- Taipei Blockchain Week kicks off.
- Over $200 million worth of APT tokens will unlock on December 12th.
- Sotheby’s auctioning the Bitcoin Ordinals project titled ‘BitcoinShrooms’.
- Binance will cease support for BUSD.
- Polygon Labs to publicly showcase the next-gen ZK product on December 15th.
Key Events
Taipei Blockchain Week will be held in Taipei from December 11th to 16th. Hosted by Bu Zhi DAO and co-organized by the Taiwan Blockchain Enthusiasts Association, the event focuses on the theme of ‘Scale,’ exploring applications and developments in Web3, blockchain, AI, and more. Expecting over 50 peripheral events, it’s anticipated to attract over 5000 attendees. The Taipei Blockchain Week Hackathon is scheduled from December 11th to 13th, while the main conference will take place from December 14th to 15th. The Sora Summit is set for December 6th. OKX has announced its sponsorship for the second edition of Taipei Blockchain Week (TBW). Their Global Chief Commercial Officer Lennix and Global Chief Innovation Officer Jason have confirmed their participation in roundtable discussions and other activities.
Cathay United Securities has received approval from the Taiwan FSC to conduct STO (Security Token Offering) operations. The STO plans to raise NT$30 million and is expected to commence trading on December 12th through Cathay United Securities’ self-developed STO trading platform.
Binance announced that due to Paxos ceasing the minting of new BUSD, support for BUSD products will be discontinued on December 15th. Binance advises users to withdraw their BUSD holdings or convert their BUSD assets into other assets supported on the Binance platform before December 15th, 2023. Users can trade their BUSD assets to FDUSD at zero fees in the Binance Spot Market or exchange their BUSD assets for FDUSD at a 1:1 ratio on the Binance Swap platform. Starting December 31st, 2023, at 11:00 AM, BUSD withdrawal services will be halted, and BUSD balances in users’ Binance accounts (excluding users from Japan, France, Italy, Poland, and Kazakhstan) will automatically convert to FDUSD at a 1:1 ratio.
Project Progress
This week, with the market heating up, there’s an increase in project token generation events. The IDO whitelist application process for Eclipse Fi, a modular token issuance platform within the Cosmos ecosystem, will commence on December 11th. The first phase of Fair Mint for the Bitcoin Lightning Network Nostr Assets Protocol is set to begin on December 11th. The NFT data analytics platform bitsCrunch will start its BCUT token sale on CoinList on December 15th at 01:00. LandX, a decentralized agriculture financing protocol, is scheduled to go live on December 15th and will open its token public sale.
In the recent hype around Ordinals within the Nostr craze, Sotheby’s will auction the ‘BitcoinShrooms’ Bitcoin Ordinals project from December 6th to 13th. Designed by artist Shroomtoshi and initially minted on-chain on October 22nd, there are currently three pieces available for bidding. The auction pieces include two individual mushrooms and a pixelated avocado seed called BIP39, with an estimated sale price ranging from $20,000 to $30,000, accepting cryptocurrency bids.
Additionally, notable developments in Polygon are underway during the Polygon Connect event. Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal previously announced on the X platform that Polygon Labs would present the next-gen ZK product on December 14th, followed by a product release related to RWA and institutional adoption on December 20th.
Layer2 interoperability protocol Connext will undergo the Bacco network upgrade on December 14th. Bacco changes the way messages travel between chains, transferring messages between chains via the Connext Sequencer (subject to dispute windows and observer disagreements) rather than through other Rollup sequencers. Connext stated that Bacco significantly reduces network operational costs and enables rapid expansion to new chains and L2.
Worldcoin will terminate agreements with 5 market makers on December 15th after collectively receiving a loan of 100 million WLD tokens. Under the current agreement terms, the market makers will be required to return 75 million WLD on December 15th. Therefore, the maximum reduction in circulating supply on December 15th could be 75 million WLD, depending on whether market makers opt to return tokens directly to World Assets Ltd without purchasing. Furthermore, World Assets Ltd. is negotiating new loan agreements with these 5 market makers, effective from December 16th. Under these agreements, these market makers will receive significantly fewer loans than before, totaling 10 million WLD, with a duration of 6 months. Consequently, the circulating supply on December 16th will increase by 10 million WLD. After 6 months, each market maker must fully repay the loan. According to these new agreements, they are not allowed to purchase any WLD from World Asset Ltd. Overall, the net impact on WLD’s circulating supply will depend on the amount of tokens market makers choose to buy on December 15th.
The Linea Voyage event ‘Wave 7,’ hosted by ConsenSys’ Layer2 network Linea, continues until December 16th. The theme of this event revolves around the most popular complex DeFi trading products, their functionalities, uses, and risks.
Upcoming Events
This week, alongside the Taipei Blockchain Week event, there are other peripheral activities being held concurrently in Taipei. Sora Ventures is organizing the ‘Sora Summit 2023: Leading the Future of Web3 towards Taipei,’ scheduled for December 16th at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei. Additionally, 0x499, Orderly Network, and Radiance Ventures will host an offline event titled ‘Rewire The Block – Hack Taipei’ at the Taipei W Hotel.
Token Unlocks
According to Token Unlocks data, between December 11th and December 17th, APT, 1INCH, CYBER, FLOW, and APE tokens will experience a one-time unlocking this week. Specifically:
- Aptos token (APT) will be unlocked on December 12th at 08:00, releasing 24.84 million tokens (approximately $209 million), accounting for 8.9% of the circulating supply.
- ApeCoin token (APE) will be unlocked on December 17th at 08:00, releasing 15.6 million tokens (approximately $27.93 million), accounting for 4.23% of the circulating supply.
Governance Voting
The Aavegotchi DAO has a proposal ongoing for another 7 days regarding the “purchase of $3 million worth of ETH to diversify strategic funds on Ethereum.”
The Synthetix governance committee, the Spartan Council, has voted and passed the SIP-2043 proposal to “end SNX inflation.” Consequently, Synthetix won’t introduce new tokens nor have weekly token releases anymore.
NFT Activity
Sportswear brand Reebok has announced a collaboration with the NFT project VeeFriends. On December 15th, they will launch a jointly created physical sneaker named “Accountable Ant.” Holders of either VeeFriends Series 1 or VeeFriends Series 2 NFTs can participate in the presale from December 12th to 14th.
NFT trading marketplace LooksRare will waive all protocol fees implemented on LooksRare V2 market and LooksRare Seaport before December 16th, 9:00 PM.