Weekly | Stripe completes a $1.1 billion Bridge acquisition transaction; DeepSeek launches the national supercomputing Internet platform; MicroStrategy is renamed Strategy
Reprinted from chaincatcher
02/09/2025·15DCompiled by: Luan Peng, ChainCatcher
“What important events happened this week (2.3-2.9)”
1.Bitwise CEO: Regulators may approve spot ETFs for five crypto assets this year
Bitwise CEO Matt Hougan said regulators could approve spot ETFs with up to five different digital assets this year. However, to achieve this, he said the SEC needs to cross over regulation Rubicon.
Binance co-founder He Yi said in Community Space that Binance will adjust the listing rules according to the market environment in the future and urge the listed projects to update the project information.
For project parties that do not actively update project information, Binance will take risk warnings and other measures against the token.
3.Berachain releases white paper: adopts dual token model and PoL incentive mechanism
Berachain Foundation publishes its web white paper. According to the white paper, Berachain is an EVM that creates value for applications. Layer 1 compatible blockchain aimed at aligning the value of a network with the value of the applications built on it through the Proof of Liquidity (PoL) mechanism. Through its core innovations in Proof of Liquidity (PoL), the incentive mechanism of traditional Proof of Stake (PoS) has been changed, linking validator rewards to application needs on the network.
In economic model, BERA is used for staking and transactions, and BGT is used for governance and rewards. The issuance of BGT is closely related to the pledge of BERA, and by burning BGT, you can exchange BERA. In addition, the PoL mechanism controls inflation by adjusting validator's Boost, ensuring network security and decentralization.
4.Thailand SEC will launch blockchain securities trading platform
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand (SEC) announced that it will launch a digital token trading platform based on blockchain. The platform supports primary and secondary market transactions, has multi-chain interoperability, covering functions such as settlement, investor registration, and payment. Four digital token projects have been approved, and another 2 projects are under review.
According to TheBlock, the Bitcoin Ordinals project Taproot Wizards completed a $30 million financing, led by Standard Crypto. According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, it announced in November 2023 that it had completed a US$7 million financing, led by Standard Crypto.
President Donald Trump’s newly appointed “Cryptocurrency Head” David Sacks outlines the new administration’s extensive pro-cryptocurrency agenda at a Washington press conference held Tuesday in conjunction with key congressional committee leaders, The Block reported . Asked about the role of cryptocurrencies in the recently proposed U.S. sovereign wealth fund, Sacks revealed that evaluating potential Bitcoin reserves is a top priority for internal government task forces.
"We are still waiting for some of the cabinet ministers in the working group to get confirmation, but once confirmed in place, one of our top priorities will be to assess the viability of Bitcoin reserves," Sacks said in response to a reporter's question. He added that sovereignty Wealth funds are a different concept, and Trump-nominated Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will be in charge.
According to CNBC, payment company Stripe officially completed the acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge this Tuesday, spending $1.1 billion. This is Stripe's largest acquisition deal to date, marking its major layout in the stablecoin field.
Bridge’s team of about 60 people has completed its onboarding at Stripe headquarters in San Francisco. Bridge focuses on helping businesses accept stablecoin payments while reducing the complexity of direct exposure to digital assets, including Coinbase and SpaceX.
Stripe supported Bitcoin payments in 2014, but terminated its services in 2018. The acquisition of Bridge enables it to optimize cross-border payment solutions and expand its stablecoin payment infrastructure.
Li Lin responded to Justin Sun's recent remarks about the HTX delivery process and financial status. It said that during the delivery of HTX in October 2022, the two parties had differences in the calculation method of user assets. The "30 million US dollars fund hole" mentioned by Justin Sun was actually a position cut caused by the extreme market conditions when the exchange operated a margin trading business, and it has already been Financial processing is completed by the company's revenue.
The delivery contract is subject to Hong Kong law, and Li Lin expressed his willingness to make a fair ruling through the Hong Kong court or a third-party arbitration institution rather than unilaterally judging on social media.
Previous news , Justin Sun said that Li Lin concealed due diligence materials when selling Huobi, and there was a hole of 30 million US dollars inside.
9.DeepSeek launches the national supercomputing Internet platform
According to the "Supercomputing Internet" official account, DeepSeek-R1, V3, Coder and other series of models have been launched on the national supercomputing Internet platform one after another.
The national supercomputing Internet platform has officially launched the 1.5B, 7B, 8B, and 14B versions of the DeepSeek-R1 model, and will be updated in the near future, including 32B, 70B and other versions.
Justin Sun said on his social platform, "Li Lin's position has always been that I know there are 30 million I haven't returned to you. I need to verify it, but once you go to him to verify it, he will disappear. Then it's just about rationality, law. , communication, we have also sued Hong Kong for the problem."
11.Thailand cuts off border electricity supply to combat Myanmar's crypto fraud center operation
According to Protos, the Thai government cut off the supply of electricity, Internet and fuel in the Thai-Myanmar border area at 9 a.m. on February 5 (10 a.m. Beijing time) to combat local cryptocurrency fraud centers. The operation involved five service providers in three regions: Myawaddy, Payathonzu and Tachilek.
According to the investigation, the KK Park fraud center in Myawaddy is suspected of defrauding USDT worth $100 million through "pig killing". In 2023, Myanmar authorities rescued 1,200 imprisoned persons in the area. The power outage is an important measure taken by the Thai government to respond to China's pressure, after a Chinese actor was deceived in the region, attracting attention.
Thai Prime Minister Pathonta said that fraudulent activities seriously affect Thailand's national image and severe measures need to be taken. Although the power outage measures will affect the normal operation of local residents and hospitals, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has notified the relevant communities in advance.
12.Binance HODLer airdrop launches Berachain (BERA)
According to a Binance announcement, Berachain (BERA) became the seventh project in the HODLer Airdrops program. Anyone who subscribes to BNB to Simple Earn products from January 22 to January 26, 2025 will receive a BERA airdrop reward.
Binance will launch BERA at 13:00 (UTC) on February 6, 2025 , and open BTC, USDT, USDC, BNB, FDUSD and TRY trading pairs.
Key information:
• Total airdrop: 10 million BERA (2% of Genesis’ total supply)
• President circulation: 107.48 million BERA (accounting for 21.5% of the total supply of Genesis)
• Network: Berachain main network (can be queried after it is publicly launched)
• Inflation mechanism: 10% additional issuance per year
• An additional 5,000,000 BERA will be used for marketing in 12 months
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce introduced the tasks and objectives of the newly formed crypto task force, saying that the current 10 tasks include:
- Check the status of different types of crypto assets under the Securities Act,
- Help identify areas that are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission,
- Consider recommending the Committee to take action to provide temporary forward-looking and retroactive relief to the issuing entity or other entities willing to provide certain information tokens or tokens,
- It is recommended that the Committee modify its existing registration pathways,
- Explore possible updates to special purpose broker-dealer statements without action,
- Work with investment advisors to provide appropriate regulatory frameworks,
- Clarify whether the Securities Law covers crypto lending and pledge plans,
- Provide clear statements on how to approve or not approve the use of encrypted ETFs,
- Plans to carry out work at the intersection of cryptocurrency and clearing agencies and transfer agency rules,
- A way to promote cross-border sandboxing for crypto projects.
14.MicroStrategy is renamed to Strategy
According to the official announcement, MicroStrategy changed its company name to Strategy.
The announcement stated that Strategy is the world's first and largest Bitcoin finance company and a component of the Nasdaq 100 index. This brand simplification is a natural evolution of the company, reflecting the company's focus and wide appeal. The company’s new logo includes a stylized “B” that represents the company’s Bitcoin strategy and its unique position as a Bitcoin finance company. The brand’s main tone is now orange, representing energy, wisdom and Bitcoin.
Jupiter founder Meow posted on social media: “As far as I know, Jupiter employee @9yointern is returning to Singapore from Mountain Dao because of an emergency at home.
What I know next is that our X account was accessed by an Android phone from the United States and she was completely unable to contact her.
If you can find her, or know what happened, let us know. ”
Previous news , Jupiter X account was hacked and suspicious token information was released.
The newly launched official website of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) has displayed core financial data such as the company's Bitcoin holdings in real time. Data shows that the company currently holds 471,107 Bitcoins, with a market value of approximately US$46.612 billion, and a total market value of US$84.966 billion.
The new website also disclosed that the company's debt was US$7.274 billion, the preferred stock was US$730 million, and the debt ratio was 9%. Over the past year, Strategy's share price has risen 586%, with a premium of 1.99 for Bitcoin holdings.
According to Bitcoin Magazine, the Czech president formally signed a bill that allows capital gains tax to be exempted from holding Bitcoin for more than 3 years.
18.Trump's family crypto project WLFI plans to establish strategic reserves for tokens
According to Bloomberg, World Liberty Financial co-founder Chase Herro said the platform plans to build a "strategic reserve" by purchasing tokens, and Herro did not specify what World Liberty's goal is to hold the token reserves.
World Liberty Financial co-founders Zak Folkman, Zach Witkoff and Chase Herro attended the inaugural summit held by Ondo Finance in New York, introduced by Donald Trump Jr., son of Donald Trump. Steve Witkoff, who previously helped the Trump family connect with the founder of World Liberty Financial, has been appointed Trump's Middle East envoy.
According to Bitcoin News, Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), said that after his death in the future, he will donate his shares to a public charity that supports Bitcoin.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted a statement that when crypto Twitter and venture capital companies believe that "PvP-style game projects that make most users lose money" is the best product form in the crypto field, and pursuing better products is accused of " It made him feel uncomfortable when he was condescending and elitist.
Although these remarks sometimes make him retreat, whenever this happens, he can get revelations from the world, reminding himself that he is fighting for something valuable.
Superlogic, a corporate loyalty platform, announced a $13.7 million Series A funding round led by Powerledger, led by Sangha Capital, 10SQ, Nima Capital, Actai Unicorn Fund, Hyla Liquid Venture Fund and Liquid 2 Ventures, as well as Blockchain funds Galaxy Interactive, Recharge Capital, Dispersion Capital, Sanctor Capital and others participated in the investment.
Superlogic previously stated that it would use digital assets to reach customers. Although NFT has not been mentioned yet, its CEO and co-founder Lin Dai once revealed that it may explore incentive forms such as issuing "digital badges".
22.Kentucky becomes the 16th state to propose legislation on establishing Bitcoin reserves
Kentucky, USA, has become the 16th state to propose legislation to establish Bitcoin reserves, which KY HB376 was introduced by Kentucky Rep. Theodore Joseph Roberts on February 6.
If approved, it will authorize the National Investment Commission to allocate up to 10% of its excess state reserves to digital assets, including Bitcoin.
According to King Shi, the U.S. unemployment rate in January was 4%, with an expected 4.10% and the previous value was 4.10%.
According to Jinshi, the US non-farm employment population after the seasonal adjustment in January reached 143,000, which was significantly lower than the market expectations of 170,000, a new low since October last year.
25.US SEC postpones BlackRock Ethereum ETF option trading decision to April 9
According to The Block, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) posted on Friday whether to approve BlackRock's decision to list and trade options on its spot Ethereum ETF. According to the filings, the SEC said it will decide on April 9, 2025 whether to approve or refuse to allow BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust to trade options.
"The Commission believes it is necessary to designate a longer time to issue an order to approve or reject the proposed rule changes so that there is sufficient time to consider the proposed rule changes and the issues it arouses," the SEC said.
Also on Friday, the SEC solicited public comment on a proposal to list and trade options on its spot Ethereum ETFs submitted by the Cboe BZX exchange on behalf of Fidelity. These comments must be submitted within 21 days of the publication of the Federal Register.
26.Polish central bank refuses to accept Bitcoin as reserve currency due to security issues
According to CryptoNews, the National Bank of Poland (NBP) firmly denies any possibility of incorporating Bitcoin into its national reserves on the grounds of security and stability.
Adam Glapiński, President of the Polish National Bank and Chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee, made the announcement at a press conference and reiterated that the central bank's priority is to maintain the absolute security of its reserve assets. "We will not consider Bitcoin in any case because reserves must be absolutely safe," Glapiński said.
Poland's reserves are still mainly based on traditional assets such as gold, the US dollar and the euro, with a strategic focus on financial stability.
27.DeepSeek 7 days of users exceeding 100 million
According to Jinshi, DeepSeek's daily active users exceeded 20 million on 20 days of online activity, which is 40% of ChatGPT. A few days after the release of DeepSeek-R1, it ushered in an explosion in the last week of January. DeepSeek gained a total of 125 million users (including websites) in January. , application accumulation does not remove heavy loads). More than 80% of the users came from the last week, which means that DeepSeek completed a growth of 100 million users in 7 days.
According to the technical update forwarded by Vitalik, Ethereum L1 recently completed a dynamic adjustment of the block Gas cap, increasing from 30M to 36M, which increased the L1 transaction throughput by 20%, and is expected to reduce transaction fees by 10% to 30%.
This adjustment is not determined by any single entity, but the result of the verifier gradual adjustment of parameters and reaching consensus. Currently 49.5% of validators have reported a 36M Gas cap.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao posted on social media, "I just heard that TST already has a website and an X account. As far as I know, neither is produced or controlled by BNB Chain or any Binance-related team, but is a community member. Management. But now there is a problem that their unauthorized use of Binance’s logo is infringement.”
"Like all meme tokens, I never bought or held TST. It's a complete community behavior now. Please be careful to protect yourself and be responsible for your actions."
30.DeepSeek's valuation may reach US$8 billion
According to Titanium Media AGI, DeepSeek's current valuation may be around US$8 billion. The news was originally circulated in the investment circle and quantitative groups, and people from many investment institutions expressed concern.
“What are some great articles worth reading this week (2.3-2.9)”
Recently, Analog, the full-chain interoperability agreement, announced the completion of a US$5 million expansion seed round of financing invested by Foresight Ventures, Gate Ventures, etc., with a post-investment valuation of US$300 million.
In February 2024, Analog also received a seed round of $16 million. The investment team behind it is also very luxurious, including Tribe Capital, NGC Ventures, Wintermute, GSR, NEAR, Orange DAO, Balaji Srinivasan, etc.
Behind the bets by many well-known investment institutions, the Analog team’s senior and diverse background in the field of encryption, the members of its founding team have experience in many key projects in the crypto industry such as Polkadot, X Fund, Chainlink and Y Combinator.
In the highly competitive cross-chain communication track, Analog hopes to solve the problems of fragmentation, centralization and security in cross-chain. Eric Wang, head of Analog's business, said that Analog positioned itself as a "one-stop" store for cross-chain developers, committed to meeting all native cross-chain DApp development needs, allowing developers or users to seamlessly fit within a single and unified application. Use different blockchains.
In 2025, Analog will actively expand innovations in AI data oracles, RWA interoperability, cross-chain memes and other fields, and strive to become the most widely adopted "chain abstraction" product.
Analog announced its main website to be launched in December last year and launched a public token offering in January this year. What are the differentiated paths and key roadmaps for Analog in 2025? What are the growth opportunities in the cross-chain communication track? Recently, Eric Wang shared in an interview with ChainCatcher.
2.TRON becomes WLFI strategic reserve: a hidden strategic investment above traffic
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project supported by the Trump family, announced on January 20 that it would increase its holdings of more than $88 million in crypto assets, including $32.81 million worth of WBTC, $37.47 million ETH, and $4.7 million TRX ( Tron TRON) and various other cryptocurrencies. Among them, Tron TRON became the first Chinese blockchain project to be included in its investment portfolio. Subsequently, WLFI increased its holdings in TRX several times.
3.Arthur Hayes: Systematic proof of how Bitcoin will fall back to $70,000
Discuss how U.S. cryptocurrency holders are frustrated by Trump’s cryptocurrency regulatory policies.
Although Tether, which earns $10 billion in annual profits, has been accelerating investment in the past few months, Rumble's cross-sector investment is still surprising, and this may be closely linked to Rumble and Trump, as well as its It is related to expanding its business layout in the United States.
5.Is the AI bubble that DeepSeek broken is a blessing or a disaster for Crypto AI?
In January 2025, the launch of DeepSeek R1 caused a shock in the AI industry, and it also truly changed the Crypto AI ecosystem. In the past cycle, Crypto AI has mainly revolved around the AI Agent, and DeepSeek R1 and its open source strategy have completely changed the rules of the game: extremely low training costs and breakthrough adaptive training methods, making the vision of decentralization of the AI industry no longer It is empty talk, but a reality within reach. This change has far-reaching impact, the total market value of the Crypto AI market has shrunk significantly, and many AI tokens have experienced a 70% pullback, but is this really a crisis? Or does it mean a complete reshuffle of Crypto AI? Is DeepSeek the "terminator" of Crypto AI narrative or the "breaker" who accelerates its entry into the era of practicality?
6.2025 Crypto Prospects - Listen to what major investment institutions say (I)
In 2025, crypto investment will focus on the integration of AI and DeFi, stablecoin applications and cross-chain ecosystem construction, and is expected to bring new growth opportunities to the industry.
7.How does the United States build a cryptocurrency capital? a16z 11 consecutive posts
The United States seems to be turning its confrontational stance on blockchain and cryptocurrencies into a more supportive posture, providing clear guidance and rules to help builders follow these rules. While this shift is still in its early stages, the government has taken some encouraging steps toward this goal. New leadership, new rules, new working groups – all of which provide the crypto industry with something it much needed: a viable path forward.
Despite challenges such as litigation, territorial disputes among regulators, angry letters from lawmakers, debanking incidents and regulation through law enforcement, the past few weeks have shown more optimism and pro-tech attitude. From the White House to regulators, we have seen initiatives to appoint AI and cryptocurrency specialists and issue executive orders to support blockchain development. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formed a new cryptocurrency working group and repealed the Employee Accounting Notice 121 rules that once hindered the development of cryptocurrencies. In both houses of Congress, important legislators have also expressed their willingness to pass legislation to clearly stipulate the rules of the industry.
To promote dialogue between government officials and blockchain experts, we have gathered opinions from 11 industry experts on issues ranging from taxation, pledge freedom to broader ranges such as encouraging decentralization and reform of the U.S. regulatory system. These views provide important thinking for policy makers to better think about cryptocurrency regulation and ensure that the United States leads this critical moment in its transformation to the next generation of the Internet.
8.Justin Sun’s cryptocurrency circle for 8 years, a story of encrypted two cities
Compared to the EOS with 160,000 BTC flat, Sun Yuchen's every step is to serve the table
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Musk has jumped from a mysterious institution to the focus of global media in just two weeks since Donald Trump was officially swept. What made it famous was a shocking move -closing the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has been around for more than 60 years.
As its name suggests, DOGE takes "simple and efficient" as its core philosophy, and its operation is also extremely disruptive. The entire department consists of six young people, aged 19 to 25, three of whom are still in college . They were directly entrusted with important tasks to hold key engineering positions and shoulder the task of reducing government costs. For Musk, this young elite team is not only the core force of DOGE, but also a test site for future changes in government operation models.
10.Research: 2024 The overall situation and regulation trends of China's virtual currency crimes
In early January 2025, the Ministry of Public Security held a special press conference in Beijing on January 10. Zhang Ming, spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Security, introduced: The fraud group uses new technologies such as blockchain, virtual currency, and AI intelligence to continuously update and upgrade criminal tools. . In response to the severe and complex criminal situation of telecom frauds such as virtual currency, the public security organs will deepen the special operations such as "cloud sword", "cut off the flow", and "pull nails", and continue to maintain a high-pressure crackdown. Immediately afterwards on January 13, the Supreme People's Procuratorate emphasized at the National Procuratorate's Meeting that the procuratorate will increase its efforts to punish money laundering crimes and crack down on the crime of illegally transferring assets abroad using virtual currency in accordance with the law.
It can be seen that although my country has adopted strict supervision and crackdown on virtual currency platform transactions and investment in recent years, related illegal financial activities have been transferred from offline to online, from domestic to overseas, and have developed rampantly in a more concealed form. At the same time, based on the characteristics of virtual currency itself anonymization and statelessness, virtual currency has rapidly developed into a new type of criminal tool. Against this background, virtual currency crimes have become the most typical problem in the field of cybercrime.
The end of the year has arrived. On the occasion of the New Year, this team specially wrote this article to address the overall situation of virtual currency crimes in my country in 2024, the latest developments in national supervision and crackdown on virtual currency illegal and criminal activities, and the laws on virtual currency itself in practice. The latest trends in attribute recognition are sorted out and summarized.
panewslab
jinse