headlines
Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano will return as CEO
Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano announced in a post that he will return as CEO of Yuga Labs. He said: I am grateful for all the contributions and operational rigor Daniel has made to the company over the past year. Looking forward to the future of Yuga, we need the entire company to focus more on the execution of the crypto-native world. In the future, we hope to free up Yugas BAYC team as much as possible to execute its vision. Make it more focused and flexible. BAYC LLC has been established as a subsidiary of Yuga and will be responsible for all BAYC related matters. There is still a lot of work to be done on Otherside, especially to enhance the user experience. Yugas gameplay needs to be treated with closer attention to its insanely fun game modes that anyone with a child at heart can enjoy. The more wild, fun and popular the better.
Do Kwon’s extradition to US approved by Montenegrin court
After months of court proceedings in Montenegro, Terra founder Do Kwon has been approved to be extradited to the United States.
According to local media Pobjeda, the High Court in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, ruled to reject South Koreas request to extradite Do Kwon to his home country for criminal prosecution. The decision follows Do Kwons victory at the Court of Appeal on February 8. His South Korean extradition has been revoked and he has been sent back to the High Court for processing. The United States will have nearly two months to extradite Do Kwon to the United States to attend the US SEC v. Terraform Labs case.
Terras court case was postponed to April 15 following Kwons request and an agreement with the SEC to delay proceedings.
SBF will return to court on Wednesday for his first court appearance since being found guilty of fraud in November, where he will participate in a hearing in Manhattan about possible conflicts of interest with his new lawyer, Marc Mukasey.
In a court filing on February 6, prosecutors in the SBF case said Mukasey and his partner Torrey Young may have had a conflict of interest because Alameda Research misappropriated FTX client funds to repay funds borrowed from Celsius. It is reported that Mukasey is also the lawyer of Alex Mashinsky, the founder of Celsius Networks.
Industry news
Circle will gradually stop supporting USDC on the TRON chain
Circle announced that it will stop supporting USDC on the TRON chain in phases. From now on, it will no longer mint USDC on the TRON chain.
Circle will support Circle Mint customers transferring USDC to other chains by February 2025. Since Circle only serves corporate and institutional customers, retail users and other non-Circle customers can transfer their USDC on the TRON chain to exchanges or distributors and then to other chains that support USDC. By February 2025, Circle Mint customers can transfer USDC to other blockchains or exchange USDC on the TRON chain for fiat currency directly through Circle.
Now that every institution is holding cryptocurrency, the asset class will become a standard part of every diversified portfolio, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said.
Additionally, Brian Armstrong noted that institutions will eventually use cryptocurrencies in other ways, such as keeping them on balance sheets, paying suppliers, and issuing payroll.
DOJ files motion for proposed protective order in CZ lawsuit to seal sensitive information
According to a February 20 motion for a protective order, U.S. attorneys sought entry into the protective order given the sensitive information in CZs lawsuit. The Ministry of Justice stated that defendant CZ and defense counsel did not oppose the request for a protective order.
According to U.S. prosecutors, CZ admitted failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. The evidentiary materials provided include interviews with sensitive witnesses, third-party financial records and third-party internal business records.
In the motion, the Justice Department filed a proposed order restricting public access to any information. The proposed protective order will not be disseminated or distributed to anyone other than defense attorneys, defense team members, and the defendant, the filing reads.
Additionally, the identities of sensitive witnesses will not be disclosed in public documents and will remain sealed similar to the recent sealing of unredacted letters and medical records.
Project News
Optimism launches fourth airdrop, distributing OP worth nearly $41 million
L2 Network Optimism has announced its fourth airdrop, this time designed to reward web3 artists.
According to the official release, the airdrop distributed 10343757.81 OP, worth approximately $40.8 million, to 22,998 addresses. Users have until February 13, 2025 to claim their tokens.
“A great society needs artists,” Optimism wrote on an airdrop collection page. “This airdrop is about thanking artists and their ability to bring creativity on-chain. Your contributions play a vital role in the Optimism Collective.”
Users who create NFT art on the Ethereum mainnet or Optimism’s Superchain between January 10, 2023 and January 10, 2024 are eligible to participate in the airdrop.
Airdrops reward NFT creators based on the gas other users consume when minting or trading their NFTs; the more popular the NFT project is, the more rewards the NFT creator is eligible for. 1 ETH worth of gas incurred by a user on Optimisms Superchain gives that individual 5000 OP, while accumulating 1 ETH worth of gas on the Ethereum mainnet gives them 50 OP. The final reward per address is up to 6,000 OP (approximately $23,640).
Users token allocations can be increased by 50% or multiplied by 1.5 through bonus eligibility, including creating NFT contracts before January 10, 2023, transferring NFTs they created after November 11, 2023, and transferring NFTs since November 11, 2023. Active on Superchain since July 14, 2023, or a collector spending more than 0.0005 ETH to transfer one of their NFTs since July 14, 2023. The scope of the increase depends on the number of eligible bonus events.
According to official news, Smart Layer announced the economics of SLN tokens. The maximum supply is 100 million, and the specific distribution is as follows:
Seed investors: 6.8125%, 6-month cliff, 18-month linear vesting to unlock;
Other investors: 19.6364%, 6-month cliff, 12-month linear vesting unlock;
Team and equity investors: 22.96%, 6-month cliff, 36-month linear vesting to unlock;
Node reward: 20%, released starting from February 1, 2025;
Ecosystem Fund: 18.4%, TGE: 20%, 48 months linear vesting to unlock;
Treasury/Reserves: 4%, TGE: 100%;
Community incentive pool: 4%, TGE: 100%;
Marketing and collaborators: 2.1911%, TGE: 100%;
Airdrop: 2%, TGE: 100%.
It is reported that the SLN airdrop application will be online at 15:30 on February 23, Singapore time.
Ronin launches RON token re-pledge service
According to official news, Ronin announced the launch of the RON/RONIN token re-pledge service. Users can now re-pledge the reward tokens. The relevant functions have been launched on the desktop and mobile versions of the application, and there are currently no application requirements.
Backpack: Transactions suspended due to emergency maintenance by cloud service provider
According to an official announcement, Backpack trading activity has been temporarily suspended due to a sudden preventive maintenance service request initiated by the cloud service provider. Backpack added that trading would resume as soon as maintenance work is completed.
ETF related
According to data shared by Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, the trading volume of nine U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs today is approximately US$2 billion, the highest since the first day of listing, thanks to Van Eck’s HODL, WisdomTree’s BTCW and Bitwise’s BITB Contributing to the huge trading volume, they all broke their respective single-day trading records.
$2 billion in trading volume puts them in the top 10 or so of ETFs and the top 20 or so of stocks, which is a big number, analysts said.
Grayscale ETF Director: Ethereum spot ETF has a 50% chance of being approved in May
Grayscale ETF director Dave LaValle was asked at the annual ETF conference in Miami whether “if the SEC rejects Grayscale’s request to convert its Ethereum trust into a spot ETF, the company will sue the SEC again.” LaValle said that Grayscale will “ One has to wait and see what happens, adding that he gave a 50% chance of approval by May.
According to monitoring by Farside Investors, U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs had a net inflow of US$135.6 million on February 20, of which the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Spot ETF (IBIT) had a net inflow of US$154.3 million.
In addition, yesterday Grayscale’s GBTC had a net outflow of US$137 million, Fidelity’s FBTC had a net inflow of US$71.7 million, and ARK 21 Shares’ ARKB had a net inflow of US$27.4 million.
Ripple CEO: Welcomes the launch of XRP ETF
In an interview with Bloomberg, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed his welcome to the launch of the XRP ETF. He said that the emergence of multiple ETFs around different tokens is inevitable, and predicted that the ETF market will have a basket of cryptocurrency ETFs because This will spread risk for investors.
