Headlines
▌FTX CTO Gary Wang could face up to 50 years in prison
FTX co-founder and former CTO Gary Wang took the stand as a prosecution witness in the criminal trial of his co-founder SBF on October 6. One fact that emerged in the testimony concerned Wang’s plea agreement reached in December 2022. In a Bloomberg account of the current testimony, Wang said that despite his arrangement with prosecutors, he still faces up to 50 years in prison.
Wang added that he may receive a lighter sentence because of his cooperation with prosecutors and said he hopes not to go to jail. It is thought that prosecutors plan to submit a 5K letter to the court on Wang's behalf before sentencing, which will improve his chances of receiving leniency, assuming he fully cooperates.
▌Former FTX CTO: SBF adds “special privileges” to Alameda accounts on FTX
FTX co-founder and former CTO Gary Wang testified in a New York court that Alameda's account on FTX was the only one authorized to trade more than its available balance, a feature known as "allow negative amounts." Gary Wang claimed that SBF ordered Gary Wang and FTX's former engineering director Nishad Singh to implement the feature in 2019.
Wang stated that the addition of “allow negative numbers” in FTX’s code allowed Alameda to achieve a negative balance greater than FTX’s 2020 revenue. He reportedly testified that SBF provided Alameda with a $650 million line of credit, despite contrary statements to the public regarding the relationship between the two companies.
Wang said, “We said we would not use the funds in this way. After I said Alameda’s balance had dropped by billions of dollars, SBF asked to meet at the Bahamas office. He asked me about the error, and then he told Caroline she could go ahead and repay the loan.”
Quotes
As of press time, according to coinmarketcap data:
The latest transaction price of BTC is USD 27,942.2, with a daily change of +0.00%;
ETH's latest transaction price is $1,645.17, with a daily change of +0.15%;
BNB's latest transaction price is $213.48, with a daily change of +0.39%;
XRP's latest transaction price is $0.5252, with a daily change of +0.71%;
DOGE’s latest transaction price is $0.0613, with a daily change of +0.15%;
ADA’s latest transaction price is $0.2647, with a daily change of +0.18%;
SOL's latest transaction price is $23.4, with a daily change of -0.48%.
policy
▌Elon Musk: SEC and DOJ should be thoroughly investigated
Elon Musk claims that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have exercised their regulatory powers for personal and political motives, leading to punitive actions against him. Shortly after the SEC filed legal action against him, Elon Musk made a strong call for an overhaul of the agency. The SEC claims that he failed to cooperate with its investigation when he acquired Twitter (now X) for $44 billion last October. The SEC is investigating whether Musk’s acquisitions violated securities laws, and a filing on October 5 in a California district court seeks to force Musk to comply with a previous SEC subpoena.
Musk said the SEC and DOJ should be thoroughly investigated. What we really need is a comprehensive reform of these agencies and the establishment of an agency with the power to take punitive measures against individuals who abuse regulatory power for personal and political gain.
Blockchain Applications
Coinbase Launches Innovative ERC-20 Fraud Token Detection System
Coinbase launches innovative ERC-20 fraud token detection system. By combining smart contract auditing with machine learning predictions, the system can detect both known and unknown types of fraud. Significant recovery efficiency of user funds has also been achieved by the detection model described by the wider ecosystem, which improves scam token filtering in the Coinbase wallet by approximately 2x, ensuring a safer and more reliable Crypto experience.
▌ENF will launch EOS EVM v0.6.0 on October 16
The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) will launch EOS EVM v0.6.0, the virtual machine that powers the network and its smart contracts, on October 16. The EOS Network Foundation said that the EOS EVM is designed to connect EOS to Ethereum and its family of Layer2 chains that use EVM. When blockchains run the same virtual machine, it is much easier to move assets between them. Developers can also more easily create cross-chain applications, for example, transactions can be executed on chain B in response to actions that occurred on chain A.
▌Nature Science: DAO can help scientists find funding and community
The scientific journal Nature recently published an editorial in its Nature Biotechnology section praising DAOs as a revolutionary new way for researchers working in underfunded scientific fields to create communities around their work and raise funding that might otherwise be out of reach.
In a DAO-based research initiative, the project’s organization, fundraising, feedback, and pipeline from discovery to product/industry can all be handled by the same decentralized governing body.
Cryptocurrency
▌Galxe: The domain name Galxe.com has been leaked, and the total amount of funds lost may be less than $200,000
Galxe said on social media that the website is offline. We will bring it back online once the correct DNS records propagate globally. As long as you do not approve any transactions from your linked wallet on Galxe after 6am PST on October 6th, your funds and information are safe. Galxe uses Dynadot to provide domain registration services. This morning we became aware that our domain, Galxe.com, has been compromised. Unfortunately, an unauthorized individual temporarily took control of the Dynadot account.
We reclaimed the domain as of 9am PST on October 6th and secured the account with Dynadot. Initial assessments indicate that the total amount of funds that may have been compromised may be less than $200,000. We are committed to providing more accurate information as we investigate further. We have been working with the appropriate law enforcement agencies to resolve this matter.
▌Report: Global digital asset-based ETP AUM has increased by 53% year-to-date
An analysis of global exchange-traded products (ETPs) backed by digital assets as underlying collateral by digital assets by Fineqia International Inc., a digital asset and fintech investment firm, shows that total assets under management (AUM) have grown 53% year-to-date (YTD) due to continued investor interest. On a quarterly basis, total AUM fell 13% in the third quarter after growing 67% and 5% in the first and second quarters, respectively. Year-to-date, total AUM has grown 18% compared to the underlying value of digital assets, which has grown more slowly at 45%. In September, total AUM increased 1% from $30.2 billion to $30.5 billion. In the same month, the digital asset market capitalization rose 7% from $1.08 trillion to approximately $1.15 trillion.
▌Iris Energy spends $19.6 million to buy 7,000 Bitcoin mining machines
Australian mining company Iris Energy has reached an agreement with Bitmain to purchase 7,000 latest-generation Antminer S21 devices for US$19.6 million, with delivery expected in early 2024.
Of the total transaction amount, Iris Energy will pay $16.7 million upfront before shipment and will pay the remaining $2.9 million in deferred payments for up to one year. It will cost the company $14 per TH/s for miners. According to the Hashrate Index, as of this writing, the market price for equipment with energy consumption levels below 25J/TH is $15.95 per TH/s.
▌Backed Finance issues tokenized short-term U.S. Treasury bond ETF on Base
Backed Finance is a Switzerland-based company that has issued blB01, a tokenized short-term U.S. Treasury bond ETF, on Coinbase’s L2 network Base.
The company claims that this will be the first tokenized security to be offered on Base and will be issued in accordance with Switzerland's DLT Act. Backed Finance said that in accordance with the DLT Act, all tokens must be fully collateralized and transferable between wallets. This means that for each token in circulation, a third-party custodian holds an equal amount of the underlying asset. In the case of bIB01, the underlying asset is the iShares Treasury Bond 0-1y rUCITS ETF (IB01), which tracks the investment results of an index composed of dollar-denominated government bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury. Backed is not affiliated with Black Rock and its tokens are not iShares products. Only qualified investors and licensed retailers who have undergone Backed KYC and obtained anti-money laundering qualifications can purchase tokenized securities from Backed.
▌Report: Stablecoins are a lot like money market funds, which could pose a threat to the broader financial system
Researchers at the Federal Reserve's New York branch say stablecoins are a lot like money market funds, which could pose a threat to the broader financial system. A new research paper released by the New York Federal Reserve finds that stablecoins have some similarities to money market funds, a type of mutual fund registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that seeks to stabilize prices through relatively low-risk investments. It is estimated that more than $5 trillion in assets have been invested in money market funds. Like money market funds, stablecoins provide investors with currency-like assets that are vulnerable to runs and could see a "flight to safety" during times of stress, where investors swap them for other assets they perceive to be less risky.
The researchers say these runs and flight-to-safety dynamics in stablecoins are similar to those observed in the MMF industry. If stablecoins continue to grow and become more closely linked to key financial markets, such as short-term funding markets, they could become a source of financial instability for the broader financial system.
▌Analyst: December and January are great times of the year to trade/buy cryptocurrencies
Analyst Altcoin Sherpa said that December and January are the absolute best times of the year to trade/buy cryptocurrencies, and BTC almost always performs well during this period, even in a bear market. ETH also tends to outperform the rest of the altcoin market in December and January. This usually leads to the activation of the altcoin season.
▌FundStrat: VC funding for cryptocurrency companies shrank for the sixth consecutive quarter to $1.4 billion in Q3 2023
Venture capital funding for cryptocurrency companies contracted for the sixth consecutive quarter to $1.4 billion in the third quarter of 2023, while the number of individual deals fell 30% to 214, data analytics firm FundStrat noted in a new presentation.
This is a drop of nearly 90% from the more than $10 billion in venture capital received by cryptocurrency companies in the first quarter of 2022, shortly after many crypto assets reached their all-time peaks in late 2021. FundStrat noted that despite the sharp decline over the past year and a half, venture capital funding for cryptocurrency companies is still 2-3 times the level it was during most of 2018 through 2020.
▌Concordium founder: Identity verification is crucial to preventing cryptocurrency scams
Concordium founder Lars Seier Christensen believes that identity verification is essential to preventing cryptocurrency scams. He said that in order to prevent scams, there must be some level of identity verification, that is, some means to verify whether the parties in any particular transaction are really who they claim to be.
Friend.tech launches new feature that enables users to manage and modify login methods for personal accounts
Friend.tech has launched new features that enable users to manage and modify login methods for personal accounts. The move comes in response to an alarming surge in SIM swap attacks that allow malicious hackers to access sensitive user information.
In an official statement, Friend.tech said the feature addresses the influx of inquiries from users regarding the lack of a two-factor authentication password feature. Friend.tech said that the current implementation of this feature could cause users to inadvertently lock themselves out of their accounts. In response, the platform is actively working with Privy, a third-party service provider responsible for implementing the privacy feature. Privy is working on making the necessary updates, and once they complete the work, we will seamlessly integrate this feature.
Important economic developments
▌Fed Board Member Waller: The benefits of central bank digital currency are not yet clear
Federal Reserve Governor Waller said the benefits of central bank digital currencies are not yet clear. Launching a retail digital dollar requires changes to the law.
Golden Encyclopedia
Status
The state in Ethereum refers to a comprehensive ledger that includes all externally owned accounts (EOAs), their balances, smart contract deployments, and associated storage. This state is not static; it continues to expand as new users are added and new smart contracts are deployed.
Disclaimer: As a blockchain information platform, Golden Finance publishes articles for information reference only and is not intended as actual investment advice. Please establish a correct investment philosophy and be sure to raise your risk awareness.
