GeckoPulse: The Stablecoin Wars Return!

Stablecoins Battle for Hyperliquid

The Hyperliquid DEX plans to launch its stablecoin under the USDH ticker, but only one issuer will be chosen.

In a recent Discord announcement, the exchange invited stablecoin protocols to submit their proposals, which will then be voted on by Hyperliquid's validators.

Thus far, proposals have been received from issuers such as Paxos, Agora, and Frax.

In Paxos' submission, the team offered stablecoin compliance with MiCA and the GENIUS Act, and proposed using up to 95% of revenues for HYPE buybacks.

Paxos will also add support for HYPE as part of its brokerage infrastructure, which includes PayPal and Venmo.

On the other hand, Frax plans to fully back USDH at a 1:1 ratio with its frxUSD stablecoin, where 100% of the yield generated from Frax's US treasury holdings will go to the Hyperliquid community.

The submission period will end on September 10, before voting begins on September 14.

Since Hyperliquid's USDH announcement last Friday, the price of HYPE has surged by 8.7% from $46.50 to $50.54.

The curtain closes on Kinto

Ethereum Layer-2 Kinto will shut down after being hacked for $1.6M in July.

The attacker took advantage of a vulnerability to mint excess amounts of the network's native K tokens, which were then sold on the open market, crashing the token's price by over 95% at the time.

Although the team raised $1M through the 'Phoenix' lending initiative, additional debt and brutal market conditions proved too much.

Users will have until the end of the month to withdraw their assets, while Phoenix lenders can recoup roughly 76% from the team's treasury.

Besides that, victims from Morpho and Royco can receive up to $1,100, and the option of receiving any funds recovered in the future until they are made whole.

Kinto's native K token has plunged by 83.5% from $2.40 to $0.39 since the announcement.

In Other News…

Solana Strategies (STKE) Going Public. SOL Strategies, a Solana treasury firm has received approval to list its common shares on the Nasdaq Exchange under the ticker STKE. STKE holds around $89M worth of SOL.

Lucky Solo Bitcoin Miner Does It Again. A lucky solo Bitcoin miner has successfully mined block 913,632, earning over $300K. Like many other lucky solo miners, he used Solo CKPool, a mining service that allows individuals to participate in Bitcoin mining without operating a full node.

WLFI “The Scam of All Scams”. Polygon DevRel Bruno Skvorc shared an email from the WLFI’s compliance team, who refused to unlock his WLFI tokens after flagging his wallet address as “high risk”. Skvorc claims he is one of six investors who is subject to a 100% token lock. This news follows after Justin Sun’s WLFI was also frozen.

The Rebirth of FTX (EU). Backpack EU, the owner of FTX EU has registered as Trek Labs Europe, launching a new fully regulated crypto derivatives platform. Backpack EU was allowed to start new operations after they secured a MiFID II license and fulfilled their “promise to refund former FTX EU customers”.

Nemo Protocol Exploited. Sui-based yield trading DeFi platform Nemo Protocol was exploited for $2.4M in stablecoins. Investigations are ongoing and all smart contract activities on the platform are suspended.

Venus Protocol Saves the Day. DeFi lender Venus Protocol announced that they have successfully recovered $11M in crypto to a phishing victim. Venus reportedly detected the suspicious transaction in under 12 hours, paused the platform, then forcefully liquidated the attacker’s holdings via a community approved vote.