Latest news with #TheProtocol
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Protocol: Ethereum Turns Ten
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Margaux Nijkerk, CoinDesk's Tech & Protocols reporter. In this issue: Ethereum At 10: Where Next For The World Computer? Linea to Burn ETH With Every Transaction in Bold L2 Upgrade Solana Players Unveil 'Internet Capital Markets' Roadmap Square Begins Rollout of Bitcoin Payments for Sellers, Targets Full Availability by 2026 Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Network news 10 YEARS OF ETHEREUM: When Ethereum launched on July 30, 2015, it set out to be more than just another cryptocurrency. It aimed to expand the boundaries of blockchain technology itself. While Bitcoin became digital gold, Ethereum pursued a more expansive vision: to be a decentralized 'World Computer'—programmable, extensible, and open-ended. A decade later, Ethereum has transformed finance, culture and software. Along the way, it has faced existential crises, volatile markets and fierce internal debates. Now, it stands on the cusp of a new era—one that may see it fully embraced by traditional finance. Ethereum has seen an uptick in the last two months as the project hits the 10 year milestone, with the price of ether (ETH) rebounding to reach $3,800 in July, after it languishing around $1,500 as recnetly as April. Over the last few months, the ecosystem has seen a new wave of use cases including tokenization and stablecoin growth, and the network also benefited from the trend of companies holding ETH in their treasuries, not just for long-term value, but to earn yield. On the anniversary, leading players from Ethereum's ecosystem weigh in on the last 10 years. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. LINEA'S COMPREHENSIVE PROTOCOL CHANGES: Linea, an Ethereum layer-2 network incubated by Consensys, has unveiled a comprehensive suite of upgrades designed to embed the network deeper into the layer 1's economic and ideological fabric. Linea's updated road map, expected to roll out in October 2025, introduces ETH-native staking on bridged assets, a protocol-level ETH burn mechanism, and the allocation of 85% of its token supply to ecosystem development. This move comes as momentum in the Ethereum ecosystem is building, thanks to the growing institutional interest. The Linea team wrote in a press release shared with CoinDesk that their updates will 'position Ethereum to meet the needs of sophisticated capital as TradFi begins to onboard to DeFi, and reinforce Linea as a major home of future innovations in on-chain capital markets, staking, and infrastructure.' The team claims that of the updates, Linea will become the first layer 2 to burn ETH at the protocol level and commit 20% of net transaction fees toward reducing Ethereum supply. The remaining 80% of fees will be used to burn LINEA tokens, which are capped in supply, embedding deflationary pressure directly into network activity. 'Linea Mainnet will burn ETH with every transaction, use the LINEA token to support users, builders, and public goods, and return value to Ethereum's base layer, all while growing long-term value in the LINEA token-based economy,' said Declan Fox, Head of Linea, in the press release. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. SOLANA PLAYERS UNVEIL 'INTERNET CAPITAL MARKETS' ROADMAP: Solana's ecosystem is coalescing around an updated vision its architects call 'Internet Capital Markets'—a decentralized, high-performance foundation for the next generation of on-chain financial applications. While the network has long focused on boosting bandwidth and slashing latency, its latest roadmap dives deep into market microstructure, arguing that the next leap forward lies in giving applications granular control over transaction execution. The roadmap, which was coauthored from leaders of the Solana Foundation, Anza, Jito Labs, DoubleZero, Drift and Multicoin Capital, centers on Application-Controlled Execution (ACE), which will give smart contracts millisecond-level authority over transaction sequencing. 'In our conversations with teams across the ecosystem, market microstructure is the single most important problem in Solana today,' the authors wrote. The new roadmap, published by Anza, a core contributor to the Solana blockchain, outlines six critical tradeoff dimensions: privacy vs. transparency, speedbumps vs. unfettered trading, inclusion vs. finality vs. latency, colocation vs. geographic decentralization, makers-first vs. takers-first priorities and flexible vs. opinionated architecture. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. SQUARE BEGINS ROLLOUT OF BTC PAYMENTS FOR SELLERS: Jack Dorsey's Square (XYZ) has begun the rollout of bitcoin payments for merchants on its network. Square began onboarding the first sellers, enabling them to accept Lightning Network-powered BTC payments from customers, Owen Jennings, executive officer at Square's parent company Block (XYZ), posted on X last week. Payments are settled in real-near time using Bitcoin layer-2 Lightning, with Square processing the exchange into fiat. Square plans to make the service available to all merchants using its sales platform by next year. The company piloted the system at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas in May, allowing attendees to make purchases in BTC by scanning a barcode. — Jamie Crawley Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option In Other News Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate owner of bitcoin said it has acquired roughly $2.4 billion worth of BTC using the funds from its new preferred stock (STRC) issuance. The firm sold nearly $2.5 billion worth of STRC, also dubbed "stretch," to investors, significantly more than the originally planned $500 million. STRC, which aims to deliver a regular dividend to investors initially set at a 9% rate, will start trading on Wednesday on Nasdaq. With the proceeds, the company purchased 21,021 BTC at an average price of $117,256, according to a press release. That brings Strategy's bitcoin holdings to 628,791 BTC, worth nearly $74 billion at current prices. — Krisztian Sandor Read more. SharpLink Gaming (SBET), the Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury firm helmed by Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin, unveiled that its ether (ETH) holdings increased to 438,190 tokens, worth roughly $1.68 billion at current prices. The company bought 77,209 ether (ETH), or $297 million, through the week ending on July 27. It has also raised $279 million by selling shares, tapping at-the-market equity facility. The Minneapolis-based firm has pursued an aggressive treasury strategy since its late May pivot, raising funds to accumulate the second-largest cryptocurrency and staking the tokens in exchange for rewards. The firm said it has earned 722 ETH since then. — Kristzian Sandor Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Regulatory and Policy The digital assets industry's most reliable U.S. Senate ally, Cynthia Lummis, has introduced her latest crypto bill, which would ensure mortgage borrowers could use their cryptocurrency holdings to help secure their loans. Last month, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte directed government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to come up with proposals detailing how they can include crypto holdings to underpin a mortgage. Lummis' bill would "permit the holdings of a borrower in a digital asset, evidenced and maintained pursuant to a qualified custodial arrangement, to be included in the reserves of a borrower without conversion of the digital asset to United States dollars" — essentially codifying what Pulte is already seeking. "This legislation embraces an innovative path to wealth-building, keeping in mind the growing number of young Americans who possess digital assets," Lummis said in a statement, suggesting those assets might help bridge the gap to otherwise unobtainable home ownership. — Jesse Hamilton Read more. Roman Storm, the Tornado Cash developer standing trial in Manhattan on charges that the privacy tool he created helped hackers and other cyber criminals launder more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds, won't take the stand, his lawyers told the court. Storm told District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) that he was aware that he had the right to testify in his own defense but chose not to. After Storm made his decision, his defense team, led by Keri Axel and Brian Klein of Waymaker LLP, rested their case on Tuesday afternoon. — Cheyenne Ligon Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Calendar Sept. 22-28: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore Oct. 13-15: Digital Asset Summit, London Oct. 16-17: European Blockchain Convention, Barcelona Nov. 17-22: Devconnect, Buenos Aires Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi Feb. 10-12, 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Protocol: Layer-2 Eclipse's Airdrop Goes Live
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Margaux Nijkerk, CoinDesk's Tech & Protocols reporter. In this issue: Eclipse Launches $ES Airdrop, Distributing 15% of Token Supply Risc Zero's 'Boundless' Incentivized Testnet Goes Live Bitcoin Devs Float Proposal to Freeze Quantum-Vulnerable Addresses — Even Satoshi Nakamoto's Aethir and Credible Introduce First DePIN-Powered Credit Card Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Network News ECLIPSE TOKEN GENERATION EVENT: Eclipse, the layer-2 that combines technology from the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, shared that it has gone live with an airdorp of its $ES token. The team behind the network shared that the initial distribution will occur over the next 30 days, and a total of 1 billion $ES tokens have been minted, with distribution structured to go to community incentives and long-term protocol sustainability. Of the supply, 15% is allocated to an airdrop and liquidity provisions for core community members and developers who have supported the network from the start. 35% will support ecosystem growth and research and development, aimed to help scale the network. Contributors will receive 19% of the supply, including team members, with a four year vesting period and three year lockup schedule. The remaining 31% is for early supporters and investors, who are subject to a three year lockup schedule to commit to Eclipse's roadmap long-term. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. RISC-ZERO 'BOUNDLESS' INCENTIVIZED TESTNET GOES LIVE : Boundless, the decentralized zero-knowledge (ZK) compute marketplace powered by RISC Zero, has launched its incentivized testnet (which it is calling 'Mainnet Beta') on Base, Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network. With Boundless' incentivized testnet, developers can build and test applications in an environment as if the protocol is in fully live format. The network has already landed early support from industry heavyweights like the Ethereum Foundation, Wormhole and EigenLayer. A decentralized marketplace for zero-knowledge compute connects those who need zero-knowledge proofs — such as developers building rollups, bridges, or privacy-preserving applications — with a distributed network of independent 'ZK provers or miners' who generate and verify those proofs. Instead of relying on centralized parties, this model allows anyone with the right hardware to contribute computing power and be rewarded for doing that cryptographic work. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. NEW BITCOIN PROPOSAL TO FREEZE QUANTAM-VULNERABLE ADDRESSES: A new Bitcoin draft proposal wants to do what's long been unthinkable: Freeze coins secured by legacy cryptography — including those in Satoshi Nakamoto's wallets — before quantum computers can crack them. That's according to a new draft proposal co-authored by Jameson Lopp and other crypto security researchers, which introduces a phased soft fork that turns quantum migration into a ticking clock. Fail to upgrade, and your coins become unspendable. That includes the roughly 1.1 million BTC tied to early pay-to-pubkey addresses, like those of Satoshi's and other early miners. 'This proposal is radically different from any in Bitcoin's history just as the threat posed by quantum computing is radically different from any other threat in Bitcoin's history,' the authors explained as a motivation for the proposal. 'Never before has Bitcoin faced an existential threat to its cryptographic primitives.' — Shaurya Malwa Read more. THE FIRST DEPIN POWERED CREDIT CARD: Aethir, a decentralized GPU cloud network, has teamed up with Credible Finance, a lending protocol, to introduce what they call the first credit card and loan product powered by a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN). The move is designed to give Aethir's native ATH token holders and node operators access to stablecoin credit without liquidating their tokens — a step toward blending on-chain infrastructure with real-world financial capital. The product, which debuted on Wednesday, lets eligible users collateralize their ATH tokens to access a revolving credit line or preload a no-fee card with ATH or stablecoins on Solana. Loan approvals and limits are determined by Credible's AI-driven credit engine, which evaluates a user's on-chain activity, asset holdings and transaction history. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option In Other News Ripple has expanded its institutional custody services into the Middle East, partnering with UAE-based tokenization platform Ctrl Alt to support Dubai's government-led real estate digitization initiative. The deal will see Ctrl Alt use Ripple's custody infrastructure to store tokenized property title deeds issued by the Dubai Land Department (DLD) on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). — Shaurya Malwa Read more. SharpLink Gaming (SBET), the Nasdaq-listed firm with a crypto treasury strategy centered on ether ETH, on Tuesday said it has become the largest corporate holder of the asset with 280,706 ETH worth roughly $840 million at current prices. The firm raised $413 million via the issuance of over 24 million shares between July 7 and July 11, according to a press release. It purchased a total of 74,656 ETH over the past week at an average price of $2,852 each. Roughly $257 million of that fundraising remained for future ETH acquisitions, the firm said. — Kristzian Sandor Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Regulatory and Policy The House of Representatives on Tuesday did not vote on a procedural motion to advance a trio of crypto bills, but may vote Wednesday to advance the legislation. As it sped into its crypto-focused week on Tuesday, the U.S. House's process toward passing digital assets bills ground to a sudden halt over a procedural vote as members of the House Freedom Caucus objected to the way some of the legislation has developed under Senate dominance. The legislation still has strong, bipartisan support, suggesting the procedural mishap may be overcome as a further vote was scheduled for later Tuesday afternoon. This vote was canceled less than 15 minutes before it was set to begin, so the matter may not be raised again until early Wednesday — the same day the Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act was set to be voted on. — Jesse Hamilton, Stephen Alpher, & Nikilesh De Read more. A 12-person jury has been seated for Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's criminal trial, and opening arguments are set to begin later this afternoon in the Thurgood Marshall courthouse in Lower Manhattan. Seven women and five men with a diverse range of backgrounds and ages will decide whether the U.S. Department of Justice can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Storm engaged in conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. — Cheyenne Ligon & Nikilesh De Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Calendar July 16-18: Web3 Summit, Berlin Sept. 22-28: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore Nov. 17-22: Devconnect, Buenos Aires Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi Feb. 10-12, 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
New York Times
06-06-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Our New Podcast
Health care for transgender youths is deeply personal and important to thousands of American families. It's also one of the most divisive cultural and political issues of our time. Twenty-seven states have banned surgery, hormone treatments or puberty blockers for minors. The Supreme Court will decide soon whether those bans are constitutional. The Times just published a special six-part podcast on the history of these treatments and the contentious debate. It reflects two years of work by Azeen Ghorayshi, who has reported on the intersection of gender and science for a decade, and Austin Mitchell, a senior audio producer. Jodi, who oversees Times newsletters, spoke to Azeen about the project's ambition, how she got people to open up, the biggest surprises in the reporting and how her own work has been weaponized. How was this project different from your prior work on this beat? What were the big unanswered questions you set out to explore? With this audio series, the interviews are more like long, in-depth conversations. People can connect more easily when they hear others in this way, and it can help challenge assumptions. The big question we were trying to answer was, How did we get here? The science and the politics have gotten so entangled, but something this reporting made clear is that politics has been baked in all along. The show is titled 'The Protocol,' after the Dutch Protocol, which grew out of the pioneering treatments in the Netherlands in the 1990s and 2000s. Why start there? Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Protocol: Inside Movement's Token-Dump Scandal
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Margaux Nijkerk, the Ethereum protocol reporter on CoinDesk's Tech team. In this issue: Inside Movement's Token-Dump Scandal: Secret Contracts, Shadow Advisors and Hidden Middlemen Ethereum Could Supercharge Transaction Speed to 2,000 TPS Thanks to Bold New Proposal Bitcoin Debate on Looser Data Limits Brings to Mind the Divisive Ordinals Controversy Coinbase's Base Network Achieves 'Stage 1' Status, Reducing Centralization Risk Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option MOVEMENT'S TOKEN DUMP SCANDAL: Movement, a buzzy crypto startup supported by Trump's World Liberty Financial, was rumored to be closing a $100M series B round. Instead, following a CoinDesk investigation, the network is now at the center of an insider-dealing scandal that has exposed a seedy corner of crypto deal-making. Movement Labs is investigating whether it was misled into signing a market-making agreement that granted an obscure middleman control over 66 million MOVE tokens, triggering a $38 million selloff after the token's debut. Internal contracts show Rentech, a firm with no digital footprint, appearing on both sides of the deal, once as a Web3Port subsidiary and once as an agent of Movement Foundation, raising questions about self-dealing. Foundation officials initially flagged the Rentech deal as 'possibly the worst agreement' they had ever seen; experts warned it created incentives to pump MOVE's price before dumping tokens onto retail investors. The incident has exposed a rift within the Movement's top leadership: executives, legal counsel and advisors are all under scrutiny for their roles in facilitating the arrangement despite internal objections. — Sam Kessler Read more. ETH PROPOSAL AIMS TO RAISE GAS LIMIT CEILING: Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist filed EIP-9698, a plan to let the blockchain's gas limit grow on autopilot over the next four years. The EIP introduces a deterministic 'exponential' schedule baked into client defaults, which nudges the gas limit upward by a tiny preset amount every epoch. These predictable gas limit increases allow current validators to keep their machines up to speed, cutting the need for sudden upgrades. If approved and implemented, the gas limit ceiling would climb from 36 million units to roughly 3.6 billion, allowing an estimated 6,000 simple transfers per block and over 2,000 transactions per second (TPS). Ethereum's current TPS is around 15-20 TPS. — Shaurya Malwa Read more. BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN DATA DEBATES REIGNITES AS DEVELOPERS WEIGH DATA LIMITS: Bitcoin developers are again at odds over how the world's oldest and largest blockchain should handle storing information on-chain, with a proposal to relax long-standing limits on the size of data held sparking fierce debate reminiscent of 2023's battles over Ordinals. The blockchain's OP_RETURN feature allows people to attach a small piece of extra data to a transaction. It is often used for things like notes, timestamps or digital records. The proposed change would remove the 80-byte cap on such data, a limit originally designed to discourage spam and preserve the blockchain's financial integrity. Supporters argue the current limit is pointless because users are already bypassing it by using Taproot transactions, to hide data inside parts of the transaction meant for cryptographic signatures. Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr called the proposal 'utter insanity' and warned that loosening data restrictions would accelerate what he sees as the degradation of Bitcoin's financial-first purpose. — Sam Reynolds Read more. BASE REACHES STAGE 1 ROLLUP STATUS: Base, the popular layer-2 network from cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN), is now a 'stage 1' rollup, said the company, setting up its path towards full decentralization. The transition to a 'stage 1' rollup comes as other layer-2s have also reached that milestone, making these networks less reliant on centralized entities. The move means that Base will now have a security council, a network of ten 'independent entities, which we chose from all around the globe,' said Tom Vieira, the head of product at Base, in an interview with CoinDesk. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option BlackRock is preparing to bring blockchain to the back office of one of its largest funds, filing to offer a digital share class of its $150 billion Treasury Trust money market fund through BNY Mellon. The new 'DLT Shares,' short for distributed ledger technology, won't hold crypto. BNY Mellon, the fund's exclusive distributor, intends to use blockchain to mirror share ownership records, an incremental step that could pave the way for broader adoption of tokenized cash, digital assets, or blockchain-based settlement infrastructure in traditional finance.— Sam Reynolds Read more. Libre, a tokenization firm that works closely with the likes of hedge fund Brevan Howard, investment management firm Hamilton Lane and Nomura's digital assets unit Laser Digital, plans to tokenize $500 million worth of Telegram debt as the blockchain-based Telegram Bond Fund (TBF) on the TON network that's linked to the messaging platform. TBF will offer accredited investors exposure to some of the around $2.35 billion of outstanding bonds issued by Telegram, providing institutional-grade yield products that will also be available as collateral for on-chain borrowing and product development on TON, Libre said. — Ian Allison Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Coinbase (COIN) filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case involving an Internal Revenue Service request for data on hundreds of thousands of its customers back in 2016, arguing the court should "protect Americans' privacy interests in digital information stored by third-party service providers." — Jesse Hamilton Read more. Arizona has broken new ground in what's been a race among U.S. states to see which may become first to set up a crypto reserve as a formal part of their fiscal strategy, getting legislation approved with mostly Republican lawmakers in support. It's unclear whether Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, will look favorably on the legislation that was rejected by most Democratic lawmakers. She has vetoed a long list of bills in this session, and if she vetoes this, too, the matter is closed for the year. — Jesse Hamilton Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option April 30-May 1: Token 2049, Dubai May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto May 19-23: Solana Accelerate, New York City May 20-22: Avalanche Summit, London May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Protocol: Nvidia To Manufacture AI Supercomputers in U.S., New Opportunities for Crypto Miners
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. We're Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler, reporters on CoinDesk's Tech team. In this issue: Can Ethereum Be Truly Private? Developers Push for Encrypted Mempool, Default Privacy Nvidia Moves AI Supercomputer Production to U.S., Opening New Avenues for Crypto Miners MIT-Incubated Optimum Raises $11M Seed Round to Build Web3's Missing Memory Layer Noble's New 'AppLayer' Lets Developers Build Stablecoin Tools on Celestia This article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. PRIVACY HEATS UP AMONG ETHEREUM DEVS: When the U.S. government sanctioned the Ethereum-based crypto mixing service Tornado Cash in 2022, it ignited a debate within the crypto community that continues three years later. Advocates argued that complying with the sanctions amounted to censorship — undermining a fundamental cypherpunk principle. President Donald Trump supported the cypherpunks and lifted the sanctions on Tornado Cash in March of this year, but for some Ethereum developers, the situation highlighted a flaw within the network that still exists today: Why should users depend on third-party apps to transact privately on the network? Perhaps emboldened by the recent Tornado Cash developments, Ethereum developers and researchers have once again begun discussing ideas for making the Ethereum network private at its core. "Privacy must not be an optional feature that users must consciously enable — it must be the default state of the network," said PCaversaccio, whose post outlined his vision for a privacy-oriented Ethereum roadmap. "Ethereum's architecture must be designed to ensure that users are private by default, not by exception." In response to PCaversaccio's post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin left a comment on the network's main developer forum with his own much shorter privacy-oriented Ethereum roadmap. Buterin suggested focusing on privacy for on-chain payments, anonymizing on-chain activity within applications, making communication on the network anonymous, and privatizing on-chain reads. To achieve all of this, Buterin listed various steps like integrating certain third-party privacy features into the core network. — Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler Read more. NVIDIA AI SUPERCOMPUTER PRODUCTION PLANS COULD BENEFIT CRYPTO MINERS: Nvidia plans to manufacture its next generation of AI chips and supercomputers entirely in the U.S. for the first time, the company said in a statement. The move reflects rising demand for AI infrastructure and a broader push to localize advanced tech manufacturing — one that could also benefit crypto miners repurposing their facilities for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). Many of these operators already have access to the large-scale power and cooling systems needed for data center operations, making them potential players in the growing AI economy. Crypto miners, once singularly focused on hashing power, are increasingly looking for ways to fit into the AI and HPC supply chain. Their existing access to power-dense infrastructure and logistical experience in running industrial-scale operations gives them a foothold as demand for AI computation surges. Recent tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump, however, is causing anxiety among miners as the policy changes are expected to raise costs on ASIC miners, electrical components, networking hardware and more.— Helene Braun Read more. MEMORY LAYER OPTIMUM RAISES $11M IN SEED: Optimum, a decentralized, performance-enhancing memory layer for any blockchain, raised an $11 million seed round, inviting its creators from institutions like Harvard and MIT to jump from the world of academia into the commercial crypto arena. The seed round was led by 1kx with participation from Robot Ventures, Finality Capital, Spartan, CMT Digital, SNZ, Triton Capital, Big Brain, CMS, Longhash, NGC, Animoca, GSR, Caladan, Reforge and others. Optimum is building what it calls the missing memory layer of blockchains, making the way data is stored, accessed and propagated, faster, cheaper and truly decentralized, according to a press release. At the core of Optimum's innovation is a method of decentralized coding for distributed systems, known as Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC), developed by Muriel Médard, an MIT professor. — Ian Allison Read more. NOBLE'S NEW 'APPLAYER' LETS DEVELOPERS BUILD STABLECOIN APPS ON TOP OF CELESTIA: Noble, a blockchain for issuing real-world assets (RWA) and stablecoins, announced Wednesday that it will expand its platform by introducing 'AppLayer,' an Ethereum-compatible rollup that allows developers to create their own RWA applications and infrastructure. Noble's AppLayer aims to let developers build new financial tools optimized for real-world assets like stablecoins — digital assets whose value is pegged to another asset, like the U.S. dollar. AppLayer will leverage Celestia, a data availability blockchain that aims to bring down storage costs for data-intensive blockchain networks. Celestia, like Noble, is plugged into the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), meaning it can read smart contracts from other Ethereum-based chains. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. Mantra's OM token fell from over $6 to under $0.45 in a matter of hours on Tuesday with no apparent catalyst. CEO John Mullin said in an X post on Wednesday that he would burn his team's tokens to win back the trust of the Mantra community. Mullin said the price drop resulted from exchanges closing OM positions, but members of the crypto community cast blame on the Mantra team. OKX founder Start Xu referred to the incident as "a big scandal." — Jamie Crawley Read more. Aiming to perhaps replicate Strategy's bitcoin (BTC) playbook, except with solana (SOL), fintech commercial real estate platform Janover (JNVR) has built a SOL stack worth roughly $21 million and seen its share price rise nearly 20-fold in less than a month. The company purchased earlier this week another 80,567 SOL tokens valued at approximately $10.5 million, bringing its total holdings to 163,651. — Krisztian Sandor Read more. DWF Labs is investing $25 million in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the decentralized finance protocol backed by U.S. President Donald Trump and his family. The crypto market maker is also entering the U.S. market with a new office in New York City as part of its broader expansion plans, according to a press release. — Francisco Rodrigues Read more. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not yet ready to make a decision on two critical features that issuers of the spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are hoping to add to their products. The regulator delayed a decision on whether it will allow in-kind redemptions for WisdomTree's Bitcoin Fund (BTCW) and VanEck's Bitcoin Fund (BITB) and Ethereum Fund (ETHW). It also moved its deadline for a decision in regards to a proposal by Grayscale to allow staking its Ethereum Trust (ETHE) and Mini Ethereum Trust (ETH), which the asset manager's exchange, NYSE Arca had requested in February. — Helene Braun Read more. Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange OKX is expanding to the U.S. and establishing a new regional headquarters in San Jose, California. The exchange will rolling out access to its platform and its native OKX Wallet to U.S.-based crypto traders.— Cheyenne Ligon Read more. Search giant Google will only allow cryptocurrency exchanges and software wallets to advertise in the European Union if they hold a license under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, starting April 23, the company announced. Google said advertisers must now obtain a certification from the company and demonstrate they are registered as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) under MiCA. The company also requires advertisers to comply with any additional country-specific legal obligations.—Francisco Rodrigues Read more. April 30-May 1: Token 2049, Dubai May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto May 19-23: Solana Accelerate, New York City May 20-22: Avalanche Summit, London May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore
