BlackRock & Nasdaq Want ETH Options

Ronin Bridge $11M Exploit | Trump DJT Meme Fell 90%

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
August 07, 2024

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Good Morning.

The market has rebounded with VIX staying around 30. BOJ’s Kuroda has stated that they won’t raise rates while the market is unstable. Seems like the BOJ has folded — in general, this is a green light for risk assets.

In Today's Email:

What Matters: Ronin $11M exploit 👾
Case Study: Consumer vs Infra investments 🤝
Governance & Features: Zircuit Mainnet 🖥️

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at marco@launchy.app.

Narratives: SOL and Solana memes are leading the bounce.

For more & quicker alpha (narratives, airdrops, trading strategies), check out our telegram.

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WHAT MATTERS

Ronin Halts Bridge After $11.8M MEV Bot Exploit

Earlier today, we were notified by white-hats about a potential exploit on the Ronin bridge. After verifying the reports, the bridge was paused approximately 40 minutes after the first on-chain action was spotted.
The actors withdrew ~4K ETH and 2M USDC, valued at ~$12M, which… x.com/i/web/status/1…
— Ronin (@Ronin_Network)
12:51 PM • Aug 6, 2024

State of play: Ronin Network paused its bridge on Tuesday morning following $11.8M in outflows attributed to MEV exploit by “white hat” hackers.

The first transaction occurred at around 9:37 a.m. UTC on Tuesday, involving the transfer of over 3,996 ETH ($9.8M).
A subsequent transaction at 10:11 a.m. involved nearly $2M worth of USDC.
According to Axie and Ronin co-founder Aleksander Larsen, the bridge is safe and currently secures over $850M.
In a recent update, Ronin announced that the white hats returned all the ETH, while the $2M USDC will be returned soon.
Ronin's Ethereum bridge was hacked in March 2022, resulting in a $600M loss, the largest DeFi exploit in history.

What’s next: Ronin will audit the bridge before reopening it and plan to transition its operation to a new structure.

Why it matters: Ronin has been exploited a few times before, but more than anything this incident highlights the fundamental flaw of existing cross-chain bridge implementations.

Our take: In the future, we’ll have ZK-based bridges, but that will take some time.

For builders and investors: Security-wise, you want your operational process to be as redundant as possible if it means tighter security; these tradeoffs need to be made while optimizing for your end users’ experience.

CASE STUDY

A Lesson from Web2: Consumer v Infra Investment

Credits to @pet3rpan_ for the original tweet

@pet3rpan_ shared insights on consumer versus infrastructure investment during the early tech boom from a conversation with an early Web2 VC, highlighting parallels to the current Web3 investing landscape.

Here are the key takeaways from his tweets:

In the early 2000s, most Web2 VCs invested heavily in infra (telecon and ISPs), similar to the current trend in the Web3 investing sphere.
VCs that invested in consumer apps during that time were forced to do so as they couldn't participate meaningfully, as those rounds were overcrowded and overpriced.
As the market matured, infrastructure investments became lackluster, with commoditized services, compressed margins, and state-regulated pricing.
Overall, most of the internet's value has accrued at the application layer, including social networks, commerce, labor marketplaces, and brands.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

INSIGHTS

DJT Memecoin Plummeted 90%

ask barron, i dont have the keys or any tokens
— Martin Shkreli (e/acc) (@MartinShkreli)
6:05 AM • Aug 6, 2024

The DJT token, once linked to Donald Trump and his son Barron, dropped 90% after a single wallet sold $2M, reducing its market cap from $55M to $3M.

The wallet '4UGm6,' holding 20% of the DJT token supply, pocketed 15,500 SOL from the tx and then transferred the holdings to four different wallets.
Martin Shkreli claimed he helped Barron Trump create and promote the token on social media.
Shkreli appeared to blame Barron for Tuesday's price drop. He claimed he didn’t have the keys or any tokens (DJT).

FEATURES & GOVERNANCE UPDATE

Zircuit Mainnet Phase 1 Goes Live

Zircuit announced the launch of its Mainnet Phase 1, including the Zircuit Mainnet Festival, a program that rewards participants with ZRC.

Zircuit also launched the ZRC token claim from its season 1 airdrop.
At Mainnet launch, only ETH bridging will be enabled, with a cap of 1 ETH per wallet.
20M ZRC will be distributed in the Mainnet Festival.
Users can earn at least 125% in ZRC for all ETH spent on gas.
Users earn 1 roll for every 0.1 ETH they spend on gas fees. Rolls give users the chance to earn random ZRC prizes. Each roll also has a chance to hit the super prize of 100,000 ZRC.

Other notable feature updates:

Echelon goes live on the testnet.
Fantom rebranded to Sonic Labs.
Router Chain launched its mainnet.
Lava Network launched its mainnet.
Abstract Chain launched its testnet.
Elixir launched its synthetic dollar ‘deUSD.’
Eclipse launched its mainnet for developers.
AltLayer launched the first NearDA public testnet.
Aevo started the buyback process for the AEVO token.
Movement launched its public testnet with the MOVEDROP program.

QUICK BITES

ETH staking reaches 27.95%.
Hut 8 hires former Citigroup exec as new CFO.
US Ethereum ETFs post $48M daily net inflows.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $168M in net outflows.
Starknet Foundation CEO Diego Oliva steps down.
Binance cooperates with Indian authorities over a $86M tax bill.
BlackRock and Nasdaq make the push for options on Ethereum ETF.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

HBR’s read on the race to dominate stablecoins.
DWF Ventures’ read on stablecoins market overview.
ASXN’s read on the Yen carry trade and its consequences.

I'm doing fine, thanks for asking
— Arjun | LI.FI (@arjunnchand)
8:39 PM • Aug 5, 2024

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.