Compiled by: flowie, ChainCatcher

“What important events have occurred in the past 24 hours?”

1. Amber Group announced the completion of US$300 million Series C financing, led by Fenbushi Capital US

Amber Group’s official Twitter account announced that it has completed a $300 million Series C financing round, led by Fenbushi Capital US, with other crypto-native investors and family offices following suit.

Amber Group said that before the collapse of FTX, Amber raised a B+ round of financing at a valuation of US$3 billion to prepare for a possible extended crypto winter, and continued to raise a C round of financing after the collapse of FTX. With the support of investors, its top priority in 2023 is to focus on core business and customers.

Earlier on December 9, the Financial Times reported that Amber Group said it had raised about $50 million from a new sovereign fund and the deal would be announced in January next year. The new capital valued the company at $3 billion, the same as in February. (Source link)

2. Aztec completes $100 million Series B financing, led by a16z

Aztec Network, a privacy and scalability solution based on ZK Rollup, announced the completion of a $100 million Series B financing round led by a16z, with participation from A Capital, Variant, SV Angel, HashKey Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Alumni Ventures and others.

It is reported that this round of financing will be used to expand the engineering team globally. In the past year, the Aztec team has expanded from 7 to 40 people, and Aztec currently hopes to double this number in the short term. (Source link)

3. Former US President Trump issued NFT collections on Polygon, each priced at $99

Former US President Trump released a series of NFT collections on his social networking site truthsocial. The NFT is based on Polygon, with a total of 45,000 NFTs, each priced at $99. He also said that if you buy 45 digital trading cards, you will have a chance to get a ticket to have dinner with Trump. "This will be a great Christmas gift. Don't wait. I believe they will disappear soon!" Trump wrote. (Source link)

4. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited’s cryptocurrency futures ETF has raised US$73.6 million

According to Reuters, despite the current downturn in the crypto market, the cryptocurrency futures ETF under CSOP Asset Management (CSOP), which is about to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, still raised up to US$73.6 million in funds before listing, of which CSOP Bitcoin Futures ETF raised US$53.9 million.

According to Yi Wang, head of quantitative investment at Southern East Asset Management, the two crypto futures ETFs show that Hong Kong remains open to the development of virtual assets. Earlier, ChainCatcher reported that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange will list the CSOP cryptocurrency futures ETF at a transaction price of HK$780 per lot this Friday. (Source link)

5. The current FTX team requested court approval to sell four subsidiaries including LedgerX

According to The Block, the current FTX team has requested the U.S. Federal Bankruptcy Court to auction FTX's subsidiary derivatives trading platform LedgerX, stock clearing platform Embed, FTX Japan and FTX Europe early next year. Law firm Sullivan and Cromwell explained that "the longer these companies suspend operations, the greater the risk to the value of their assets and the risk of permanent license revocation."

Preliminary bids will be due in mid-January to early February, final bids will be made in mid-February to mid-March, and the auction date will be late February to late March. After these auctions, John Dorsey, a judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, will hold a hearing to approve the winning bid. Objections to the sale proposal will be due on December 29, and a hearing on the topic is scheduled for January 11. (The Block)

6. Armanino and Mazars suspend crypto auditing business

According to Forbes, citing two people familiar with the matter, Armanino is suspending its crypto auditing business. It is reported that last month, Armanino was sued by FTX client Stephen Pierce for failing to find any violations after auditing FTX.US last year. Armanino was worried that the company's reputation would be damaged, so he suspended the crypto auditing business.

As previously reported, auditing agency Mazars has also suspended services for cryptocurrency clients. (Source link)

7. Zhao Changpeng responded to the removal of MITH: There were problems with the project's operation, and the Binance team has the right to act in accordance with the terms of the contract

Binance founder Zhao Changpeng posted on social media to explain the reasons for "delisting MITH". Zhao Changpeng said that the price of MITH is far lower than when it was first released, and the project's website is offline. The project's official Twitter account has not posted a tweet or updated the community for nearly 2 years. I believe that the Binance team made the right decision in this matter and acted in full accordance with the rights that Binance has.

According to the terms of the cooperation agreement provided by Zhao Changpeng, once the project party's token price is lower than 50% of US$0.13 for 15 consecutive days, or there are any token or project-related facts that are unfavorable to Binance users, Binance will have the right to deduct all or any part of the deposit as additional fees.

As previously reported, Binance announced yesterday that it would stop trading and delist MITH at 17:00 on December 22 because it no longer met the project review standards. After that, MITH officially issued a statement accusing Binance of unilaterally terminating the cooperation and demanding the return of 200,000 BNB deposits. (Source link

8. Web3 infrastructure company Blocknative completes $15 million A1 round of financing, led by Distributed Capital and others

Web3 infrastructure company Blocknative announced the completion of a $15 million Series A1 round of financing, led by Blockchain Capital, Foundry Group, Rho, IOSG Ventures, Robot Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, HackVC, Industry Ventures, etc. Blocknative will use the funds to expand its blockchain infrastructure. To date, Blocknative has raised a total of $34 million.

It is reported that Blocknative was founded in 2018. The company's real-time infrastructure enables validators and searchers to optimize staking rewards and trading profits. Blocknative's transaction orchestration platform prices, previews, distributes and monitors transactions so that Web3 users can trade. (Source link)

9. NFT infrastructure platform Bonfire completes $6.2 million seed round of financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and others

NFT infrastructure platform Bonfire announced the completion of a $6.2 million seed round of financing, with participation from NEA, Variant Fund, Palm Tree Crew Crypto, Libertus Capital, Collab Currency, Pear VC, Coinbase Ventures, Not Boring Capital and Seed Club Ventures, as well as angel investors such as Cooper Turley, Lenny Rachitsky, Maya Bakhai, Trevor McFredries and Cuy Sheffield.

It is reported that Bonfire allows its partners to create customized NFT-integrated Web3 websites, allowing creators to attract fans by placing and publishing NFTs. The platform has now completed testing. (Source link)

"What are the interesting articles worth reading in the past 24 hours?"

1. "A few things a16z is excited about in the crypto space in 2023"

a16z has released a list of technological bottlenecks that technology builders may break through in the coming year. According to various a16z partners, they have focused on a list of innovations (big ideas) that startups in their respective fields may solve in 2023. The list covers general innovative technologies, game developers, growth drivers for American companies, AI fintech, and of course cryptocurrencies. Here are some of the things that partners from the engineering, research, and investment teams are excited about the future.

2. "Bixin Ventures: In-depth study of NFT market data to explore new trends in NFT market iteration"

What will the future of the NFT market look like? Will Opensea continue to dominate the NFT market space? This article will examine the current landscape by comparing three major stakeholders, including direct markets represented by Opensea, aggregators represented by Gem.xyz, and new forms of markets represented by Sudoswap. It will also examine some gaps in NFT market projects and discuss emerging trends that may affect future iterations of the NFT market.

3. "Bankless: After the collapse of FTX, infer future crypto trends from these 5 soaring DeFi indicators"

Where is capital going in the post-FTX era? Which projects benefited from the FTX debacle? Can there be light in the depths of crypto doom and gloom? Bankless analyzes DeFi metrics that have been on the rise since the FTX implosion and infers what these trends mean for crypto and future strategies.