This week in review | Uniswap's new proposal aims to distribute protocol fees to UNI stakers; Binance launches new coin mining feature called PORTAL.

BlockBeats will compile industry news highlights for the week of 2.19-2.25 in this article, and recommend in-depth articles to help readers better understand the market and industry trends.

Weekly News Recap

OKX Jumpstart launches new project GPT (QnA3.AI), which will conduct the first round of airdrops

On February 22nd, according to an official announcement, OKX Jumpstart launched a new project GPT (QnA3.AI). Users can start staking BTC and ETH to exchange for GPT tokens at 6:00 AM UTC on February 26th, 2024. This OKX Jumpstart is limited to KYC users from Taiwan, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. The day before, QnA3.AI announced that it will conduct the first round of token airdrop activities, and interaction records and points will determine the user's share of the airdrop. Later, QnA3.AI announced that it will conduct the first round of token airdrop activities, and interaction records and points will determine the user's share of the airdrop. Related reading: "Detailed explanation of QnA3, an AI+Web3 project incubated by Binance Labs in the sixth season"

Binance New Coin Mining Launches 47th Project, Using BNB, FDUSD Mining Portal (PORTAL)

On February 21st, Binance launched the 47th project of new coin mining, Portal (PORTAL). Users can invest BNB and FDUSD into the PORTAL mining pool on the Launchpad website after 08:00 on February 22nd, 2024 (UTC+8) to obtain PORTAL rewards. The total mining period of PORTAL is 7 days. Portal is a Web3 game platform designed to provide users with an interactive experience across platforms. PORTAL is the token of Portal, with a total supply of 1 billion and an initial circulation of 167 million. PORTAL will serve as a link between Web3 games and users, providing game distribution and convenience. Related reading: "Detailed Explanation of Binance Launchpool's New Project Portal: From Player Integration, Background to Platform Economy"

Binance launches Starknet (STRK); its TVL surpasses $1.2 billion, ranking fourth

STRK airdrop was open for claiming on February 20th at 20:00. Binance launched Starknet (STRK) on the same day at 21:00 (GMT+8). The spot trading pairs are: STRK/BTC, STRK/USDT, STRK/FDUSD, and STRK/TRY. The STRK deposit channel is now open. According to L2beat data on February 22nd, Starknet's TVL has increased by 589.61% in the past 7 days, reaching $1.27 billion, ranking fourth in the Layer2 TVL leaderboard. Related reading: "Starknet super airdrop lands, what are the subsequent impacts?"

Uniswap Foundation: New Proposal Aims to Distribute Any Protocol Fees to UNI Token Holders Who Have Staked

On the evening of February 23, Erin Koen, Uniswap developer and head of the foundation's governance, tweeted, "The most important week in Uniswap protocol governance history?" along with a proposal to upgrade the Uniswap protocol governance system, "I believe we should upgrade the protocol to reward UNI token holders who stake and delegate tokens with its fee mechanism." The tweet received over 100,000 reads in less than 4 hours after it was posted. Subsequently, the Uniswap Foundation also stated that the Snapshot vote for the "Activate Uniswap Protocol Governance" proposal will be released on March 1, 2024, and the on-chain vote will be released on March 8, 2024. "UNI is finally empowered" has also become a focus of community discussion. Related reading: "Uniswap, the world's largest decentralized trading platform, rises more than 65% in an hour, reaching a new milestone".

Yuga Labs Co-founder Greg Solano Reassumes CEO Position

On February 17th, Yuga Labs, the development team behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), officially announced the acquisition of PROOF, a Moonbirds development company, which sparked controversy. Later that afternoon, Pudgy Penguins surpassed BAYC's floor price. On February 22nd, Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano announced in a post that he would reassume the position of CEO of Yuga Labs. He expressed his gratitude for all the contributions and operational rigor that Daniel had brought to the company over the past year, and stated that "looking ahead to Yuga's future, we need to be more focused on executing on our crypto-native vision as a company." Currently, Bored Ape Yacht Club has regained its position as the "king" of PFP NFTs. Related reading: "Yuga Labs Continues to Acquire, Bored Ape Yacht Club's Blue Chip Status Challenged""Behind the Rise of the 'LVMH of NFTs', Yuga Labs' Disappointment"

Vitalik: It is worth adding some complex functions to L1 to reduce the code burden of L2

On February 22nd, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated on social media that the balance between L1 bug risk and L2 bug risk needs to be reconsidered. "If there is a problem with L1, developers can restore it in just one day; but if there is a problem with L2, it may cause a large amount of asset loss for users. Therefore, it is worth adding some complex functions to L1 to reduce the code burden of L2 and make L2 relatively simple." Related reading: "How to interpret Vitalik's reversal of opinion: 'light' Layer2, 'heavy' Layer1"

Smart Layer announces SLN token economics, token now listed on OKX

On February 21st, Smart Layer announced that the SLN token airdrop accounts for 2% of the total supply, and the SLN airdrop will go live on February 23rd, 2024 at 15:30 Singapore time. On the same day, according to an official announcement, OKX will list Smart Layer Network (SLN) on its spot trading market. SLN deposits were opened on February 21st at 4:00 AM UTC. SLN/USDT spot trading was opened on February 23rd at 8:00 AM UTC.

Optimism Launches Fourth Round of Airdrops, Distributing Over 10 Million OP Tokens to 23,000 Addresses

On February 21st, Optimism announced the launch of its fourth round of airdrops, distributing a total of 10,343,757.81 OP tokens to 22,998 addresses. The reward criteria are as follows: 1. Create outstanding NFTs on the Superchain. Gas consumed when transferring NFTs on the OP mainnet, Base, and Zora from January 10, 2023 to January 10, 2024. 2. Create outstanding NFTs on the Ethereum mainnet. Gas consumed when transferring NFTs on Ethereum from January 10, 2023 to January 10, 2024. Addresses with final rewards below 20 OP are not eligible; the final reward limit is 6,000 OP tokens per address.

Backpack: Strictly monitor malicious brushing behavior and encourage users to participate truthfully and rationally

On February 19th, the total trading volume of the cryptocurrency trading platform Backpack exceeded 1 billion US dollars in 24 hours. On the same day, the Chinese team of Backpack issued a statement regarding the sharing of some airdrop content that has been circulating on the internet recently. The purpose of the trading activity is to reward real users and encourage more real users to experience Backpack products. Malicious brushing behavior will be strictly monitored, and the right to take corresponding measures will be reserved. The trading activity will continue for a long time, and more high-quality projects and functions will be launched for users to use in the future. Backpack founder Armani Ferrante also issued a statement calling for rational trading. This statement may imply that Backpack will have multiple rounds of airdrops.

a16z Invests $100 Million in EigenLayer

On February 22, according to Bloomberg, crypto venture capital firm a16z invested $100 million in the liquidity re-collateralization protocol EigenLayer. a16z crypto partner Ali Yahya praised EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan and said that "EigenLayer has the potential to achieve 100 times the innovation speed in consensus mechanisms, new virtual machines, decentralized oracles, bridges, and networks with dedicated hardware", so he is "very excited to work with Sreeram and his team". Related reading: "a16z: Why We Invested in EigenLayer"

The content of Satoshi Nakamoto's email in 2009 was exposed: he believed that Bitcoin was easy to obtain through mining and was not opposed to its investment properties

On February 24th, Martii "Sirius" Malmi, an early collaborator on the Bitcoin code, released all of his personal email correspondence with Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. In the emails, Nakamoto expressed some of his views and predictions about Bitcoin, including:
· Someone once suggested donating $2,000 to him, and Nakamoto said it could be sent to Martii's address
· Believed that Bitcoin was easy to obtain through mining and could be done with a home computer
· Predicted that the Bitcoin network would have a maximum of 100,000 nodes (currently about 50,000 nodes)
· Predicted that the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining would be lower than that of traditional banking systems
· Predicted that there would be at least one feasible non-monetary use case, supporting timestamp use cases
· Worried about the risk of Bitcoin violating the law, but not opposed to its investment properties
· In July 2009, he expressed fatigue and said he needed to "take a break"

SBF's first photo during pre-trial detention was exposed, and his thin figure is completely different from before

On February 20th, cryptocurrency KOL Tiffany Fong exposed the first photo of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) during his pre-trial detention at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) on social media. The photo was taken on December 17, 2023. Bankman-Fried (second from the right) was thin, with messy hair and beard, and looked completely different from before. BlockBeats previously reported that Tiffany Fong had interviewed former MDC inmate Gene Borrello, who revealed that SBF became a target of extortion during his pre-trial detention at MDC due to his cowardly nature and "80-year-old physique".

This Week's Popular Articles

《ORDI Pre-Pump Night, The Story of OTC Merchants' Sudden Wealth》

Over-the-counter (OTC) trading is not unfamiliar in the cryptocurrency industry. In the early days of the Mingwen market, the speed of capital entry far exceeded the speed of information circulation. Taking advantage of the information gap created by multiple barriers, OTC trading became the "most profitable business" in this field. This article reveals the insider information and trading methods of OTC trading. In the stage of wild growth, OTC traders were undoubtedly a key component of the rise of this emerging market. In the absence of public trading infrastructure, they supported the flow of funds and public opinion in the Mingwen market. Nowadays, various Bitcoin ecosystem protocols have their own dedicated trading platforms, and the market capacity of OTC traders is gradually shrinking. Currently, only sporadic OTC trades are mainly concentrated between bulk traders or large accounts, and small trades are rarely conducted through OTC, and are basically completed through centralized markets.

《Grayscale: What's Different About Bitcoin Halving in 2024?》

The upcoming Bitcoin halving may be a bullish development, as historically, bull markets have followed halving events that set new all-time highs. However, Grayscale points out that attributing these rebounds solely to the decrease in Bitcoin supply inflation may oversimplify history. Bitcoin price increases are often related to macroeconomic conditions that coincide with halving periods, such as the financial stimulus measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. For Bitcoin miners, halving events often weed out inefficient players who cannot afford half of the Bitcoin reward. However, at the same time, the halving drives Bitcoin network activity, transaction fees, and miner revenue, inspiring new innovations to solve scalability issues such as Script and Layer2. Grayscale's research team delves into the impact of halving supply, miner responses, on-chain activity led by Script and Layer2, and potential capital inflows from ETFs, pointing out that the 2024 Bitcoin halving will be different from every previous one. Bitcoin is evolving into something more significant, and its future is bright.

《Diamond hands "eat and take", the days of airdrops crashing the market seem to be over"

In 2024, the "pow-style mining" is becoming less and less popular, thanks to TIA's promotion of "stake to earn". The days of struggling with interaction seem to be getting further away. Previously, it was common to receive an airdrop and then immediately sell it upon listing. However, now when receiving airdropped tokens, people consider the possibility of both using and holding them. With more and more projects offering airdrops for staking, this has become a new way of marketing. This trend has made stakers pay more attention to the overall ecosystem of the token, rather than just its price. Successful cases have shown that stakers can offset token price fluctuations by participating in airdrops of other projects, forming a new staking strategy. However, the sustainability of this model requires careful consideration from the project side in terms of staking incentives and project popularity.

《4000 million STRK incentive plan launched, what other opportunities are there to get STRK airdrop?》

Starknet token airdrop is now open for application, and the Starknet Foundation has launched the "Starknet DeFi Spring" plan, which will last for six to eight months and distribute 40 million STRK to DeFi protocols on Starknet. The plan rewards will be determined every two weeks and is expected to continue until October 2024. The first round of the plan is mainly aimed at DEX, followed by lending protocols, options, and perpetual protocols. Some of the participating DeFi protocols include Ekubo, mySwap, Nostra, Haiko, StarkDeFi, 10KSwap, JediSwap, and SithSwap. For lending protocols, the "Starknet DeFi Spring" plan started on March 21, and the participating protocols that have been announced include zkLend, vesu, and Nimbor. For perpetual contracts/options, they include Carmine and ZKX. The reward plans and participation methods for these protocols are all different.

《Modular Blockchain Lava Network is about to launch its mainnet, how to interact and receive potential airdrops?》On February 15th, Lava Network, a developer of modular blockchain infrastructure, announced the completion of a $15 million seed round of financing led by Jump Capital, Hashkey Capital, and Tribe Capital. Lava Network plans to launch its mainnet in the first half of this year. Prior to this, it launched the "Magma" reward program, which allows users to earn Magma points by switching RPC connections to Lava. This article provides a detailed introduction on how to participate in this reward program.

《Berachain Ultimate Interaction Guide: Full Participation in Mainnet Launch》

Berachain is a meme-based project that emphasizes community cultural consensus and focuses on "liquidity" and "NFT". The team consists of 30 anonymous members, and the project has completed a financing of 420 million US dollars. The ecosystem includes more than 70 projects and plans to launch the mainnet in the second quarter. Currently, the Berachain ecosystem includes more than 70 protocols, 32 The Honey Jar partners, 47 active projects, 30 DeFi projects, 19 NFT projects, 10 game projects, and 14 community projects. This article provides a brief summary of how to participate in the Berachain ecosystem.

"How to Take Profits in a Bull Market for Cryptocurrencies?"

《Blast 生态数千项目，如何精准交互以小博大？》

《Blast Ecology Thousands of Projects, How to Interact Accurately and Win Big with Small?》

This week, Blast TVL broke through $1.9 billion. Faced with the complex projects in the Blast ecosystem, Christine, the county lord, shared her interaction strategy: focus on the winners of the Big Bang competition, projects that fulfill their airdrop promises to the community and users, high TVL projects, and projects with good product delivery. Finally, she mentioned that Blast's multiple points are rotating, and poorly executed projects may have their points cancelled, so it is important to carefully choose projects to interact with. "Blindly dabbling will lead to failure, only precision will lead to success."

《Arthur Hayes: The Era of Shanzhai Coins is Here, Narrative Trumps Technology》

《Scroll 遭遇「新式女巫」，撸毛党从链上卷到了 Github》

《Scroll Encounters "New-style Witch", Fur Party Rolls from the Chain to Github》

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