fts

Justin Drake posted on the X platform that Ethereum L1 will no longer use the SNARK-friendly hash function Poseidon, which has dominated since 2019, and will instead turn to traditional hash functions such as SHA2 or BLAKE2s.This adjustment is based on advancements in the field of SNARK design, shifting the focus from "SNARK-friendly hashing" to "hash-friendly SNARK." By aligning Boolean operations in traditional hashing with binary field native, the proof performance of traditional hashing in SNARK has reached 1 million per second, with an overhead of about 100 times.Research from Binius and Flock has driven relevant progress. The Ethereum Foundation's post-quantum team is advancing this route, with a roadmap that includes deploying production-level leanVM in 2027, and deploying in the consensus layer, execution layer, and data processing layer in 2028.Justin Drake also stated that the enhanced capabilities of AI in cryptanalysis have recently led to setbacks for the lattice-based scheme HAWK and the homomorphic scheme SQIsign, with hash-based schemes being used for post-quantum signatures on the blockchain. The trend of open-source automated research is also accelerating, with SNARK.fast achieving 1.8 million BLAKE3 proofs per second.

According to The Defiant, Cole Villemain, the co-founder of the well-known NFT project Pudgy Penguins, who was voted out by the community, launched a series of 44,000 NFTs named Spritehood on Robinhood Chain on August 11, selling out in less than an hour.According to on-chain statistics of minting transactions by analyst 0xlaplaced, this sale generated approximately $1.2829 million (equivalent to about 684.28 ETH at the minting price), higher than the approximately $755,000 figure circulating during the sale, which was a snapshot taken while the sale was still ongoing. According to the statistics, the paid sale lasted about 53 minutes, during which 37,430 pieces were sold for $17 each, and 5,526 pieces were sold for $117 each. Before the paid sale began, the deploying party also distributed 1,488 pieces for free through 20 zero-price transactions.Reports indicate that the Spritehood contract itself is displayed as unverified source code on the Blockscout browser of Robinhood Chain, preventing buyers from reviewing the public code regarding its token pricing and distribution mechanism. Cole Villemain was voted out of the founding team by the Pudgy Penguins holder community in January 2022, accompanied by accusations of misappropriating project funds, but the related accusations have remained at the level of allegations, and Villemain has not been prosecuted as a result.

Christopher Smith, founder of the blockchain startup Quantus, stated that the first quantum attack may manifest as a series of unexplained thefts of cryptocurrency wallets, rather than directly stealing the approximately $63 billion worth of dormant Bitcoin expected from Satoshi Nakamoto. He pointed out that sufficiently powerful quantum computers could derive private keys from public keys exposed on the blockchain, allowing attackers to transfer funds without needing to breach wallets, devices, or internal systems of exchanges.In theft incidents at highly secure institutions, the only forensic evidence may be the absence of intrusion traces. Smith indicated that the initial targets of quantum attacks could be military systems and national secrets; in the blockchain space, the minting keys of stablecoin issuer Tether may be of greater value. Attackers could mint tokens out of thin air through managed wallets and sell them off before the issuer responds. Google has accelerated its post-quantum migration timeline to 2029; Smith believes the probability of quantum computers breaking modern cryptography around 2028 is "50-50." Relevant blockchains have begun migrating to post-quantum signatures.

Serenity posted that it remains bullish on the storage sector represented by Micron (MU) and Samsung, believing that the market often rotates between different supply bottlenecks. This week, stocks in the photonics sector, such as AXTI and LITE, have once again become the focus; compared to the decline in July, the main change is the stock price, followed by scattered narratives and business updates.He pointed out that the market was already aware during the July decline that COHR and LITE's laser products would be sold out for the next two years, and it had also learned about the demand imbalance from AAOI's last quarter earnings call. Aside from the changes in stock prices after liquidation, the fundamentals of the photonics sector have not deteriorated; the bottlenecks in optical transceivers and indium phosphide substrates remain unchanged and may even worsen.In terms of storage, Serenity stated that retail investors are showing signs of capitulation, but the same group had previously signed 16 SCAs with MU and had extremely bullish forecasts. He believes that the current operating profit to market value ratio of the storage business is "extremely unreasonable," and that next year's demand imbalance may be even more severe; the only thing that has changed for the same company is the valuation and narrative, while the market rotates between different sectors.

According to Jinshi reports, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) official website has released an update, lifting sanctions related to Iran.

According to TNW, the Cyberspace Administration of China has released a draft of regulations for combating cyberbullying and is seeking public feedback. The draft requires platforms to establish classifiers for detecting and categorizing online violence content, provide users with a "one-click protection" feature, and implement blacklist management and regular reporting mechanisms for violating accounts.Notably, the draft explicitly includes AI-generated deepfake images and synthetic harassment texts within the scope of regulation. The Q&A platform Zhihu has already responded by restricting the use of anonymous accounts.

Forma announced on the X platform that after careful consideration, it has decided to shut down Forma Chain due to the unsustainability of operating the chain.As a transitional solution, Modularium and Forma NFT will migrate to Ethereum L1 to ensure the permanent existence of artworks and the marketplace. After the migration, NFTs will still be accessible and can be traded on OpenSea or other Ethereum marketplaces, with Modularium continuing to serve as the display platform for these collectibles.The team strongly recommends that users withdraw funds via the Forma bridge. Any funds not withdrawn in a timely manner will be manually migrated to an EVM-compatible chain to be announced later.The team emphasizes that user funds and NFTs are safe, and a specific timeline and migration steps will be announced subsequently.

According to on-chain analysis platform Lookonchain (@lookonchain), "Machibigbrother" (@machibigbrother) has once again faced liquidation. To raise funds to maintain an ETH long position, he sold Bored Ape #6801 for 8.61 ETH two hours ago, while the purchase price of the NFT three years ago was 23.5 ETH. This sale resulted in a loss of approximately 14.89 ETH (about $28,000).

Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong posted on the X platform, publicly acknowledging that the creator coin previously promoted by the Base chain has not succeeded and that a strategic adjustment was completed earlier this year.Armstrong stated that Base's current core focus areas are trading, payments, and AI agents, which are interconnected—payments require foreign exchange trading, and AI agents will also involve a large number of trading and payment scenarios. Currently, most resources have been concentrated on the trading track.

Bitget launches the "Flash Football Cup" contract trading event, which runs from July 13 to July 20. During the event, users who complete the specified contract trading volume tasks can receive corresponding USDT rewards; if users reach the specified threshold of cumulative contract trading volume within 72 hours after registration, they can also receive an additional viewing-related gift.In addition, users who complete tiered trading volume tasks can earn points, which can be used to redeem World Cup-related physical merchandise and USDT rewards. The physical prize pool includes signed jerseys from stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland, and Luka Modrić, as well as special edition collectibles from Wuliangye and Labubu.

According to The Defiant, the Web3 gaming guild Yield Guild Games (YGG) will shut down its game publishing department YGG Play, affecting 35 positions.Co-founder Gabby Dizon stated that the YGG Play platform and games such as LOL Land and Waifu Sweeper will operate until they go offline after July 31. YGG stated that this adjustment is "market-driven, not product-driven," mainly influenced by the macro environment. In the future, YGG will return to a smaller team and community-driven model and explore a new business of selling player-generated training data to AI labs.

According to official news, Gate will launch a special gift event for new users from July 2, 16:00 to July 9, 16:00 (UTC+8). During the event, new users who complete their first flash exchange can participate in multiple rewards: for a single first exchange of 1 USDT, they will receive a 100% chance to win a mystery box lottery, with a maximum prize of 888 USDT in cash; for a first exchange of 200 USDT, they will also receive an additional cash reward of 2 USDT and 1 chance to enter the mystery box lottery; users who accumulate a flash exchange trading volume of 1,000 USDT can claim a cash reward of 20 USDT. The total prize pool for the event is 60,000 USDT, and rewards are available on a first-come, first-served basis.In addition, Gate will launch the fourth phase of the flash exchange regular investment benefits from July 3, 16:00 to July 17, 16:00 (UTC+8), where an individual can receive rewards worth up to 1,300 USDT. During the event, new users who complete their first flash exchange and successfully create a regular investment strategy with a successful deduction can receive up to 300 USDT in dual-currency financial experience; users who continuously complete flash exchanges and regular investment check-ins for 3 days and 7 days can receive 300 USDT and 600 USDT in dual-currency financial experience, respectively. At the same time, users who accumulate a regular investment trading volume of 100 USDT or an accumulated flash exchange trading volume of 500 USDT can share two prize pools of 10,000 USDT each based on their trading volume proportion, with a maximum of 400 USDT in dual-currency financial experience available per individual.

According to The Block, Humanity Protocol founder Terence Kwok publicly responded for the first time after the project suffered an attack of approximately $36 million, stating that the team will reduce its focus on blockchain and decentralized identity projects and shift towards enterprise-level AI products and services.Kwok stated that the attack originated from the developer's device being compromised, rather than a smart contract vulnerability; the probability of recovering the stolen funds is low, and the current focus will be on token migration, claims and compensation processes, as well as subsequent business reconstruction.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, Huang Licheng (@machibigbrother) has once again sold 3 Bored Ape NFTs, obtaining 27.42 ETH (44,000 USD), incurring a loss of 25 ETH (40,000 USD), to raise funds to increase his ETH long position.He currently holds a long position of 2,600 ETH (4.2 million USD), with a liquidation price of 1,596.69 USD.

According to The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_), the $2 billion lending giant Ledn has removed cryptocurrencies from all its products and fully shifted to a pure Bitcoin strategy. Ledn stated that this adjustment is a strategic transformation aimed at aligning with the core principles of Bitcoin.

The Kobeissi Letter analysis points out that since April, the cumulative net outflow from U.S. gold and Bitcoin-related ETFs has been about $12 billion, while during the same period, semiconductor ETFs recorded a net inflow of about $20 billion, with funds clearly concentrating in the technology growth sector.This trend accelerated further in mid-May: the outflow from gold and Bitcoin ETFs increased more than threefold, while the inflow into semiconductor ETFs doubled. In terms of market performance, the world's largest gold ETF GLD has fallen about 13% since early April, and the Bitcoin ETF IBIT has dropped about 12% during the same period; in contrast, semiconductor ETFs SOXX and SMH have risen approximately 81% and 60%, respectively.Analysis suggests that the current market shows a clear "risk preference switch," with retail funds accelerating their shift from safe-haven assets and crypto assets to high-growth semiconductor and AI-related sectors, driving the market in unprecedented ways.

The development company behind zkSync, Matter Labs, announced layoffs on Tuesday and is fully transitioning the entire organization to the institutional-grade on-chain privacy infrastructure platform Prividium. CEO Alex Gluchowski defined this move on X as a skills restructuring rather than a cost-cutting measure, stating that the products built for regulated financial institutions since 2024 have evolved into Prividium, aiming to provide on-chain infrastructure that combines transaction confidentiality with compliance auditing capabilities for regulated entities such as banks and asset management companies.Gluchowski mentioned that this transformation is based on specific product feedback from institutional clients, but did not disclose the number of layoffs. According to CoinGecko data, the market capitalization of the zkSync token is approximately $115 million, having risen 4.3% in the past 24 hours. This transformation reflects a broader trend in the Layer 2 market, as ZK and L2 projects like Hyli and Botanix have shut down, and general-purpose horizontal platforms are facing pressure to find defenses in vertical fields. As of the time of publication, Matter Labs has not made any statements regarding the future of the zkSync network and ZK tokens.

Yuga Labs CEO Michael Figge posted on the X platform that his team has just completed a white hat operation on a vulnerability found in the Flooring Protocol. The following assets are now safely held by Yuga Labs: 29 Bored Apes, 4 Mutant Apes, 1 BAKC, 2 CryptoPunks, 1 Azuki, 2 Elementals; 26 Captains, 1 Moonbird, 2 Doodles.Team Vice President @0xQuit recovered these assets, and @coffeedev discovered that the same vulnerability posed a greater risk to other Flooring collectible series (such as BAYC and CryptoPunks). Figge instructed GrailsOTC trading desk to advance funds and NFTs to rescue the at-risk assets from the protocol. The team will work with the protocol developers to return the assets.

Privacy Agreement Zama founder Rand posted on platform X that the freezing measures against the cUSDC contract under Zama have been lifted, and all systems have returned to normal operation.According to his introduction, a U.S. court previously ordered Circle to temporarily freeze a contract worth $12.5 million in USDC held by Zama without prior notice. The court has now determined that the freezing measure was unreasonable and has lifted the temporary restraining order (TRO), and the related cUSDC contracts and assets have been fully restored. Rand stated that this incident did not affect the team's trust in USDC, and Zama still plans to launch the cUSDC product later this month.