Today's news tips:
The IRS issued new guidance: Staking rewards received on POS blockchains are subject to tax
Binance launches the 36th new coin mining, using BNB, TUSD, and FDUSD to mine Sei (SEI)
Binance launches the 37th new coin mining, using BNB, TUSD, and FDUSD to mine CyberConnect (CYBER)
FTX has submitted a restructuring plan, including the restart of the offshore exchange
Binance launches compliant crypto platform in Japan: account applications accepted in mid-August, trading starts in December
Curve founder has sold 54.5 million CRVs in total, raising $21.8 million
Data: a16z transferred the last 6,586 MKRs out, and has transferred more than 30,000 MKRs to Coinbase in the past month
Coinbase Product Director: Richard Heart holds at least $703 million in DAI, accounting for 15.5% of the total circulation
Regulatory News
The IRS issued new guidance: Staking rewards received on POS blockchains are subject to tax
According to CoinDesk, the latest tax guidance from the IRS outlines how and when cryptocurrency staking rewards should be taxed. According to a decision released by the IRS on Monday, cryptocurrency investors who receive rewards for validation activities on the Proof of Stake (POS) network should include these rewards as income in the year in which the investors control these tokens.
“The fair market value of validation rewards received is included in the taxpayer’s gross income for the taxable year in which the taxpayer acquires disposition and control over the validation rewards,” according to the legal analysis, which states that value should be calculated from the moment a U.S. taxpayer acquires control of the tokens.
The IRS noted in the guidance that the rule also applies to investors who stake tokens through cryptocurrency exchanges if “the taxpayer receives additional units of cryptocurrency as a reward for validation.”
Working meeting of the Central Bank and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange: Steadily advance and continuously promote the research and development pilot of digital RMB
The People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange held a work meeting for the second half of 2023. The meeting required that the level of financial services and management should be continuously improved. Key legislative and law-revision projects should be promoted in a coordinated manner. The pilot work on statistical analysis and big data applications should be deepened. The governance of the "capital chain" involving gambling and fraud should be carried out in depth. The pilot of digital RMB research and development should be continuously promoted. The treasury informationization project should be steadily built. Credit supervision and anti-money laundering work should be comprehensively strengthened. The quality and effectiveness of financial research and the advice and suggestions of consultants should be further improved.
NFT
original universe
OpenAI: ChatGPT for Android is now fully available
OpenAI said on Twitter that the ChatGPT Android app is now available in all countries and regions that support ChatGPT.
It is reported that OpenAI announced the official launch of the Android version of ChatGPT on July 26, and Android users in the United States, India, Bangladesh and Brazil can download it from the Google Play Store. Subsequently, the Android version of ChatGPT was expanded to 16 countries and regions.
Project News
Binance launches the 36th new coin mining, using BNB, TUSD, and FDUSD to mine Sei (SEI)
According to the official announcement, Binance has launched the 36th new coin mining project Sei (SEI). Users can invest BNB, TUSD, and FDUSD into the SEI mining pool on the Launchpad website after 8:00 on August 2, 2023 to obtain SEI rewards. SEI can be mined for a total of 30 days. The website is expected to be updated about five hours after this announcement, before the mining activity is opened.
Binance will list Sei (SEI) at 20:00 on August 15, 2023, and open SEI/BTC, SEI/USDT, SEI/BNB trading markets, subject to seed tag trading rules.
Later today, Sei announced the details of token distribution: a total of 10 billion tokens, 20% to investors and 20% to the team.
Binance launches the 37th new coin mining, using BNB, TUSD, and FDUSD to mine CyberConnect (CYBER)
According to the official announcement, Binance has launched the 37th new coin mining project CyberConnect (CYBER). CyberConnect is a Web3 social network that enables developers to create social applications. Users can invest BNB, TUSD, and FDUSD into the CYBER mining pool on the Launchpad website after 08:00 on August 2, 2023 (Eastern Time 8) to receive CYBER rewards. CYBER can be mined for a total of 30 days. The website is expected to be updated about five hours after this announcement, before the mining activity opens.
In addition, Binance will launch CyberConnect (CYBER) at 20:00 (ET) on August 15, 2023, and open CYBER/BTC, CYBER/USDT, and CYBER/BNB trading markets, subject to seed tag trading rules.
Later today, CyberConnect disclosed the token economic model: the total supply is 100 million, 9% of which will be used for community rewards; in addition, CyberConnect will launch the first quarter community rewards on August 15, distributing a total of 2.4 million CYBER.
Binance launches compliant crypto platform in Japan: account applications accepted in mid-August, trading starts in December
According to Bloomberg, Binance issued a statement saying that the exchange officially launched a cryptocurrency trading platform in Japan on Tuesday local time in accordance with local regulations. Japanese customers can apply for an account from mid-August, and will not be able to access the Binance global platform after November 30, but will be able to trade on the new platform from December 1.
Earlier today, it was reported that Binance Japan will initially support trading of 34 tokens, making it the Japanese exchange that supports the most currencies.
Bloomberg: Blockchain company Figure laid off 20% of its employees this week and plans to go public next year
According to Bloomberg, blockchain lending company Figure Technologies Inc. laid off 90 employees this week, about 20% of its total workforce. About half of the laid-off employees are engineers. The company also plans to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) for its lending division "LendCo" next year and has begun interviewing bankers. Figure founder Mike Cagney said he expects LendCo to have a public valuation of $2.5 billion after its listing. In addition, according to Cagney's letter to Figure investors and partners in July this year, Figure's lending business had a record transaction volume of $900 million in the second quarter of this year, and revenue reached $83.5 million in the first half of the year. According to previous news, Figure Technologies completed a $200 million Series D financing in 2021, with a valuation of $3.2 billion.
DCG: Genesis Capital Chapter 11 bankruptcy case expected to be resolved soon
According to CoinDesk, Digital Currency Group (DCG) said in a letter to shareholders on Monday that it was close to "reaching an agreement in principle on resolving claims in Genesis Capital's Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection case," and expected the bankruptcy case to be resolved "soon." According to previous news, DCG is selling CoinDesk shares to an investor group, including long-term crypto investor Matthew Roszak. The group plans to acquire CoinDesk for approximately $125 million, and the transaction has entered the final negotiation stage. In addition, DCG is also looking for strategic investors for its crypto exchange Luno.
Curve calls for cancellation of vote on WETH+CRV and USDT+WBTC+WETH pools on Arbitrum
Curve Finance tweeted: “Incentives for voting on WETH+CRV, USDT+WBTC+WETH on Arbitrum have been removed from the voting market. Please unvote for these pools: the first pool has been exploited, and the second pool may be unsafe.”
Volatility Shares plans to launch Ethereum futures ETF
According to Blockworks, Volatility Shares plans to launch an Ethereum futures ETF. The company detailed its proposed "Ethereum Strategic ETF" in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on July 28, which will invest in cash-settled Ethereum futures contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). It will not invest directly in Ethereum. In May of this year, Grayscale revealed plans to launch an Ethereum futures ETF. Subsequently, Bitwise Asset Management, Direxion and Roundhill Investments also submitted applications. A few days later, Grayscale revised the document to indicate that it would abandon the launch of this product. Other companies have also withdrawn their applications for Ethereum futures ETFs. Industry insiders believe that the underlying reason is concerns about the liquidity level of Ethereum futures and uncertainty about whether Ethereum is a security or a commodity. According to previous news, Volatility Shares launched the first leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF in the United States in June this year.
Curve incident report: 4 pools caused a total loss of approximately US$61.7 million. The next step is to stop the discharge of Gauges to the affected pools
Curve Finance officially forwarded the post-mortem analysis of the Curve pool reentry vulnerability exploit released by the crypto risk assessment group LlamaRisk. LlamaRisk's report stated that an error in the old version of the Vyper compiler caused the security function used by a limited group of Curve pools to malfunction, resulting in the attacker being able to drain the tokens in the affected pools. Although Curve is trying to contact the exploiter and recover user funds, the exploitation of the vulnerability directly harms the interests of the Curve liquidity providers of these affected pools. Thanks to the white hat hacker, the DAO recovered some of the tokens in the affected pools. Curve eDAO cannot suspend the Curve pool or handle user funds in any way, but it can stop the emission of CRV Gauge (Curve's special term, meaning savings pool) to the Curve pool, and eDAO is expected to eliminate Gauge emissions from all affected pools.
The affected pools and the amount of losses in this incident are: 1. pETH/ETH: 6106.65 WETH (about 11 million US dollars); 2. msETH/ETH: 866.55 WETH (about 1.6 million US dollars) and 959.71 msETH (about 1.8 million US dollars); 3. alETH/ETH: 7258.70 WETH (about 13.6 million US dollars) and 4821.55 alETH (about 9 million US dollars); 4. CRV/ETH: 7193,401.77 CRV (about 5.1 million US dollars when used), 7680.49 WETH (about 14.2 million US dollars) and 2879.65 ETH (about 5.4 million US dollars). The above pools lost a total of about 61.7 million US dollars.
The report also stated that the next immediate steps are to stop Gauge emissions to the affected pools and create new normal pools for alETH, msETH, and pETH. The new ETH pool should be paired with ETH or ETH pools. CRV already has a new Tricrypto pool paired with crvUSD and ETH, which is not affected by the reentry bug. The Curve team will continue to explore all avenues to recover user funds and will update the situation on social channels.
FTX has submitted a restructuring plan, including the restart of the offshore exchange
The FTX 2.0 Alliance (@AFTXcreditor) tweeted that FTX has submitted a restructuring plan, and key information includes: 1. All non-customer claims (such as the IRS) will be included in the secondary; 2. The FTT claim amount is zero; 3. The offshore exchange will restart to compensate for customer shortfalls.
Coinbase spokesperson: SEC has not requested the delisting of any specific assets, the Financial Times report is incorrect
According to Blockworks, according to the latest statements from Coinbase and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), before the SEC sued Coinbase, the SEC did not require Coinbase to delist any specific assets.
A Coinbase spokesperson said: "An article in the Financial Times reported that 'Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the SEC had asked to stop trading in all cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin', which is an 'inaccurate statement of the facts'; before filing the lawsuit, the SEC never asked Coinbase to delist any specific assets, which the SEC acknowledged in the same article; the interview published by the Financial Times omitted important context of Coinbase's conversations with the SEC."
A Coinbase spokesperson explained that the so-called SEC's request for Coinbase to "delist all assets except Bitcoin" was only the view of some SEC staff at the time, not the view of the broader committee, and such requests can only be made after the committee members themselves vote in majority. In the latest statement, the SEC spokesperson said: "SEC staff will not require companies to delist crypto assets. During the investigation, staff may express their views on which actions may raise questions for the Commission under securities laws."
Analysis: Curve founder’s position in Frax Finance will bring greater risks to CRV and even trigger a DeFi chain reaction
Delphi Digital, a crypto investment research firm, said on Twitter that Curve founder Michael Egorov has 59 million CRV collateral and 15.8 million FRAX debt positions on Frax Finance. Although this is much smaller than his position on Aave, it poses greater risk to CRV due to Fraxlend's time-weighted variable interest rate.
According to the analysis, when Fraxlend utilization is 100%, the interest rate will double every 12 hours, and as of press time (about 1 hour ago), it is 81.2%. It is expected to rise to a maximum of nearly 10,000% APY in 3.5 days. Regardless of the price of CRV, this ultra-high interest rate may eventually lead to Michael's final liquidation. With a maximum LTV of 75%, the liquidation price of his position will reach 0.517 CRV/FRAX in 4.5 days, which can be reached with a drop of less than 10% from the current price. Michael has tried twice to reduce his debt and utilization, repaying 4 million FRAX in the last 24 hours, but the market utilization rate remains at 100% because users will rush to withdraw liquidity once he repays. With such a large position risk, these liquidation-risk positions pose a serious concern for the price of CRV given the low existing liquidity. If this 8-digit position size is liquidated, the price of CRV may fall to extremely low levels, causing a chain reaction to a large part of the DeFi ecosystem.
Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong: The Group has a specific framework for opening accounts for virtual asset classes
According to Sing Tao Daily, Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong CEO Huen Wai-yee said that the group regards virtual assets as an important part of the future of the financial sector and has set up a specific framework for such account openings. As long as the relevant companies meet due diligence, anti-money laundering and risk management requirements, they will open accounts. The group also has successful cases, but frankly admitted that if it involves cryptocurrencies that have no support behind them, Standard Chartered will be more cautious about these companies.
Shapella Upgrade Successfully Activated on Gnosis Chain
Ethereum sidechain Gnosis Chain tweeted that the Shapella upgrade has been successfully activated on Gnosis Chain.
LeetSwap: If the attacker returns the funds, he will be allowed to keep 50ETH
LeetSwap, the largest DEX on the Base chain, tweeted to the attacker: “We hope to reach an agreement with you to allow you to keep 50 ETH and return the rest to the LeetSwap deployer wallet. In return, we will not hinder your use of the Base bridge.”
LeetSwap also said: “Our website on Base was paralyzed shortly after the vulnerability was exploited, our server was attacked by DDoS, and was completely destroyed despite being proxied and cached behind Cloudflare. Some people tried to stop us, but we have been working hard to save as much ETH liquidity as possible to limit the damage caused by hackers.”
It was reported earlier today that the axlUSD/WETH pool in LeetSwap suffered a price manipulation attack, resulting in a loss of approximately US$620,000. Subsequently, the liquidity of a trading pair of LeetSwap was removed and the price of the token LEET instantly returned to zero.
Investment and Financing
Coatue Management's fund raised $331 million, 34% below target
According to The Information, the latest fund of Coatue Management, a New York-based investment company, has raised $331 million, 34% below the target amount. Coatue Management has invested in crypto startups such as MoonPay, Chainalysis and Fireblocks. Last year, three general partners of Coatue Management left, including Luca Schmid, who led some of the company's well-known crypto and fintech investments. In addition, according to K33 Research, venture capital investment in Web3 companies in the first quarter of this year decreased by 80% year-on-year.
DeFi protocol Solv Protocol completes $6 million financing
According to CoinDesk, the Singapore-based DeFi protocol Solv Protocol has completed a new round of financing of US$6 million. Laser Digital, a subsidiary of Japanese banking giant Nomura Securities, participated in this round of financing. Other investors include Dahua Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Emirates Consortium, Matrix Partners, Apollo Capital, HashCIB, Geek Cartel and Bytetrade Labs. The new funds will help the company expand its team and continue to work on the technical development of its platform. According to DeFiLlama, since its launch in the second quarter of this year, Solv Protocol's total locked value has grown to US$2.8 million, serving more than 25,000 users and facilitating more than US$100 million in trading volume.
Important data
Data: a16z transferred the last 6,586 MKRs out, and has transferred more than 30,000 MKRs to Coinbase in the past month
According to the monitoring of on-chain analyst Ember, two a16z addresses transferred out 6,586 MKRs three hours ago, worth about $8.1 million. According to the previous transfer situation, this amount of MKR will also be transferred to Coinbase in batches in the next few days.
Ember predicts that the continuous transfer of MKR from the a16z address will come to an end, with all 37,518 MKR (about 46.14 million US dollars) transferred to Coinbase in nearly a month.
Curve founder has sold 54.5 million CRVs in total, raising $21.8 million
On-chain analyst Yu Jin wrote that as of now, the founder of Curve has sold a total of 54.5 million CRVs in exchange for US$21.8 million in funds.
Among them, 12.5 million CRV were sold to DWFLabs; 3.75 million CRV were sold to machibigbrother; 2.5 million CRV were sold to CreamdotFinance; 2.5 million CRV were sold to addresses starting with 0xb0b; 2.5 million CRV were sold to addresses starting with 0xb0b; 1.25 million CRV were sold to addresses starting with 0xcb5; 250,000 CRV were sold to addresses starting with 0x9db.
Earlier today, it was reported that the founder of Curve continued to repay the FRAX debt. As of 16:45, a total of 7.14 million FRAX had been repaid today.
Coinbase Product Director: Richard Heart holds at least $703 million in DAI, accounting for 15.5% of the total circulation
Conor Grogan, product director at Coinbase, tweeted that according to public information and SEC allegations, wallets associated with Richard Heart (including PulseX/Pulsechain) have at least $703 million worth of DAI, accounting for 15.5% of DAI in circulation. According to previous news, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Richard Heart for allegedly selling unregistered securities. Heart is the founder of Pulsechain, PulseX and Hex projects, and Heart raised more than $1 billion by selling tokens for these projects.
PANews APP points - PT (Grape) is officially launched, join Read to Earn!
PT (Chinese abbreviation Grape) is a point reward that PANews users get by participating in interactive activities such as reading information, sharing content, liking and collecting on the PANews website and APP. PT Grape cannot be traded or transferred, and can only be used to redeem various prizes in the PANews "Points Mall" and participate in various daily activities. Experience it now!
PANews launches the global LEAP journey!
South Korea, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei, many places will gather from September to December to witness the new chapter of globalization!
?Activities are being jointly organized in multiple locations, welcome to communicate!