Daily Report ｜ FTX sues LayerZero Labs seeking to recover $86 million transferred before bankruptcy; Animoca Brands' NFT project Mocaverse secures $20 million funding commitment

整理：Mia, ChainCatcher

What Important Events Happened in the Last 24 Hours

1. FTX Sues LayerZero Labs to Recover $86 Million Transferred on the Eve of Bankruptcy
According to ChainCatcher and reported by The Block, FTX, led by CEO John Ray III, has sued LayerZero Labs to recover $86 million transferred just before its bankruptcy. The lawsuit primarily concerns a transaction made by Alameda Research's former CEO Caroline Ellison on November 7, 2022 (four days before filing for bankruptcy), in which Alameda agreed to sell its 5% stake in LayerZero (valued at $150 million based on LayerZero's current valuation) in exchange for LayerZero waiving a $45 million loan to Alameda.

The lawsuit claims that at the time of the transfer, FTX was already insolvent, and therefore these transactions constitute fraudulent behavior under bankruptcy law and should be voided. Alameda also agreed to sell 100 million Stargate (STG) tokens to LayerZero for $10 million. The company had paid $25 million earlier that year to purchase these tokens. The lawsuit states that despite LayerZero Labs' efforts to regain control of the tokens by reissuing them to a wallet controlled by the company, the transaction was never completed and was later halted due to the threat of FTX property litigation.

The lawsuit also seeks to recover the withdrawals made by LayerZero and its former COO Ari Litan from the FTX.com and FTX.US exchanges within 90 days prior to FTX's bankruptcy filing. During this period, LayerZero withdrew $21 million from its account on FTX.com, of which approximately $16 million was withdrawn by the end of October (before FTX's issues became widely known). The lawsuit notes that the remaining $5 million was withdrawn on November 7, the same day LayerZero made a repayment. Additionally, the lawsuit lists Litan as a defendant and questions approximately $19.6 million withdrawn from the FTX.US account just days before FTX filed for bankruptcy, with these withdrawals made in Litan's name and that of his LLC Skip & Goose. (Source Link)

2. dYdX Releases 2023 Semi-Annual Ecosystem Report: v3 Trading Volume Totals Approximately $24.05 Billion, Cumulative Fees Reach $54.7 Million
According to ChainCatcher, the dYdX Foundation has released its 2023 semi-annual ecosystem report. As of August 29, the number of unique addresses holding DYDX tokens exceeded 46,100, with 70,700 unique addresses having earned DYDX. As of August 29, the circulating supply of DYDX (including the community treasury) was 183,765,523 tokens, accounting for 18.38% of the total supply, with a cumulative balance in the community treasury of 65,806,458 DYDX. Currently, an additional 3,595,890 DYDX is accumulated with each Epoch.

Overall, the community voted to reduce the release of DYDX tokens and collectively increased the community treasury's 5-year allocation by 19.2%. Over the next 5 years, 24.2% of the token supply will be allocated to the community treasury and reward treasury. As of September 8, 2023, there have been 14 governance proposals for dYdX, including 10 off-chain snapshot votes and 4 on-chain votes, with the number of tokens used in each vote accounting for approximately 4.3% of the total supply. The dYdX Grants subDAO has approved 122 grants, with 98 grants completed, distributing over $4 million to 94 recipients.

So far in 2023, dYdX v3 has created 68,628 new accounts, with a total trading volume of approximately $24.05 billion and a daily trading volume of about $1 billion. Since 2022, the daily trading volume has been around $1.2 billion, with monthly trading volumes ranging from $20 billion to $43 billion. In 2023, there have been 61,624 active traders, with 4,300 weekly active users and weekly fees of about $1.5 million. Currently, the public testnet of dYdX v4 has a block time of 1.8 seconds, with over 2.9 million transactions and over 2.9 million bound tokens. (Source Link)

3. Animoca Brands' NFT Project Mocaverse Secures $20 Million Financing Commitment, Led by CMCC Global
According to ChainCatcher, Animoca Brands has announced a new round of binding financing commitments to accelerate the development of its NFT project Mocaverse. Animoca Brands raised $20 million by issuing new ordinary shares at a price of AUD 4.50 per share. As part of this financing, the company issued free additional utility token warrants to investors based on a 1:1 dollar ratio. This financing round was led by CMCC Global, with participation from Kingsway Capital, Liberty City Ventures, GameFi Ventures, Yat Siu (Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Animoca Brands), Aleksander Larsen (Founder of Sky Mavis), Gabby Dizon (Founder of Yield Guild Games), and institutional investors from Koda Capital.

Mocaverse is building Web3-native tools to enhance the capabilities of products in the gaming, culture, and entertainment verticals, allowing users to create their own digital identities, accumulate reputations, earn and spend loyalty points, and access the Mocaverse ecosystem supported by over 450 portfolio companies of Animoca Brands and a partner network with over 7 million addressable users.

Mocaverse will soon launch the NFT series Moca ID, aimed at enabling users to build their on-chain identities and participate in the Mocaverse ecosystem. Moca ID holders will gain exclusive access to Mocaverse ecosystem experiences and have the opportunity to earn unique loyalty points through active participation. These loyalty points will support a permissionless and interoperable loyalty system that will gradually decentralize to allow third parties to adopt and integrate Moca ID, aiming to drive accessibility and growth in Web3. (Source Link)

4. Last Saturday, Bitcoin Saw Over 710,000 New Addresses in a Single Day, Reaching a 5-Year High
According to ChainCatcher, monitoring by Ali Charts shows that on September 9, the number of new Bitcoin addresses reached 717,331, marking a 5-year high. The last peak for daily new Bitcoin addresses was recorded on December 14, 2017, when 800,180 new Bitcoin addresses were created. (Source Link)

5. RootData Co-Founder: Current Web3 Trends Lean Towards Social, Derivatives, RWA, and Intent
According to ChainCatcher, ChainCatcher and RootData held an offline exchange event in Singapore today at 14:00, themed "New Trends in Web3 and Changes in Investment and Financing." In the keynote speech, RootData co-founder QuanYu shared data on "Trends and Future of Web3 Primary Market."

According to QuanYu, in terms of financing, the number of financing deals in the Web3 industry has been continuously declining, reaching a near three-year low. The financing frequency in the social entertainment and DeFi sectors has significantly increased in recent months, while NFT, gaming, and CeFi sectors have hit a low point. In terms of project quantity, projects established after 2020 in the Web3 space are primarily from the United States, Singapore, mainland China, India, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and France. However, due to regulatory policies, the number and proportion of projects from mainland China have been declining since 2020, while Singapore, India, the UK, and France have seen significant increases in both quantity and proportion. Additionally, in terms of sectors, Web3 currently leans towards four trends: social, derivatives, RWA, and intent.

It was introduced that RootData is becoming the most important channel for crypto enthusiasts to find quality early-stage projects, cataloging over 9,000 crypto projects, 5,000 investors, and nearly 6,000 financing deals, presenting information points such as project introductions, financing, teams, affiliated organizations, news, competitors, token prices, and models in a visual and structured manner. Moving forward, RootData will integrate more on-chain and off-chain data types to further enhance data accuracy and readability, supporting users in querying, tracking, and managing various Web3 data, and building a data engine for the Web3 industry.

6. Arbitrum Community Proposes "Distributing 75 Million ARB Incentives to Ecological Protocols"
According to ChainCatcher, the Arbitrum community has initiated a proposal to "distribute 75 million ARB incentives to ecological protocols," aimed at meeting short-term community needs by allocating ARB owned by the DAO to incentivized projects while ensuring transparent consensus and distribution methods.

It is reported that the plan spans two rounds of voting and provides incentives for eligible projects, aiming to fund incentives before January 31, 2024. (Source Link)

"What Exciting Articles Are Worth Reading in the Last 24 Hours"

1. “After Connext's Large-Scale Token Airdrop, What Potential Opportunities Exist in the Cross-Chain Communication Sector?”

With the cross-chain communication protocol Connext launching its token and initiating a large-scale airdrop, the latest dynamics and potential opportunities in this sector have garnered significant attention.

According to the crypto data platform RootData, cross-chain communication projects have been among the most searched in the past week, and there has been no shortage of well-known investment institutions betting on this sector recently. It is particularly noteworthy that cross-chain communication protocols have broader use cases and more composability than simple cross-chain bridge applications. Therefore, they have gained greater narrative space in the crypto market.

The cross-chain sector has always been highly competitive. In this competitive environment, which cross-chain projects have attracted the attention of investors this year? What are their latest developments and airdrop plans? This article provides a brief overview.

2. “Why is the Future of Cryptocurrency Evolving Towards Asset Custody?”

The evolution of crypto asset custody is an urgent issue that requires strict audit controls and new-era key management to rebuild trust.

As the adoption of digital assets continues to grow, the failures of 2022 have become a thing of the past, and how third-party digital asset custodians ensure the safety of their funds will receive unprecedented attention, both from crypto participants and from regulators attempting to establish new, safer standards for the crypto industry.

The key to this evolution is the widespread implementation of a multi-layer custody system based on two fundamental pillars: key management and strict audit controls. Doing so will raise the minimum acceptable security level for asset custodians, rebuild and enhance institutional trust, and prevent new black swan events, such as sudden exchange collapses, to better facilitate the growth of crypto.

3. “Analyzing the Potential Risks of the TG BOT Sector from a Domestic Legal Perspective”

Since July 2023, a large number of Crypto Bots (specifically serving the crypto community, also referred to as "Web3 Bots") have emerged and grown rapidly. Although this blue ocean remains limited by a lack of public awareness, these bots are genuinely addressing significant user needs. Currently, trading-related Crypto Bots hold the largest market share, with Unibot being particularly noteworthy due to the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices.

As a true automated productivity tool that meets user demands, Crypto Bots have vast development prospects and space. Taking trading-related Crypto Bots like Unibot as an example, they face several significant legal risks and red lines.

4. “a16z: How to Understand Zero-Knowledge Proofs Through a Magic Show”

Zero-knowledge proofs are one of those magical technologies; they are actually a cryptographic concept that can solve two major issues in Web3—scalability and privacy.

From a utility perspective, the adoption of zero-knowledge proofs helps reduce on-chain transaction costs and design new privacy-protecting apps, thereby promoting the spread of crypto to billions of users. Beyond crypto, ZKP also has the potential to be applied in securely transmitting sensitive data, helping to combat illegal financial systems or rampant scam information.

The article will explore a new analogy by combining the backgrounds of the crypto and magic industries—imagine zero-knowledge proofs as a great magic trick.