Starknet $STRK Token Delayed

⚡ Alpha

• StarkWare delays first unlocks of Starknet $STRK token to April 15th, 2024 citing the need to focus on building the technology.

• Base launches Onchain Daily. Base will highlight things to do onchain every day on X and post a recap at the of each week on Mirror.

• Mint fun launches creator tools and releases special edition NFT to celebrate.

🪂 Airdrops

• ZKX Airdrop Phase #1 is live for early adopters & contributors. Airdrop Phase #2 is coming soon for anyone to participate.

📰 Finance News

• Ethereum Futures ETF's attract only $425,000 in volume on first day of trading.

• Sam Bankman-Fried's trial begins as jury selection is set to finish today followed by opening statements from the prosecution and defense.

• Patrick McHenry has been appointed as interim House Speaker after Kevin McCarthy was ousted in a vote by Congress. Patrick McHenry has previously been one the biggest challengers of the SEC's regulation-by-enforcement-style approach to the cryptocurrency sector.

• SEC's motion for an interlocutory appeal rejected in Ripple case. District Judge Analisa Torres cited the SEC did not demonstrate that the appeal would “materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.” The trial is now set for April 23rd, 2024.

• Ripple Singapore subsidiary, Ripple Markets APAC Pte Ltd; has secured a full MPI license to provide digital payment token services in Singapore.

• Celsius seeks court approval to repay customers by the end of the year. The restructuring plan needs approval from Judge Martin Glann and will also need to be cleared by security regulators.

• The Bank of Korea plans to test wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). The test will focus on whether a wholesale CBDC can be used as a settlement asset for commercial bank tokenized deposits and also experiment with the programmability of tokenized deposits.

📰 DeFi News

• The OP Stack’s Fault Proof System is live on OP Goerli testnet. The system leverages OP Stack’s modular design to lay the foundation to build out a multi-proof dispute system.

• Taiko releases v0.22.0 changelogs. One main highlight of the changes and updates include the release of the Alpha-5 testnet.

• OpenSea launches OpenSea Studio, a one-stop shop for creators to launch and manage their projects.

• Binance adds Beta Finance ($BETA), BarnBridge ($BOND), Waltonchain ($WTC), and NEM ($XEM) to Monitoring Tag list. These tokens no longer meet Binance's listing criteria and may be delisted.

• Utopia Labs will be deprecating Utopia Core by November 6th, 2023. Utopia Labs previously raised $23 million led by Kindred Ventures and Paradigm.

• Yield Protocol will be winding down after consideration with various stakeholders. Yield previously raised $10 million led by Paradigm.

🛡 Security and Exploits

• Friend tech accounts are being drained following sim-swap attacks. Well-established Friend tech accounts are advised to take precautionary steps.

• Orbiter Finance team dismisses allegations of being hacked. The team explains that stuck transactions are due to network instability or if the sender deletes the target network identification code. They also explain that the Orbiter Discord account was blocked by Discord.

• Aztec Labs pays out $450,000 bounty to white hat who uncovered a vulnerability in Aztec Connect. User funds are safe, but users are urged to withdraw funds from zk money as Aztec Labs no longer actively supports Aztec Connect.

• Xerberus report shows Cardano based project, Ardana; used investor funds to invest in highly risky Ethereum-based tokens. As a result, Ardana lost at least $4 million. Ardana closed in November 2022 citing “funding and project timeline uncertainty.”

• Following JPEX rugpull, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission establishes dedicated team with the HK Police Force to, "Enhance collaboration in monitoring and investigating illegal activities related to Virtual Asset Trading Platforms (VATPs)."

Token Unlocks

• Liquity $LQTY - 733.65K ~$858.36K on OCT 04
• 1inch $1INCH - 287.14K ~$79.25K on OCT 04
• Galxe $GAL - 416.67K ~$537.50K on OCT 05
• Nym $NYM - 12.50M ~$1.43M on OCT 05
• Hashflow $HFT - 3.28M ~$1.12M on OCT 06
• ImmutableX $IMX - 22.71M ~$13.7M on OCT 07
• Moonbeam $GLMR - 4.47M ~$1.03M on OCT 07
• X2Y2 $X2Y2 - 17.4M ~$213.86K on OCT 08
• GMX $GMX - 2.81K ~$114.45k on OCT 08

💰 Funding

• Blackbird, a blockchain-based loyalty platform; raises $24M in Series A funding round led by a16z crypto and participation from Amex Ventures and QED Investors.

• Para Finance, a decentralized lending platform; raises $5 million in Seed funding round led by OKX Ventures and participation from Kosmos Ventures, Uniswap Labs, and Gate Labs.

• Accumulated Finance, a liquid staking protocol; raises an undisclosed amount in private funding round with participation from De Facto Capital, Curve Finance, and Stake DAO team members.

• Fountain, a blockchain-based art brokerage platform; raises an undisclosed amount in closed funding round incubated by Flamingo DAO and participation from Collab Currency, Sfermion, and more.

That's it for today's dose! See you soon.