Wu said Zhou’s selection Multichain event report in full, US June CPI up 3% YoY, XRP judgment released, and top 10 news (0708-0714)

Wu summarized Zhou's report on the Multichain event, the release of the XRP judgment, and the top 10 news from July 8th to July 14th, including the US June CPI increase of 3% YoY.

Author | Wu Talks Blockchain

This Week’s Top 10 News

1. US Judge’s verdict on XRP is complex, whether it is a security or not remains a subject of debate

On July 14th, the Southern District Court of New York ruled on the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple, concluding that Ripple’s programmatic sales and other distributions of XRP do not constitute investment contract offers and sales. However, Ripple’s institutional sales of XRP constitute unregistered investment contract offers and sales in violation of Section 5 of the Securities Act. As a result, as of the time of writing (July 14th), XRP has seen a maximum increase of 103%, with a current price of $0.77 and a market ranking of fourth. For more discussions and updates on the XRP verdict, please follow Wu Talks official website.

• With the entry of big players and the halving narrative, is now the best time to buy Bitcoin?
• The European Commission proposes Web4.0, is it a gimmick or a disruption?
• Comprehensive Interpretation of Ripple’s Lawsuit with SEC: Both Sides Achieved “Partial Victory”, Multiple Exchanges Re-listed XRP

2. US June CPI Unadjusted Annual Rate is 3%

On July 12th, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the unadjusted annual rate of CPI in June was 3%, with an expectation of 3.1% and a previous value of 4.0%. The unadjusted core CPI annual rate in June was 4.8%, with an expectation of 5.0% and a previous value of 5.3%. The CPI for June was slightly lower than expected, with both the overall index and the index excluding food/energy items rising by 0.2%, compared to the previous expectation of a 0.3% increase. This is unlikely to have a significant impact on the FOMC meeting at the end of July. It is widely expected that the FOMC meeting in July will raise rates again, but the data could have an impact on the September meeting, depending on the labor and inflation data next month.

3. China’s June Consumer Price Index (CPI) year-on-year growth rate drops to 0

On July 10th, China announced that the year-on-year growth rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in June dropped to 0, with a decrease equal to that of May. The decrease in the Producer Price Index (PPI) for industrial producers further expanded, reaching the lowest level since January 2016. This is mainly due to the continued decline in prices of bulk commodities such as oil and coal, as well as the high base effect compared to the same period last year. Both the CPI and PPI performed lower than market expectations.

4. Circle Co-founder: Stablecoins are more helpful than CBDCs for the internationalization of the Renminbi

On July 11th, Jeremy Allaire, co-founder of Circle, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post that he has no illusions about the Chinese mainland opening up its market to cryptocurrencies, but remains optimistic about the development of Web3 in Hong Kong and the local monetary authority’s regulation of stablecoins. He said, “If the Chinese government ultimately wants to see the Renminbi used more freely in trade and commerce around the world, stablecoins may be more effective in achieving this goal than central bank digital currencies.”

5. Standard Chartered Bank predicts that Bitcoin may reach $50,000 by the end of 2023, and $120,000 by the end of 2024

In a research report on July 8th, Standard Chartered Bank predicted that by the end of 2023, the price of Bitcoin could rise to $50,000, and by the end of 2024, the price target for Bitcoin was raised from $100,000 predicted in April to $120,000. It is worth noting that although Standard Chartered Bank is one of the largest banks in the UK, its predictions for Bitcoin have been quite chaotic. One of its reports predicted at the end of 2022, “One of the possible surprises in 2023 is that Bitcoin could plummet to $5,000.”

6. Temasek says it currently has no plans to invest in cryptocurrency companies.

On July 11th, Rohit SiLianGuaihimalani, Chief Investment Officer of Temasek, stated in an interview with CNBC that due to regulatory uncertainty in the cryptocurrency industry, the fund currently has no plans to invest in cryptocurrency companies. Temasek conducted necessary due diligence on early-stage investments when considering FTX and eventually made the investment, but found that due diligence was very difficult. Influenced by macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, Temasek announced its worst return rate since 2016 on Tuesday.

7. US Department of Justice arrests DEX attacker who stole over $9 million.

On July 12th, the United States announced the first criminal case involving the attack on a decentralized exchange’s smart contract. Shakeeb Ahmed has been charged by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York with telecommunications fraud and money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Shakeeb Ahmed used his expertise to carry out a flash loan attack on a DEX on the Solana blockchain, stealing approximately $9 million worth of cryptocurrency. The indictment does not specifically mention the DEX, but its description matches last year’s theft incident involving Crema Finance, a liquidity protocol based on Solana. Crema Finance was hacked in July of last year.

8. Over 8,000 seized Silk Road BTC suspected to have been sent to Coinbase.

On July 12th, addresses related to the Silk Road BTC, which is suspected to have been seized by the U.S. Department of Justice, are transferring over 9,000 BTC, while the remaining 30,000 BTC remains in one address and has not been moved. Previously, the U.S. government sold 9,800 BTC on March 14th and announced plans to sell an additional 41,500 BTC related to the Silk Road in four batches within a year. Analyst Wu Shuo analyzed the on-chain behavior of the address involved in this transfer and believes that the BTC in this transfer has been moved to Coinbase’s cold wallet address.

9. US regulatory agencies file lawsuits against Celsius Network and its former CEO Alex Mashinsky.

On July 13th, according to Bloomberg, the SEC filed a lawsuit in the Manhattan Federal Court against the bankrupt cryptocurrency lending company Celsius Network and its former CEO Alex Mashinsky. Detailed information has not been immediately released. According to sources familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg, Alex Mashinsky was arrested after an investigation into the company’s collapse, and the arrest took place on Thursday morning. In addition to the SEC, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have also filed lawsuits against Celsius and Alex Mashinsky.

Earlier, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky in January of this year, accusing him of making false statements about the company’s condition to encourage a continuous inflow of funds, thereby deceiving hundreds of thousands of investors.

10. Multichain event report, the full text is as follows:

On May 21, 2023, Multichain’s CEO, Zhao Jun, was taken away by the Chinese police from his home and has since lost contact with the global Multichain team. The team contacted the MPC node operators and learned that their access keys to the MPC node servers had been revoked. In addition, these MPC node servers, like all other regular servers, are actually running under Zhao Jun’s personal cloud server account. There are no team members who can access Zhao Jun’s personal cloud server account, so no one can log into these MPC servers.

Later, the team established contact with Zhao Jun’s family and learned that all of Zhao Jun’s computers, mobile phones, hardware wallets, and mnemonic phrases had been confiscated by the authorities. Since the start of the project, all operating funds and investor investments have been under Zhao Jun’s control. This also means that all team funds and access to servers are in the hands of Zhao Jun and the police.

Due to insufficient information about the case, the team can only maintain the operation of the project to the best of their ability using the remaining access permissions on some non-MPC servers that have not been revoked. Following the advice of lawyers, the team chooses to cooperate as much as possible with the requests of Zhao Jun’s family and comply with local legal requirements to not disclose unauthorized case information to the public.

On May 30, the team responsibly announced Zhao Jun’s disappearance to the community and informed them of the technical issues they are currently facing.

On June 4, Zhao Jun’s family successfully logged into the cloud server platform using historical information from his home computer. However, Zhao Jun’s family only allowed engineers from the Multichain team to physically access the home computer to resolve technical issues with Router2 and Router5.

During this period, Zhao Jun’s family and lawyer communicated with the police. The team was not informed of the details of the case but was notified that Zhao Jun would be released soon and was asked to continue maintaining the system and wait for further updates.

The Multichain protocol continues to operate as designed. The team is doing their best to maintain the operation of the Multichain protocol with limited resources and resolve user issues as much as possible.

On July 7, the assets locked in the MPC address were unexpectedly transferred to an unknown address. According to Zhao Jun’s sister, login information from an IP address in Kunming was found on the cloud server platform, as well as a series of operations transferring funds from the MPC address.

On July 9, Zhao Jun’s sister transferred the remaining user assets in the router pool and subsequently notified the team and several project parties about this asset preservation action. The funds were transferred to an EOA address controlled by Zhao Jun’s sister.

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0x6b6314f4f07c974600d872182dcde092c480e57b

On July 13, according to information provided by Zhao Jun’s family, the police took away Zhao Jun’s sister. Now, Zhao Jun’s sister has also lost contact. The status of the assets she preserved is uncertain, so the team believes it is necessary to inform the community of all known circumstances.

Due to the lack of other sources of information and corresponding operating funds, the team is forced to stop operating. If there are any further notices and developments, the team will update the community accordingly.

The Multichain team does not have access to the Domain Account to redirect or close the front-end http://multichain.org. Please help spread the word and inform users not to use Multichain services anymore.

Key Financing Events

• Web3 startup Narval completed a $4 million seed round with BlockTower VC as the lead investor.

• Cryptographic network security company Olympix announced the completion of a $4.3 million seed round.

• NFT lending protocol Gondi developer Florida Street completed a $5.3 million financing.

• Software company Alluvial announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Kraken, and others.

• AI and crypto hybrid project Giza announced the completion of a $3 million seed round.

• Automated customer support company AwesomeQA completed a $2.8 million seed round, led by North Island Ventures.

• Web3 music startup Sound raised $20 million in financing led by a16z.

• NFT ticketing solution GET Protocol completed a $4.5 million seed round.

• Binance Labs has committed to investing $15 million in Web3 gaming platform and publisher Xterio.

For more industry financing events, please refer to crypto-fundraising.info.

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