PA Daily | Tether will allocate 15% of its net profits to purchase Bitcoin; Ripple acquires crypto custody company Metaco for $250 million

Tether to buy Bitcoin with 15% of profits; Ripple buys Metaco for $250M

Today’s News Briefing:

1. Proposal to deploy Uniswap V3 on Moonbeam passes

2. Ronin Network launches NFT market Mavis Market, where NFT creators can set their own royalties

3. Coinbase suspends ETH staking rewards withdrawals due to technical issues, to be resolved within 3 days

• Jump Trading’s Crypto Waterloo: Forced to Exit US Crypto Trading Market, Facing Terra Class Action Lawsuit
• With a massive user base in the world of cryptocurrency, could MetaMask become the Google of Web3?
• Inventory of the current situation of top NFT fragmentation protocols: the overall market has turned cold, with both trading volume and user activity plummeting.

4. Tether to allocate up to 15% of realized net income to purchase Bitcoin

5. Ripple acquires crypto custody firm Metaco for $250 million

6. CyberConnect releases Litepaper, outlining three core components of CyberConnect

7. Bitcoin mining firm Cormint completes $30 million Series A funding round

8. Data: Celsius has unstaked over $800 million worth of stETH on Lido Finance

Regulatory News:

International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) to issue global rules on crypto assets

According to Reuters, IOSCO Chairman Jean-Paul Servais said at an event held by the Paris-based Asset Management Association that IOSCO will soon propose the first set of global rules on crypto assets, including how existing standards apply to the industry. Members of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Japanese Financial Services Agency, and regulators in the UK, Germany, and France, have pledged to adopt the body’s recommendations.

Servais said: “The collapse of major crypto players like FTX and recent market events have strengthened my resolution to achieve this agenda,” and added that IOSCO’s recommendations will clarify to what extent existing principles and guidelines apply to cross-border virtual asset and service providers, and that private finance will become a new focus of IOSCO’s work this year.”

NFT:

Toymaker Mattel to release Fast & Furious movie-related NFT series on May 22

According to Decrypt, as “Fast & Furious 10” hits theaters, US toymaker Mattel will release the latest version of its “Hot Wheels NFT Garage” series based on the “Fast & Furious” franchise on May 22.

“Wind Fire Wheel NFT Garage” and the “Fast and Furious” series will be launched on the Flow blockchain, with cars from the movies as the theme, including Dominic Toretto’s 1970 Dodge Charger, Brian O’Conner’s 1969 Camaro, and Suki’s Honda S2000. The limited edition NFTs are priced at $20 per pack.

Ronin Network launches NFT market Mavis Market, NFT creators can set royalties themselves

EVM-compatible Ethereum sidechain Ronin Network announced the launch of the universal NFT market Mavis Market to support NFT transactions on Ronin. Users can purchase NFTs using AXS, WETH, USDC, and RON. NFT creators can set royalties themselves, and Mavis Market will charge a fixed fee of 2.5%, with 2% allocated to Sky Mavis and 0.5% allocated to the Ronin Treasury. Currently, deploying contracts on Ronin requires whitelist access, and Axie DoLL and Axie Chat are the first batch of series creators for Mavis Market.

Metaverse

Subversive Capital plans to close and liquidate its metaverse ETF on May 31

According to prnewswire, investment advisory firm Subversive Capital Advisor announced that its board of directors has decided to immediately close and liquidate its metaverse exchange-traded fund “Subversive Metaverse ETF” after business closes on May 31, 2023. Subversive portfolio manager Christian H. Cooper said that the creation of the metaverse ETF was mainly misguided by Meta’s focus, and that the company has decided to change its investment direction in light of the rapid development of more promising technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Project updates

Coinbase suspends ETH staking rewards withdrawals due to technical issues, to be resolved within 3 days

Coinbase announced on Twitter that it has temporarily suspended ETH staking rewards withdrawals to address a minor technical issue. ETH staking will not be affected, and rewards will continue to accumulate and be paid out. The issue is expected to be resolved within the next 72 hours.

WazirX: Binance controls WRX tokens and holds all IE0 proceeds, no burns have been carried out for 5 quarters

Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX tweeted: “We want to clarify that Binance controls WRX tokens. Binance conducted the IE0 for WRX, and all sales proceeds from WRX IE0 (108,401 BNB tokens worth $2 million) were collected and retained by Binance. Binance currently holds 580.78 million WRX tokens, and the WazirX team has not received any token allocation. The responsibility for quarterly WRX token burns lies with Binance. Binance executed the last WRX burn event of Q4 2021 (7th burn event) on March 9, 2022. Binance has not carried out any quarterly burns in the past 5 quarters (since January 2022).”

Earlier in January, the ownership dispute of WazirX escalated, and Zanmai Labs claimed that Binance’s threat to issue “false statements” was “unethical”.

As part of its push for international expansion, Coinbase is expanding its services for Singaporean customers, according to The Block. This move comes as Coinbase takes steps to strengthen its international presence, in direct response to crackdowns by US regulators. Coinbase Singapore’s director, Hassan Ahmed, said: “The world is moving forward with or without the US, and as a global company, we are very committed to continuing our international expansion.” This morning, Coinbase announced zero-fee purchase of USDC for customers using the new yuan, allowing users to earn rewards by holding USDC on the platform, and introduced a USDC order book for more experienced traders, allowing them to trade over 200 assets with USDC. The company also offers ETH, SOL, ADA, ATOM, and XTZ staking services for its Singaporean customers.

According to the Tally page, the proposal of the Uniswap community to deploy Uniswap V3 on Polkadot’s EVM-compatible parallel chain Moonbeam has been approved by nearly 100% support.

According to SBS, after a Montenegrin court recently approved a decision granting bail to Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, local prosecutors appealed the decision. Local court officials confirmed the matter in an interview and said three judges were reviewing whether the bail decision was appropriate, which was being done in the normal course of an appeal case. As the defendant has already been detained, the court will make a decision on the appeal as soon as possible. In addition, the report said that Do Kwon has not yet been released from prison and is being held in a detention center on the outskirts of Podgorica, and the bail has not yet been paid. It is expected that the court’s final ruling on the prosecutor’s appeal will determine whether he will be allowed to stand trial without being detained.

It is reported that during the hearing on the 11th, the prosecution strongly opposed the bail of 400,000 euros, saying that the bail was too small compared to Do Kwon’s property, and therefore there was a risk of him fleeing.

Foreign media: Luna cross-trading worth $600 million appeared on Bithumb, Coinone, and Gopax.

According to Daily Economic News, it has been confirmed that the cross-trading of “Luna and Terra” that caused the crash was conducted on Korean cryptocurrency exchanges Bithumb, Coinone, and Gopax. The cross-trading on Bithumb was worth KRW 300 billion, while that on Coinone was worth KRW 400 billion and that on Gopax was worth KRW 100 billion. It is reported that cross-trading is a method of offsetting buy and sell orders of the same asset without recording the exchange’s trades. As of the end of February 2022, when the market and academia were making many legislative requests related to virtual assets and submitting most of the virtual asset laws and related legal revision bills, the focus was not on cross-trading.

According to the report, it is not easy to punish the KRW 800 billion Luna trading unless the court recognizes Luna as a security. According to the Capital Market Act, cross-trading can only be punished as market manipulation if the token is recognized as a security.

The Starknet Foundation announced the first batch of 67 project teams funded by the EAG (Early Adopter Grants), which covers NFT, infrastructure, DeFi, and DID fields.

The EAG has a total budget of 10 million STRK, which will be distributed to ecological project parties through multiple rounds of selection, with the aim of providing early impetus to the Starknet ecosystem through actual on-chain deployment.

Last year, Waves Labs suffered “financial losses” in a six-month-long hacking attack.

According to DLNews, Waves founder Sasha Ivanov said in an interview that hackers invaded Waves Labs last year, destroyed internal data, and caused “financial losses.” The hackers “infiltrated” Waves’ management software system and attempted to extort money from the struggling blockchain company.

The hacker told Ivanov, “We have been lurking in your system for half a year. So we know everything, and you have to pay us.” Ivanov refused to disclose the specific economic losses caused by the hacker attack or provide detailed information on the stolen data. Ivanov said, “The situation is very bad, and we may suffer greater economic losses.” The hacker attack on Waves’ internal system may also leak user data.

When asked why he didn’t disclose the hack to the Waves community after it was exposed last December, Ivanov avoided the question. Ivanov said, “I didn’t cry because we’ve had similar situations before.” He did not elaborate on what he meant by “similar situations.” Ivanov hinted that the hacker had attempted to cash out the stolen funds through a centralized exchange, but he refused to disclose which exchange.

Ripple acquires crypto custody company Metaco for $250 million

Blockchain company Ripple has acquired Swiss-based crypto custody provider Metaco for $250 million, according to CoinDesk. The acquisition was conducted through a combination of cash and Ripple stock, making Ripple the sole shareholder of Metaco. Metaco will continue to operate as an independent business unit, led by founder and CEO Adrien Treccani.

Tether to allocate up to 15% of realized net operating income to buying Bitcoin

Tether has announced that, starting this month, it will regularly allocate up to 15% of realized net operating income to buying Bitcoin (BTC). Tether expects its current and future BTC holdings in reserves not to exceed shareholder capital buffers, and will further strengthen reserves and diversify them.

Tether currently holds approximately $1.5 billion worth of BTC in its reserves as of the end of March 2023.

Green sub to apply for virtual asset license in HK

A subsidiary of Greentown Holdings plans to apply for a virtual asset license in Hong Kong, according to the South China Morning Post. During an interview last week, Geng Jing, chairman of Greentown Financial Investment Holding Group, revealed that Greenland Financial Technology will establish a new company focused on virtual asset trading. The new company will focus on trading cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and products related to carbon emissions. It is reported that 46.4% of Greentown Holdings is held by the Shanghai government.

CyberConnect releases Litepaper outlining three key components of CyberConnect

Decentralized social network CyberConnect has released a streamlined version of its whitepaper (Litepaper), with three key components of CyberConnect being CyberProfile (a universal digital identity standard with ‘NFTs’ owned and managed by users), CyberConnect Social Graph (representing the connections between a user’s digital identity, data, content, and social relationships), and the under-development smart contract wallet CyberWallet (non-custodial and ERC-4337 compatible). The utility of CyberConnect’s native token, CYBER, includes governance, CyberProfile minting payments, and Gas payments in CyberWallet. CyberWallet is under development and will be deployed on Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Base, and Polygon. In the coming months, CyberConnect will release an official whitepaper aimed at distilling the technical concepts and infrastructure of the CyberConnect protocol.

Financing News

Bitcoin mining company Cormint Data Systems has completed a $30 million Series A financing round to build a data center with 2.4 EH/s of computing power at its Fort Stockton site in Texas. The round was led by Cormint president Jamie McAvity and Silicon Laboratories chairman Nav Sooch, with participation from former chief technology officer of semiconductor company Alessandro Piovoccari and existing investors.

Web3 narrative startup Story Protocol has raised $29.3 million in a seed funding round led by a16z Crypto. Other investors included Hashed, Samsung Next Fund, Two Small Ventures, DAO5, Berggruen Holdings, Mirana Corp, and SLVC. According to accounting and corporate regulatory authority filings, a16z invested $10 million in Story Protocol through its CNK seed fund.

Story Protocol provides a way to create, manage, and license intellectual property on the chain, and forms a Lego-like ecosystem of stories that can be remixed and recombined, allowing creators to create stories with ownership and incentives.

Important Data

Data: Celsius cancels over $800 million worth of stETH staked on Lido Finance

Celsius Network has transferred approximately 428,083.6 stETH (worth over $800 million) to a wallet used to unstake from Lido Finance. The wallet contained all the stETH held by Celsius, and processed approximately 429 transactions in about 40 minutes.

Celsius reportedly owes creditors about $4.7 billion. The media analysis suggests that Celsius may use the proceeds from the withdrawal to help fund its restructuring and creditor repayments, or it may re-stake on a different platform.

Data: The Litecoin halving is less than 78 days away and is expected to occur on August 3.

According to Litecoin Halving data, the Litecoin (LTC) block reward halving is expected to occur on August 3, 2023, in less than 78 days, with 44,948 blocks remaining. At that time, the block reward will be reduced from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC.

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