Bybit attacker is North Korea; Putin open to working with Musk

Headline

▌Arkham: ZachXBT submitted evidence to confirm that the Bybit attacker is the North Korean Lazarus Group

Arkham posted on the X platform, "ZachXBT won the bounty. ZachXBT submitted conclusive evidence of the Bybit attack, proving that the North Korean Lazarus Group planned the attack, and attached test transaction analysis, related wallet connections and forensic charts. The report has been submitted to the Bybit team to assist in the investigation." Previously, Arkham created and funded a bounty to help identify the individuals or organizations behind the Bybit hacker attack. The submissions for this bounty will be shared with the Bybit team to support their investigation.

▌Putin is open to working with Musk

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a partnership between Gazprombank and American entrepreneur Elon Musk, TASS reported on Friday. At the Future Technology Forum held in Moscow, Putin told Dmitry Schauers, the bank’s vice chairman, “Join hands with Musk. When he completes the reform of the U.S. executive branch, his focus will turn to business and technology, and you have to work with him.”

Market

As of press time, according to Coingecko data:

BTC recently traded at $96,332.19, up or down by -1.6% on the day;

ETH recently traded at $2,684.05, up or down by -1.9% on the day;

BNB recently traded at $649.97, up or down by -0.4%；

SOL's latest transaction price is 171.79 US dollars, and its intraday change is -1.2%；

DOGE's latest transaction price is 0.2421 US dollars, and its intraday change is -0.3%；

XPR's latest transaction price is 2.59 US dollars, and its intraday change is -2.7%.

Policy

▌Trump terminates all equal rights policies in the U.S. federal government

Reporters learned that Stephen Miller, assistant to the U.S. President, said that President Trump terminated all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in the federal government, fired all federal staff involved in the promulgation of these policies, and restored the death penalty.

Blockchain Application

▌BNB Chain announced that it will conduct a Pascal hard fork

According to the official blog of BNB Chain, BNB Smart Chain will conduct a Pascal hard fork upgrade, which is scheduled to be implemented on the test network on February 25, 2025, and the main network upgrade is scheduled for mid-March 2025. This upgrade will enhance compatibility with Ethereum, mainly including two core functions: native smart contract wallet support and secure encryption upgrade. By integrating EIP-7702, functions such as multi-signature support, spending limits and batch transactions will be realized; at the same time, BEP-439 (EIP-2537) will be introduced to support BLS12-381 curve encryption operations

Cryptocurrency

▌Hong Kong regulators may launch cryptocurrency ETF pledge services

Hong Kong regulators may launch pledge services for crypto exchange-traded funds and other advanced products such as derivatives trading. Haiyang Ru, chief risk officer of HashKey Group, said that we are actively discussing with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission the introduction of ETF pledges and tokenized money market funds, as well as the launch of earning functions in parallel with spot trading.

▌The US Marshals Service cannot confirm how much Bitcoin it holds, which may affect the US crypto reserve plan

According to people familiar with the matter, the US Marshals Service (USMS) cannot confirm the number of Bitcoins it currently holds, and it is even difficult to give a rough estimate. This management loophole may affect the US government's plan to establish a crypto reserve proposed by David Sacks, the White House's crypto director, which may change the way the government handles seized crypto assets and may even involve the purchase of cryptocurrencies. Currently, the USMS still relies on Excel records and manual operations, which limits management efficiency. External experts warn that the agency may lose billions of dollars at any time due to operational errors. The USMS began seeking private enterprise cooperation as early as 2018, but the bidding process was delayed for many years. After awarding BitGo and Anchorage Digital related contracts in 2021, they were both invalidated because the scale of the enterprises did not meet the "small enterprise" standard. In 2024, the USMS readjusted its strategy and awarded two new contracts to manage different categories of crypto assets.

▌The collapse of LIBRA highlights the importance of education in the crypto field

On February 21, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik believed that the collapse of SolanaMeme coin LIBRA was a lesson worth learning. He regarded it as an example of why education is so important. In a tweet, Vitalik said that recent news should not be seen as a reason to give up, emphasizing the importance of education in the crypto space. He praised Argentina's outstanding community of builders who have contributed some of the most important software to the Ethereum ecosystem," and added, "I continue to be very optimistic about Argentina and the Latin American region's contribution and role in this field." In a follow-up tweet, Vitalik suggested that Argentina could host a week-long Ethereum Devconnect gathering, calling it a great opportunity to showcase the best that cryptocurrency has to offer.

▌Modeled and released tools for the US strategic Bitcoin reserves to offset national debt

Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck Research, posted on the X platform that the US strategic Bitcoin reserves may help offset national debt, and the agency has modeled this and released a tool on its website. In response, CynthiaLummis, chair of the US Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee, said that the relevant tools are cool and worth promoting, and Bitcoin solves the problem of reducing national debt.

▌U.S. Senators Urge SEC to Reconsider Crypto ETF Staking

Bipartisan U.S. senators wrote to SEC Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda, urging a reassessment of crypto ETF staking, arguing that it plays an important role in blockchain security and investor interests. The letter was led by Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis and supported by Democratic Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Ron Wyden.

Important Economic Dynamics

▌U.S. stocks continued to fall, with all three major indexes falling by more than 1%

U.S. stocks continued to fall, with all three major indexes falling by more than 1%. So far, the Nasdaq has fallen 1.35%, the Dow has fallen 1.28%, and the S&P 500 has fallen 1.06%. Tesla fell more than 4%, Google and Amazon fell more than 2%.

▌The three major U.S. stock indexes closed down collectively

The three major U.S. stock indexes closed down collectively, with the Nasdaq down 2.2% and a cumulative decline of 2.51% this week, the largest weekly decline since November last year; the S&P 500 fell 1.71% and a cumulative decline of 1.66% this week, the largest weekly decline since mid-January; the Dow fell 1.69% and a cumulative decline of 2.51% this week, the largest weekly decline since late October last year. Large technology stocks fell across the board, with Tesla, Nvidia, and Intel falling more than 4%, Netflix, Google, and Amazon falling more than 2%, Microsoft and Meta falling more than 1%, and Apple falling slightly. Block Inc. (XYZ) fell more than 17%, the worst single-day performance since March 2020.

Golden Encyclopedia

▌What is Fractal Bitcoin

Fractal Bitcoin is an innovative blockchain expansion solution based on recursive virtualization technology. It enhances the scalability of Bitcoin by creating a multi-layer network structure while maintaining a secure connection with the main network. The creation background of Fractal Bitcoin stems from the emergence of the Ordinals protocol and related applications in 2023. For security reasons, Bitcoin has imposed restrictions on opcodes and block storage space in its iterations. When the Bitcoin chain ecosystem develops rapidly, there are limitations in chain computing power and block space, so developers have proposed the concept of fractal Bitcoin, hoping to solve the shortcomings of the Bitcoin network.

Disclaimer: As a blockchain information platform, Golden Finance publishes articles for information reference only and is not intended as actual investment advice. Please establish a correct investment concept and be sure to increase risk awareness.