Biden Campaign Team Plans to Hire Meme Manager to Garner Support from Young Voters

According to The Washington Times, due to difficulties in attracting Gen Z voters, Biden's re-election campaign team is hiring a "Meme Manager" to manage internet content and memes. The job posting on Daybook indicates that this position will be responsible for the campaign's online content, including the creation and management of memes. The Biden campaign team has already adopted the "Dark Brandon" meme, which originated from a misheard event at the Talladega Speedway in 2021 and has since been used by the Biden team as a form of self-deprecation and to attract young people. Biden has used this meme in several recent occasions, including a tweet after the Super Bowl and a video mocking former President Trump. Despite Biden's lower support rate among young voters compared to Trump, the team hopes to enhance interaction with young voters through this new digital strategy. According to a CNN poll at the end of April, Trump had an 11-point lead over Biden among voters aged 18 to 34. Biden's response to the Israel-Hamas war and the TikTok ban issue has caused dissatisfaction among some young voters, affecting his support rate.

US House of Representatives Passes Crypto Bill FIT21

According to CoinDesk, the US House of Representatives passed the "21st Century Financial Innovation and Technology Act" (FIT21) with a vote of 279 to 136. Seventy-one Democrats and 208 Republicans voted in favor, while three Republicans and 133 Democrats voted against. The passage of this bill marks the most significant legislative achievement for the crypto industry in Congress, and it will now be submitted to the Senate for a vote. The FIT21 bill, primarily driven by House Republicans, will establish a regulatory framework for the US crypto market, set consumer protections, designate the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as the primary regulator for digital assets and non-securities spot markets, and more clearly define the standards that make crypto tokens securities or commodities.

Fed April Meeting Minutes: The Path to Lower Inflation is Lengthening, Confidence Not Increased

According to Caixin, at 2 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of its policy meeting held from April 30 to May 1. As expected by the market, Fed officials emphasized that due to disappointing inflation data, the policy rate needs to remain at its current level for longer than previously anticipated.

In the decision announced on May 1, the Fed's monetary policy committee kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5.25%-5.50% for the sixth consecutive time. It also announced that starting in June, the pace of reducing its Treasury holdings would be cut from $60 billion per month to $25 billion. This news, along with a statement from Goldman Sachs CEO Solomon shortly before the release of the minutes predicting "the Fed will not cut rates this year," caused the three major US stock indices to decline continuously after 2 a.m. However, considering that the Fed's "lack of confidence" was already well-known, the overall market decline was relatively restrained.

The minutes indicated that the committee members believed that compared to last year's continuous decline in inflation, there has been a lack of further progress towards the 2% target in recent months. While some members tried to attribute the January data increase to "exceptionally large seasonal distortions" or "some long-term volatile items pushing up inflation," other members pointed out that "price increases are widespread and should not be overly ignored." After a series of discussions, the committee members reached the most important conclusion of the entire report: rate cuts might have to wait a bit longer. The participants noted that they continue to expect inflation to return to 2% in the medium term, but recent data has not increased their confidence in inflation falling. Therefore, the process of reducing inflation may take longer than previously anticipated. Some "multiple participants" even stated that if the risk of further rising inflation materializes in some form, they are willing to tighten policy further. All officials unanimously agreed that rate cuts are not appropriate until they have greater confidence that inflation will fall to 2%.

Bloomberg Analyst: Expected to Receive News from US SEC on Spot Ethereum ETF Early Friday Morning

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas stated on the X platform: "My most optimistic guess is that we will receive news from the US SEC (regarding the spot Ethereum ETF) around 4 p.m. New Jersey time tomorrow (4:00 a.m. Beijing time on Friday)."

Earlier, a Fox reporter indicated that the SEC might approve the 19b-4 filing tomorrow and then work with the issuer on the S-1 in the coming weeks or months.

UK to Hold Early Election on July 4, Crypto-Supporting Conservative Party May Lose

According to CoinDesk, the UK will hold an early election on July 4, and the crypto-supporting Conservative Party may lose. The Conservative Party is committed to making the UK a crypto hub and promoting legislation to recognize digital assets as regulated financial services. In March, UK Prime Minister Sunak hosted members of the crypto community at 10 Downing Street and reiterated the crypto legislation plan. According to the latest polls, the opposition Labour Party is most likely to win the election. The Labour Party has not yet stated its position on crypto legislation but aims to make the UK a tokenization hub and supports the Bank of England's digital pound plan.

OpenAI Reaches Cooperation Agreement with Wall Street Journal Parent Company News Corp, Total Value May Exceed $250 Million

According to Bloomberg, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, News Corp, announced an agreement with OpenAI, allowing OpenAI to use content from a dozen of News Corp's publications in its products. As part of the agreement, OpenAI's services will be able to display news from The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch, and other media. According to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal, the agreement is for five years and may exceed $250 million in total value. Additionally, OpenAI has reached cooperation agreements with several well-known media companies in the US and Europe in recent weeks, including the Financial Times, Dotdash Meredith, and social media company Reddit.

NEAR Foundation Establishes AI Research Lab Focused on Developing AI Developer Tools

NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin tweeted that NEAR will focus on building a user-owned AI ecosystem dedicated to optimizing user privacy and sovereignty. The NEAR Foundation has committed to incubating and investing in AI infrastructure projects based on NEAR, including computing and reasoning, data curation and creator rewards, crowdsourcing and synthetic data markets, smart infrastructure, and more.

The NEAR Foundation has established the @near_ai AI research lab, led by Alex Skidanov and Illia Polosukhin, focusing on developing AI developer tools that allow anyone to build end-to-end Web3 applications without writing code. Illia stated that NEAR is the best platform for building and incubating the next generation of AI projects. As a well-resourced non-profit organization, the NEAR Foundation has strong expertise in AI and Web3 and is capable of driving the user-owned AI movement, providing an alternative to closed, centralized players, and achieving success globally.

Consensys Seeks to Attract Public Investment Using Crypto-Native Methods and is Looking for Acquisition Opportunities

According to DL News, Consensys CEO Joe Lubin stated that Consensys aims to attract public investment using crypto-native methods and is looking for acquisition opportunities. When asked about "Consensys's listing plans," Lubin said, "We have been talking about this for a long time. In our ecosystem, there are different ways to go public. You can launch a protocol, you can tokenize the protocol, you can externalize the project. If we go public in some form, we always prefer to use our own technology."

Lubin was tight-lipped about which specific method would be used, but he did indicate that Consensys might spin off MetaMask or other divisions, such as toolkit developer Infura or Layer2 network Linea. Lubin hinted that Consensys is preparing some projects. He mentioned that Consensys is working with auditing firm KPMG but refused to disclose details.

However, he made it clear that Consensys would choose a blockchain method to go public rather than listing on Nasdaq or other stock exchanges. Lubin said, "If we go public in some form, we always prefer to use our own technology to do something. This does not mean we want to abandon the US capital markets because the US capital markets have depth and liquidity. But maybe there are some ways to use our own technology to go public while still being able to use it."

Fantom Community Passes First Proposal to "Build Sonic Chain," Plans to Support 1:1 Exchange Between FTM and S Tokens

The Fantom Foundation announced that the community has voted to pass its first proposal regarding the upcoming Sonic chain, with a support rate of 99%. FTM will be compatible with Sonic's new token S, achieving a 1:1 exchange upon its release. The proposal states that Sonic will be a new L1 chain and will bridge natively to chains like Ethereum through L2 cross-chain bridges. According to the first governance vote, FTM holders will be able to migrate to Sonic's native token S at a 1:1 ratio at Sonic's genesis. Utilizing the new bridging architecture, Sonic will offer better performance for users and DApp developers than the existing Opera network. Fantom Operations Ltd promises to continue providing validator support for Opera, while Sonic Operations Ltd will support Sonic. The Fantom Foundation will also allocate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of FTM from the treasury to support the development of the Sonic ecosystem, including marketing, business development, migration grants, and more. The governance forum shows that community members have initiated a series of governance proposals regarding the Sonic network, currently seeking community feedback on proposed changes, plans, and initiatives. Upcoming proposals include FTM to S compatibility, S token airdrop plans, Sonic growth plans, and validator rewards.

Taiko Announces TKO Token Economics: Total Supply of 1 Billion Tokens, Genesis Airdrop Up to 5%

According to official news, Ethereum Layer2 project Taiko has announced the TKO token economic model, with a total supply of 1 billion TKO tokens. The distribution ratio is as follows: DAO Tea