Daily Digest - 18 January 2023

Headlines

▌Polygon completes the hard fork, which will solve the problem of rising gas fees and frequent reorganization

According to official news, the Polygon PoS network has been upgraded. Discussions about a hard fork were first introduced to the Polygon community in December 2022. This hard fork includes two proposals, mainly to solve the problem of rising gas fees and blockchain reorganization. The first proposal involves adjustments to gas fees, with the goal of keeping gas fees low when on-chain activity increases significantly. The second proposal aims to reduce the time it takes to complete a data block, thus preventing frequent reorganizations.

Policies

▌Finnish Minister Calls for EU Legislation to Recognize DAO

Timo Harakka, Minister of Communications of Finland, said at a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum that the European Union should consider legislation to recognize decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that manage Web3 applications. He said the move would avoid changing thousands of laws while avoiding "harmful regulatory competition" among the EU's 27 member states. But he also noted that it took the EU 20 years to figure out how to regulate online data flows, so regulating smart contracts "may also take a while."

Cryptocurrency

▌FTX debtors have determined that FTX has $5.5 billion in liquid assets

FTX said in a statement that FTX’s debtors have identified $1.7 billion in cash, $3.5 billion in cryptocurrency assets and $3 million in securities. FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in November and may owe its top 50 creditors $3.1 billion. Top executives and advisors from FTX met with a committee of unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy case on Tuesday to give presentations on the asset recovery process. The $5.5 billion in assets is slightly higher than the $5 billion FTX lawyers told a bankruptcy judge last week. The debtors also discovered that both FTX.com and FTX US faced a shortage of digital assets. Debtors have identified $1.6 billion in digital assets associated with FTX.com. Of that amount, $323 million was transferred by unauthorized third parties following the bankruptcy filing, and another $426 million was held by Bahamian regulators. Meanwhile, $742 million is in cold storage under the control of FTX debtors, and $121 million is awaiting transfer to cold storage under the control of debtors.

▌SEC leaks personal data of cryptocurrency miners

According to washingtonexaminer, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegedly leaked the personal data of cryptocurrency miners, a total of about 650 people. According to reports, the US Securities and Exchange Commission leaked relevant data when investigating the decentralized power grid blockchain project Green. The network user base is composed of node operators or miners. The leaked information includes names and email addresses. At present, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has stated that it is investigating the data breach and said that "protecting the privacy of all parties is of paramount importance."

▌DCG suspends dividend amid struggling Genesis unit

Cryptocurrency group Digital Currency Group stated in a letter to shareholders on Tuesday that in response to the current market environment, DCG has been focusing on strengthening our balance sheet by reducing operating expenses and maintaining liquidity. Accordingly, DCG's quarterly dividend distribution is suspended until further notice.

▌Report: Ethereum Smart Contract Deployment Jumps 293% in 2022

According to a new report from Alchemy, compared with 2021, the number of smart contracts deployed on Ethereum will soar by nearly 300% in 2022. This represents a 293% increase compared to 2021, a growth rate similar to last year's peak. It is worth noting that this peak of activity occurred in the fourth quarter of 2022, when the collapse of FTX led to a large outflow of funds from the largest exchange in the industry. According to the report, the number of smart contracts deployed in the fourth quarter of 2022 increased by 453% quarter-on-quarter to a staggering 4.6 million. In addition, in the last three months of 2022, smart contract deployments on the Ethereum Goerli testnet increased by 187%, a year-on-year increase of 721%, reaching a record high of 2.7 million.