Today's news tips:
Bloomberg: Australia expected to approve Bitcoin spot ETF this year
Hong Kong virtual asset spot ETFs were first listed today, with Harvest and Huaxia offering prices at $1
Russia will impose strict restrictions on the circulation of crypto assets from September 1, but will exempt miners and central bank projects
ConsenSys Offers Four Reasons Why Ethereum Should Not Be Considered a Security
OKX Jumpstart starts RUNECOIN (RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE) mining at 15:00 today
The halving of Bitcoin and the cooling of Runes have caused the operating costs of various types of mining machines to approach their shutdown prices.
CoinShares: Digital asset investment products saw a net outflow of $435 million last week
Data: About $400 million worth of tokens will be unlocked next week, including $150 million in MEME
Regulatory News
Bloomberg: Australia expected to approve Bitcoin spot ETF this year
According to Bloomberg, following the United States and Hong Kong, Australia will also launch a Bitcoin ETF. According to people familiar with the matter, Australia's largest stock exchange ASX Ltd. is expected to approve the first batch of Bitcoin spot ETFs listed on the main board by the end of 2024. It is reported that ASX handles about four-fifths of Australia's stock transactions.
Russia will impose strict restrictions on the circulation of crypto assets from September 1, but will exempt miners and central bank projects
Starting September 1, Russia will impose strict restrictions on the circulation of crypto assets such as Bitcoin, allowing the issuance of digital financial assets only within its jurisdiction. Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, led the move. This is part of the government's broader efforts to control the crypto ecosystem amid rising geopolitical tensions. Aksakov said that the upcoming law aims to restrict non-Russian cryptocurrency businesses in order to strengthen the dominance of the ruble. Aksakov explained: "Only digital financial assets and digital rubles issued within the jurisdiction of Russia will be allowed. The restrictions are needed because currently cryptocurrencies are a quasi-currency that replaces the status of the ruble in the country. But only the Russian ruble can fulfill the mission of a monetary unit, so this decision was made. From September 1, restrictions will be implemented." The bill will create exceptions for cryptocurrency miners and test projects supported by the central bank within the experimental legal framework. This is because cryptocurrency mining has greatly increased Russia's tax revenue.
However, State Duma deputy Anton Gorelkin clarified that Russia does not intend to ban cryptocurrencies outright. The restrictions will affect the creation of cryptocurrency exchanges and other platforms that provide services for cryptocurrency trading. Meanwhile, there is a heated debate among Russian policymakers about this approach. Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy Artem Kiryanov stressed the importance of precise regulation. In contrast to these restrictive views, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has been advocating a more moderate approach. Earlier this year, Siluano opposed a complete ban on cryptocurrencies, advocating regulation to enable their use in domestic and international transactions. These discussions hint at a potential inclination to use cryptocurrencies for external payments.
Project News
io.net releases post-security incident analysis, IO token launch plan is not affected
Ahmad Shadid, founder and CEO of io.net, published a post-mortem analysis of the April 27 security incident report on Twitter. He said that in the past 120 hours, the team worked hard to expel the sybil attacker from the network, launched multiple security patches, and established a new security model to prevent such incidents from happening again in the future. The network infrastructure is now fully operational, and partners are rejoining the network despite a temporary reduction in GPU supply. Shadid said that the network was attacked by some users who sold virtual GPUs and other services to forge GPUs in the network in exchange for rewards. Ten days ago, about 1.8 million fake GPUs tried to connect to the network, and the team prioritized identifying and blocking these devices. Shadid made it clear that this attack did not affect the development plan of io.net, and a second round of rewards for suppliers will be launched from May 1 to May 30. The plan to launch IO Cloud v2 and IO Coin is not affected.
ConsenSys Offers Four Reasons Why Ethereum Should Not Be Considered a Security
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s attempt to classify Ethereum as a security has sparked controversy, and blockchain software company Consensys sued the SEC last week over Ethereum regulation. Consensys said in the lawsuit that the SEC has been "trying to illegally regulate Ethereum through special enforcement actions against Consensys and other companies." It is seeking confirmation from the court whether the SEC has the legal authority to regulate user-controlled software interfaces built on Ethereum. A Consensys spokesperson now offers the following four reasons to support that Ethereum should not be considered a security:
1. SEC’s historical stance on Ethereum: William Hinman, former head of the SEC’s corporate finance department, said in 2018 that Ethereum is not a security. The SEC has not yet officially retracted this stance.
2. CFTC classifies Ethereum as a commodity: The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has long considered Ethereum a commodity. In a recent civil enforcement action involving the cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, the CFTC explicitly classified Ethereum as a commodity.
3. Decentralization and open protocols: The essence of Ethereum architecture lies in decentralization. Unlike securities, Ethereum runs on a platform where all information is publicly accessible.
4. Irrelevant to the Consensus Mechanism Transformation: Ethereum’s recent transition from a Proof of Work (PoW) to a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism was cited by the SEC as a potential reason for reclassification. However, this transition does not affect the core nature of Ethereum or its non-security classification.
Hong Kong virtual asset spot ETFs were first listed today, with Harvest and Huaxia offering prices at $1
According to China Fund News, six virtual asset spot ETFs were launched today and will be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 30. They belong to China Asset Management (Hong Kong), Bosera International, and Harvest International, each of which has one Bitcoin spot ETF and one Ethereum spot ETF. The above products invest 100% of their assets in Bitcoin or Ethereum, do not make other types of investments, will not invest in financial derivatives for any purpose, or engage in securities lending, repurchase or reverse repurchase transactions, and may not use any form of leverage. A small amount of cash may be retained for expenses or redemption.
In terms of issue price, the issue price of products under Harvest Asset Management and Hua Xia (Hong Kong) is US$1; the initial issue price of Bosera Bitcoin ETF is basically the same as 1/10000 of the tracking index on April 26, 2024, and the initial issue price of Bosera Ethereum ETF is basically the same as 1/1000 of the tracking index on April 26, 2024, which means that holding 10,000 shares is approximately equal to 1 Bitcoin, and holding 1,000 shares is approximately equal to 1 Ethereum.
Renzo plans to launch an upgrade to support ezETH withdrawals in May 2024
Renzo, a liquidity re-staking protocol, announced on its official Twitter account that it plans to launch a major upgrade to support ezETH withdrawals in May 2024. Once the feature is launched, its code will have been reviewed by three auditors. In addition, to further ensure the security of the platform, Renzo has also partnered with the bug bounty platform mmunefi to launch a bug bounty program of up to $250,000.
Yu Xian, founder of SlowMist: We should develop the good habit of not touching the Internet with sensitive information such as mnemonics/private keys and using the system's built-in input method
Yu Xian, the founder of SlowMist, retweeted and said: "Using the system's built-in input method is a good habit to reduce the attack surface (of course, if the system input method is found to have risks and has not been resolved, then you have to pay attention). In addition, super sensitive information such as mnemonics/private keys should not be exposed to the Internet unless you don't care..."
Earlier, Shenyu tweeted that the cloud input methods of up to one billion users may have leaked their input content. The article cited an analysis showing that eight of the nine manufacturers' input method software had serious vulnerabilities, and some manufacturers did not even encrypt the user input content.
OKX Jumpstart starts RUNECOIN (RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE) mining at 15:00 today
OKX Jumpstart's RUNECOIN (RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE) mining starts at 15:00 on April 29, 2024 (GMT+8) and lasts for 24 hours until the 30th. BTC holders can stake BTC to mine RUNECOIN tokens in return. The total amount of RUNECOIN that can be mined in the mining pool is 367.5 million. There is no minimum stake limit for participants, and each person can stake up to 0.3 BTC. The mined tokens will be available for trading on April 30. It is worth noting that users in mainland China, Hong Kong, and South Korea cannot participate in this event, and participants need to complete identity verification. Sub-accounts cannot participate in this event. The total supply of RUNECOIN is 21 billion.
Covalent announced that it has purchased CQT tokens held by the FTX bankruptcy consortium through a private transaction
Ganesh Swami, co-founder of blockchain data query and indexing platform Covalent, said on the X platform that as of April 26, 2024, Covalent has fully acquired all CQT tokens held by the FTX bankruptcy administrator (FTX estate).
Swami said a private buyer purchased the assets a month ago and has been selling them on the open market, which has had a negative impact on CQT, so Covalent contacted the buyer last week and conducted a private transaction for all remaining CQT.
Visa: Circle’s USDC leads in stablecoin trading volume
Circle Internet Financial’s stablecoin has surpassed Tether in terms of trading volume this year to become the market leader, according to data compiled by Visa Inc., according to Bloomberg. Visa said on the new dashboard website that the adjusted stablecoin index launched by Visa in cooperation with Allium Labs is designed to reflect the state of the stablecoin market and reduce any “potential distortions” that may arise from non-organic activities and other artificial inflationary behaviors.
Data shows that Circle's USDC has been grabbing market share since the beginning of 2024, with trading volume reaching $456 billion last week, while Tether's USDT trading volume was $89 billion. USDC has also accounted for 50% of total trading volume since January. Visa established a partnership with Circle in 2020, but did not explain the reason for the increase in USDC usage. DefiLlama data shows that this result exceeded expectations, because Tether's USDT accounts for 68% of the circulating currency share, while USDC accounts for 20%, so it is generally regarded as the dominant stablecoin in the industry.
BlackRock Reorganizes Board of Directors of Its Spot Bitcoin ETF
According to BeInCrypto, BlackRock is making a major reorganization of the board of directors of its flagship Bitcoin spot ETF "IBIT". From November 6, 2024, Lindsey Haswell, currently the chief legal and administrative officer of Web3 payment company MoonPay, will succeed Kimun Lee in a key position. The appointment comes against the backdrop of three consecutive days of zero net flow at BlackRock. Haswell's deep background and experience in Blockchain.com and Core blockchain are expected to bring innovative governance to IBIT. It is worth noting that as the second largest Bitcoin spot ETF, IBIT has recently ended 71 consecutive days of capital inflows, but the market performance is still strong, with a total inflow of US$57.6 million last week, far exceeding other similar ETFs.
Yu Xian, founder of SlowMist: We should develop the good habit of not touching the Internet with sensitive information such as mnemonics/private keys and using the system's built-in input method
Yu Xian, the founder of SlowMist, retweeted and said: "Using the system's own input method is a good habit to reduce the attack surface (of course, if the system input method is found to have risks and has not been resolved, then you should also pay attention). In addition, super sensitive information such as mnemonics/private keys should not be exposed to the Internet unless you don't care..." Earlier, Shenyu tweeted that the cloud input method of up to one billion users may have leaked input content. The article cited analysis shows that eight of the nine manufacturers' input method software have serious vulnerabilities, and some manufacturers do not even encrypt user input content.
Renzo plans to launch an upgrade to support ezETH withdrawals in May 2024
Renzo, a liquidity re-staking protocol, announced on its official Twitter account that it plans to launch a major upgrade to support ezETH withdrawals in May 2024. Once the feature is launched, its code will have been reviewed by three auditors. In addition, to further ensure the security of the platform, Renzo has also partnered with the bug bounty platform mmunefi to launch a bug bounty program of up to $250,000, which aims to incentivize community members and security researchers to discover and report potential security vulnerabilities.
Hong Kong virtual asset spot ETFs were first listed today, with Harvest and Huaxia offering prices at $1
According to China Fund News, six virtual asset spot ETFs in Hong Kong were launched today and will be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 30. They belong to China Asset Management (Hong Kong), Bosera International, and Harvest International, each of which has one Bitcoin spot ETF and one Ethereum spot ETF. The above products invest 100% of their assets in Bitcoin or Ethereum, do not make other types of investments, will not invest in financial derivatives for any purpose or engage in securities lending, repurchase or reverse repurchase transactions, and may not use any form of leverage. A small amount of cash may be retained for expenses or redemption. In terms of issue price, the issue price of products under Harvest International and China Asset Management (Hong Kong) is US$1; the initial issue price of Bosera Bitcoin ETF is basically the same as 1/10000 of the tracking index on April 26, 2024, and the initial issue price of Bosera Ethereum ETF is basically the same as 1/1000 of the tracking index on April 26, 2024, which means that holding 10,000 shares is approximately equal to 1 Bitcoin and holding 1,000 shares is approximately equal to 1 Ethereum.
Later news came out that Tiger Brokers (Hong Kong) supports zero-commission trading for the first batch of virtual asset spot ETFs.
Important data
The halving of Bitcoin and the cooling of Runes have caused the operating costs of various types of mining machines to approach their shutdown prices.
According to Wu, citing f2pool data, based on an electricity price of $0.06 per kWh, after the Bitcoin halving, the operating costs of various mining machines, including Antminer S19, T19, Shenma M33S+ and M30S+, have approached their shutdown prices. In addition, as the popularity of the Runes project has decreased, miners' income has decreased, and the electricity cost of the most advanced Bitcoin mining machines has now exceeded 50%.
Data: Tokens worth about $400 million will be unlocked next week, including $150 million in MEME
Token Unlocks data shows that next week, tokens such as MEME, OP, DYDX and ENA will have a one-time large-scale unlocking, with a total release value of approximately US$400 million. Among them:
Optimism (OP) will unlock approximately 24.16 million tokens at 12:00 noon Beijing time on April 29, accounting for 2.31% of the circulation, worth approximately US$56 million;
Sui (SUI) will unlock about 4 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on April 30, accounting for 0.31% of the circulation, worth about 4.68 million US dollars;
Echelon Prime (PRIME) will unlock approximately 1.66 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on April 30, accounting for 4.43% of the circulation, worth approximately US$30 million;
DYDX (DYDX) will unlock approximately 33.33 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on May 1, accounting for 10.72% of the circulation, worth approximately US$71 million;
ZetaChain (ZETA) will unlock approximately 5.29 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on May 1, accounting for 2.24% of the circulation, worth approximately US$6.2 million;
Manta Network (MANTA) will unlock approximately 1.87 million tokens at 7:59 am Beijing time on May 1, accounting for 0.75% of the circulation, worth approximately US$3.25 million;
Acala (ACA) will unlock approximately 27.43 million tokens at 3:00 pm Beijing time on May 1, accounting for 2.85% of the circulation, worth approximately US$3 million;
Tornado Cash (TORN) will unlock approximately 91,000 tokens at 11:30 a.m. Beijing time on May 1, accounting for 2.41% of the circulation, worth approximately $250,000;
Ethena (ENA) will unlock approximately 33.33 million tokens at 7:00 am Beijing time on May 2, accounting for 3.76% of the circulation, worth approximately US$44 million;
Memecoin (MEME) will unlock about 5.31 billion tokens at 3:30 pm Beijing time on May 3, accounting for 31.94% of the circulation, worth about $150 million;
Nym (NYM) will unlock approximately 45.63 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on May 3, accounting for 6.36% of the circulation, worth approximately US$8 million;
Galxe (GAL) will unlock approximately 5.18 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on May 5, accounting for 5.76% of the circulation, worth approximately US$23.5 million;
Liquity (LQTY) will unlock approximately 657,000 tokens at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on May 5, accounting for 0.69% of the circulation, worth approximately US$710,000.
Note: Data is as of 21:00 on April 28.
Ethereum Foundation transfers 2,000 ETH to new address, worth about $6.5 million
PeckShield monitoring shows that an address marked as the Ethereum Foundation recently transferred about 2,000 Ether (ETH), worth about $6.5 million, to the new address 0x9d2D...43B1.
CoinShares: Digital asset investment products saw a net outflow of $435 million last week
According to CoinShares' latest weekly report, digital asset investment products saw a net outflow of $435 million last week, the largest outflow since March this year. ETP trading volume fell to $11.8 billion last week, compared to $18 billion the previous week, while Bitcoin prices fell 6%. Although Grayscale's outflows continue to slow, we have also seen a slowdown in inflows from new issuers, with only $126 million inflows last week, compared to $254 million the week before.
Outflows were concentrated only in Bitcoin and Ethereum, at $423 million and $38 million, respectively. Although a variety of altcoins saw inflows, investors chose multi-currency investment products, with inflows reaching $7 million. Other popular currencies such as Solana, Litecoin, and Chainlink continued to receive inflows of $4 million, $3 million, and $2.8 million, respectively.
The number of players of TON Ecosystem Gaming Bot Project Catizen has exceeded 4 million
Catizen, the leading project in the TON ecosystem Gaming track, revealed that since the launch of LaunchPool points mining on April 27, the growth rate of game players has once again reached a new high. After the number of game players reached 3 million on April 25, in just 4 days, Catizen's game players have exceeded 4 million, the number of on-chain users has reached 410,000, and the total on-chain interactions have reached 4.3 million. It is understood that Catizen is a game center platform created by Pluto Studio, the team behind TON ecosystem GameFi project Tap Fantasy. TON's official website shows that Tap Fantasy ranked first in the first season of the Open League launched by the TON Foundation.
