The Daily: McDonald's Instagram hacked to promote token, Aave launches on Era mainnet, Butler and BitBoy to settle lawsuit and more

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The Block2024/08/27 04:37

By:MK Manoylov

McDonald’s Instagram account seemingly hacked to promote Solana token ‘Grimace’NBA All-Star Jimmy Butler and Ben ‘BitBoy’ Armstrong agree to settle Binance-related class action lawsuitBitcoin trades flat following lower U.S. jobs growth revisionThe following is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Wednesday! In today's Daily, we look at how hackers compromised the McDonald's Instagram account to promote a Solana token, an NBA player and a YouTuber agree to settle in a Binance-related class action lawsuit, Bitcoin trades flat and more.

Let's get started.

McDonald's Instagram seemingly hacked to promote 'Grimace' token

The McDonald's Instagram account was compromised on Wednesday to promote a Solana-based memecoin called GRIMACE.

The GRIMACE token quickly surged to a market capitalization of $20 million before plummeting below $1 million, according to Pump.fun data.
The compromised Instagram account labeled GRIMACE as "a McDonald's experiment on Solana," but the post has since been deleted.
The hacker also altered McDonald's Instagram profile page, thanking users for "$700,000 in Solana" and referencing a rug pull.
Pump.fun, a Solana-based memecoin generator, has created over 1.8 million memecoins since its launch in January.
The Solana memecoin market has faced significant volatility in August, with a recent record in weekly outflows attributed to declining memecoin trading activity.

Jimmy Butler and Ben 'BitBoy' Armstrong to settle Binance-related class action lawsuit

YouTuber Ben Armstrong and NBA player Jimmy Butler agreed to settle claims related to promoting unregistered securities for Binance, with a total payment of $340,000 pending court approval.

The class action lawsuit, filed in March 2023, accused Armstrong, Butler and Binance of causing consumer damages, although both celebrities denied any wrongdoing.
The lawsuit alleged that Armstrong and Butler promoted Binance, recruited new customers and earned commissions in addition to claiming that cryptocurrencies like BNB and BUSD are securities.
The settlement follows broader legal actions against Binance, including a lawsuit from the CFTC for unregistered trading activity and allegations from the SEC of illegal operations in the U.S.

Bitcoin trades flat following lower US jobs growth revision

Bitcoin traded flat amid caution in U.S. equity markets following weaker-than-expected U.S. employment data released on Wednesday.

The U.S. Labor Department revised figures showing 818,000 fewer jobs were added between March 2023 and March 2024 than previously estimated, indicating greater economic fragility.
The largest downward adjustment to job growth since 2009 suggests the U.S. job market is weaker than anticipated, raising questions about whether the Federal Reserve has delayed rate cuts based on overstated economic strength.
Despite the cautious market sentiment, Bitcoin ticked up by 0.9%, trading at $59,464, while major European indices closed in positive territory.

Aave launches on Era mainnet

Aave has launched Aave V3 on the Era mainnet, powered by ZKsync, to enhance liquidity and yield generation within the Elastic Chain ecosystem.

The integration of zero-knowledge proof technology in Aave V3 aims to provide users with secure, cost-effective transactions while expanding DeFi scalability and institutional use cases.
The Aave DAO has approved USDC, USDT, WETH and wstETH as the first assets available on Era, and will redistribute ZKsync airdrops through liquidity mining and other incentives.
The Aave ecosystem's expansion into ZKsync includes the ongoing migration of the social media protocol Lens from Polygon to ZKsync, expected in Q4.

Base DeFi protocol BSX raises $6.2 million

BSX Exchange, a DeFi derivatives protocol on the Ethereum Layer 2 network Base, has raised $6.2 million in pre-seed and seed funding rounds led by Blockchain Capital.

The funds will be used to expand BSX beyond derivatives trading, including launching a spot aggregator and earn and staking products in the coming months.
BSX plans to introduce a Layer 3 network on Base in Q1 2025 to optimize its onchain order book and enable permissionless listing of new assets.

Never miss a beat with The Block's daily digest of the most influential events happening across the digital asset ecosystem.

Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.

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