Texas calls for the establishment of BTC reserves, and the founder of Hex is "red-wanted"

Headline

▌Texas Congressman Calls for Establishment of Bitcoin Reserve

Texas State Representative Giovanni Capriglione introduced a bill in December calling for the ‘Lone Star State’ to establish a Bitcoin reserve. The bill mandates that Texas must hold Bitcoin for at least five years. Under the bill, cryptocurrencies must be stored in cold storage, meaning on a device not connected to the internet, and these assets cannot be used for transactions outside of Texas.

****▌The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) is seeking the founder of Hex, Richard Heart, on charges of tax evasion totaling hundreds of millions of euros and violence.

The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has issued a ‘red notice’ on behalf of Finland to its member countries, seeking the founder of Hex and PulseChain, Richard James Schueler, who is commonly known as Richard Heart among cryptocurrency investors. A red notice is an official warning issued to member countries of Interpol, informing them that a valid national arrest warrant has been issued against a particular person. If the wanted person is detained in another country, the red notice usually triggers an extradition process. The website of the European law enforcement agency, Europol, shows that in this case, Finland has issued an arrest warrant against Schueler for tax evasion of “hundreds of millions of euros” and for allegedly assaulting a 16-year-old. The website stated: ‘Schueler has failed to submit corporate tax returns for many years and has not filled in income information on the pre-filled personal tax return… The total amount of tax evasion is several hundred million euros.’ The website also described the assault allegations against Schueler, stating that he assaulted a 16-year-old girl.

Market

As of press time, according to Coingecko data:

BTC recent transaction price is $97,188.00, with a -0.1% change within the day;

The recent transaction price of ETH is $3,358.39, with a daily change of -3.0%;

BNB recent trading price is $665.26, with a -2.6**%** intraday change;

The recent transaction price of SOL is $182.55, with a intraday fluctuation of -6.5%.

DOGE recently traded at 0.319 yuan, with a daily change of -1.6%;

XPR recently traded at $2.24, with a -1.4% change within the day.

Policy

▌The French Financial Markets Authority has approved HEXARQ SAS to provide trading services and cryptocurrency custody.

The French financial market regulator, Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), has approved HEXARQ SAS to provide trading services and cryptocurrency custody.

****▌El Salvador plans to increase its buying power for BTC, with a medium-term goal of acquiring an additional 20,000 BTC

El Salvador’s senior Bitcoin advisor Max Keiser said, “President Bukele has increased the daily purchase of Bitcoin, with a mid-term goal of buying another 20,000 bitcoins.”

****▌The Ministry of Interior of the United Arab Emirates and FSRA cooperate to combat virtual asset-related crimes

The Ministry of Interior of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) to enhance coordination in combating virtual asset-related crimes. The agreement requires both parties to share information and strengthen risk mitigation frameworks. According to reports, the agreement is also aimed at supporting the UAE’s strategy to protect its financial system from the evolving threats in the digital asset field.

****▌Informed sources: The United States plans to blacklist Sophgo, an AI company associated with Bitmain

An insider revealed that the Biden administration plans to include Sophgo, an artificial intelligence company associated with Bitmain, in the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, due to the company’s TSMC-manufactured chips being illegally incorporated into Huawei’s artificial intelligence processors.

Blockchain Application

▌ai16z founder: Aethir will provide free GPU computing power for Eliza developers

ai16z founder Shawn posted on the X platform, “The decentralized computing power network @AethirCloud is providing free GPU computing power for Eliza agents. Developers with relevant needs can apply.”

Cryptocurrency

▌Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 has purchased approximately 990 bitcoins for about $100 million.

Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 has purchased approximately 990 bitcoins (BTC) for about $100 million.

****▌An American YouTube blogger found that the Taliban often trade Meme coins and are often rug pulled

An American YouTube blogger discovered that the Taliban often trades Meme coins and is prone to rug pull.

****▌In the past week, the NFT transaction volume reached 304 million US dollars, with Ethereum NFT accounting for 66%

CryptoSlam data shows that the NFT sales in the past week reached $304 million, an increase of over 35% compared to the previous period. Among them, Ethereum NFT sales increased by 76% compared to the previous period, reaching $201 million, accounting for 66% of all NFT sales in the past seven days. By contrast, Bitcoin NFT sales were $40 million, Solana NFT sales were $29 million. The weekly sales of Mythos Chain, Immutable, Polygon and BNB Chain totaled $25.9 million.

****▌Report: As of 2024, a total of 165 security incidents have occurred in the Web3 field, with losses exceeding 2.3 billion dollars

According to Cyvers’ report summarizing the key security trends in 2024, there has been a sharp increase in Web3 network threats, resulting in a loss of over 2.3 billion dollars and a total of 165 security incidents. Although the amount of losses is 40% higher than that of 2023 (1.69 billion dollars), it is still 1.42 billion dollars lower than that of 2022 (3.78 billion dollars). It is worth mentioning that this year, 1.3 billion dollars of stolen funds were recovered. Cyvers stated that events related to access control (67 cases) accounted for 81% of the $23 billion in losses, with approximately 98 smart contract vulnerabilities resulting in a total loss of $4.563 billion, and address poisoning events causing over $68 million in losses. In the past three years, when decomposing losses by attack vectors, the data shows that losses related to access control violations have gradually increased from $769 million in 2022 to $1.9 billion by the end of 2024. In contrast, losses related to code vulnerability exploitation in 2023 and 2024 are much lower than the losses of approximately $3 billion in 2022.

Important Economic Dynamics

▌UBS: The outlook for US stocks remains optimistic, with the S&P 500 index potentially reaching 6600 points by the end of next year

UBS stated in its research report that the outlook for the US stock market remains positive against the backdrop of a strong US economy, optimism about artificial intelligence, and future growth-promoting policies in the US. We expect the S&P 500 index to reach 6600 points by the end of 2025. Investors may consider using structural strategies to cope with volatility. We believe that gold remains an effective investment portfolio hedge tool amid geopolitical tensions. (Xinhua)

▌Biden Signs Emergency Funding Bill to Prevent Government Shutdown

According to Cailian News, U.S. President Biden has signed an emergency funding bill to prevent a government shutdown. This latest bill will continue to provide operating funds for the U.S. government until March of next year, thus avoiding a partial shutdown of federal agencies after 0:00 on the 21st of the Eastern Time in the United States.

Golden Encyclopedia

▌What is Rollup?

Rollup is a way to process transactions on Layer 2 protocols, freeing up valuable space on the base layer. Rollup folds transactions on the second layer, sometimes folding them dozens of times, and then rolls them together before sending the data back to Layer 1. There are primarily two types of Rollup, optimistic and zero-knowledge (ZK) proof. Optimistic Rollup is a fairly clear term. This means that Rollup operates using an ‘optimistic’ approach, assuming transactions are valid unless validators prove otherwise. They only check the validity of transactions when there is a dispute. ZK Rollup proves transactions without revealing any transaction data. Hence, it is called ‘zero-knowledge’. ZK Rollup provides instant finality as cryptographic proofs ensure the validity of data. In many ways, Rollup is to your standard blockchain transactions what Calzone is to regular pizza slices. By rolling, you can fit more in.