Today's news tips:
Binance Obtains Bitcoin and Digital Asset Services License in El Salvador
Cathie Wood: The US SEC may approve multiple Bitcoin spot ETFs at the same time
OpenAI launches GPTBot, a web crawler that automatically collects information to improve AI models
PayPal's stablecoin PYUSD contract address announced, 26.9 million issued
Lazarus Group stole $37 million from CoinsPaid using fake job offers
Tether CTO: More than 325 million USDT have been redeemed today, and redemption must comply with the rules of the legal currency system
Sino Global files claim for approximately $67 million against FTX/Alameda
L1 Digital has raised $152 million for its second crypto venture fund
Regulatory News
Binance Obtains Bitcoin and Digital Asset Services License in El Salvador
According to The Block, Binance has obtained two licenses in El Salvador, becoming the country’s “first fully licensed” cryptocurrency exchange. The two licenses are the Bitcoin Service Provider (BSP) license issued by the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador and the first non-temporary Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) license issued by the National Digital Asset Commission of El Salvador.
To date, Binance is now approved or registered in 18 markets around the world, including France, Italy, and Dubai.
NFT
AI
OpenAI launches GPTBot, a web crawler that automatically collects information to improve AI models
OpenAI recently launched the web crawler GPTBot, which can automatically collect data from the entire Internet. It is reported that this data will be used to train future AI models such as GPT-4 and GPT-5. According to OpenAI, GPTBot will collect public data from websites while avoiding paid, sensitive and prohibited content.
It is reported that OpenAI has submitted a trademark application for "GPT-5" to the US Patent Office on July 18.
Project News
PayPal's stablecoin PYUSD contract address announced, 26.9 million issued
Paxos announced the contract address of PayPal's USD stablecoin PYUSD. On-chain data shows that 26.9 million PYUSD have been issued so far, with a total of 8 holders. The contract address is 0x6c3ea9036406852006290770BEdFcAbA0e23A0e8.
Earlier yesterday, it was reported that PayPal launched the US dollar stablecoin PYUSD, issued by Paxos Trust.
Uniswap has integrated the Base network
Uniswap announced on Twitter that it has integrated Base, allowing users to add liquidity or exchange tokens on the Base network directly from the Uniswap web application.
Steadefi has lost about $1.1 million in the attack, and the project owner said all funds are at risk
Steadefi, an automatic yield leverage strategy platform, said on Twitter: "Steadefi has been attacked and all funds are currently at risk. On-chain messages have been sent to the attacker's wallet address for negotiation. Steadefi hopes to discuss bounties with all parties involved in the exploitation of the vulnerability and offer a 10% reward for the stolen funds." Steadefi said that if the attacker returns 90% of the funds before 16:00 on August 10, Beijing time, he can retain this 10% of the funds and will not be further pursued. Otherwise, this 10% of the funds will be provided to someone who can identify him and convict him in court.
In another tweet, Steadefi updated a brief overview of the incident, saying: “Our protocol deployer wallet (which is also the owner of all vaults in the protocol) has been compromised. The attacker has transferred ownership of all vaults (borrowing and strategy) to a wallet they control, and proceeded to take various owner-only actions, such as allowing any wallet to be able to borrow any available funds from the lending vault. At present, all available lending capacity on Arbitrum and Avalanche has been drained by the attacker, and assets have been swapped for ETH and bridged to Ethereum. The depositor's vault has not been drained (as of now) because the attacker does not have the sole owner's function to extract deposits from the vault. If users deposited into the strategy vault, they can still withdraw their assets (assuming the attacker has not suspended the vault). The attacker also paused the liquidity mining contract, which means that if you (and most people) deposited svtoken or ibtoken to farm, you will also not be able to withdraw them, but the attacker cannot withdraw them either.”
In addition, according to CertiK Alert monitoring, as of 5:50, Steadefi had lost approximately US$1.1 million in this incident.
Decentralized exchange Cypher was hacked and the smart contract has been frozen
Cypher, a decentralized exchange based on Solana, tweeted that it had been attacked, lost nearly $1 million, and its smart contracts had been frozen. The team is investigating and hopes to have a dialogue with the hacker to discuss the next steps.
Bitstamp CEO: In talks to raise new funds, plans to launch derivatives trading in Europe next year
According to Bloomberg, Bitstamp Global CEO Jean-Baptiste Graftieaux said that it is currently in talks to raise new funds. A Bitstamp spokesperson said that the exchange had launched the financing process at the end of June, with Galaxy Digital Holdings as an advisor. Bitstamp plans to use the funds for operations, including launching derivatives trading in Europe next year and expanding its business in the Asian market as well as the UK. Graftieaux said in a statement: "Bitstamp will not be sold, and we are not actively seeking to sell the company. Our current priority is to raise funds through strategic investors and accelerate Bitstamp's growth by providing new products and services to retail and institutional crypto customers."
Cathie Wood: The US SEC may approve multiple Bitcoin spot ETFs at the same time
Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, said in an interview with Bloomberg that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may approve multiple Bitcoin spot ETFs at the same time, which may help create a fair competitive environment. Companies such as BlackRock, Fidelity, WisdomTree, VanEck and Invesco have applied to launch Bitcoin spot ETFs. Wood said that due to the similarities of the potential funds, the success of each fund will depend on the marketing skills of the issuer. In June this year, Ark Invest said that because the investment company submitted its application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier, its Bitcoin spot ETF application would be approved first.
Lazarus Group stole $37 million from CoinsPaid using fake job offers
According to DL News, the hacker group Lazarus Group stole $3,700 from Estonia-based crypto payment provider CoinsPaid through a six-month social engineering attack.
CoinsPaid disclosed that in March this year, CoinsPaid engineers received a list of questions about technical infrastructure from a so-called "Ukrainian encryption processing startup." In June and July, engineers received fake job offers. On July 22, an employee thought he was interviewing for a lucrative job and downloaded malware as part of a so-called technical test.
The hacker group had spent six months learning all possible details about CoinsPaid, including team members, the company's structure, etc. When the employee downloaded the malicious code, the hacker was able to access CoinsPaid's system, and then exploited a software vulnerability to successfully forge an authorization request and withdraw funds from the CoinsPaid hot wallet.
Argent: Users who receive the prompt must complete the upgrade before August 21, otherwise there is a risk of losing assets
Starknet wallet Argent tweeted that because Starknet is being upgraded, some old Starknet accounts also need to be upgraded. The upgrade is scheduled for August 21. 95% of users will not be affected, but users who receive the update prompt are requested to complete the upgrade before that date, otherwise there is a risk of losing assets.
Tether CTO: More than 325 million USDT have been redeemed today, and redemption must comply with the rules of the legal currency system
Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino tweeted: "Over 325M USDT redeemed today, many customers onboarded and available to redeem. There is some FUD about the thoroughness of Tether's onboarding process, such as 'the process is too difficult', 'users are asked too many questions', and 'a lot of documents need to be submitted'. In fact, since Tether has bank-grade standards, we need basic information such as 'source of funds'. Since Tether relies on a strong network of banking partners, it is very important to ensure that proper KYC/AML is in place before onboarding customers. If not, all Tether users are at risk."
Ardoino also said: "Bitcoin is the only truly decentralized thing. Anything other than Bitcoin, including basically all other cryptocurrencies, is not truly decentralized. Therefore, users are reminded that USDT is not Bitcoin, but a centralized stablecoin that uses a decentralized transport layer (aka blockchain). When users redeem USDT, they must abide by the rules of the fiat currency system."
Forbes: Tether's failure to disclose Q2 net profit is a misleading move, as the reported operating profit is significantly lower than the net profit of the previous quarter
Forbes published an analysis article saying that Tether announced on its website last week that its "operating" profit in the second quarter exceeded $1 billion, an increase of 30% from the previous three months. Tether reported a "net profit" of $1.48 billion in the first quarter. Therefore, a 30% increase could bring the "net profit" for the quarter ending June 30 to $1.92 billion. But Tether did not report "net profit" in its latest report. It only reports "operating" profit, which is usually higher than net profit because to get net profit, companies must deduct non-operating expenses, including taxes and interest. In this case alone, Tether's greatly improved operating profit is apparently nearly $500 million lower than the net profit in the previous quarter. The media accused Tether of confusing the public, saying that the company did not define operating profit in the announcement, nor did it explain why it no longer reported net profit as in the previous two quarters (the fourth quarter of 2022 said that the net profit was $700 million).
In follow-up comments to Forbes, Tether said the operating metric is "recurring profit generated by the group's activities in the second quarter of this year" and that "the first quarter of 2023 was a very good quarter from a financial perspective. The $1.5 billion net profit included some outstanding results, such as the revaluation of Bitcoin holdings." The company was then asked why it changed its reporting metrics and how much Bitcoin it owned at the beginning of the year, but the company did not respond.
Warning: Fake PYUSD tokens emerge, investors should pay attention to risks
According to Cointelegraph, DexScreener data shows that since the announcement of PayPal's new stablecoin (PYUSD) yesterday, nearly 30 fake tokens codenamed "PYUSD" have appeared. These tokens have been minted on various chains such as Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Base. The largest "PYUSD" fake token was minted on Ethereum and was launched a few minutes after the PayPal announcement. The current transaction volume of the token has reached 2.6 million US dollars.
The media reminded that PayPal had clearly stated that PYUSD can only be sent between verified PayPal and other compatible wallets, and these fake tokens are likely to be honeypot scams, which means that once investors buy these tokens, they cannot sell them.
HSBC Hong Kong responds to "difficulty in opening an account": licensed virtual asset operators can open accounts after passing KYC and AML reviews
According to Sing Tao Daily, in response to the statement “The SAR government hopes to expand the virtual asset industry and build a good ecosystem in Hong Kong, but there are reports that technology companies face difficulties in opening bank accounts”, HSBC Hong Kong Chief Executive Officer Carol Lam said that misunderstandings in communication between operators and banks cannot be ruled out, and the HKMA and the SFC have set out a clear framework. Licenses can be obtained by meeting certain conditions, and those who can pass HSBC’s Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) reviews can naturally open accounts with the bank. As for complaints (noise) in the market, operators should be inquired as to whether they comply with the regulatory framework.
Coinbase Launches Cash Tender Offer for Senior Notes Due 2031 for Aggregate Purchase Price of Up to $150 Million
Coinbase announces that it will commence a cash tender offer (the “Tender Offer”) for its 3.625% Senior Notes due 2031 for an aggregate purchase price of up to $150 million (excluding accrued and unpaid interest).
Investors who participate in the buyback and sell the bonds before August 18 will receive $645 for every $1,000 of the bond’s face value (or 64.5 cents on the dollar). This amount includes a special early tender premium of $30. For those who sell the bonds after August 18 but before September 1, the offer expiration date, Coinbase will offer $615 for every $1,000 of the bond’s face value (or 61.5 cents on the dollar).
Sino Global files claim for approximately $67 million against FTX/Alameda
According to CoinDesk, Matthew Graham's Sino Global Capital filed a $67.3 million claim against FTX Trading Ltd. on behalf of Sino's Liquid Value Fund, which was jointly launched with Sam Bankman-Fried in 2021. The fund aims to raise $200 million, mainly targeting high-net-worth individuals. As of January 2022, the fund has raised $90 million, with FTX as the main investor. The fund's investment focus is on infrastructure and games.
Investment and Financing
CF Private Equity plans to raise at least $100 million for its blockchain private equity fund
According to Blockworks, according to documents filed with the SEC in early August, global private equity investment management company CF Private Equity (formerly Commonfund Capital) is preparing to launch its first blockchain-specific fund, called CF Blockchain Ventures LP, which is designated as a private equity fund rather than a venture capital fund in the document. The fund's filing documents show that the expected fundraising amount is US$100 million, but the disclosed figure may only be related to the fund's first delivery, and the company spokesperson declined to comment.
It is reported that CF Private Equity is a wholly-owned subsidiary of asset management company Commonfund. Its business also includes operating outsourced chief investment officer services and designing customized portfolios and funds for institutional investors. Since its establishment, CF Private Equity has registered approximately US$22 billion in committed capital. According to its website, CF Private Equity has completed more than 10 blockchain investments since 2018.
L1 Digital has raised $152 million for its second crypto venture fund
According to CoinDesk, Zurich-based investment advisory firm L1 Digital has raised $152 million for its second cryptocurrency venture capital fund. L1D will invest 70% of the funds directly in crypto startups and another 30% in early-stage crypto-focused investment companies. L1D has previously supported well-known industry investors Multicoin Capital, DeFiance Capital, Castle Island Ventures and 1kx.
Important data
Data: JustLendDAO transferred 200 million USDT, suspected to be transferred to a new address via Sun Yuchen’s personal wallet address
According to Whale Alert, 200 million USDT were transferred from JustLendDAO to an unknown address (starting with TT2T17) 45 minutes ago. Adam Cochran, partner of Cinneamhain Ventures, said that the unknown address was Sun Yuchen's personal wallet, and then the 200 million USDT were transferred to a new address.
Update: According to Coindesk, a Huobi spokesperson denied that the address starting with "TT2T17" belongs to Justin Sun. Coincarp data shows that the address is currently listed as the 8th largest holder of TRX tokens.
Data: DWF Labs transferred 1 million DODO to Binance and still holds 5 million DODO
According to The Data Nerd, DWF Labs received 6 million DODO tokens unlocked this morning, and when the price of DODO soared an hour ago, DWF Labs transferred 1 million DODO (about 172,000 US dollars) to Binance. Currently, DWF Labs still holds 5 million DODO, about 810,000 US dollars.
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