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Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: A bombshell WSJ article stating that the federal government is investigating Tether has the space in a frenzy after the CEO denies any investigation, traders see a bullish future with current election odds, Japanese institutions continue to push for crypto ETFs, and more

Happy Monday, let’s dive in.

Before The Bell

Market Snapshots

• Bitcoin and Ethereum tacked on an extra +1.5% over the weekend but markets seem to have settled in anticipation of what happens with the election

• Polygon (POL) has now reached a critical three-year support level, raising questions about whether a major comeback is possible (CM)

Headline Roundup
^{_{The major headlines driving crypto markets}}

• Tether denied a recent WSJ report that the US government was investigating the stablecoin issuer (CS)

• UK central bank digital currency ‘Britcoin’ will not replace cash in the UK (BBG)

• US prosecutors plan to offer a plea deal to the man accused of hacking the SEC’s X account BBG

• FTX agreed to a $228M settlement with the Bybit exchange that will allow FTX to withdraw $175M in digital assets held on Bybit (CT) 

• Coinbase-incubated Ethereum Layer 2 network Base outranked all other blockchain networks in one-day stablecoin volume (TB)

• Taiwan Semiconductors halted chip shipments to Xiamen Sophgo, a Chinese semiconductor firm linked with Bitcoin miner Bitmain (CG)

• Peter Todd says he isn't in hiding after being fingered as Satoshi Nakamoto, but taking 'Security Measures' (DC)

• Bitcoin options traders are positioning for a bullish trajectory in the days after the US election (TB)

• Microsoft urges shareholders to vote against a proposal to assess Bitcoin as a diversification investment (CD)

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Venture Capital

• Hypercasual Finance, has raised $4 million in a builder round from builders such as Sushiswap, Alliance, and Orange DAO. (CD)

• Zerobase, the real-time ZK prover network rolled out by Salus, raised $5M to create a privacy-preserving compute network tailored for ZK use cases (CD)

• Yala, a liquidity protocol and stablecoin issuer for Bitcoin, raised an $8 million seed round co-led by Polychain Capital and Ethereal Ventures (CD)

Regulation

• Russia published a new crypto law expanding government oversight of crypto assets to mining and related infrastructure (NB)

• A coalition of Japanese financial and crypto firms is pushing for regulators to allow crypto ETFs (CS) 

• South Korea plans to regulate cross-border crypto transactions by late 2025 (CS)

Launches

• Gaming technology startup ‘Improbable’ has announced plans to develop its own layer-1 blockchain, Somnia (DC)

• Lightspark, a company that builds infrastructure for the Bitcoin Lightning Network, Announces New Bitcoin L2 and Upgraded UMA Capabilities (BM)

Cybersecurity

• The hacker that stole ~$20M from a US government crypto wallet returned $19.3M (CR)

• Scammers who allegedly stole 4,100 Bitcoin were charged in US court with wire fraud (CS)

• Crypto exchange BingX released an update geared toward improving the platform’s security after a recent $52M cyber attack (YF)

• The hacker who exploited DeFi lender Radiant Capital transferred $52M to Ethereum (TT)

• The hacker of crypto payments firm Transak gained access to the personalized information of 92,554 users (DH)

• Aark Digital is offering a $225K bounty for the hacker to return $1.5M stolen from the crypto project (CP) 

• Solana token launchpad Pump.fun’s attacker is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea (DC) 

• Aark Digital Offers 15% Bounty to Hacker Responsible for $1.5M Attack on Vaults (CP)

Chart of the Day

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