Here are some of the major developments from the world of crypto over the past few days.
Micro Strategy, one of the worldwide biggest public holders of Bitcoin BTC $64,675, completed another convertible note transaction to acquire further BTC. A $100 million buy option was included in the $800 million worth of notes that were offered in the transaction. The purchase deal was finalized by the original buyers on June 17.
MicroStrategy aims to utilize the net proceeds from the note offering to acquire further Bitcoin, as well as for other company reasons. MicroStrategy, which was previously helmed by its founder Michael Saylor, entered the Bitcoin market in August 2020 with a $250 million buy.
Saylor also continued to announce fundraising events in 2024 with an objective of billions of dollars through private convertible notes. A March 2024 offering of this kind brought in $604 million to buy 9,245 BTC. The new digital asset fair value accounting standard has not yet been implemented by MicroStrategy.
A US federal judge has approved a civil securities action against Ripple Labs, rejecting the company's request for summary judgment in a complaint claiming that its CEO violated securities laws in California. A judge ruled that a jury will decide if Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse made misleading statements in 2017 but dismissed claims about Ripple failing to register XRP as a security.
Judge Hamilton noted Ripple argued the misleading statement claim should be dismissed. Ripple cited Judge Torres' July 2023 ruling. That ruling stated XRP is not a security under the Howey test. This was in a SEC lawsuit. Ripple maintained XRP's status as not a security. This was in a SEC lawsuit. Ripple's Alderoty noted that this ruling doesn't affect Judge Torres' SEC decision.
Many in the U.S. crypto industry hailed Judge Torres ruling as a huge win for the space lat year, believing other judges would use it as precedent when weighing other crypto issues. Judge Rakoff denied Terraform Labs' dismissal motion, disagreeing with Judge Torres' Ripple ruling. After losing the case, Terraform was forced to settle with the SEC for $4.5 billion.
LayerZero's token launch on June 20 resulted in a large jump in fees on Arbitrum, resulting in a record $3.43 million daily revenue for the blockchain, a 16,680% increase over the previous day. These mechanisms raised the average gas charge on the blockchain to 89 cents, up from the usual less-than-one-cent fee.
LayerZero made it so ZRO token claimants must donate a small amount of money per token. It announced on June 20 that users must give $0.10 in USDC, USDT, or ETH each ZRO to claim. It further stated that the donation goes to the Protocol Guild, which helps fund Ethereum developers. Arbitrum has had its highest revenue day since December 14, when it earned $2.13 million.
Inscriptions are a sort of data formatting that can carry bigger packages than simple transaction data, such as images which makes them expensive due to their size. Meanwhile, ZRO has dropped precipitously. According to Cointelegraph, it is down 23% in the last day to $3.42, having peaked at $4.79 earlier.