Scenius Sync (Issue #120)

Stand With Crypto Endorses 39 Candidates, CZ Gets Out of Prison, PayPal Expands Crypto To Businesses, Vitalik Proposes Metrics to Measure “Ethereum Alignment,” & Mysten Labs Unveils Walrus

Scenius: The intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. The communal form of the concept of genius.

Welcome to The Scenius Sync.

Our mission with this concise publication is twofold:

1. Share the essential stories driving the crypto industry and markets.

2. Highlight innovative applications and mainstream adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.

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Essential News 🗞

1. Stand With Crypto Endorses Senate Candidates—But Skips Controversial Races

   • Stand With Crypto, the pro-industry political watchdog initially launched by Coinbase, released a slate of political endorsements on Friday for the upcoming 2024 election—but avoided backing any candidates in a handful of increasingly controversial Senate races that have drawn scrutiny from corners of the industry. The organization threw its support behind 39 House and Senate candidates—an almost perfect split of 20 Republicans and 19 Democrats. Notably, it endorsed crypto attorney John Deaton, the Republican candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, who is running against prominent industry critic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.  Perhaps the most remarkable elements of Stand With Crypto’s endorsements today, however, were the omissions. In Michigan, Arizona, and Ohio, the organization declined to pick a side in three key battleground Senate races that not only may end up determining control of Congress’ upper chamber—but have also all prominently featured crypto as a campaign issue.

2. Binance founder CZ walks free from US prison

   • Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao walked free from a United States federal prison on Sept. 27 after serving a four-month stint for Anti-Money Laundering violations, a spokesperson for the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons told Cointelegraph. CZ pled guilty in November to federal charges for failure to implement proper AML controls at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volumes, according to a Nov. 21 statement from the US Department of Justice. He also stepped down as Binance’s CEO. With a reported net worth of approximately $60 billion, CZ is the wealthiest person ever to serve a prison sentence in the US.

3. FTX to set aside up to $230 million for shareholders, not creditors, from gov't forfeiture proceeds

   • According to a newly-revealed agreement, FTX will set aside up to $230 million worth of proceeds from government forfeiture actions for the benefit of certain shareholders. The agreement was finalized after the deadline for creditors to vote on the plan and was revealed thirty days later—the maximum time legally permitted—surprising and angering some creditors.  While shareholders are traditionally reimbursed last in bankruptcy proceedings, the FTX estate argues in a filing that the reimbursement will help avoid costly litigation and delays associated with the forfeiture proceeds. 

4. China’s former vice finance minister calls for deeper study of crypto amid global policy shifts

   • Zhu Guangyao, China’s former vice minister of finance, called for further study of cryptocurrency developments and relevant international policy shifts. Zhu said during a roundtable discussion at a finance and economic forum in Beijing on Saturday that cryptocurrencies indeed have negative impacts and “we must fully recognize their risks and the harm they pose to capital markets.” “However, we must also study the latest international developments and policy adjustments, particularly the influence of U.S. bipartisan policies, as this is a crucial aspect for the development of the entire digital economy,” Zhu added.

5. Crypto whale loses over $32 million in apparent phishing attack

   • A crypto whale appears to have lost over $32 million worth of tokens after signing a malicious transaction, blockchain security service ScamSniffer first noted in a post on X.  The loss came in the form of wrapped ether tokens from the decentralized finance protocol Spark. The 12,083 spWETH tokens drained from the wallet are worth about $32.4 million at current value.  The malicious transaction was powered by the Inferno Drainer scam-as-a-service, according to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham. The Inferno Drainer, which targets users with spoofed versions of popular DeFi applications in an attempt to trick those users into signing over control of their wallets, has stolen over $215 million from over 200,000 victims across its lifetime, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard built by ScamSniffer. 

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Innovation & Adoption 💡📈

1. Vitalik Buterin proposes metrics to measure ‘Ethereum alignment’

   • Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed putting together a set of metrics to measure how “aligned” projects are with Ethereum’s values.

     In his latest blog post on Sept. 28, Buterin said achieving “Ethereum alignment” is one of the most important social challenges in the Ethereum ecosystem. Still, he acknowledged that it’s a tough task, given the vast array of client teams, application developers, researchers and local communities — each trying to contribute to Ethereum in a unique way.

   • Link to Vitalik’s blog post here: Making Ethereum alignment legible

2. PayPal to allow US business accounts to buy and transfer crypto

   • In another effort to expand its presence in digital assets, PayPal announced plans to enable U.S. business customers to buy, sell, hold, and transfer cryptocurrencies. "Today's announcement is PayPal's latest step to increase cryptocurrency's utility by making increased functionality available to millions of merchants in the U.S.," the company said, adding that when the service launches, it will not be available to business accounts based in New York State. PayPal's move to allow U.S. merchants to send and receive cryptocurrency follows the Silicon Valley-based payments company launching several initiatives designed to capture market share among companies and customers operating in the digital assets industry. After first allowing PayPal and Venmo users to hold digital assets in 2020, the payments platform launched a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin last year, which is available on both Ethereum and Solana

3. A16z makes first 'DeSci' investment in decentralized biobank platform AminoChain

   • Major venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has invested in its first "DeSci" (as in "decentralized science") project — AminoChain, according to a16z General Partner Arriana Simpson on X. A16z led the $5 million seed round announced on Wednesday.  The project is looking to bring “ownership, transparency, and consent” into the field of medical data collection using blockchain technology. AminoChain is building a “decentralized biobank” and Layer 2 network that will connect enterprise medical institutions looking to share medical data while preserving patient privacy, Simpson said.  According to AminoChain’s website, medical institutions can install “Amino Node” software and integrate it with its existing tech stack. “While data stays self-custodial on the given institutions' servers, the Node software harmonizes and standardizes the data into a common format, making it interoperable with a network of collaborators,” the startup said. 

4. Mysten Labs Unveils Decentralized Storage Protocol Walrus

   • Mysten Labs has taken the wraps off its decentralized storage and data availability protocol Walrus, at its Sui Builder House event in Singapore.

     "Recognizing the importance of data and the lack of storage innovation in recent years, Mysten has chosen decentralized storage as the next key area to tackle to make Web3 a reality," Janet Wu, Director of Product at Mysten Labs, told Decrypt. The release of the Walrus whitepaper and the announcement of the upcoming WAL token will see the project move to the next stage of its development, following its devnet launch in June 2024.

5. Matrixport acquires Swiss firm Crypto Finance (Asset Management) AG to expand in Europe

   • Matrixport, a Singapore-based crypto financial services firm, has completed an all-cash acquisition of Crypto Finance (Asset Management) AG, a crypto asset manager in Switzerland, as it seeks to expand its business in Europe. Matrixport announced in a statement on Monday that the Crypto Finance unit — formerly part of the Deutsche Börse Group-owned Crypto Finance Group — has been renamed Matrixport Asset Management AG. Crypto Finance manages the first crypto fund approved by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, according to the release. “The acquisition enables clients access to the most innovative, compliant crypto asset management products, and aligns with our strategy to further expand services in Europe,” John Ge, co-founder and CEO of Matrixport, said in the statement.