Weekly Preview | FTX claims processing to begin on January 3, 2025; Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) takes effect

Important news:

• The Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) will come into effect on December 30;
• Optimism (OP) will unlock approximately 31.34 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on December 31, 2024, accounting for 2.32% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$58.6 million;
• ai16z will announce a new token economics proposal around January 1st;
• Sui (SUI) will unlock approximately 64.19 million tokens at 8:00 am on January 1, 2025 (Beijing time), accounting for 2.19% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$270 million;
• ZetaChain (ZETA) will unlock approximately 53.89 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 1, 2025, accounting for 9.35% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$32 million;
• FTX claims processing will begin on January 3 next year, and $16 billion in cash will be repaid;
• Binance plans to launch BIO at 18:00 (Beijing time) on January 3, 2025

December 30

Policy supervision:

New EU regulations require crypto exchanges to comply with travel rule guidelines and strengthen anti-money laundering measures from December 30

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has taken an important step to strengthen anti-money laundering (AML) measures, announcing the extension of the Travel Rule guidance to crypto service providers and their intermediaries. From December 30, cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the European Union (EU) will be subject to Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 (Travel Rule Guidance), which requires reporting of information on transfers of funds and crypto assets.

Therefore, according to the definition of MiCAR, crypto asset service providers (CASPs) will be subject to the EU Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime. Once the regulation comes into effect, payment service providers (PSPs), intermediary PSPs, CASPs and intermediary CASPs will be given a two-month grace period to declare compliance with the new requirements. Some general provisions include collecting user information to transfer funds or crypto assets, determining whether a transaction is related to the purchase of services, and detecting seemingly related transfers. In addition, crypto service providers and intermediaries need to declare their multiple intermediary and cross-border transfer policies.

The EBA acknowledged that complying with the EU Travel Rule Guidance will put cryptocurrency exchanges and service providers under financial pressure. However, the regulator expects there will be overall benefits in the long run.

EBA has issued guidelines on restrictive measures for cryptocurrency providers, which will take effect from December 30, 2025

The European Banking Authority (EBA) issued new guidelines for payment service providers (PSPs) and crypto asset service providers (CASPs) on November 14, clarifying that these institutions must comply with the restrictive measures of the European Union and its member states when transferring money. The EBA pointed out that these guidelines will help financial institutions effectively implement restrictive measures within the governance and risk management framework to avoid operational and legal risks.

The EBA stressed that if there are loopholes in the control, internal policies and procedures of financial institutions, it may lead to legal and reputational risks, weaken the effectiveness of EU restrictive measures, and even affect the stability of the EU financial system. The new guidelines require PSPs and CASPs to use reliable screening systems to prevent users or entities from bypassing restrictive measures. These guidelines will take effect from December 30, 2025.

The Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations will come into effect on December 30

The EU’s dedicated regulation for the cryptocurrency industry, the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), is intended to take effect in the 27 member states on December 30. But some countries have yet to enact legislation to implement MiCA. Portugal’s central bank said on Monday that it had not yet determined which national authority would be responsible for the rules because the legislation had not yet been adopted. Industry associations said the delays in national authorities were partly due to the short time between ESMA’s publication of the final technical standards in October and the implementation date.

Token unlocking:

Beldex (BDX) will unlock approximately 330 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on December 30, 2024, accounting for 4.78% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$26.1 million.

Tribal Token (TRIBL) will unlock approximately 22.07 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on December 30, 2024, accounting for 15.38% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$6.3 million.

Slash Vision Labs (SVL) will unlock approximately 605 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on December 30, 2024, accounting for 12.25% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$3.9 million.

December 31

Policy supervision:

Israel to launch six Bitcoin mutual funds on December 31

The Israel Securities Authority (ISA) has approved six mutual funds that track the price of Bitcoin. These funds will be launched simultaneously on December 31, 2024, and will be launched by Migdal Capital Markets, More, Ayalon, Phoenix Investment, Meitav and IBI. Fund management fees range from 0.25% to 1.5%, and one of the funds is actively managed with the goal of outperforming Bitcoin. Initially, these funds will only trade once a day, but they may be able to trade continuously in the future.

Token unlocking:

Optimism (OP) will unlock approximately 31.34 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on December 31, 2024, accounting for 2.32% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$58.6 million.

Delysium (AGI) will unlock approximately 34.38 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on December 31, 2024, accounting for 2.57% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$5 million.

January 1

Policy supervision:

Russia to ban cryptocurrency mining in 10 regions starting January 1, 2025

According to local Russian media TASS, the Russian government has approved a complete ban on cryptocurrency mining in 10 regions from January 1, 2025, and the ban will last until March 15, 2031. These regions include Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, Chechnya, and the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. The ban applies to mining pool activities and individual mining. In addition, Russia will also impose seasonal mining restrictions on three Siberian regions, including Irkutsk, Buryatia and Transbaikal, during the winter energy peak. In 2025, these restrictions will last from January 1 to March 15, and then be extended from November 15, 2025 to March 15 of the following year.

Project News:

ai16z will announce new token economics proposal around January 1st

Eliza team members revealed in response to PANews questions at the community exchange meeting that the project plans to release two important announcements. First, the project will officially announce the list of all partners to improve the transparency of the project and help the community more clearly understand the partnership and its specific scope. Secondly, regarding token economics, ai16z will announce a new token economics proposal around January 1. The proposal was designed by professionals from multiple teams and will include LP matching mechanisms, DeFi function integration, and other content. In addition, the project also revealed that they have acquired a Launchpad company, which will be used for official agency releases in the future.

Kelp DAO Releases KERNEL Token Economics, Second Round of Airdrop to Start on January 1, 2025

Kelp DAO, the Ethereum liquidity re-staking platform, announced the economic details of the KERNEL token, of which 55% will be allocated to community rewards and airdrops (20% for airdrops and 35% for future community rewards), 5% to the ecosystem and partners, 20% for private sales, and 20% to the team and advisors (the team and private sales tokens have a 6-month lock-up period and will be unlocked within 24 months).

In addition, 20% of KERNEL tokens will be distributed via three rounds of airdrops:

1. First round of airdrop: 10% of the total supply will be allocated, with the snapshot date being December 31, 2024;
2. Second round of airdrops: 5% of the total supply will be distributed from January 1 to April 30, 2025; additional 15% loyalty rewards will be available for staking before January 15, 2025;
3. Subsequent airdrops: Allocation of the remaining 5%, plans to be determined.

KERNEL tokens will be used for governance, re-staking to provide economic security, liquidity mining, and ecosystem revenue buybacks. The Token Generation Event (TGE) is expected to be completed in early Q1 2025.

MANTRA updates OM token economics, its on-chain inflation rate will be reduced to 3% from January 1, 2025

MANTRA, a Layer1 blockchain focused on RWA assets, passed a vote on the OM token economics proposal update last week.

While the proposal proposes to adjust the token issuance schedule, individual allocations received through various activities will remain unchanged. The specific contents of the proposal include:

1. Adjusted the vesting schedule for OM upgrade rewards, with the cliff period ending on March 18, 2025, followed by a linear vesting period that extends until October 16, 2028.
2. 10% of the initial airdrop allocation will be unlocked starting on March 18, 2025, followed by a 6-month cliff period until September 18, 2025. From that date, the remaining rewards will begin to vest in a linear manner and continue until March 18, 2027. In addition, a second phase of anti-sybil checks is proposed for all wallets. There will be no further extensions to the vesting period of airdrop rewards after this date.
3. The cliff period and vesting period for team and core contributor incentives have been extended. The cliff period will end on April 23, 2027, and the vesting period will end on October 22, 2029.
4. The token cliff period for Pre-Seed investors ends on October 23, 2025, and vesting ends on October 23, 2027; the token cliff period for Seed investors ends on April 23, 2025, and vesting ends on April 23, 2026.
5. Ecosystem allocation will remain unchanged, and on-chain inflation will be reduced from 8% to 3% starting January 1, 2025.

Meme trading tool ABOT is gradually shutting down its business, and its Meme function will be removed on January 1, 2025

Meme trading tool ABOT announced that it will gradually shut down its business. The specific arrangements are as follows: service fees will be reduced to 0; Meme functions will be removed from the shelves on January 1, 2025; non-meme functions will be removed from the shelves and the website will be closed on January 7, 2025; new function development will continue until December 31, and real-time problem response will continue before the website is closed.

Governance Voting:

Frax Finance community opens the "Use BlackRock BUIDL as frxUSD support asset" proposal voting, which ends on January 1

The Snapshot page shows that the Frax Finance community has opened a vote to adopt BlackRock BUIDL as the reserve asset for the proposed stablecoin Frax USD (frxUSD). The vote will end on January 1, and the proposal currently has a 100% support rate.

In addition, the Frax community has also launched a proposal vote on "USTB as frxUSD collateral and custody asset" , which aims to introduce USTB to provide stability, liquidity and treasury bill income as a reserve for stablecoins. USTB is used as a collateral asset with an initial cap of US$100 million. Currently, USTB is being evaluated as a source of income for Polygon's PoS Bridge Assets and Sky's USDS reserves. Voting will end on January 1, 2025.

Token unlocking:

Sui (SUI) will unlock approximately 64.19 million tokens at 8:00 am on January 1, 2025 (Beijing time), accounting for 2.19% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$270 million.

ZetaChain (ZETA) will unlock approximately 53.89 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 1, 2025, accounting for 9.35% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$32 million.

Sleepless AI (AI) will unlock approximately 23.21 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 1, 2025, accounting for 17.85% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$14.6 million.

DYDX (DYDX) will unlock approximately 8.33 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 1, 2025, accounting for 1.17% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$12.8 million.

Ethena (ENA) will unlock approximately 12.86 million tokens at 3:00 pm Beijing time on January 1, 2025, accounting for 0.44% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$12.1 million.

Maverick Protocol (MAV) will unlock approximately 36.2 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 1, 2025, accounting for 7.86% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$7.8 million.

Eigenlayer (EIGEN) will unlock approximately 1.29 million tokens at 3:00 am on January 1, 2025 (Beijing time), accounting for 0.61% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$4.4 million.

Sidus (SIDUS) will unlock approximately 448 million tokens at 8:00 am on January 1, 2025 (Beijing time), accounting for 4.05% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$2.1 million.

DODO (DODO) will unlock about 10 million tokens at 8:00 am on January 1, 2025 (Beijing time), accounting for 1.38% of the current circulation and worth about $1.6 million.

Manta Network (MANTA) will unlock approximately 1.87 million tokens at 7:59 am Beijing time on January 1, 2025, accounting for 0.49% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$1.6 million.

January 2

None

January 3

Token unlocking:

Staika (STIK) will unlock approximately 1.57 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 3, 2025, worth approximately US$2.2 million

January 4

Token unlocking:

Alephium (ALPH) will unlock approximately 1.88 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 4, 2025, accounting for 1.95% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$2.5 million;

January 5

Token unlocking:

Cetus Protocol (CETUS) will unlock approximately 8.33 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 5, 2025, accounting for 1.32% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$2.7 million.

Everclear (NEXT) will unlock approximately 20.11 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on January 5, 2025, accounting for 18.82% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$2 million.

Specific time to be determined

Project News:

Bounce Brand: Perpetual Contract Exchange BounceX to Launch Next Week

Bounce Brand tweeted that BounceX will be launched next week, supporting the platform's native token AUCTION as a margin asset. Earlier , Bounce Brand announced that it would launch the perpetual contract exchange BounceX in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Next week's macro outlook: The market tends to remain calm during the New Year's Day holiday, but economic data may slap the Fed in the face

The decline of US stocks on Friday frustrated investors' expectations for the so-called "Santa Claus rally". With the New Year's Day holiday approaching, global financial markets may also tend to remain calm in the coming week. The US ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) may be the only focus of economic data next week, but any policy-related headlines about Trump may also stimulate market volatility. If the economic data slaps the Fed in the face, the dollar's gains may fade. The number of initial jobless claims next week may also become a major driver of the dollar's trend. Any data that shows that the Fed is too cautious about inflation and too optimistic about the labor market may cause the recent rise of the dollar to collapse.