Texas calls for Bitcoin reserves, Hex founder is on "red warrant"

Headlines

▌Texas Congressman Calls for Bitcoin Reserve

Texas Congressman Giovanni Capriglione introduced a bill in December calling for the Lone Star State to establish a Bitcoin reserve.   The draft bill stipulates that Texas must hold Bitcoin for at least five years. Under the bill, cryptocurrencies must be stored in cold storage, that is, on some device that is not connected to the internet, and the assets cannot be used for transactions outside of Texas.

▌Interpol Wants Hex Founder Richard Heart for Tax Evasion of Hundreds of Millions of Euros and Violence

Interpol has issued a "red notice" to its member states on behalf of Finland, seeking the arrest of Hex and PulseChain founder Richard James Schueler, commonly known as Richard Heart to cryptocurrency investors. A red notice is a formal warning to Interpol member states that a valid national arrest warrant has been issued for a person. If the wanted person is detained in another country, the warrant usually triggers extradition proceedings. In this case, Finland issued an arrest warrant for Schueler on charges of tax evasion of "hundreds of millions of euros" and suspected assault on a 16-year-old, according to the website of Europol, the EU law enforcement agency. The website states: "Schueler failed to file corporate tax returns for years and failed to fill in income information on pre-filled personal tax forms... The total amount of tax evasion amounted to hundreds of millions of euros." The website also describes Schueler's assault charges, in which he allegedly beat a 16-year-old girl.

Market

As of press time, according to Coingecko data:

BTC's latest transaction price is 97,188.00 US dollars, with a daily increase or decrease of -0.1%;

ETH's latest transaction price is 3,358.39 US dollars, with a daily increase or decrease of -3.0%;

BNB's latest transaction price is 665.26 US dollars, with a daily increase or decrease of -2.6%；

SOL's latest transaction price is 182.55 US dollars, and its intraday increase or decrease is -6.5%；

DOGE's latest transaction price is 0.319 yuan, and its intraday increase or decrease is -1.6%；

XPR's latest transaction price is 2.24 US dollars, and its intraday increase or decrease is -1.4%.

Policy

▌The French Financial Markets Authority has approved HEXARQ SAS to provide trading services and cryptocurrency custody

The French financial market regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), has approved HEXARQ SAS to provide trading services and cryptocurrency custody.

▌El Salvador plans to increase its BTC purchases, with a medium-term goal of increasing its holdings by 20,000 BTC

Max Keiser, a senior bitcoin consultant to El Salvador, said, "President Bukele has increased his daily bitcoin purchases, with a medium-term goal of purchasing another 20,000 bitcoins."

▌UAE Ministry of Interior and FSRA cooperate to combat virtual asset-related crimes

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ministry of Interior and the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) have signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen coordination in combating virtual asset-related crimes. The agreement requires both parties to share information and strengthen risk mitigation frameworks. The agreement is also reportedly intended to support the UAE's strategy to protect its financial system from evolving threats in the digital asset space.

▌Informed sources: The United States plans to blacklist Bitmain-related AI company Sophgo

A person familiar with the matter revealed that the Biden administration plans to include Sophgo, an artificial intelligence company associated with Bitmain, on the U.S. Department of Commerce's restricted trade list because the company's TSMC-made chips were illegally incorporated into Huawei's artificial intelligence processors.

Blockchain applications

▌ai16z founder: Aethir will provide free GPU computing power for Eliza agent developers

ai16z founder Shawn posted on the X platform, "The decentralized computing power network @AethirCloud is providing free GPU computing power for Eliza agent developers. Developers with relevant needs can apply. ”

Cryptocurrency

▌Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 has purchased 990 Bitcoins for approximately $100 million

Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 has purchased 990 Bitcoins (BTC) for approximately $100 million.

▌An American YouTube blogger discovered that the Taliban often traded Meme coins and was subjected to rug pull

An American YouTube blogger discovered that the Taliban often traded Meme coins and was subjected to rug pull.

▌NFT transactions reached $304 million in the past week, with Ethereum NFT accounting for 66%

CryptoSlam data shows that NFT sales reached $304 million in the past week, an increase of more than 35% month-on-month. Among them, Ethereum NFT sales increased by 76% month-on-month to $201 million, accounting for 66% of all NFT sales in the past seven days. In comparison, Bitcoin NFT sales were $40 million and Solana NFT sales were $29 million. Mythos Chain, Immutable, Polygon, and BNB Chain had a total weekly sales of $25.9 million.

▌Report: There have been 165 security incidents in the Web3 field so far in 2024, with losses exceeding $2.3 billion

According to Cyvers' report summarizing key security trends in 2024, Web3 network threats increased sharply in 2024, with losses exceeding $23 $2.3 billion in losses, with 165 security incidents. While the amount of losses was 40% higher than in 2023 ($1.69 billion), it was still $1.42 billion lower than in 2022 ($3.78 billion). It is worth mentioning that $1.3 billion of stolen funds were recovered this year. Cyvers said that access control-related incidents (67) accounted for 81% of the $2.3 billion in losses, with losses totaling $456.3 million from approximately 98 smart contract vulnerabilities, and one address poisoning incident resulting in losses of more than $68 million. When breaking down losses by attack vector over the past three years, the data shows that losses related to access control violations gradually increased from $769 million in 2022 to $1.9 billion by the end of 2024. In contrast, losses related to code vulnerability exploits in 2023 and 2024 were far lower than the approximately $3 billion in losses in 2022.

Important Economic Dynamics

▌UBS: The outlook for US stocks remains optimistic. The S&P 500 may reach 6,600 points by the end of next year

UBS said in a research report that the outlook for US stocks remains optimistic against the backdrop of a strong US economy, optimism about artificial intelligence, and future US pro-growth policies. We expect the S&P 500 to reach 6,600 points by the end of 2025. Investors can consider using structural strategies to deal with volatility. We believe that gold remains an effective portfolio hedging tool amid geopolitical tensions. (Gold Ten)

▌Biden signs emergency appropriations bill to prevent US government shutdown

According to Cailian News, US President Biden signed an emergency appropriations bill to prevent the government from shutting down. This latest bill will continue to provide operating funds for the US government until March next year, thus preventing some federal government agencies from being shut down after 0:00 Eastern Time on the 21st.

Golden Encyclopedia

▌What is Rollup?

Rollup is a way of processing transactions on a Layer 2 protocol that frees 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) proofs. Optimistic Rollup is a fairly clear term. This means that Rollup runs with an "optimistic" approach, assuming that transactions are valid unless the validator proves them 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, it is called "zero knowledge". ZK Rollup provides instant finality because cryptographic proof guarantees that the data is valid. In many ways, Rollup is to your standard blockchain transaction as Calzone is to your ordinary 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 correct investment concepts and be sure to increase risk awareness.