A series of beeper bombings in Lebanon have caused heavy casualties. Lebanese Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind the attacks and vowed to retaliate. This incident not only exposed Hezbollah's security vulnerabilities, but also triggered a new round of tensions in the Middle East.

Conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalates

According to CNN, Hezbollah has promised to respond to deadly attacks on Israel. The attack occurred on Tuesday when beepers carried by members of Hezbollah, a group with close ties to Iran, exploded almost simultaneously, causing numerous casualties in Lebanon. According to Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad, at least nine people were killed, including a child, while some 2,800 people were injured and more than 170 were in critical condition.

Financial technology giant Revolut has been making frequent moves after obtaining a British banking license in July. It has recently announced that it will enter the stablecoin market to compete with Tether, Circle, PayPal, Ripple and BitGo. Although Revolut has always maintained an extremely crypto-friendly attitude, its move into the stablecoin business is still surprising.

Obtaining a banking license becomes Revolut’s biggest advantage in developing stablecoins

According to reports, Revolut obtained a banking license in July this year, and there are rumors that it will soon launch a stablecoin business. When asked about its stablecoin plans, a Revolut spokesperson said the company hopes to expand its cryptocurrency offerings, take a compliance-first approach and become a safe haven for the entire cryptocurrency community.

BitGo, an American cryptocurrency custody company, recently stated at Token 2049, a large global Web3 exhibition in Singapore, that it will launch a new stablecoin USDS that is pegged to the U.S. dollar in January 2025, and will provide incentives for institutions that inject liquidity into USDS.​

Another new stablecoin, USDS, is expected to have an issuance of US$10 billion

According to CoinDesk, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said that the new stablecoin USDS is backed by short-term U.S. debt, REPO (with a repurchase agreement) and cash. He emphasized: “The most important thing is to reward those who build stablecoins. This is the main reason for launching USDS.”

It has been nearly a month since the decentralized protocol Babylon mainnet was launched, but the response from the BTCFi market has not been as enthusiastic as expected. What problems were exposed during Babylon’s first phase of staking? Is the logic of sustainable interest generation tenable? Are market expectations for Babylon overvalued? Below is an in-depth analysis from independent researcher Haotian.

Babylon’s innovations and challenges

Innovation core: self-hosting model and security consensus service

Haotian said that the innovation of Babylon is to adopt a self-custody model, which allows users to lock BTC assets in the Bitcoin main network in the form of script contracts, and at the same time output "security consensus services" on multiple BTC layer 2, thereby obtaining access to other extended chains. income. Under this model, users can maintain full control over BTC under self-custody without the need for a third-party custody platform.

(The author of this article is DeFi developer Anton Cheng)

Preface

In the past year, I personally feel that there has been no special innovation in the DeFi world, but it is relatively in a very practical reconstruction period: many high-quality teams have begun to use new engineering methods to rewrite and deploy in a safer and more efficient way. In many DeFi infrastructures, there are also many completely decentralized public assets.

Morpho is the most classic example of this. Today I will introduce how they break down complex lending protocols into simple modules to maximize security and reusability. For those who are not familiar with DeFi or Solidity, I highly recommend using Morpho as a starter to learn how to implement practical contracts in a simple way.

The British Financial and Trade Association recently issued a statement stating that its experiment in tokenization and CBDC business, The Regulated Liability Network, has received generally positive feedback. He also stated that the country’s regulatory framework is very flexible and can support such innovative financial infrastructure. The next step will be to enter the field of securities tokenization.

Eleven banks jointly participated in the CBDC project, which was generally well received

"The Regulated Liability Network is a financial market infrastructure that can provide new payment and settlement capabilities, including tokenization and programmability," the UK Finance and Trade Association said in a statement.

Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Prager Metis, the accounting firm responsible for the audit of the exchange FTX, of being heavily fined nearly US$1.95 million for improper auditing, which was one of the factors that led to the collapse of FTX and affected users around the world.

He has a long history of false audits and received a heavy sentence of nearly US$1.95 million.

According to CoinDesk, international accounting firm Prager Metis has signed a settlement agreement with the SEC. It was accused by the SEC of improper auditing before the collapse of FTX. The court ordered Prager Metis to pay $740,000 to settle the SEC charges.

The agreement states that the SEC will launch a second investigation due to Prager Metis’s record of misdeeds, which stemmed from the company’s false audits of more than 200 companies from 2017 to 2020 and many violations of accounting independence principles. Prager Metis has now agreed to pay a $1.2 million civil penalty to resolve the charge, with the settlement subject to court approval. Based on the above, a total fine of nearly 1.95 million yuan was imposed.

Irresponsible blockchain current affairs talk that guarantees you won’t learn anything, and a leek drama that travels through bull and bear markets to accompany you through the ever-changing crypto life. The content may be so tough that you can’t keep up. 【elder brother! I just started walking] and survived another week!

elder brother! I am walking｜Content outline

A PTT dream article detonates karma

What are the possible reasons for exchange risk control?

How to balance exchange risk control between compliance and user rights?

Related reading: Risk control triggers user backlash! MaiCoin/MAX account freeze sparked conspiracy theories, does the exchange have risk control standards?

As the SEC added in court documents in the Binance case: "When referring to crypto-asset securities, it does not refer to the crypto-assets themselves, but to the full set of covenants for the sale of such assets." Binance avoids using this abbreviation in its case and regrets any confusion caused. John Deaton, a defense attorney in the Ripple case and a U.S. Republican Senate candidate, said on Twitter that the SEC should be held responsible for its serious overstep of authority. Their wrong move of using confusing words caused investors to lose $15 billion.

Circle, the digital dollar USDC issuer, recently announced that USDC can now be traded in Brazil and Mexico through each country’s national real-time payment system, allowing local businesses and consumers to use USDC faster and cheaper.

USDC lands in Brazil and Mexico: improving transaction efficiency

Circle pointed out that traditional payment methods rely on third-party intermediaries in closed systems, whether face-to-face or cross-border transactions, which are often costly, slow and opaque. Circle’s new project integrates USDC into national real-time payment systems such as Brazil’s PIX and Mexico’s SPEI, allowing local businesses to directly deposit and withdraw digital dollars through local financial institutions without the need to transfer funds to overseas banks through international remittances. This greatly improves transaction efficiency.

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, will launch a more than $30 billion artificial intelligence investment fund with Microsoft to build data centers and energy projects to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence.​

BlackRock joins forces with Microsoft, Huida and MGX

BlackRock is to raise more than $30 billion in an artificial intelligence (AI) investment fund in which Microsoft and Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm MGX are general partners, according to a report in the Financial Times. And AI chip overlord Nvidia will provide advice on factory design and integration.

KOL "Professor Crypto" recently announced that he won the KOL's Best Content Creator Award issued by the Token2049 Summit. This immediately aroused doubts in the crypto community because almost no one had heard of this KOL. Old players in the currency circle also discovered that their Twitter Followers No one is paying attention to this KOL, and the content of KOL is also full of followers and robots leaving comments.

Professor Crypto won Token2049’s Best Content KOL

Professor Crypto (@profcryptotalks) recently announced that he had won the Token2049 award, but it immediately caused complaints from the majority of the community, asking who is this person?

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., who has been a vocal critic of cryptocurrencies, said in an interview at the Financial Market Quality Conference on Tuesday that JPMorgan Chase & Co. may be one of the largest users of blockchain technology.

JP Morgan is a big user of blockchain

According to The Block, when asked about innovative technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence on Tuesday, Dimon said:

We are probably one of the bigger users of blockchain, a real user.

But he believes that blockchain is just a "database" and a "good way to share information" and build trust between banks and their customers.

The retail sales data released by the United States yesterday was higher than market expectations, showing that the U.S. economy is still in a solid state. However, major U.S. indexes were little changed on Tuesday (9/17), with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 closing near flat territory after hitting record highs during the session. Bitcoin once exceeded 61K. The market is paying close attention to the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision released in Taiwan at 2 a.m. on September 19, as well as Chairman Powell's press conference at 2:30.

The Federal Reserve is about to announce its interest rate decision

The Federal Reserve begins its two-day monetary policy meeting on Tuesday. The market expects the Fed to cut interest rates this time, but whether it will cut interest rates by one or two points will be the focus of the market. Traders see a 64% chance of a two-digit rate cut and a 36% chance of a one-digit rate cut, CME Fedwatch data showed. A week ago, most investors in the market expected only a one-point rate cut.

As Polymarket shines this year, market maker Wintermute and exchange dYdX have announced that they will launch their own prediction markets.

Wintermute prediction market platform OutcomeMarket

According to the announcement, OutcomeMarket will focus on this year’s U.S. presidential election and will be launched on Ethereum, Base and Arbitrum at the same time, using tokens TRUMP and HARRIS as ways for users to participate in predictions.

Wintermute emphasizes that OutcomeMarket adopts multi-chain operation, allowing users of each chain to directly participate in the prediction market without the need for cumbersome cross-chains. In addition, TRUMP and HARRIS will be integrated with DeFi protocols in the future, allowing users to participate in predictions while also earning profits from holding positions. Or leverage.

As the leading Web3 communication protocol connecting cryptocurrency wallets and decentralized applications (dApps), WalletConnect will issue its native token Connect Token (WCT) on the mainnet of the Ethereum Layer 2 network Optimism, including airdropping 185 million to qualified users WCT token.

WCT token issuance and airdrop details

According to a company announcement, the token will support WalletConnect’s economic and governance structure. Registration for the WCT airdrop will begin on September 24, and eligibility will be based on user participation and contributions within the WalletConnect ecosystem.

Rebrand to Reown

Claiming that the Bitcoin mining business has gradually become unpredictable, Cathedra Bitcoin announced that it will gradually withdraw from the Bitcoin mining business and instead focus on developing data center services and purchasing Bitcoins on the open market with business proceeds. Following Marathon Digital, this is the second mining company to announce that it will adopt a MicroStrategy strategy in the future.

(Many companies are vying to use Bitcoin as an asset reserve. Should they focus on their own business or resurrect the corpse?)

Mining profits are unstable, Cathedra transforms data center

Cathedra Bitcoin stated in a statement that mining profits have fluctuated so much in the past three years that mining is no longer a reliable way to accumulate Bitcoin. Especially with events such as the Bitcoin halving, mining competition has intensified and profits have gradually declined.

Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, who is facing a potential sentence of more than 100 years in prison, has asked the court to have six former employees testify, including Celsius' former financial chief and chief revenue officer, in order to reduce his sentence.

Alex Mashinsky: No intention to hurt anyone

The lending platform Celsius initially declared bankruptcy in 2022, and founder Alex Mashinsky was arrested in 2023 on suspicion of defrauding users and misleading investors about Celsius’ financial status. His lawyer emphasized in a memorandum submitted to the New York District Court that, Mashinsky had no intention of hurting anyone.

The crypto industry, once a passionate playground for traders and developers, is now facing a crisis. The appeal of quick profits and breakthrough technologies has faded, leaving investors and innovators questioning the future of this once-booming market. These views come from CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju, who provides an in-depth analysis of the current market challenges and dilemmas.

A game based on the rise of dopamine

Ki Young Ju describes the early days of the crypto industry as an exciting game – a game that triggers human pleasure pathways and releases dopamine, bringing an experience of joy, excitement and connection. Traders make money and feel pleasure through unpredictable market fluctuations; while developers find satisfaction in creating new technologies in unknown territories. These experiences resemble the joy of overcoming adversity, winning games, and connecting with like-minded people.

$degod is a new token in the Solana ecosystem, designed to combine the three major NFT project assets of DeGods, y00ts and $dust to provide a simpler and more intuitive way of use. $degod attempts to use newly issued tokens to bind the value of NFT and tokens in a vertical and horizontal way. Will this trick work?

What is $degod?

$degod is a new token on the Solana blockchain with a total supply of 10 billion. NFT projects such as DeGods, y00ts, and $dust and their token assets can all be converted into $degod, providing users with a unified form of digital assets.