Huoxun Finance News, December 2nd - According to CoinDesk, Ethereum developers are refining a zero-knowledge protocol designed to provide stronger privacy guarantees for on-chain interactions, starting with a "secret Santa"-like matching system that is expected to evolve into a wider suite of private collaboration tools. Solidity engineer Artem Chystiakov revisited this research in a post on the Ethereum community forum on Monday, mentioning his work first published on arXiv in January. The concept aims to recreate an anonymous gift-swapping game on Ethereum, where participants are randomly paired and no one knows who is sending whom a gift. However, achieving this on a transparent blockchain requires addressing several long-standing issues surrounding randomness, privacy, and resistance to Sybil attacks. Chystiakov stated that the core problem is simple: "Everything on Ethereum is visible to everyone," the blockchain cannot provide true randomness, and the system must prevent users from registering multiple times or assigning gifts to themselves. The proposed protocol uses zero-knowledge proofs to verify the relationship between sender and receiver without revealing identity information and uses transaction relayers to submit operations, making it impossible for a single wallet to be associated with a specific action. This type of zero-knowledge layer can be applied to anonymous voting, DAO governance, whistleblowing channels, and private airdrops or token distributions that avoid leaking recipient information.

Huoxun Finance reported on December 2nd that Glassnode published an article on the X platform stating that with price levels similar to those on November 21st, the implied volatility of Bitcoin 1-week put options surged to 76%, reflecting strong downside hedging demand in the market. Yesterday, this indicator was only around 63%, indicating a weakening of the current risk premium. Market concerns seem to have eased somewhat, but further price declines could trigger a more drastic price revaluation.

Huoxun Finance News, December 2nd - According to Reuters, ten major European banks, including ING and UniCredit, have formed an Amsterdam-based company to launch a stablecoin pegged to the euro, a move expected to help them counter the US's dominance in digital payments. The group announced at a press conference in Amsterdam on Tuesday that Jan-Oliver Sell, formerly of Coinbase in Germany, will serve as the new company's CEO. Floris Lugt, ING's head of digital assets, will become CFO, and Howard Davies, former chairman of NatWest, will become chairman. The new company's CFO announced that BNP Paribas has also joined the group, a move initially announced in September.

According to Odaily Planet Daily, QwQiao, co-founder of Alliance DAO, stated that if some L1 tokens are considered to have the potential to become "non-sovereign value reserves" in the future, their valuation as a hedge against Bitcoin is not high. He pointed out that Bitcoin may face two major challenges in the future: security budgets and quantum resistance, and protocol solidification may limit its ability to respond quickly. Although he remains optimistic about Bitcoin's long-term position, he emphasized that this is precisely the main logic behind allocating a portion of assets to L1 tokens.

Vanguard, with $11 trillion in assets under management, announced a shift in its previous stance against cryptocurrencies, allowing spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to be traded on its platform starting Tuesday. This move is seen as a significant concession to investor demand. Andrew Kadjeski, head of brokerage and investment at Vanguard, stated that Vanguard aims to provide its more than 50 million brokerage clients with the ability to choose investment products. Clients will be able to buy and sell ETFs and mutual funds holding BTC, ETH, XRP, and Solana. Vanguard joins giants like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton in this move. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF holds $66 billion in BTC assets, but this has declined from its peak of nearly $100 billion. The XRP ETF has attracted $756 million in investments since its launch on November 13th, and the Solana ETF has attracted $605 million in inflows since its launch in October. Vanguard stated that it currently has no plans to launch its own crypto products. (DLnews)