TL;DR

• BTC prices retraced to $63,000, while ETH fluctuates around $3,400.
• According to Polymarket, the likelihood of Biden withdrawing has increased to 86%, with his chances of winning now at 4%.
• India’s crypto exchange WazirX may have been hacked, incurring losses of over $230 million.
• The TON Foundation is set to launch the TON Teleport BTC project, bridging Bitcoin with the TON ecosystem.
• Vitalik: I oppose taking sides based on crypto stances in elections.
• The Lava Network, LISTA token airdrop ends today.

Market Analysis

• BTC — According to Gate.io, Bitcoin’s price briefly rose to $66,000 before retracing to around $63,000. It is currently at $63,880, with a daily decrease of 0.17%.The market has stabilized gradually, with Bitcoin forming a support level around $62,000. Despite market fluctuations, the Fear and Greed Index indicates that investor sentiment remains positive. [1]
• ETH — Ethereum (ETH) is currently priced at $3,416.52, experiencing a slight daily decrease of 0.25%. ETH price movements generally align with Bitcoin (BTC), reflecting the overall interconnectedness of the cryptocurrency market.
• ETFs — According to Farside Investors, the Bitcoin spot ETF has seen net inflows for ten consecutive trading days (from July 5 to July 18), totaling $2.052 billion. Yesterday, BlackRock’s $IBIT saw a net inflow of $103.1 million, Grayscale’s $GBTC a net outflow of $22.5 million, and Fidelity’s $FBTC a net inflow of $2.8 million. [2]
• U.S. Stock Indices — The S&P 500 index fell by 0.78%, the Nasdaq by 0.48%, and the Dow Jones by 1.29%.
• Spot Gold — Broke through $2,456.4 per ounce, with a daily decrease of 0.14%.
• Macroeconomics — According to CME FedWatch, the probability of the Fed holding rates steady in August is 95.3%, with a 4.7% chance of a 25 basis point cut. For September, the probability of holding rates steady is 1.9%, with a cumulative 25 basis point cut at 93.5%, and a 50 basis point cut at 4.6%. [3]

Top Performers

According to Gate.io trading data, the popular cryptocurrencies in the last 24 hours include:

PIXFI — Pixelverse conducted a PIXFI token airdrop on July 18th, and it has since been listed on Gate.io. According to CoinMarketCap data, the token initially surged nearly 50% in the first few hours after its listing, briefly reaching a market value of approximately $200 million before declining.

UXLINK — After going live at 4 PM on July 18th, UXLINK surged by 130.4% within 24 hours. The current price of UXLINK is $0.2304, with a 24-hour trading volume of $16,611,120. UXLINK is a Web3 social platform and infrastructure where users and developers can discover, engage, distribute, and trade various crypto assets through trust-based social relationships and group models.

Spotlight Analysis

Indian crypto exchange WazirX may have been hacked, with losses exceeding $230 million

On July 18, 2024, Beosin Alert monitoring detected an attack on the Indian exchange WazirX. The attacker obtained signature data from the administrators of the exchange’s multi-signature wallet, modified the wallet’s logic contract, and executed faulty logic to steal assets.

Based on the attacker’s actions, the presumed cause is a leak of the multi-signature wallet administrators’ private keys. A brief analysis of the attack is as follows:

1.Attacker deployed a contract: 0x27fd43babfbe83a81d14665b1a6fb8030a60c9b4. The function of this contract is to withdraw specified token assets from the contract.
2.Attacker obtained the signature data of WazirX multi-signature wallet administrators and changed the wallet’s logic contract to the previously deployed attack contract.

3.The attacker submitted a transaction to withdraw tokens from the WazirX multi-signature wallet. Due to the proxy pattern mechanism, the wallet contract uses delegatecall to invoke relevant functions from the attack contract, transferring tokens out of the wallet. [3]
According to blockchain data tracked by Lookonchain, over $100 million in SHIB was withdrawn, marking the largest loss, followed by $52 million in ETH, $11 million in MATIC, and $6 million in PEPE. [4]

The TON Foundation plans to launch the TON Teleport BTC project to connect Bitcoin with the TON ecosystem

According to official news, the TON Foundation has announced plans to introduce TON Teleport BTC. TON Teleport is a newly planned ecological infrastructure project that allows users to transfer (“peg-in” and “peg-out”) BTC between the Bitcoin blockchain and TON without relying on intermediaries. [5]

In the process of connecting ecosystems, users need to send their Bitcoin to a specific dedicated Bitcoin address. Once the transaction is confirmed, an equivalent amount of BTC will be issued to the user’s address on the TON blockchain. For the reverse process, users will destroy their BTC tokens on TON, which will trigger the release and return of BTC. The TON Teleport BTC process is considered trustless and transparent, without a centralized issuer. Each BTC claim on TON is backed 100% by actual BTC. The system relies on network validators and smart contracts to automatically execute all operations from verification to confirmation, aiming to reduce the possibility of human error, censorship, or fraud.

Vitalik: (I am) against choosing political allegiances based on who is “pro-crypto”

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently published a commentary article detailing his views on the current status and influence of cryptocurrencies in the political arena. He opposes choosing sides in elections solely based on cryptocurrency stances and encourages the crypto community to focus on deeper values and goals, namely technological liberalism and the protection of individual freedoms.

Vitalik revisits the original intent of the cypherpunk movement, the driving force behind the creation of cryptographic technology, advocating the use of free and open technology to enhance individual freedom. He also cited the views of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto to emphasize the importance of decentralized networks in maintaining freedom. Through these discussions, Vitalik reminds community members that the development and application of cryptocurrencies should transcend short-term political positions and return to their core principles of freedom and decentralization.

Data Highlights

On Polymarket, the probability of Biden withdrawing has risen to 86%, while his chances of being elected have dropped to 4%.

According to data from Polymarket, the odds show that the probability of Biden withdrawing from the race has risen to 86%, while his chances of being elected have dropped to 4%, lower than Vice President Harris’s 23%. [7]

The Fear and Greed Index (FGI) stands at 61, indicating that the market sentiment is in the greed phase, reflecting a growing interest and optimism among investors towards cryptocurrencies. In such a greed-driven market environment, investors should remain cautious to avoid chasing highs blindly. Excessive greed can lead to market bubbles and increase short-term volatility.

The BTC Rainbow Chart indicates that it is currently at the ‘Consider Dollar Cost Averaging’ stage, suggesting that it might be a good time to consider buying BTC, which is a relatively positive signal.

The BTC Rainbow Chart is a visualization tool that displays Bitcoin’s historical price data in the form of color bands, where each band represents a specific price range. The intensity of the colors usually correlates with the volume of Bitcoin held within that price range—the deeper the color, the greater the holding.

Market Opportunties

Project Financing

Allium Labs — According to CoinDesk, Visa’s data partner Allium Labs completed a $16.5 million Series A funding round led by Theory Ventures. Kleiner Perkins and Amplify Partners also participated in this round. Allium Labs has raised a total of $21.5 million to date, with plans to invest in data infrastructure and prepare for an IPO to enable financial institutions to accept digital assets. Allium Labs provides enterprise-level blockchain data to companies such as Visa, Stripe, and the Uniswap Foundation. [8]

Chainbase — Blockchain data network Chainbase completed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Tencent Investment Group and Matrix Partners China. Folius Ventures and Hash Global also participated, bringing the total funds raised to $18 million. Chainbase is a full-chain data network whose core mission is to provide a transparent, reliable, and permissionless data layer for the AI era. It achieves cross-chain data interoperability and programmability through modular design, simplifying the construction and use of data models.

Liquidium — The Bitcoin on-chain Ordinals lending platform Liquidium officially announced on platform X that it completed a $2.75 million seed funding round. Investors include Wise Ventures, Portal Ventures, Asymmetric, and several angel investors. Liquidium offers a peer-to-peer lending solution utilizing Discrete Log Contracts (DLC) and Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT) to enable users to borrow and lend native Bitcoin using native ordinals as collateral.

JOJO — The Base chain derivative trading platform JOJO completed its seed funding round led by SevenX Ventures. Other participants include SmrtiLab, Shadow Labs, Bitlink, PAKA, and Clairvoyant. JOJO, co-founded by DODO co-founder Radar Bear and former DDEX CTO David, integrates a Turing-complete hybrid liquidity model, diversified asset staking mining, quantitative trading bots, up to 1000x leverage trading, and automated funding rate arbitrage features.

Truvius — The cryptocurrency investment platform Truvius completed a $3.2 million Pre-Seed funding round led by Galaxy Ventures. New Form Capital, Chainview Capital, and several angel investors also participated. Founded in 2022, Truvius is a cryptocurrency investment platform catering to individual and institutional investors. The platform adheres to the regulations of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and has partnered with Anchorage Digital, the only federally chartered crypto bank in the U.S., to provide custody and trading services for its clients.

Airdrop Opportunities

Lava Network — According to official announcements, the modular blockchain infrastructure developer Lava Network has launched the Vesuvius airdrop event. The application interface for the airdrop is now open and will continue until 4 AM on July 19, Beijing time. This airdrop will distribute approximately 55 million LAVA tokens, accounting for 6% of the total supply. Beneficiaries include early users, community members, node operators, infrastructure providers, researchers, and technical contributors. [9]

LISTA — Lista DAO announced that its LISTA token airdrop will end on July 19 at 16:59. Unclaimed tokens will be used to support the ecosystem’s development plans.

Sanctum — The Solana ecosystem’s LST liquidity aggregation protocol Sanctum is hosting a week-long special event from July 15 to July 19 to celebrate the launch of $CLOUD. Sanctum officially launched $CLOUD on July 18, allowing users to claim rewards and start trading.


Reference Material：

1. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/zh/bigdata/homeindex
2. Farside,https://www.gate.io/zh/bigdata/homeindex
3. CME Group,https://www.cmegroup.com/cn-s/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html
4. Lookonchain,https://x.com/lookonchain
5. Ton,https://blog.ton.org/introducing-ton-teleport-bringing-bitcoin-to-ton
6. Etherscan,https://etherscan.io/gastracker
7. Polymarket,https://polymarket.com/event/will-biden-drop-out-of-presidential-race?tid=1721367242871
8. Coindesk,https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/07/18
9. Lavanet,https://www.lavanet.xyz/blog/vesuvius
   
   

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