OpenAI opens full-blooded o1 model API Ripple launches stablecoin RLUSD

Headline

▌OpenAI opens full-blooded o1 model API, cost drops by 60%

In the early morning of the 18th, OpenAI started the 9th day of technology sharing live broadcast, officially released the API of the o1 model, and upgraded the real-time API to support WebRTC. Among them, the API of the o1 model has a 60% reduction in thinking cost compared with the previous preview version, and comes with advanced visual functions; the audio cost of GPT-4o is reduced by 60%, and the price of the mini version has dropped by 10 times. At the same time, OpenAI also released a new preference fine-tuning method, which allows large models to better grasp the user's preference style through direct preference optimization algorithms.

▌Ripple officially launches stable currency RLUSD

Ripple has now officially launched the stable currency RLUSD.

Market

As of press time, according to Coingecko data:

BTC's latest transaction price is $106,109, with a daily increase or decrease of +0.2%;

ETH's latest transaction price is $3,888.84, with a daily increase or decrease of -2.2%;

BNB's latest transaction price is $718.84, with a daily increase or decrease of +0.1%;

SOL's latest transaction price is $224.18, with a daily increase or decrease of +4.0%；

DOGE's latest transaction price is 0.3947 yuan, with a daily increase or decrease of -1.3%；

XPR's latest transaction price is 2.57 US dollars, with a daily increase or decrease of +4.0%.

Policy

▌Crypto advocates sent tens of thousands of emails to the U.S. Senate over the past week, opposing the re-election of U.S. SEC Commissioner Crenshaw

Tens of thousands of emails from crypto advocates have flooded the U.S. Senate over the past week, urging them to oppose the re-election vote for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw.  

According to a statement released on Tuesday, 52,000 supporters of the nonprofit Standwith Crypto sent about 107,000 emails to U.S. senators. This happened about a week after the U.S. Senate Banking Committee canceled its second vote on the re-election of SEC Democratic Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw.

▌U.S. Ohio House of Representatives Submits Bill to Establish Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

The U.S. Ohio House of Representatives has submitted a bill to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve for the state.

▌Fox reporter: Incoming crypto czar David Sacks will meet with members of Congress on Capitol Hill this week

According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett's post on the X platform, the incoming crypto and AI czar David Sacks will meet with members of Congress on Capitol Hill this week, and Speaker Mike Johnson said he looks forward to meeting with Sacks and Trump's nominee for FBI Director Kash Patel.

▌Fox reporter: Democrats can re-propose SEC Commissioner Crenshaw's nomination, but it will be up to Trump

According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett's post on the X platform, after the Senate Banking Committee gave up pushing for the nomination of anti-crypto SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw for re-election, Crenshaw is still serving on the committee and can serve until her successor is confirmed, or until Congress adjourns next year.  

According to congressional procedures, the minority party (in this case, the Democrats) usually recommends candidates to fill minority seats on committees. The president can decide at his own discretion to listen to their recommendations, but he is not obliged to do so. Therefore, the Democrats may re-propose Crenshaw's nomination at the request of Elizabeth Warren, but whether to re-nominate her will be decided by Donald Trump himself.

▌U.S. Treasury: A North Korean cryptocurrency money laundering network has been shut down

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Tuesday that it has shut down a North Korean cryptocurrency money laundering network that laundered millions of dollars for a major player in global crypto crime in North Korea. 

According to a press release issued by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a UAE-based front company called Green Alpine Trading, LLC was found to have converted cryptocurrency into cash to provide funds to North Korea. The U.S. government's sanctions department has blacklisted the company.

Blockchain Applications

▌Remote, a US compliant HR technology service provider, cooperates with Stripe to launch USDC payment service

Remote, a US compliant HR technology service provider, announced a partnership with Stripe to allow US companies it serves to use USDC to pay wages to contract employees in 69 countries. The feature first supports Coinbase's L2 blockchain Base and is available to US customers. Contract employees only need to select a new withdrawal method and add their Base network wallet address to receive payments in USDC, while their employers settle in US dollars.

Cryptocurrency

▌Bloomberg Analyst: A wave of crypto ETFs is expected next year, XRP, SOL or after LTC and HBAR ETFs

Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said on the X platform: "We expect a wave of cryptocurrency ETFs to appear next year, although not all at once. The first to appear may be a BTC+ETH combination ETF, then Litecoin (because it is a fork of BTC, that is, a commodity), then HBAR (because it is not marked as a security), followed by XRP and Solana (marked as a security in pending litigation)".

▌Analysis: If Bitcoin rises to $138,000, MicroStrategy's market value will exceed Starbucks and Nike

If Bitcoin rises to $138,000, MicroStrategy's market value will exceed Starbucks and Nike.  

With 439,000 BTC, MicroStrategy is the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, 985% more than Marathon Digital's 40,435 BTC holdings. Analysts say monitoring BTC's price can directly predict MSTR's market value potential. According to MicroStrategy's net asset value (NAV) worksheet, its fully diluted market value is $114 billion, while the resulting MSTR NAV is about $40 billion. In terms of MicroStrategy's BTC holdings, every time BTC rises by $1,000, MSTR's market value will increase by about $440 million. Therefore, if Bitcoin rises by only 11% to $118,810, MicroStrategy's market value will surpass Starbucks' valuation ranking. If each BTC rises by 32% to $140,000, MSTR's market value will exceed Nike. The premise of surpassing Nike's market value is that MicroStrategy does not increase its current BTC holdings.

▌Babylon Co-founder: Staking will determine Bitcoin's position in the global digital economy

Fisher Yu, co-founder of the Babylon project, wrote that staking will determine Bitcoin's position in the global digital economy next year. In addition to benefiting retail investors by allowing them to earn passive rewards from their BTC holdings, Bitcoin staking also provides an attractive opportunity for businesses and governments, with governments around the world holding approximately 2.2% of the Bitcoin supply as of August 2024.

The article states that the huge opportunities presented by Bitcoin staking are expected to transform Bitcoin from a store of value and medium of exchange to an active asset, further incentivizing people to participate more widely in decentralized systems and digital assets. Bitcoin staking may be just the beginning of Bitcoin as a foundation for innovation. In 2025, we may see the rise of other native use cases that will continue to consolidate Bitcoin's position as a foundational asset in the global financial ecosystem. Coinbase: Delisting wBTC due to unacceptable risk posed by Justin Sun According to CoinDesk, Coinbase (COIN.O) said that it delisted wBTC because Justin Sun would bring "unacceptable risks." Last week, BiT Global, the issuer of wBTC, filed a wide-ranging lawsuit accusing Coinbase of improperly favoring its competitor cbBTC. But in a 25-page response, Coinbase said the decision was related to Justin Sun, the crypto billionaire and founder of the Tron blockchain, who has also been accused of fraud and market manipulation in the United States. According to Coinbase's documents, Justin Sun and wBTC are connected through a partnership announced in August. Coinbase said: "Given Sun's involvement, Coinbase, like many other companies in the industry, has serious questions about whether BiT can be a reliable manager."

▌BlackRock releases 3-minute educational video on Bitcoin

BlackRock released a 3-minute educational video explaining what Bitcoin is, saying in the video: "Bitcoin is an emerging currency alternative, and time will tell how widely it is adopted."

▌BTC-EUR market share exceeds BTC-JPY for the first time since the beginning of 2023

For the first time since the beginning of 2023, BTC-EUR's market share has exceeded BTC-JPY, and it is now the third largest BTC-fiat currency pair by trading volume. The increase in BTC-EUR trading volume shows that European investors' interest in Bitcoin is rising. This may be due to the combined effect of factors such as the economic situation in the eurozone, changes in regulatory policies, and increased awareness of digital assets among European investors.

Important Economic Dynamics

▌The probability of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by 25 basis points in December is 95.4%

According to CME's "Fed Watch", the probability of the Federal Reserve maintaining the current interest rate unchanged by December is 4.6%, and the probability of a cumulative interest rate cut of 25 basis points is 95.4%. The probability of maintaining the current interest rate unchanged by January next year is 3.8%, the probability of a cumulative interest rate cut of 25 basis points is 79.9%, and the probability of a cumulative interest rate cut of 50 basis points is 16.3%.

▌The three major U.S. stock indexes closed down collectively, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded the longest consecutive decline in nearly half a century

The three major U.S. stock indexes closed down collectively, with the Nasdaq down 0.32%, the S&P 500 down 0.39%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.61%. Among them, the Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded nine consecutive daily declines, the longest consecutive decline since February 1978. Most large technology stocks fell, Intel and Nvidia fell more than 1%, Netflix, Google, Amazon, and Meta fell slightly; Tesla rose more than 3%, and Apple and Microsoft rose slightly. Among them, Nvidia entered the correction range; Tesla and Apple continued to set new highs.

Golden Encyclopedia

▌What is Rollup?

Rollup is a way to process transactions on a Layer 2 protocol, freeing up valuable space on the base layer. Rollup folds transactions one by one on the second layer, sometimes dozens of times, and then rolls them together before sending the data back to Layer 1. There are two main types of Rollup, optimistic and zero-knowledge (ZK) proof. Optimistic Rollup is a fairly clear term. It means that Rollup runs with an "optimistic" approach, assuming that transactions are valid unless the verifier proves it wrong. Only when there is a dispute do they check the validity of the transaction. ZK Rollup proves transactions without revealing any transaction data. Hence, "zero knowledge". ZK Rollup provides instant finality because cryptographic proofs guarantee that the data is valid. In many ways, Rollup is to your standard blockchain transaction like Calzone is to your regular pizza slice. By rolling, you can put more things in.

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