Chainalysis goes to court in $650 million case, Trump ahead of Harris

Headlines

▌Chainalysis Appears in Court for $650 Million Defamation Case Involving YieldNodes Project

Blockchain analysis company Chainalysis faces a $650 million defamation lawsuit for allegedly wrongly labeling the YieldNodes project as a scam. The case will be heard in the New York Supreme Court on October 16. Plaintiff Exceptional Media claims that Chainalysis's misclassification has caused serious damage to its reputation and customer base and was malicious. Chainalysis has filed multiple motions to dismiss, arguing that the complaint failed to prove that its analysis was wrong and insisting that YieldNodes may indeed be an investment scam. Chainalysis declined to comment on the case.

▌Fox News Poll: Trump Leads Harris 50% to 48% Across the United States

Fox News poll shows that former US President Trump leads US Vice President Harris 50% to 48% across the United States.

Market

As of press time, according to Coingecko data:

BTC's latest transaction price is $67,640.72, with a daily increase or decrease of +1.0%;

ETH's latest transaction price is $2,613.89, with a daily increase or decrease of +0.3%;

BNB's latest transaction price is $601.05, with a daily increase or decrease of +1.0%；

SOL's latest transaction price is 154.33 US dollars, and its intraday change is -0.3%；

DOGE's latest transaction price is 0.1258 yuan, and its intraday change is +7.1%；

XPR's latest transaction price is 0.5481 US dollars, and its intraday change is +1.3%.

Policy

▌U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds: Trump May Unlock 'Crypto Regulatory Gridlock'

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds spoke at crypto venture capital firm BlockTower's investor day on Wednesday and said Trump may unblock the "crypto regulatory gridlock."

Donalds revealed that he shared a plane ride from Atlanta to Florida with former President Trump on Tuesday night. Donalds said the two discussed how to dismantle what he described as the regulatory "gridlock" that President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump's November opponent, have posed to the $2 trillion crypto industry.

▌Lead Bank executives: Banks need to clarify regulatory direction when entering the crypto field

Erica Khalili, co-founder of Lead Bank, said at the Ripple Swell Conference in Miami that banks need to invest a lot of money and maintain close relationships with regulators to enter the crypto field. She pointed out that clear regulatory policies and cross-institutional cooperation are crucial for banks. Although digital assets bring efficiency improvements to the capital market, banks must have a strategy to deal with regulation and remain patient to adapt to changing rules. Khalili emphasized that getting involved in the crypto banking field requires a deep understanding of products, technology and talents, and it is difficult to succeed by simply testing the waters.

Blockchain applications

▌Robinhood launches desktop platform and adds Bitcoin futures trading and other functions on the APP

Robinhood launched a desktop platform and added futures and index options trading functions to its mobile application (APP), including: stock indexes, Bitcoin, energy, metals and currencies.

▌DTCC launches digital sandbox to revolutionize capital market infrastructure

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has launched the digital sandbox "DTCC Digital Launchpad" to provide a pilot project platform for market participants and technology providers to promote innovation in capital market infrastructure. The sandbox aims to address key pain points in collateral management and provide customers with the DTCC digital asset product suite to develop use cases without making large investments. The first results will be announced in the first quarter of 2025. The move aims to establish an efficient and secure digital market infrastructure for the industry.

▌U.S. CFTC Commissioner: Markets work best when regulators don’t intervene

U.S. CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger and former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo mentioned the SEC’s regulatory style at the BlockTower Investor Conference. Mersinger said: “We are not necessarily the kind of agency that will stand up and claim that we know the situation better than all of you and tell you how things work. We recognize that markets work best when regulators don’t intervene.”

Cryptocurrency

▌Ethereum staker income has fallen 30% since its peak in March

According to data from The Block, Ethereum staker income has fallen 30% since its peak in March, with stakers’ total income in September at $174 million, down from the highest level of $247 million in March.  

Despite the decline in income, the validator group continues to expand. Ethereum currently has 1.09 million validators, indicating growing participation in network security. Despite the reduction in individual rewards, the number of validators is still increasing, indicating that people are still confident in Ethereum's long-term prospects.

▌Quantity Funds Launches STKD Bitcoin and Gold ETF

Quantity Funds announced the launch of the STKD Bitcoin and Gold ETF, which aims to mitigate future inflation and "currency debasement". The fund's ticker is BTGD and aims to provide investment opportunities in gold and Bitcoin through Bitcoin futures and ETFs as well as gold futures and ETFs. The fund provides retail investors with a model where every dollar invested in the ETF will provide 100% investment opportunities in its Bitcoin and Gold strategies. The statement said: "The Bitcoin strategy seeks to obtain the price return of Bitcoin by investing in Bitcoin futures and ETPs, while the gold strategy also seeks to obtain the price return of gold by investing in gold futures and gold ETPs."

▌Thailand's SCB Bank to Launch Stablecoin Cross-Border Payment Service

Thailand's established bank Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) announced that it will cooperate with fintech company Lightnet to provide customers with stablecoin cross-border payment and remittance services. The service supports customers to conduct cross-border transactions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and significantly reduces transaction costs. It is reported that the service has passed the regulatory sandbox test of the Bank of Thailand.

▌Galaxy: Crypto Venture Capital Cools Down, Investment Amount in the Third Quarter Down 20%

According to the latest report from Galaxy Digital, the crypto venture capital market performed flat in the third quarter, with investment of US$2.4 billion, a decrease of 20% month-on-month, and a decrease of 17% in the number of transactions. In the first three quarters of this year, the crypto industry received a total of $8 billion in investment, and the investment in 2024 is expected to be slightly higher than in 2023. Compared with the investment scale of more than $30 billion in 2021 and 2022, the current market heat has obviously declined. Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, pointed out that investors' interest in the crypto industry has weakened compared with previous years.

▌a16z crypto report: The number of active addresses and usage of cryptocurrencies hit a record high

A research report released by a16z crypto on Wednesday pointed out that the number of active addresses and usage of cryptocurrencies reached an all-time high this year. The report estimates that as of September, there were about 617 million cryptocurrency holders worldwide and 60 million monthly active users.  

Monthly active crypto addresses will rise to over 220 million in 2024, with Base topping the Ethereum EVM chain with 22 million addresses, while Solana dominates the non-EVM chain with over 100 million addresses. Mobile wallets also have the most users this year, with the United States accounting for 12% of global users.

Important Economic Dynamics

▌The probability of a 25BP rate cut by the Federal Reserve in November is 94.1%

According to CME's "Fed Watch", the probability of a 25 basis point cut by the Federal Reserve by November is 94.1%, and the probability of maintaining the current interest rate unchanged is 5.9%. The probability of a cumulative rate cut of 25 basis points by December is 13.4%, and the probability of a cumulative rate cut of 50 basis points is 86.1%.

▌Goldman Sachs expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 25 basis points from November 2024 to June 2025

Goldman Sachs expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 25 basis points from November 2024 to June 2025, and the final interest rate range will reach 3.25%-3.5%; the European Central Bank is expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points in October, and then continue to cut interest rates by 25 basis points until the policy rate reaches 2% in June 2025.

▌Goldman Sachs Trading Department: S&P 500 is expected to rise to 6270 points by the end of the year

The S&P 500 has hit a new high at the close 46 times this year, and Goldman Sachs' trading team said this trend is expected to continue until the last few months of 2024. Scott Rubner, the bank's global market managing director and tactical expert, expects the U.S. stock benchmark index to end this year at well above 6000 points. He calculated data dating back to 1928 and found that the median historical return of the S&P 500 between October 15 and December 31 was 5.17%. In the election year, the median return was even slightly higher than 7%, which means the year-end level could reach 6270 points.

Golden Encyclopedia

▌What is Proto-Danks Sharding

Sharding is a method of splitting a ledger into smaller parts, called shards. But proto-danksharding is one of the most opaque terms in the crypto world's vocabulary. The term doesn't particularly have a guiding meaning. Is proto short for prototype? Is this the same dank in your favorite meme folder? Both assumptions may be quite reasonable, but both are wrong. First proposed by protolambda and Dankrad Feist, who named the idea after themselves, proto-danksharding is a transaction type that accepts the above blobs. The solution using blobs is designed to overcome Ethereum's long-standing problems of high gas fees and low transaction throughput.

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 philosophy and be sure to raise your risk awareness.