Techub News Evening Report: LayerZero Foundation acquires StarGate for 110 million, Bitcoin Mining Difficulty hits an all-time high.

Organizer: Nona

Fear and Greed Index: 62 (Greed) Bitcoin price: $121,474 BTC/ETH Spot ETF Capital Flow (Last Week) BTC net inflow: $246.75 M ETH Net Inflow: $326.83 M

Regulation/Macroeconomics

The Higher People's Court of Liaoning Province has issued a warning about the risks of investing in virtual currency.

The Liaoning Provincial Higher People's Court has issued a risk warning stating that some illegal institutions are speculating under the guise of "financial innovation," "digital assets," and other names. They absorb public funds by issuing so-called "virtual currencies," "virtual assets," and "digital assets," and induce participation in trading by exploiting the public's lack of understanding of stablecoins and others. The court reminds the public to remain highly vigilant about this.

An Ethereum developer was allegedly "detained" in Turkey for suspected involvement in helping others "abuse" Ethereum.

Argentinian Ethereum developer Fede's Intern tweeted that he was detained in Turkey for allegedly assisting others in "misusing" Ethereum. Fede's Intern stated, "The Turkish Interior Minister said I helped others misuse Ethereum. I am completely willing to cooperate with Turkish or any authorities from any country; we did not help anyone do anything, but we will also defend ourselves."

Project/Company Updates

Harvard Management Company disclosed holdings worth approximately $117 million in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF shares.

Harvard Management Company (HMC) submitted a 13F filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showing that it holds shares of BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF IBIT worth approximately $117 million.

Infini Team: If the hacker returns approximately 49.5 million USD of the stolen funds in a timely manner, further legal action will be waived.

The stablecoin payment platform Infini team sent an on-chain message to the attacker again 50 minutes ago, requesting the return of approximately $49.5 million in stolen funds by 20:00 on August 13, 2025. After the return, the attacker can keep all profits as a white hat bounty. If the hacker returns the funds on time, the team will not take further legal action and will issue a written statement of leniency.

The American convenience store chain Sheetz offers a 50% discount to customers who pay with cryptocurrency.

The American convenience store chain Sheetz announced that it will offer a 50% discount to customers who use cryptocurrency for payments during specific times of the day.

The market director of DeepSeek's parent company, Huansheng Quantitative, is under investigation for involvement in a 118 million yuan rebate case.

Recently, the quantitative private equity firm DeepSeek (the parent company of Huansquare Quant) has been embroiled in a kickback case involving an amount as high as 118 million yuan. This case involves Huansquare Quant's market director, Li Cheng, and spans a period of six years. In November last year, Li Cheng was investigated for involvement in broker commission kickbacks. Recent investigations show that between 2018 and 2023, Li Cheng allegedly collaborated with a manager from a brokerage firm to fictitiously assume the identity of a broker, directing Huansquare Quant's trades to a designated brokerage department, thereby extracting performance bonuses under the brokerage's "40% commission on trading" system, totaling 118 million yuan over six years. Of this, more than 20 million yuan flowed to Li Cheng. Currently, several individuals involved in the case have been handed over to the judiciary.

The Singapore Exchange may list cryptocurrency perpetual futures contracts by the end of the year.

The president of the Singapore Exchange stated that the exchange may list cryptocurrency perpetual futures contracts before the end of the year. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency trading is considered unsuitable for retail investors, and related products will primarily be launched to meet institutional demand.

Ant Group: Reports on cooperating to create a rare earth RMB stablecoin are rumors.

Ant Group stated that it has noticed online reports claiming that "Ant Group, together with the People's Bank of China and China Rare Earth Group, is building the world's first rare earth RMB stablecoin," and is using this to lure investors to pay attention to related sectors. Ant Group has never had such plans with the relevant institutions, and the public is advised to be discerning and prevent being deceived.

The LayerZero Foundation proposed to acquire the StarGate cross-chain bridge and its token STG for $110 million.

LayerZero Foundation has proposed to acquire the StarGate cross-chain bridge and its STG token for $110 million. The proposal includes the deactivation of the STG token, allowing STG holders to exchange their tokens for LayerZero's native token ZRO at an exchange rate of 1 STG for 0.08634 ZRO, which equates to a value of $0.1675 per STG and $1.94 per ZRO. Additionally, StarGate will be incorporated into the LayerZero Foundation, and its DAO will be dissolved.

Huajian Medical launches Ethereum treasury strategy

Hua Jian Medical (stock code 01931) announced that it has officially launched the "Global Enhanced Ethereum Treasury with Downside Protection Mechanism" strategy. Based on the strategic layout needs, Ethereum will be used as the core reserve asset, aiming to become the leading listed company in terms of Ethereum reserve scale in the Hong Kong stock market and even globally. The group will use its own funds, stable annual distributable profits, replacement of existing inefficient inventory assets, and multi-dimensional funding sources such as ATM (At-The-Market) continuous financing, adopting a "regular investment" strategy to continuously increase its holdings of Ethereum.

Depth & Foresight

LayerZero proposes to acquire StarGate, with a single-day increase of over 30%: strategic integration or low-cost land grab? A game between DAO and capital.

From a purely strategic perspective, the integration of StarGate into LayerZero can indeed bring about a centralization effect in terms of technology, users, and token value. For ZRO holders, this is almost a risk-free benefit: more revenue, a clear buyback logic, and stronger narrative cohesion.

Valuation Methods for Value-Functional Tokens: A Case Study of BNB Based on Monetary Programming

If the growth rate of a country's currency is synchronized with economic growth, it will not lead to inflation, which is the well-known seigniorage. This means that economic transaction activities require the lubricating function of currency. With a stable velocity of currency circulation, the overall value of the currency will synchronize with the volume of economic transactions.

Viewpoint

The Supreme Procuratorate has "increased the stakes" for crypto traders; has OTC become a high-risk behavior?

Due to the fact that crypto assets (especially stablecoins like USDT and USDC) exist outside of traditional financial regulatory systems and have globally low-cost payment and transaction features, crypto assets have become widely used payment settlement tools in the "black and gray industries." We also see that a large number of cryptocurrency exchanges are actively or passively serving (or even specifically catering to) the black and gray industry, with a trend of downstream crimes moving closer to upstream crimes, resulting in a situation that facilitates the "normalization" of aiding behaviors.

Unveiling the wealth myths of the crypto world, how did they earn their first 10 million in life?

How did the 10 richest tycoons in the cryptocurrency world make their fortunes? Where did their first pot of gold come from? Do they have any exclusive strategies? Remember to take good notes after reading, as these are the paths and pitfalls that these big shots have walked through!