Binance denies data leak of 12.8 million users, US SEC reaches settlement with TrueUSD

Headline

▌Binance denies rumors of data leak of 12.8 million users

Recently, someone on the dark web forum claimed to have leaked personal data of 12.8 million Binance users, including sensitive information such as name, email, phone number, birthday and address. However, Binance said the news was false information. The poster, named "FireBear", said that the data was leaked in August and attempted to sell some or all of the information.  

A Binance spokesperson confirmed to Decrypt that the security team had investigated the matter and determined that no data leak had occurred. Nevertheless, cybersecurity experts warned that such false news could trigger phishing attacks and account theft, and advised users to enable two-factor authentication and be wary of suspicious communications.

▌US SEC and TrueUSD-related companies reached a settlement on fraud charges

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reached a settlement with companies related to the TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoin. These companies include TrustToken and TrueCoin, which have now been reorganized under Archblock. The SEC accused them of misrepresenting the reserve support of TUSD and failing to register to issue securities related to TUSD. These California companies claimed that TUSD had a one-to-one dollar reserve, but actually invested the funds in high-risk overseas commodity funds. According to the settlement agreement, TrustToken and TrueCoin will each pay a fine of $164,000 and return approximately $400,000 in profits and interest. The SEC pointed out that these companies knew about the redemption problem of TUSD in 2022 and conducted unregistered securities sales through their platform TrueFi. The SEC emphasized that this case highlights the importance of registration for protecting investors. The current market value of TUSD is close to US$500 million, and more than 13% of TUSD funds have been used for profitable opportunities on the TrueFi platform.

Market

As of press time, according to Coingecko data:

BTC's latest transaction price is $64,238.10, with a daily increase or decrease of +1.3%;

ETH's latest transaction price is $2,651.04, with a daily increase or decrease of +0.1%;

BNB's latest transaction price is $605.59, with a daily increase or decrease of +0.1%;

SOL's latest transaction price is $152.46, with a daily increase or decrease of +5.3%；

DOGE's latest transaction price is 0.1097 yuan, with a daily increase or decrease of +1.4%；

XPR's latest transaction price is 0.5905 US dollars, with a daily increase or decrease of +0.9%.

Policy

▌U.S. Senate passed a bill to strengthen the security of presidential candidates

On September 24, local time, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the "Strengthening Presidential Security Act", which aims to strengthen the U.S. Secret Service's security for major presidential candidates. After Republican presidential candidate Trump suffered two "assassination attempts" this year, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill on September 20 and submitted it to the Senate for deliberation. The bill will strengthen the U.S. Secret Service's protection of presidential candidates to the same level as the current president. In addition, the bill will expand the scope of presidential-level protection to vice presidential candidates and require the Secret Service to regularly report candidate protection to the leaders of the House and Senate. , 

Previously reported, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to strengthen security for presidential candidates.

▌The U.S. SEC postpones decision on BlackRock's Ethereum spot ETF option trading application

According to The Block, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed its decision on whether to allow BlackRock's spot Ethereum ETF to conduct options trading.

▌Turkey Shelves Additional Plans to Tax Stocks and Cryptocurrencies

Turkey has decided not to move forward with an additional tax package that would tax profits from stock trading and cryptocurrencies, Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz told Bloomberg.  

"There is no stock tax on our agenda. We discussed it before, but it was not on the agenda, and officials will focus on narrowing the scope of tax exemptions for some time to come," Yilmaz said.  

In June, the Turkish stock market fell on news of the tax increase, and the Turkish government decided to postpone the implementation of the stock tax plan.

▌U.S. SEC Chairman Gensler was fiercely questioned at a congressional hearing for crypto regulation and DEBT Box case handling

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler was questioned by lawmakers from both parties at a congressional hearing, focusing on the SEC's regulation of the crypto industry. Republican Majority Whip Tom Emmer questioned Gensler's handling of the DEBT Box case, a crypto startup, at the hearing, which was criticized by a federal judge as "malicious" and required the SEC to pay related sanctions. Gensler admitted that the case was mishandled, and in response to questions from lawmakers, he said that "the law is in place, but Congress can adjust it." In addition, Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres discussed how the SEC defines securities, using the purchase of New York Yankees tickets to compare with the purchase of NFTs. The background of this hearing is the upcoming election in 2024, when cryptocurrency has become a hot topic and related companies have invested $119 million in political action committees this year.

Blockchain Applications

▌Solana Labs and Google Cloud have partnered to launch a Web3 API called Gameshift

Solana Labs has partnered with Google Cloud to launch a Web3 API called Gameshift, which aims to provide traditional Web2 game developers with convenient blockchain and digital asset management tools. The API was released at the 2024 Solana Breakpoint conference and is now available on the Google Cloud Marketplace.  

Gameshift simplifies the process for developers to integrate Web3 elements such as NFTs into existing games, helping game studios overcome technical complexities. Jack Buser, director of Google Cloud Games, said Gameshift provides simplified technical solutions for overloaded developers and accelerates the application of Web3 technology in the gaming industry.  

This release continues the ongoing collaboration between Solana Labs and Google Cloud, with the two parties launching new collaboration projects at the Solana conference every year starting in 2022.

▌Circle, the issuer of USDC, launched an on-chain compliance platform

Circle, the issuer of USDC, launched a new on-chain compliance platform "Compliance Engine" on September 24, which aims to help companies develop blockchain applications while meeting strict compliance requirements. The platform includes transaction screening, monitoring tools, and services that meet customer identity (KYC) requirements, supporting multiple blockchain networks such as Ethereum and Solana. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said that this is the first time that the technology accumulated by the company over the past decade has been opened to developers and operations teams.  

This move is an important step for Circle to accelerate the application of USDC stablecoins and challenge Tether's market dominance. At present, the market value of USDC is 36 billion US dollars, far lower than USDT's 119 billion US dollars. In addition, PYUSD launched by PayPal has also joined the competition, with a market value of 1 billion US dollars.  

Circle also targets the real world asset (RWA) market, which may reach trillions of dollars in the future, to boost the adoption of USDC.

Cryptocurrency

▌Bank of New York Mellon is moving forward with crypto ETF custody services

Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) is moving forward with providing Bitcoin and Ethereum custody services to its exchange-traded fund (ETF) clients. Previously, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided after a review that BNY does not need to comply with the controversial crypto asset accounting rule SAB 121. Since its introduction in 2022, SAB 121 has required companies that custody crypto assets to include them in their accounts as liabilities, putting pressure on the crypto industry. The SEC said that customer protection measures at banks such as BNY are sound enough, so it allows them to be consistent with traditional custody arrangements in accounting treatment. BNY still needs to obtain approval from other regulators before it can officially provide services.

▌Polymarket's bets on the 2024 US presidential election have exceeded $1 billion

The prediction platform Polymarket has bet on the 2024 US presidential election. Among them, Vice President Kamala Harris's chance of winning is predicted to be 51%, with a total bet of nearly $154 million; followed by Republican candidate Donald Trump, whose chance of winning is 48%, with a bet of about $163 million. In addition, users have bet on other Republican or Democratic candidates to win, but these odds are relatively low.

▌Ethena Labs: eUSD is now online

Ethena Labs announced on the X platform that Ethena's liquidity re-staking token eUSD, which is in cooperation with EigenLayer, is now online, and currently supports deposits of different stablecoins to exchange for eUSD.

▌A Bitcoin whale wakes up after 13 years of silence and deposits 20 Bitcoins to CEX

According to Arkham monitoring, another ancient Bitcoin whale has transferred $3.17 million worth of Bitcoin. This wallet has never made any transfer operations since receiving these Bitcoins 13 years ago.  

The address woke up today and just transferred 20 Bitcoins (about $1.27 million) to Bitstamp, and another 30 Bitcoins to an anonymous address.  

Yesterday, it was reported that an ancient Bitcoin whale woke up after 10 years of silence and transferred 5 BTC to Kraken, and the address still holds 1215 BTC.

Important Economic Dynamics

▌The probability of the Fed cutting interest rates by 25BP in November is 43.9%

According to CME's "Fed Watch", the probability of the Fed cutting interest rates by 25 basis points by November is 43.9%, and the probability of cutting interest rates by 50 basis points is 56.1%. The probability of a cumulative rate cut of 50 basis points by December is 15.6%, the probability of a cumulative rate cut of 75 basis points is 48.3%, and the probability of a cumulative rate cut of 100 basis points is 36.1%.

▌Moody's: Without substantial debt reduction measures, the United States will lose its only Aaa rating

The next US government "must deal with the problem of widening fiscal deficits," Moody's warned in a report, nearly a year after announcing a negative outlook on the US sovereign credit rating. "The government's tax and spending policies will affect the size of future budget deficits and the expected decline in US fiscal strength, which in turn may have a significant impact on the US sovereign credit profile," analysts including Claire Li and William Foster wrote in the report. After the congressional and White House elections in November, the US government is expected to remain divided, hindering the new administration from making comprehensive fiscal reforms. Therefore, the fiscal policy proposals of both candidates are likely to require intense negotiations and compromises between the two parties. "If policy actions are not taken to correct them, these debt dynamics will become increasingly unsustainable and inconsistent with the Aaa rating," the report concluded.

▌S&P expects U.S. economic growth to slow in 2025

S&P Global Ratings said in a report that it expects U.S. economic growth to slow to 1.8% next year from 2.7% this year. S&P said it expects consumers to control spending in the coming quarters. Although the Federal Reserve is expected to continue to cut interest rates, S&P said: "We view the upcoming gradual easing period as more of a precautionary measure to prevent economic growth from falling too far below potential rather than an immediate stimulus to the real economy." S&P said that in addition to the continued downturn in housing and manufacturing, most of the latest activity indicators show that economic growth momentum remains slightly above trend. The agency also said that due to rising potential growth, it has raised its growth forecasts for 2026 and 2027.

▌Top economic research institutions expect Germany's economy to shrink in 2024

The German Ministry of Economy will release an official report on Thursday that may show that the German economy will shrink in 2024, sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Tuesday. The department warned that Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) could fall by 0.1% this year. In the spring, they expected the economy to grow by a weak 0.1%. The twice-yearly study includes contributions from top think tanks such as Munich's IFO and the German Institute for Economic Research DIW. Sources said that researchers still expect Germany's economic output to be positive in 2025, but the GDP growth forecast for 2025 has been revised to 0.8% from 1.4% in the spring in the autumn report. The coalition government led by German Chancellor Scholz is planning a series of measures to stimulate economic activity, but business groups complain that these measures are not enough and they want fundamental reforms. Their biggest complaints include: high energy prices, excessive bureaucracy and a shortage of skilled workers.

Golden Encyclopedia

▌What is the Algorithm of Thought (AoT)?

Algorithms of Thought (AoT) is a groundbreaking approach in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) that revolutionizes the way AI models think and reason. Developed by Microsoft Research, AoT introduces a new paradigm for large language models (LLMs) to enhance reasoning capabilities to solve complex problems. It aims to combine the best of both worlds: a nuanced, intuitive understanding of the human thought process with a structured, systematic algorithmic approach.

Disclaimer: As a blockchain information platform, Golden Finance publishes articles for informational purposes only and is not intended as actual investment advice. Please establish the correct investment philosophy and be sure to raise your risk awareness.