USD and HKD
On August 1, Futu Hong Kong officially launched virtual currency trading services, becoming the first brokerage in Hong Kong to launch zero-commission trading of virtual currencies. The group's application "Futu Niu Niu" has begun to provide virtual currency trading services. The threshold is HK$80 or US$10. Futu's virtual currency trading function includes 4 spot trading pairs including Bitcoin, Ethereum and USD and HKD. It also provides Hong Kong and US stock spot ETF trading, Hong Kong and US stock futures ETF trading, and related investment categories such as blockchain concept stocks. Futu Securities Managing Director Xie Zhijian said that Futu has full confidence in the future of Hong Kong's Web3.0 industry. According to the bank's survey, more than 40% of investors who have never traded virtual assets expressed their desire to trade on Futu NiuNiu, and nearly 75.6% of experienced investors are also happy to see Futu launch virtual asset trading services on the platform.
Harris is reported to be in contact with top crypto companies recently
On August 1, according to Cailian News Agency, US Democratic presidential candidate Harris is in contact with the US cryptocurrency industry recently to ease the tension between the Democratic Party and the crypto industry. According to comprehensive reports, Harris' team recently contacted some people related to major cryptocurrency companies, including well-known companies such as Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States, stablecoin company Circle, and blockchain payment company Ripple Labs. Harris' team hopes to have a more constructive dialogue with the crypto industry and establish a regulatory framework that is conducive to the development of cryptocurrencies. This is also an important step for her to win the support of the crypto industry and thus weaken Trump's strong momentum in the industry.
Trump launches limited edition sneakers that support Bitcoin payments
On July 31, Trump posted on social media that he would launch limited edition sneakers that support Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, with "Trump, Crypto President" printed on the shoe body. As soon as the news came out, the most popular high-top Bitcoin orange-themed sneakers, originally priced at $499, sold out within 3 hours. Subsequently, scalpers appeared on the shopping website eBay, with more than a dozen orders placed, and the highest price was $2,500. Related reading: "Trump "promotes" Bitcoin-themed sneakers, scalpers speculate to $2,500"
The Russian parliament passed a new law to support the use of cryptocurrencies for legalized international payments
On July 30, according to Russian News Agency, the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, passed the Digital Currency Cross-Border Payment Law today, which allows the use of cryptocurrencies for settlement within the framework of the experimental system. Elvira Nabiullina, governor of the Central Bank of Russia, said that she has been discussing the terms of the trial with various ministries and companies, and the first payments are expected to be made before the end of this year.
Vitalik delivered a keynote speech at EDCON 2024, "The Next Decade of Ethereum"
On July 30, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin attended the global Ethereum summit EDCON 2024 and delivered a keynote speech, "The Next Decade of Ethereum". Vitalik not only briefly reviewed the changes that have taken place in Ethereum over the past 10 years, but also painted a picture of the infinite possibilities of Ethereum in the next 10 years with his forward-looking perspective. Related reading: "Vitalik EDCON 2024 latest speech: Ethereum's ten years of changes and prospects for the next decade"
"Vitalik: An Ethereum Story" documentary is open for early bird tickets, priced at US$20
On August 1, Ethereum Stories announced that the documentary "Vitalik: An Ethereum Story" will be released on September 20, 2024. Early bird streaming tickets are now open for casting, priced at US$20, and the early bird price will last until August 23.
Telegram founder: Because of sperm donation, he has more than 100 "biological children" in the world, and plans to open source DNA to facilitate future generations to recognize each other
On July 31, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov posted on his personal channel that although he was not married, he was told that he had "more than 100 biological children" in the world because of long-term sperm donation (as early as 15 years ago). The owner of the clinic persuaded him that there is currently a shortage of "high-quality sperm" and it is his civic responsibility to anonymously help more couples donate more sperm. At present, Pavel Durov has helped more than 100 couples in 12 countries and regions successfully give birth in past donation activities. Pavel Durov plans to open source his DNA so that his biological children can find each other more easily. He does not regret becoming a donor, because the shortage of healthy sperm has become an increasingly serious problem, and Pavel Durov is proud of his contribution.
Shaanxi police in China cracked a virtual currency investment fraud case and arrested 4 people
On July 31, according to Shaanxi police reports, the Public Security Bureau of Jingbian County, Yulin, Shaanxi successfully cracked a virtual currency investment fraud case and arrested 4 criminal suspects, involving a case value of 410,000 yuan. In July 2024, when the victim Wang was chatting with others online, he was recommended to invest in virtual currency on a certain APP to make money. The other party claimed that he knew the system loopholes of the APP and that the investment was a sure win. Under the temptation of high returns, Wang invested a total of 410,000 yuan in a certain APP. The criminal suspect Zhai, together with Wang, Li, and Li, drove a car to make a profit of more than 50,000 yuan. At present, the four criminal suspects have been criminally detained according to law, and the case is under further trial.
A 29-year-old man was kidnapped and killed after 3 bitcoins were stolen in Kiev, Ukraine
On July 29, The Block reported that a 29-year-old Bitcoin holder was kidnapped and killed in Kiev, Ukraine. Four men aged 24 to 29 were detained on suspicion of "careful" planning to kidnap the victim and steal three bitcoins worth about $207,000. "Information about the man's kidnapping reached the capital's police department around midnight. Residents of a house in the Solomeyan district heard screams and saw several unidentified people beating and forcibly pulling a man into a car," the police station wrote in a statement. The police investigation found that the attack was premeditated.
Hot articles this week
《Silicon Valley turns right: Peter Thiel, A16Z and the political ambitions of cryptocurrency》
As if overnight, Silicon Valley public opinion began to turn to the Trump camp, and after Harris became the Democratic Party’s pre-determined presidential candidate, Silicon Valley became increasingly divided. Public support for Trump was once a taboo in Silicon Valley, but now this blue fortress is shaken by frustration with Biden and the Democratic government. In the past two years, Silicon Valley’s technology giants have begun to participate in politics in a more high-profile way. Just like "software eats the world", these kingmakers are changing the power structure in Washington through capital and influence.
《Silicon Valley Insider: AI Panic, Cult Culture and the Political Turn of Technology Leaders》
Silicon Valley is gradually shifting from a one-party Democratic trend to more Republican voices. Some well-known technology figures such as Marc Andreessen have begun to publicly support Trump. Amjad believes that this change is partly due to concerns about technology regulation and the influence of people like David Sacks. (Amjad Masad is a Jordanian-American technology entrepreneur. Recently, he was a guest on the podcast of Tucker Carlson, a famous American TV host, and provided unique insights from an insider on hot topics such as the development of AI, technological ethics, and the changing political atmosphere in Silicon Valley.)
"Silicon Valley Darling and His Billion Dollar Prediction Market"
Welcome to the future of betting markets, where you can bet on almost anything, from Bitcoin's 2024 peak price to how fast Trump and Biden can climb stairs, and even the gender of Hailey and Justin Bieber's newborn. On the Polymarket platform, about $446 million is currently being bet on the outcome of the November presidential election. Although betting on election results is prohibited in the United States under the rules of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, it is considered not in the public interest. Polymarket is headquartered in New York City and has become a prediction market phenomenon due to the global attention paid to American politics.
When talking about DAO in the Chinese circle, Wang Chao is a name that cannot be avoided. In 2020, after he stepped down as a partner of Bitpie Wallet, he focused his main energy on studying and researching the then emerging DAO. Since his daily work when he was making wallets was to communicate with a large number of teams, he continued this style in studying and researching DAO. Over the years, he talked to two or three hundred teams doing DAO. In this process, he wrote down what he saw and thought, and became a guide for many people to understand and participate in DAO.
《Exclusive interview with Jasmine, an investor in crypto AI: It is more cost-effective to make applications with PMF than to follow the trend of Infra》
How can crypto AI projects gain the favor of VCs? In addition to VC financing, are there any other better ways to obtain funds? Recently, BlockBeats had a conversation with Jasmine. Jasmine shared her observations and thoughts on the current status of primary investment in crypto AI, and provided advice from an investor's perspective to the founders of crypto AI projects.
After the latest FOMC meeting ended yesterday (1), the US Federal Reserve (Fed) maintained the federal benchmark interest rate at 5.25%~5.5% for the eighth time as expected by the market. Fed Chairman Powell also said at the press conference that the long-awaited interest rate cut is imminent. Many investors may feel frustrated. Why is the expectation of interest rate cuts becoming more and more clear, but the market has not responded, but has turned to fall? This article uses data analysis to see whether interest rate cuts can really stimulate the venture capital market every time?
《The bull market is halfway through, does the Bitcoin ecosystem still have a chance? 》
The market's high expectations for the Bitcoin ecosystem have also brought about setbacks. The inscription craze quickly cooled down, and the highly anticipated Runes "runes" performed below expectations after they were launched. With the rise of Memecoin, market attention has also been greatly diverted. This wave of ups and downs in the Bitcoin ecosystem is just like the "high temperature annealing" process in semiconductor technology. This process is designed to release the internal stress of the material and increase its ductility and toughness.
During August and September this year, there were frequent activities in the field of cryptocurrency, including Token 2049, and several industry summits will be held soon. In order to facilitate readers to attend the conference and understand the conference information, BlockBeats provides readers with a guide to attend the conference. These conferences not only bring together pioneers in the industry, but also become the intersection of innovative ideas and future trends. Among them, Korea Blockchain Week (KBW2024), WebX2024 Japan Conference, Singapore TOKEN2049, etc. are worth paying attention to.
Solana has been leading in data in all dimensions recently. Previously, an article introduced the rapid development trend and pattern of its ecological liquidity staking track. In addition to these projects in the front stage, the validators behind Solana seem to have always been relatively mysterious. How much can you earn as a validator on Solana? What is the level of investment?
《Solana: Hidden worries under the surface prosperity》
Recently, my timeline is full of $SOL nonsense, mixed with memecoin excuses. I started to believe the memecoin supercycle was real and Solana would replace Ethereum as the dominant L1. But then I started digging into the data and the results were worrisome to say the least… In this post I explain why Solana might be a house of cards.
During the three days of the Bitcoin Conference, BlockBeats' frontline reporters were on site and reported the situation on site to us as soon as possible. This year, two Bitcoin conferences were held. Chinese were the main force of participants in the conference held in Hong Kong; this time in Tennessee, Chinese participants were almost invisible, but Chinese employees were basically deployed at each booth. In addition, mining companies and BTC L2 each occupied about 40% of the booths; Michael Saylor, the founder of MicroStrategy, was one of the most popular guests besides Trump, and many participants lined up to take photos with him when they saw him.
《How credible are Trump's Bitcoin Conference promises? 》
Trump attended the 2024 Bitcoin Conference as a top guest, and under the watchful eyes of the public, he made a series of "sweet-talking" promises that crypto enthusiasts considered, expressing his "love" for Bitcoin almost without reservation. Trump's frequent overtures to crypto assets are considered good news by many, while others believe that this is just a "play" to win votes, and that he will "pull up his pants and leave" or even "burn bridges after crossing the river" after becoming president. So how credible are Trump's sweet words? Who is right and who is wrong? Everything has to start with the propositions and values of the two major camps of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the United States…
This article uses a fundamentals-driven approach to study L1 and L2 in more depth, analyzes the top 4 L1 and L2 in terms of revenue, and then explores in depth how much revenue these blockchains actually retain. The article defines revenue as total revenue minus token issuance (the number of native tokens distributed to users) and operating expenses (the cost of developing, maintaining, and upgrading protocols) in a simple and easy-to-understand way.
In the first half of 2024, Starknet and zkSync completed their airdrop plans, and the four major Layer2 projects have issued tokens. In addition, some new Layer2 projects also performed very well in 2024. For example, Base achieved significant traffic growth in the first half of 2024, surpassing Optimism to become the second largest Layer2. Although the Layer2 field shows a strong growth trend, the market still has doubts about the authenticity of its data. Previously, zkSync's average daily transaction volume and number of active addresses have been questioned. So, do these superficial prosperity really reflect the actual use of the network?
Péter Szilágyi, head of the Ethereum core development team, recently tweeted to criticize the direction of Ethereum's development and expressed concerns about Ethereum's upcoming PeerDAS upgrade. He criticized Ethereum for going astray, saying that the research team had fully accepted all centralized ideas, as long as they could be verified. On the surface, it was decentralized verification, but in essence it was centralized control. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also responded to his accusations through a series of tweets on the 27th, flatly denying any intention to centralize the Ethereum network, and emphasizing that the Ethereum team has been deeply involved in discussions aimed at minimizing centralization, rather than promoting centralization.
《Vitalik EDCON 2024 Latest Speech: Ethereum's Ten Years of Change and Outlook for the Next Decade》
On July 30, at the Ethereum Developer Conference EDCON 2024 held in Tokyo, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin presented us with a speech on "The Next Decade of Ethereum". He not only briefly reviewed the changes that have taken place in Ethereum over the past 10 years, but also used his forward-looking perspective to paint a picture of Ethereum's infinite possibilities in the next 10 years.
《A List of Several Newly Launched Telegram Mini Games Worth Paying Attention to》
With the development of the past few months, the number of mini-games on the Telegram platform has exploded, and TON chain ecological games have entered an unprecedented stage of prosperity. It is understood that there are currently at least more than 100 mini-games running on Telegram, and this number is expected to increase to more than 2,000 by August. Telegram mini-games have not only attracted the attention of many players, but also attracted the attention of a large number of investors and developers. BlockBeats has selected several Telegram mini-games that have just been launched with strong team and financing backgrounds to introduce to you.
On July 30, Binance Labs announced the first batch of projects selected for the 7th Season Incubation, including Astherus, CYCLE NETWORK, DILL and EigenExplorer. Their concepts and businesses are relatively cutting-edge, and the former two have launched early interactive activities, which are linked to future airdrops. This article will analyze the business, characteristics and interactive activities of each protocol.
《I play 100k meme coins on the chain and make 80,000 yuan a month》
Four months ago, the meme coin BOME on Solana attracted many crypto novices to start playing meme with a market value of over 1.5 billion US dollars in three days, an increase of more than 100 times. Lu Qi is one of them. "When I played meme, I put about 30,000 to 40,000 in my wallet. I haven't added money in the past few months. It turns out that I can make 70,000 to 80,000 yuan a month." Most of the tokens they trade come from Pump.fun, a coin issuance platform on Solana. For several months, Pump.fun has maintained an average daily income of over $600,000, with more than 10,000 new tokens appearing on Pump.fun every day. Many people shuttle between the fragmented liquidity, seeking stage-specific certainty of income in various ways.
On July 31, Bubblemaps revealed that $NEIRO tokens issued on Ethereum had a large number of internal insider positions, with about 78% of the tokens being allocated in advance and then transferred to more than 400 wallet addresses. Even with the exposure, the price of NEIRO tokens continued to rise under the severe FOMO sentiment. According to the market value of $170 million on August 1, NEIRO's insider position share will be as high as $130 million, which is the largest insider position among MEME coins.
《Pump.fun new competitor, where is MakeNow.Meme fun? 》
The market has given a new answer on how to play memes more extreme. This time, you can post memes by sending a tweet. Posting a tweet in the format required by MakeNow is equivalent to posting a meme token, but the token issuance is considered successful only after an official reply from MakeNow, which will include the token contract. Since the launch of the official protocol, MakeNow has launched more than 2,600 meme tokens in just one day (about 26 hours) and earned more than 230+ SOL.
《Revel in the Wild Casino Where Memes Are Buried》
Meme Token is interesting and wild, but I think this feeling is, or has become, a generation gap. What remains unchanged is that we can still witness "see him build a tall building, see him entertain guests, and see his building collapse" again and again in 24 hours or even shorter time. What has changed is that the fun and relaxing feeling has gradually disappeared, and the tense and naked fighting has become more and more obvious.
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