Headlines
▌The U.S. government has sold at least 195,000 BTC since 2014, making more than $366 million
Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp tracked the U.S. government's bitcoin sales and found that since 2014, the U.S. government has seized and sold at least 195,091 bitcoins, making more than $366 million in profits.
According to data website Bitcoin Treasuries, the U.S. government currently owns 213,546 bitcoins, worth more than $13 billion at current market prices, making it one of the world's largest bitcoin holders. Meanwhile, the German government is the world's fourth-largest sovereign bitcoin holder, second only to China and the United Kingdom, holding 46,359 bitcoins.
▌Musk: Starlink mini will be launched later this year
Musk said Starlink mini will be launched later this year.
Market
As of press time, according to Coingecko data:
BTC's latest transaction price is $60,781.83, with a daily increase or decrease of -1.6%;
ETH's latest transaction price is $3,368.01, with a daily increase or decrease of -0.8%;
BNB's latest transaction price is $572.42, with a daily increase or decrease of -0.9%；
SOL's latest transaction price is 136.67 US dollars, with a daily increase or decrease of +0.1%；
DOGE's latest transaction price is 0.1227 US dollars, with a daily increase or decrease of -2.7%；
XPR's latest transaction price is 0.4697 US dollars, with a daily increase or decrease of -1.3%。
Policy
▌The U.S. Department of Justice has ruled for the first time that the crypto token HYDRO is a security
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that HYDRO founder Shane Hampton and financial engineering director Michael Kane were convicted of manipulating the price of Hydrogen Technology's HYDRO token. The law enforcement agency also stated that the two's sale of HYDRO constituted an unregistered investment contract, and the two were sentenced to two years and eleven months and three years and nine months in prison respectively.
The investigation found that the two hired a third-party company, Moonwalkers Trading Limited in South Africa, to use automated robots to place $7 million worth of fake trades and more than $300 million worth of fake orders on the HYDRO market.
"Shane Hampton, Michael Kane and their co-conspirators used trading bots to manipulate the price of their company's cryptocurrency to defraud investors," said Nicole Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division. This is the first time a jury in a federal criminal trial has determined that cryptocurrency is a security and that manipulating the price of cryptocurrency constitutes securities fraud."
▌Abra and 25 U.S. States Settle to Refund $82 Million to Customers
Digital investment platform Abra and its founder and CEO William Barhydt have reached a settlement with financial regulators in 25 U.S. states. Abra will refund up to $82 million in cryptocurrency to U.S. customers in those states for operating its mobile app without the proper licenses. The settlement requires Abra to stop accepting cryptocurrency allocations and trades from U.S. Abra Trade customers.
Barhydt has also agreed not to participate in any capacity in the money transmission or money services business within those 25 states for the next five years. Charlie Clark, director of the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, said state financial regulators will take violations of the law seriously. Abra's spokesperson noted that the settlement also resolves Abra's unregistered securities sales issues with certain state securities regulators. Since June 2023, Abra has refunded more than $250 million, or about 99% of the assets held by its U.S. retail customers. Abra continues to operate in the United States through SEC-registered investment adviser Abra Capital Management. Cryptocurrency may become a focus of discussion in the upcoming presidential debate. To this end, the cryptocurrency advocacy organization Stand With Crypto has launched an online letter-writing campaign, which has been signed by nearly 2,300 people, calling on CNN hosts to raise cryptocurrency-related issues. Organization spokesperson Sabrina Siddiqui said this will help voters understand the presidential candidates' positions on this important economic issue. President Biden’s digital asset policy record includes multiple executive orders and actions by regulators, while Trump has shifted from past skepticism to support cryptocurrency mining and oppose central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith said this marks a significant advancement for cryptocurrencies in the national political debate.
▌Nigeria SEC requires cryptocurrency companies to complete registration within 30 days or face enforcement action
The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given cryptocurrency exchanges and digital asset traders 30 days to re-register their businesses or face the risk of enforcement action.
The announcement is part of Nigeria’s plan to regulate digital asset trading. The SEC said the new registration is intended to amend its rules on digital asset issuance, offering platforms, exchanges and virtual asset service providers (VASP) custody.
“All operational and potential VASPs are required to visit the SEC electronic portal within 30 days of the date of this circular to complete the application process,” the commission said in a statement on its website.
Blockchain Applications
▌Polkadot Community Proposal to Develop Polkadot and Cardano Interoperability Bridge
The Polkadot community is discussing a new proposal to develop a bridge connecting Polkadot and Cardano. Unifires agent Felix revealed that a proposal for a Cardano-Polkadot light client and NFT exchange bridge has been submitted and is planned to be submitted to Polkadot's OpenGov. Polkadot Chief Ambassador Tommi Enenkel (Alice and Bob) said this can be achieved by verifying Beefy proofs on Cardano. The proposal has received general support from the community.
In addition, SnowBridge launched a bridge connecting Polkadot and Ethereum on June 20. SnowBridge uses first-party signatures from validators to support the transfer of ERC20 assets between the two networks, and is expected to enable arbitrary messaging and launch liquidity programs in the future.
▌Bitcoin Virtual Machine Team Launches BitZK Service to Scale the Bitcoin Network
The Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BVM) team launched BitZK, a zero-knowledge proof (ZK) service designed to enhance Bitcoin's scalability last week. The service allows users to create rollups and migrate applications from Ethereum to Bitcoin. BVM developer @bird2836 said this is the first Bitcoin ZK rollup instance on the mainnet, marking a major breakthrough in technology. The BitZK service costs at least $99 per month and has attracted early users including RWA Chain, POWD3R Blockchain, and Octopus Bridge. BVM was launched in January 2023 with the goal of enabling the Bitcoin network to have the functions of networks such as Ethereum, leveraging the security and data availability of Bitcoin to promote the development of Bitcoin expansion solutions.
Cryptocurrency
▌The U.S. SEC may approve the spot Ethereum ETF as early as July 4
Industry executives and other participants revealed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may approve the spot Ethereum ETF as early as July 4, as negotiations between asset management companies and regulators have entered the final stage. Asset management companies including BlackRock and VanEck, including eight others, are seeking SEC approval for these funds. They said that the process of revising the issuance documents has progressed to the point where only "minor" issues need to be resolved. A lawyer working with one of the issuing companies also said that this only requires "final touches" and approval may not exceed a week or two. ETF analyst Eric Balchunas previously expected approval as early as July 2.
▌If Trump is elected, he will choose Vivek Ramaswamy as his vice president
According to Bitcoin Magazine on the X platform, if Trump is elected, he will choose Vivek Ramaswamy as his vice president. Vivek Ramaswamy supports Bitcoin and accepted BTC Lightning Network donations during his presidential campaign.
▌UDPN launches tokenized deposit and asset tokenization system
UDPN officially launched its first production system, including stablecoin and asset tokenization solutions. These systems were developed by Hongri Technology in Hong Kong in collaboration with German consulting firm GFT to support multi-bank interoperability. UDPN is able to connect tokenized deposits, central bank digital currencies and stablecoins from multiple banks, and uses a Swift-like messaging mechanism to ensure seamless system connectivity.
Previously, UDPN conducted proof of concept with several high-profile institutions, including Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank, KPMG and CBDC developer Giesecke+Devrient. These systems integrate with traditional back-end systems through APIs, and banks can set up business nodes on UDPN to provide tokenized deposit services to corporate customers to bypass the limitations of traditional banking systems.
UDPN plans to promote the construction of institutional governance structures in the future to further decentralize the operation of its network.
▌State Street and Galaxy Collaborate to Launch New Digital Asset Strategy
State Street Global Advisors and Galaxy Asset Management announced a collaboration to launch a new generation of digital asset investment strategies that aims to go beyond the scope of cryptocurrencies and open up new opportunities for investors. This collaboration will combine the strengths of two industry leaders to provide investors with manager-guided strategies and direct participation in the digital asset ecosystem with a total value of US$2.4 trillion.
▌Crypto Ransomware Leaks Evolve Bank Customer Data
Crypto-friendly Evolve Bank's customer data was leaked by Lockbit. Lockbit initially threatened to release Federal Reserve data containing US banking secrets, but ended up leaking 33TB of Evolve Bank and Trust data. The leak included details of the Federal Reserve’s enforcement action against Evolve Bank, as well as Evolve Bank’s involvement in unsafe and unsound banking practices in its partnerships with fintechs. The leaked files reportedly included end-users’ personally identifiable information such as Social Security Numbers, card numbers PAN, wire transfers, and settlement documents. Lockbit set a deadline to demand a ransom payment, but it apparently was not paid. Evolve Bank acknowledged the reports in a customer notification and is actively investigating the details of the incident. ZynCoin Reaches Settlement with Philip Morris ZynCoin, a meme token named after a nicotine pouch, has reached a settlement with Fortune 500 company Philip Morris. Philip Morris initially asked ZynCoin to stop using "ZYN Coin" and its related logos, but because ZynCoin is decentralized and there is no centralized entity, it cannot sue or stop the token. In the end, the two sides reached a compromise, retaining the "zyn" prefix and making minor changes to the marketing.
▌Viewpoint: The US government's sale of 4,000 bitcoins is unlikely to have an impact on the market
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju posted on the X platform that the US government's sale of 4,000 bitcoins is unlikely to have any impact on the market. Because when the spot ETF inflow is high, Coinbase Prime can handle 20,000 to 49,000 BTC of seller liquidity per day, and when the spot ETF inflow is low, it can handle 6,000 to 15,000 BTC of liquidity per day. Ki Young Ju said: "I posted this because I am tired of the FUD of government sales."
▌Privacy protocol ATOR announced a name change to Everyone
Privacy protocol ATOR announced a name change to Everyone, and the original ATOR token can be exchanged for ANYONE tokens, with revised token economics. It is reported that the ATOR pool ranks among the top 15 Uniswap pools on Ethereum by locked value. In February 2023, ATOR turned to a fully decentralized layer and quickly expanded to more than 1,800 relays. The design of the Anyone protocol brings multi-level composability and aims to provide developers and projects with a platform to build applications in a secure and private way.
▌NFT market sales fell 45% in the second quarter of 2024
NFT sales fell 45% in the second quarter of 2024, in line with Bitcoin's bear market trend. Data from CryptoSlam revealed that NFT sales fell to $2.24 billion, the lowest level since the third quarter of 2023. The sharp decline contrasts with sales of $4.1 billion in the first quarter of 2024, when sales continued a trend of $2.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023.
June 2024 also saw a significant decline, with the average NFT sales value falling 59% from March. The month is also on track to record the lowest number of NFT transactions since March 2021.
Important Economic Dynamics
▌Big U.S. banks all passed the Federal Reserve's annual stress test, paving the way for higher dividends
Big U.S. banks passed the Federal Reserve's annual stress test, paving the way for higher dividends. The Federal Reserve said in a statement on Wednesday that each company remained above minimum capital requirements under the recession scenario. The regulator said the banks would collectively suffer losses of nearly $685 billion - a larger capital decline than last year's scenario analysis, but "within the range of recent stress tests."
▌The probability of the Fed keeping interest rates unchanged in August is 90.7%
According to CME's "Fed Watch": The probability of the Fed keeping interest rates unchanged in August is 90.7%, and the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut is 9.3%. The probability of the Fed keeping interest rates unchanged by September is 37.2%, the probability of a cumulative 25 basis point rate cut is 57.3%, and the probability of a cumulative 50 basis point rate cut is 5.5%.
▌The three major U.S. stock indexes closed up collectively, and most popular technology stocks rose
The three major U.S. stock indexes closed up collectively, with the Dow up 0.04%, the Nasdaq up 0.49%, and the S&P 500 up 0.16%. Most of the popular technology stocks rose, with Tesla up nearly 5%, Amazon up nearly 4%, and its market value exceeding $2 trillion, and Apple up 2%.
Golden Encyclopedia
▌What is an unlimited coin minting attack?
An unlimited coin minting attack is when an attacker manipulates the contract code to continuously mint new tokens that exceed the authorized supply limit. Malicious actors may profit from such attacks by selling illegally created tokens or interfering with the normal operation of the affected blockchain network. The prevalence of unlimited coin minting attacks emphasizes the importance of conducting thorough code audits and incorporating security measures into smart contract development to prevent such vulnerabilities.
Disclaimer: As a blockchain information platform, Golden Finance publishes articles for information reference only and is not intended as actual investment advice. Please establish correct investment concepts and be sure to increase risk awareness.
Edmund
Huang Bo
Coinlive 
Beincrypto
Cointelegraph
Bitcoinist