1. Ethereum completed the Shapella upgrade link
On April 13, Ethereum completed the Shapella upgrade at block height 6209536, and validator withdrawals are now enabled. Nearly 30 hours after the Shanghai upgrade, nearly 240,000 ETHs have been withdrawn; nearly 100,000 ETHs have been deposited. Within 24 hours, ETH rose nearly 10%, breaking through $2,100. RADIX, RPL, LIDO, and ARB also saw significant increases.
2. Hong Kong’s weekly summary
a. Hong Kong establishes Web3.0 Association link
On April 11, Hong Kong Chief Executive Li Jiachao and the Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong will attend the ceremony of the Web3.0 Association held at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today to show the support of the Beijing and HK government. The Hong Kong Web3.0 Association is chaired by Norman Chan, former president of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The sponsors of the association are China Mobile, China Merchants, Huawei, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
b. Hong Kong SFC requires DeFi projects to be licensed and regulated link
On April 12, after the launch of the US DeFi risk report, Cai Zhonghui, an official of the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission, said today that DeFi projects need to be regulated by the SFC, and automatic trading services are also under the supervision of the SFC. He said that many DeFi projects are not decentralized, and a small number of people or officials control most of the tokens, and SFC must ignore their superficial statements to study the substantive content.
3. HashKey’s weekly summary
a. HashKey Group announced the launch of HSK token on Ethereum link
On April 12, HashKey Group announced the launch of HSK token on Ethereum. The total supply of HSK is 1 billion, 65% is used for ecological growth, 30% is allocated to the team, and 5% is allocated to the reserve fund. HSK will be issued as a reward for using the HashKey exchange business. HashKey Group holds the second compliant exchange license in Hong Kong.
b. Hashkey Groupto launch an exchange called Hashkey Pro in Q2 link
On April 12th, according to PANews, the Hashkey Group is expected to launch a compliant exchange called Hashkey Pro in the second quarter, which will initially be open to institutions and qualified investors. The exchange has obtained approval from the Hong Kong SFC. The exchange has confirmed bank partners with local and Chinese backgrounds in Hong Kong and supports USD deposits and withdrawals through direct bank transfers.
c. Hashkey Pro: HSK will not be sold to raise funds link
On April 12, according to the new HSK points white paper released by Hashkey Pro, it emphasizes that HSK will not be sold to raise funds through private or public sales; the destruction model will be used; the team will control 30% of the 1 billion tokens; 65% will be used for rewarding early users, liquidity rewards, and marketing, etc.
d. Livio Weng has joined HashKey Group as COO link
On April 13, HashKey Group announced that Livio Weng has joined the company as the Chief Operating Officer. Livio Weng previously served as the CEO of Huobi Global from 2018 to 2021.
e. HSK activity will not be open to mainland China and the US link
On April 14, Hashkey Group released an announcement stating that HSK is the HashKey EcoPoints, which are only used as rewards for ecological contributors and will not be sold. Currently, HSK can only be obtained through Hello HashKey’s blind box activity. The HSK activity will not be open to restricted regions such as mainland China and the United States.
f. Hashkey Group announces the launch of its new department and expands OTC services link
On April 14, Hashkey Group announced the launch of its new department, Hashkey Wealth, which provides wealth management services for qualified investors, family offices, and large institutions. It also expands its OTC services by increasing the liquidity coverage and token range of the spot market.
4. FTX’s weekly summary
a. FTX creditors released the first report, disclosing multiple issues with FTX link
On April 10, FTX creditors released the first report, mainly describing the reasons for the failure of FTX, including: SBF has the final say in all major decisions; core personnel have no risk management and operation experience shortly after graduating from university; July 31, 2019 Singh changed the code base to allow Alameda to withdraw unlimited amounts of crypto assets from FTX; and a week later modified it to exempt Alameda from automatic liquidation; the FTX group kept almost all crypto assets in hot wallets (SBF lied about using cold wallet).
b. FTX recovers $7.3 billion in assets and is considering reopening in July link
On April 13, FTX has recovered $7.3 billion in assets. Including $2 billion in cash, $4.3 billion in Class A cryptocurrencies, $300 million in securities, and $600 million in investment receivables, etc. FTX is considering reopening the exchange business in July.
5. Binance’s weekly summary
a. Binance US has unsuccessfully sought to establish direct banking relationships with banks link
Binance US has unsuccessfully sought to establish direct banking relationships with banks in recent months, WSJ reported. It is using at least one middleman, including Prime Trust LLC, to store funds on its behalf, which will slow down the process of sending and moving funds. Wire deposits had been reinstated as of Friday, though Apple Pay and Google Pay deposits were “under maintenance” and debit-card service was undergoing a “partial outage,” the website showed.
b. Binance Futures reports API issues affecting UI and U-based contracts link
On April 10, some issues with the REST service API of the Binance Futures U-based contracts affected both UI and API. Only U-based contracts were affected, not coin-based contracts. The team is currently working on fixing the problem and relevant announcements will be released soon. The Binance Futures UM system has now been restored to normal, and the earlier issues were caused by server problems. The team has migrated the affected servers.
6. Canada’s weekly summary
a. dYdX to withdraw from the Canadian market link
On April 7, dYdX officially announced that it will withdraw from the Canadian market. dYdX will stop recruiting new users in Canada, and trading for its existing clients will also end on April 14.
b. Stablecoin issuer Paxos states that it is exiting the Canadian market link
On April 13, stablecoin issuer Paxos sent an email to its clients stating that it is exiting the Canadian market. Following new regulations issued by the Canadian Securities Administrators in February, several crypto exchanges have announced their exit from Canada, including dYdX, Deribit, Blockchain.com, and others.
7. Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain shares 5 Web3 industry trends in HK link
On April 10th, the Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain, Xiao Feng, shared five Web3 industry trends in Hong Kong, including: 1. Industry compliance, with US regulatory agencies taking strict regulatory measures; 2. Bitcoin layer 2 protocols driving further expansion of the Bitcoin network and applications; 3. Hong Kong’s open policies representing Asia’s return to the center of the virtual asset market, with stablecoin legislation in progress; 4. Token economics need to adapt to Web3 business applications; 5. ChatGPT: the singularity has already emerged, with GPT-4 approaching 1 trillion parameters, close to the human brain, and blockchain is the distributed ledger of AGI.
8. DeFi aggregator Yearn Finance is suspected of being attacked by a flash loan link
On April 13, Yearn Finance was suspected to have suffered a flash loan attack, resulting in a loss of over ten million dollars. Three addresses associated with the hacker showed a profit of over 12.86 million dollars. Samczsun, a researcher at Paradigm, stated that Yearn Finance’s USDT Token (yUSDT) was likely misconfigured when deployed over 1,000 days ago, mistakenly using FulcrumiUSDC instead of Fulcrum iUSDT.
9. Facebook and Instagram to stop supporting NFT link
Facebook and Instagram will stop supporting NFT on April 11; Instagram stated that it will no longer be connected or associated with third-party digital wallets; it will begin to delete digital collection data in system, including wallet addresses.
10. SushiSwap RouterProcess2 contract has been hacked; the team released a solution link
On April 9, an approval-related error was discovered in the SushiSwap RouterProcess2 contract, resulting in a loss of over $3.3 million (approximately 1900 ETH) for user 0xsifu. According to @0xngmi, only users who have traded on SushiSwap in the past 4 days will be affected by the hack. According to SushiSwap, user funds were either “swept by whitehat security teams” or “lost to blackhat hackers.” If the funds are in the whitehat contract, it means the security teams recovered the funds, and users will be able to claim them. SushiSwap will build a Merkle Claim contract to return the recovered funds to user wallets. Users whose funds were siphoned by attackers will need to submit an email to the SushiSwap security team including transaction IDs and blockchain data for the lost funds. The team indicated that the process would take longer to process as a manual verification of the data would be necessary.
Fundraising
● Sei, a layer-1 blockchain focused on trading, has raised $30 million, bringing valuation up to $800M link
● Web3 NFT gaming platform Gameta announced the completion of a $5 million seed round funding, with participation from Binance Labs, Huobi Ventures, etc. link
● MPL’s game development unit Mayhem Studios raises $20 million from Sequoia, Steadview, Truecaller, others in Series A funding link
● CAT Labs, a crypto crime-fighting startup led by a former DOJ special agent, raises $4.3 million link
● Bankruptcy claims trading market Xclaim has closed a $7 million Series A funding round link
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