Today's News Highlights:
Jump Trading subsidiary Tai Mo Shan agrees to pay approximately $123 million to settle with the U.S. SEC.
Binance Alpha announces the fourth batch of projects.
Bloomberg: EU crypto exchanges delisting USDT may cause Europe to miss out on the Trump crypto craze.
IOST releases new tokenomics: 97% of newly issued tokens will be used for the community.
Sources say crypto "czar" David Sacks' role has shifted from leader to general advisor, which he denies.
Crypto firms like Coinbase, Kraken, and Ripple donate to Trump's inauguration.
Uniswap L2 network Unichain mainnet will launch early next year.
Tether to make a $775 million strategic investment in video-sharing platform Rumble.
Tether CEO: Expects net profit to reach $10 billion in 2024.
Regulatory News
French regulator approves BPCE bank subsidiary Hexarq to conduct cryptocurrency business
The French financial market regulator Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) has approved the French bank BPCE to conduct cryptocurrency business. According to an official notice released by the AMF on December 20, BPCE's cryptocurrency subsidiary Hexarq has been authorized as a crypto asset service provider (CASP). With this approval, Hexarq is officially authorized to offer a range of crypto services, including crypto custody and the buying, selling, and trading of cryptocurrencies in euros.
Additionally, the official website shows that BPCE's Hexarq will begin offering cryptocurrency investment services in the Banque Populaire and Caisse d'Épargne networks starting in 2025.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Jump Trading's wholly-owned subsidiary Tai Mo Shan of misleading investors regarding the stability of Terra USD (UST), a so-called "algorithmic stablecoin" issued by Terraform Labs PTE Ltd. (Terraform). The commission also accused Tai Mo Shan of acting as a statutory underwriter by issuing and selling securities in unregistered transactions, with LUNA being the crypto asset issued by Terraform as part of the securities issuance and sale.
As part of the settlement agreement, Tai Mo Shan agreed to pay $73,452,756 in illegal gains, $12,916,153 in pre-judgment interest, and $36,726,378 in civil penalties. Tai Mo Shan neither admits nor denies the findings of the U.S. SEC's investigation and agrees to cease violations of registration and fraud regulations.
Google to require UK advertisers of crypto ads to register with FCA starting January next year
Google has released an update to its financial products and services policy, which will update its cryptocurrency and related products policy in January 2025, clarifying the scope and requirements for advertising crypto-related businesses and services. Starting January 15, 2025, advertisers promoting cryptocurrency exchanges in the UK can advertise these products and services after meeting the following requirements and obtaining Google certification.
UK (crypto exchanges and software wallets): As long as the advertiser is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Google allows them to run ads for cryptocurrency exchanges and crypto wallets targeting the UK. They must also comply with any other local legal requirements.
UK (hardware wallets): Google allows ads promoting hardware wallets used to store cryptocurrency, NFTs, or other crypto asset private keys, but does not provide additional services such as buying, selling, exchanging, or trading assets. They must also comply with any other local legal requirements.
Advertisers must also obtain Google certification.
Project Updates
Binance Alpha has announced the fourth batch of projects
According to official news, Binance Alpha has announced the fourth batch of projects, which are: $BANANA, KOGE, BOB, MGP, PSTAKE, GNON, Shoggoth, LUCE, ODOS. Here are the project introductions:
- $BANANA: A meme coin on the BNB chain inspired by the "Banana for Scale" joke;
- KOGE: 48 Club® is a DAO on the BNB chain;
- BOB: A meme coin on the BNB chain;
- MGP: Magpie is a platform built on the BNB chain aimed at providing liquidity providers and governance token holders with enhanced yields for quickly purchasing high veTokenomics protocols;
- PSTAKE: pSTAKE Finance is a protocol for quickly purchasing staking for Bitcoin yields and liquidity;
- GNON: An AI meme coin on the Solana chain, its cultural existence is wrapped in narratives filled with philosophical concepts;
- Shoggoth: An AI conceptual meme coin on the Solana chain;
- LUCE: A meme coin on the Solana chain inspired by the "Luce" mascot of the Saint Year Ji quick purchase;
- ODOS: A DEX aggregator.
Bloomberg: EU crypto exchanges delisting USDT may cause Europe to miss out on the Trump crypto craze
According to Bloomberg, the EU's crypto asset regulation is set to take full effect by the end of the year, and in compliance with the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), several cryptocurrency exchanges within the EU have delisted the mainstream stablecoin Tether's USDT. This move is impacting the market for such tokens, with new issuers attempting to fill the gap while investors default to using euros for cryptocurrency buying and selling.
The new EU regulations aim to provide regulators with deeper insights into cryptocurrency liquidity and help prevent criminal activities such as money laundering, with blockchain forensic experts stating that USDT is often used for such crimes. However, crypto executives warn that MiCA may ultimately lead to a depletion of market liquidity without achieving the EU's goals, thereby weakening the EU's appeal to digital asset traders at this critical moment. Usman Ahmad, CEO of crypto trading company Zodia Markets supported by Standard Chartered, stated, "I understand to some extent the reasons for this, but it is quite exclusionary and restrictive for EU clients themselves, as USDT is the most liquid stablecoin, far surpassing other stablecoins."
Tether's main competitor, Circle, obtained such a license in July. However, Tether has not yet obtained such a license but has not ruled out the possibility of attempting to obtain it in the future. In the absence of a license for Tether, regulated exchanges must delist the token by December 30. Tether declined to comment on its own electronic money license plans.
The Layer1 blockchain MANTRA, focused on RWA assets, announced on the X platform that the updated OM tokenomics proposal is now live, with Snapshot voting open and mainnet voting scheduled for next week.
While the proposal suggests adjusting the token issuance schedule, personal allocations obtained through various activities will remain unchanged. The specific contents of the proposal include:
Adjusting the vesting schedule for OM upgrade rewards, with the cliff period ending on March 18, 2025, followed by a linear vesting period extending until October 16, 2028.
10% of the initial allocation from the airdrop will be unlocked starting March 18, 2025, followed by a 6-month cliff period until September 18, 2025. From that date, the remaining rewards will begin to vest linearly and continue until March 18, 2027. Additionally, the proposal includes a second phase of anti-witch checks for all wallets. After this, the vesting period for airdrop rewards will no longer be extended.
The cliff and vesting periods for team and core contributor incentives will be extended, with the cliff period ending on April 23, 2027, and the vesting period ending on October 22, 2029.
The token cliff period for Pre-Seed round investors will end on October 23, 2025, with vesting ending on October 23, 2027; the token cliff period for Seed round investors will end on April 23, 2025, with vesting ending on April 23, 2026.
The ecosystem allocation will remain unchanged, and the on-chain inflation rate will be reduced from 8% to 3% starting January 1, 2025.
Stargate team claims downtime issue caused by DVN's Executors failure
Web3 security company ExVul stated on the X platform that Stargate has been down for nearly 6 hours, and according to the Stargate team, the downtime issue was caused by a failure of DVN's Executors, with the LayerZero team currently working on a fix. According to data on layerscan, there are currently 25.6k transactions stuck.
FTX-affiliated fund MNNC Group has raised over $100 million after rebranding from LedgerPrime
According to DL News, MNNC Group, which was rebranded from the FTX-affiliated crypto hedge fund LedgerPrime in February this year, has revealed that it has raised over $100 million. According to documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, the Cayman Islands-based company raised $53 million through two funds. However, MNNC Group's Chief Operating Officer Ayesha Kiani stated, "The amount is far more than that. This is just one of our onshore entities." Kiani mentioned on Friday that MNNC Group manages assets exceeding "nine figures," but declined to provide further details. This figure represents an increase from the "eight figures" disclosed by the fund to Bloomberg in February.
Kiani stated that after the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX in November 2022, LedgerPrime underwent liquidation and rebranded to MNNC Group, which currently has about 10 investors, but she refused to disclose their names.
IOST releases new tokenomics: 97% of newly issued tokens will be used for the community
IOST announced on its official blog that it has officially launched a strategic token evolution plan to establish itself as a Web3 payment infrastructure, which includes several key components: enhanced staking mechanisms, community-first allocation, multiple value protection measures, and a growth acceleration pool.
Additionally, IOST released a new token economic model, with the following key points:
Token distribution is as follows: ① The existing supply of IOST tokens will undergo strategic adjustments: the current circulating supply is approximately 21.32 billion tokens, with a new allocation for growth of 21.32 billion tokens. ② 97% of newly issued tokens will be used for the community, including staking rewards, ecosystem growth, and merchant incentives; ③ 3% is reserved for operational costs and team expansion.
The distribution of newly issued tokens is as follows: PayPIN node rewards (60%), airdrops and staking airdrops (20%), PayFi community incentives (8%), community developer grants (5%), Nexus DAO (4%), team (3%).
Token burn mechanism: Four interrelated token burn mechanisms have been implemented, including: transaction fee burns, node MEV burns, ecosystem-based burns, and DAO governance mechanism burns. The combination of these four burn mechanisms is expected to bring significant deflation as network adoption grows, with an estimated total annual burn of approximately $8 million by the end of 2025.
OpenSea Foundation's official X account has launched and posted its first tweet
The official X account of the OpenSea Foundation has been registered and has posted its first tweet, "ocean enters the chat," which was retweeted by the official OpenSea X account.
Previously reported, OpenSea has registered the OpenSea Foundation in the Cayman Islands.
Binance to launch AIXBTUSDT, FARTCOINUSDT, KMNOUSDT, and CGPTUSDT 1-75x USDT perpetual contracts
According to an official announcement, Binance's contract platform will launch perpetual contracts at the following times, with a maximum leverage of up to 75x:
- December 21, 2024, 02:30 (UTC+8): AIXBTUSDT perpetual contract
- December 21, 2024, 02:45 (UTC+8): FARTCOINUSDT perpetual contract
- December 21, 2024, 03:00 (UTC+8): KMNOUSDT perpetual contract
- December 21, 2024, 03:15 (UTC+8): CGPTUSDT perpetual contract
Please note that AIXBT (LINK), FARTCOIN (LINK), and CGPT (LINK) have already been launched on the Binance Alpha market.
Insiders: Crypto "czar" David Sacks' role has shifted from leader to general advisor
According to Fortune, David Sacks, who was originally set to serve as the "AI and cryptocurrency czar" for the Trump administration, has seen a change in his role. Two individuals familiar with the internal workings of the transition team stated that although the "czar" position was initially seen as a clear leadership role, it is now more akin to a general advisory position. It is said that David Sacks will be overseen by Michael Kratsios, an executive at Scale AI who served as Chief Technology Officer during Trump's first term. An insider indicated that Michael Kratsios is deeply involved in the current transition work and is expected to remain in his position after Trump takes office, co-leading all technology policy work with Gale Slater, who will focus on telecommunications and technology antitrust issues.
An insider explained that David Sacks' position was reduced to a more general advisory role partly because he did not divest from the investment firm Craft Ventures and did not want to become a full-time government employee, which would require a formal confirmation process. In past administrations, many so-called political and policy "czars" held official positions in the government within specific departments and often received Senate approval. If David Sacks were to obtain formal employment status, he would likely be classified as a "special government employee," which Congress describes as "temporary or intermittent advisors" who are not bound by the same conflict of interest standards as regular government employees. In fact, there are virtually no restrictions on such individuals continuing to engage in outside work or receiving compensation, regardless of whether they are compensated for government work.
Crypto "czar" David Sacks tweeted: "Some traditional media reported tonight that my role has changed, which is completely false. I expect to spend half my time in Washington guiding policy and the other half in Silicon Valley."
Crypto firms like Coinbase, Kraken, and Ripple donate to Trump's inauguration
According to Fox Business, major cryptocurrency companies are donating millions of dollars to the inauguration of President-elect Trump, alongside large tech companies and many other businesses in the U.S. Cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Kraken each donated $1 million to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee to fund a three-day celebration, parade, and gala. Blockchain payment company Ripple also plans to donate $5 million. All three companies confirmed their donations to FOX Business, with Coinbase stating it was one of the first cryptocurrency companies to contribute to the fund. Another crypto firm, digital asset payment provider MoonPay, will also donate to the fund but declined to disclose the specific amount. A source from the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee stated they are confident of raising $225 million before the inauguration.
Blind computing network Nillion mainnet to launch in February 2025
The blind computing network Nillion tweeted that its mainnet will launch in February 2025.
Related: Nillion completes $25 million funding, what is blind computing? How does it differ from ZKP and FHE?
Mike Dudas, former founder of The Block, resigns from Aptos advisory role effective today
Mike Dudas, former founder of The Block, tweeted that he is resigning from his advisory role at Aptos effective today. Mike Dudas stated that he has been an advisor to Aptos since 2022 and is the "only" crypto project he has advised.
Previously reported, Mo Shaikh, co-founder of Aptos Labs, announced his resignation as CEO, with co-founder Avery Ching set to take over.
Uniswap L2 network Unichain mainnet to launch early next year
The Uniswap L2 network Unichain has announced its mainnet development roadmap, with the mainnet set to officially launch early next year. Since the launch of the Unichain Sepolia testnet in October, there have been 50 million test transactions and over 4 million test contracts deployed on the network. The Sepolia testnet is public, and infrastructure providers are actively testing the mainnet. After the mainnet launch, new features will continue to drive decentralization and performance improvements. These features will first be launched on the experimental testnet for stability and performance testing, then moved to Sepolia for broader testing, and finally launched on the mainnet. The first feature to be launched on the public experimental testnet is Flashblocks, which will reduce effective block time to 250 milliseconds, allowing transactions to be completed instantly. The Unichain validation network will also be launched on the experimental testnet, and the community will be invited to run test validation nodes.
Tether CEO: Expects net profit to reach $10 billion in 2024
According to Bloomberg, Tether Holdings Ltd. CEO Paolo Ardoino stated in an interview that the company's net profit is expected to exceed $10 billion this year. According to data tracking agency CoinMarketCap, the market capitalization of USDT has increased by nearly $50 billion this year, currently exceeding $140 billion. Most of Tether's earnings come from investing the reserves backing its stablecoins (including USDT) in U.S. Treasury bonds, gold, and other securities.
Ardoino mentioned that this year Tether will allocate more than half of its net profit for investments. In early news, Tether agreed to invest $775 million in the video-sharing network Rumble, which includes an initial commitment of $250 million in cash. Tether also supports Rumble in acquiring up to 70 million shares at a price of $7.50 per share. Ardoino stated, "Next year, we plan to use at least half of our profits for investments," including in artificial intelligence. "Our investments have just begun." He noted that Tether plans to launch its own AI platform in the first quarter, allowing people to interact with AI using their mobile phones.
Tether CEO: Tether AI platform website expected to launch by the end of Q1 2025
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino tweeted that the Tether AI platform website has completed its preliminary design and is expected to launch by the end of Q1 2025.
Financing News
Tether to make a $775 million strategic investment in video-sharing platform Rumble
According to The Block, stablecoin issuer Tether has made a $775 million "strategic investment" in the video-sharing platform Rumble. This move seems to indicate that Rumble is deepening its focus on the cryptocurrency industry, as the company announced last month that it would allocate up to $20 million from its excess cash reserves to Bitcoin.
Rumble stated that it will use $250 million of the investment to "support growth plans." The remaining funds will be used to acquire up to 70 million Class A common shares at a price of $7.50 per share, which is the same price as Tether's investment. Rumble Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovski will retain his controlling interest in the company and stated that he will not sell more than 10 million shares. Tether will purchase a total of 103,333,333 shares.
Important Data
11.25 million LINK unlocked about 3 hours ago, with 10.625 million transferred to Binance
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, the quarterly Chainlink unlock occurred 3 hours ago: 11.25 million LINK ($258.14 million) was unlocked from three non-circulating supply addresses. Of this, 10.625 million ($243.82 million) was transferred to Binance, and 625,000 ($1.432 million) was sent to the 0xD50…8Af multi-signature address.
DEX trading volume exceeded $300 billion in November, setting a new historical high
According to The Block Research data, in November, the trading volume of decentralized exchanges reached $300 billion, surpassing the previous cycle's high of $260 billion set in May 2021. The ratio of DEX to CEX continues to rise, reaching 11% in November, up from 9.3% at the beginning of 2024 and 0.04% at the beginning of 2020.
10 new wallets withdrew 17,698 ETH from Binance, worth about $61.66 million
Bitcoin spot ETF saw a net outflow of $277 million yesterday, with an ETF net asset ratio of 5.75%
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