Best of unchainedcrypto.com on Kiwi News
Most upvoted by Kiwi News readers
44 stories from unchainedcrypto.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 28 June 2023, with 109 upvotes and 17 comments in total. The latest was shared on 30 January 2025. They are listed below, most upvoted first.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- a16z probably bought $90M of OP token
Venture capital firm a16z has reportedly bought about $90 million of Optimism's native OP token, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The investment is said to be executed under a two-year vesting period, which typically comes with a discounted purchase price relative to the token's trading price. The article notes that Optimism's OP Stack has recently won users such as the Celo blockchain, and that a16z also counts Coinbase among its portfolio companies. A spokesperson for a16z did not respond to requests for comment, and an Optimism spokesperson did not comment on a16z's involvement specifically.
- Coinbase Teases 'cbBTC': a Wrapped Bitcoin Alternative on Base
Coinbase has teased a new wrapped bitcoin token called cbBTC for its layer 2 network Base, which would compete with Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). Base creator Jesse Pollak said on X, "we're going to build a massive bitcoin economy on base," which the article describes as all but confirming the plan. The article says cbBTC could offer lower fees to mint and redeem tokens and draw users who trust the Coinbase brand. The timing follows controversy over WBTC custodian BitGo's plans to move custody to Hong Kong and Singapore, which has prompted MakerDAO and Aave to discuss next steps.
- Ai16z Is Rebranding as ElizaOS After Request From Venture Firm a16z
Ai16z, a Solana-based DAO that uses AI in treasury management and investment, is rebranding as ElizaOS after a request from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), according to a16z crypto managing partner Chris Dixon. Dixon said on the Unchained podcast, "We've asked them to. It just was creating a little bit of confusion." Shaw Walters, founder of Eliza Labs, announced the rebrand in the project's Discord, saying the $ai16z ticker will remain for now, with future changes to be voted on by the community. The rebrand includes no new tokens and no changes to the roadmap, DAO holdings, or governance. The AI16Z token's market cap is $645.6 million, after falling 53% in the last 30 days, per CoinGecko.
- Why the Ethereum Community Is Up in Arms Against a Proposal
Ethereum Foundation researchers Ansgar Dietrichs and Caspar Schwarz-Schilling proposed changing Ethereum's issuance curve to keep the staking ratio balanced, and the proposal has drawn strong opposition from parts of the community. The authors argue that a high staking ratio creates negative externalities, including diminishing real staking yield, inflationary pressure on non-stakers, and centralization risk, with Lido holding 30% of staked ETH. Critics such as Eric.eth, Martin Köppelmann and Jon Charbonneau say the change undermines ETH's monetary stability or only shifts incentives between groups. One community member also argued the move could strengthen SEC arguments that ETH is a security.
- Terraform Labs Founder Do Kwon to Be Extradited to U.S. From Montenegro
Do Kwon, founder and former CEO of Terraform Labs, will be extradited to the United States to face fraud charges, according to a report in the Montenegrin newspaper Pobjeda, following a new Montenegrin High Court ruling. The Court of Appeals had earlier reversed a High Court decision, citing unclear wording and missing justifying facts, and returned the matter to the High Court to decide between extradition to the U.S. or South Korea. Kwon and former CFO Han Chang-Joon were arrested in Podgorica in March 2023 while trying to board a plane to Dubai with falsified travel documents. Kwon faces criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice and civil charges from the SEC.
- Hardware Wallet Firm Trezor Says 66,000 Users Impacted by ‘Security Incident’
Hardware wallet firm Trezor is investigating unauthorized access to a third-party support ticketing portal on January 17, 2024, which may have exposed contact details of up to 66,000 users. Potentially exposed data is limited to user emails and names or nicknames of people who contacted its customer support team. Trezor said no user funds were compromised, but affected users could face phishing attacks. The firm said a malicious actor contacted 41 users by email asking for their seed phrases, and that no recovery seed phrases were disclosed.
- Solana Leaders Encourage Degen Chain to Migrate to Solana
Solana co-founder Raj Gokal and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz encouraged users of Degen Chain, a layer 3 blockchain built on Coinbase's incubated Base, to migrate to Solana amid a dispute with infrastructure firm Conduit. The Degen team said Conduit pushed a bad upgrade in May that caused 54 hours of downtime and $160k in lost user funds, and that Conduit refused to take ownership, withheld sequencer fees and negotiated a contract in bad faith. Conduit founder Andrew Huang said he was surprised by the accusations, that a signed contract was sent and verbally agreed to on Oct. 30, and that Conduit has not received an address to transfer the rollup's ownership.
- Starknet active addresses go down by 71% after airdrop
Starknet's active addresses fell back to their normal range after the airdrop announcement, dropping from 226,576 on Feb. 14 to 70,219 by Feb. 19, in line with the average of the past three months. The article says the spike was a temporary reaction to the airdrop news and that the earlier figure was not typical of the network's usual activity. It links the community backlash to users excluded for missing the 0.005 ETH wallet minimum on Nov. 15, 2023, and to STRK tokens distributed to Ethereum solo stakers. StarkWare Co-Founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson defended the airdrop criteria on the Unchained podcast.
- MetaMask Tests On-Chain Card on Mastercard Payment Network
MetaMask is reportedly testing an entirely on-chain payment card, issued by Baanx and running on Mastercard's network, that would let users spend crypto at any venue that accepts cards. According to a CoinDesk report citing promotional materials and a testing platform it reviewed, the card would be "the first ever truly decentralized web3 payment solution." The report comes after CoinDesk reported in October that Mastercard was exploring collaboration with self-custody wallet firms like MetaMask and Ledger, based on a pitch deck about stablecoin on-chain settlement.
- Nearly Half of Major Crypto Airdrops Peak in Value Within First 2 Weeks
CoinGecko's analysis of 50 major crypto airdrops from early 2020 to February 2024 found that 46% reached their highest valuation within the first two weeks after release, suggesting that recipients may have benefited most from selling relatively quickly. Specifically, 23 of the 50 airdrops peaked during the first 14 days, and the report stated that the best time to sell may be within 14 days of receipt to maximize profits. Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and X2Y2 rose 73% and 121% respectively within two days of trading, while 27 airdrops peaked more than two weeks after distribution, including Uniswap's UNI during the 2021 bull run.
- Ethereum Developers Set March 13 for Ethereum’s Major ‘Dencun’ Network Upgrade
Ethereum developers have set March 13 as the activation date for "Dencun," the network's next upgrade, which introduces "proto-danksharding." The upgrade is described as the most substantial Ethereum update since "Shapella" last April, and it is expected to reduce transaction costs for layer 2 rollups such as Arbitrum and Optimism. Developers chose the date at their biweekly Zoom meeting on Thursday, a day after the upgrade was successfully triggered on the "Holešky" test network.
- Base Memecoin Normie Loses $40 Million in Market Cap After Exploit
NORMIE, a memecoin on the Ethereum layer 2 network Base, lost about $40 million in market cap after an exploiter used a flaw in its smart contract to mint extra tokens. Pseudonymous developer "@ProfoundWatcher" said the code allowing this has no reason to be in the contract and that the attack was "almost certain" to involve someone connected to the team or the contract's writer, unless the contract was a fork of another project. The exploiter's address offered to return 90% of the exploited funds, and the Normie team on X accepted, though its account was then suspended.
- Lido’s Execution Client Diversity Improves as Geth Usage Drops Below 50%
Lido's node operators have substantially diversified Ethereum execution clients, with Geth's share of their validators falling to 46.6% at the end of Q1 2024 from 67.1% in the previous quarter, according to a Lido report published on a Wednesday. Geth usage among Lido validators had fallen each quarter since Q3 2022, when nearly 93% of them ran it. Over a third of Lido validators now use Nethermind, up from 23.2% in Q4 2023, while Besu rose from 6.9% to 14.6%. Lido marketing lead Kasper Rasmussen said the shift shows alternative clients have matured enough for high adoption, and that the trend reflects the value of Ethereum's multi-client approach for network resilience.
- MicroStrategy to Launch Bitcoin-Based Decentralized Identity Solution
MicroStrategy unveiled plans to launch MicroStrategy Orange, an enterprise-grade decentralized identity protocol built on Bitcoin, according to co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor, who presented it at the MicroStrategy World conference in Las Vegas. The platform would use inscriptions in witness data to store and manage decentralized identifiers (DIDs), with user DIDs and public keys inscribed on the Bitcoin network. Saylor said MicroStrategy Orange would be able to process 10,000 DIDs in a single Bitcoin transaction. MicroStrategy also published an unofficial draft of the technical specifications on GitHub.
- Why the new FDIC leadership isn’t convinced Operation Chokepoint 2.0 exists
Acting FDIC Chairman Travis Hill has not seen concrete evidence that Operation Choke Point 2.0, the alleged crypto debanking scheme, existed, according to sources who have spoken with him. Industry leaders on X have said the effort ended with the Biden administration's departure, but Hill's January 10 speech, in which he said there is no place at the FDIC for anyone who pushed banks to stop serving law-abiding customers, was misinterpreted as confirmation. Hill reportedly finds a series of pause letters released in Coinbase's court case with the FDIC to be strong evidence of a concerted effort, while FDIC supervisors would argue the distancing reflected safety and soundness concerns. Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal believes undeniable proof will eventually emerge, and the FDIC declined to comment.
- Airdrops Need to Be More Secure—Here’s How We Can Do It - Unchained
Titus Capilnean, Vice President of Go-to-Market at Civic, argues that blockchain-based tokenized identity can make airdrops more secure without requiring users to reveal their identities. He says airdrops remain vulnerable to Sybil attacks, in which one entity runs multiple fake identities, and that many projects have yet to adopt effective safeguards. Under the proposed approach, a non-transferable token in a user's wallet would confirm attributes such as being a unique human or community member, and projects could set expiration dates on credentials. The article cites Vitalik Buterin's recent comments on blockchain-based identity frameworks as support, and notes that user claims of $630 million in tokens came from a recent zkSync airdrop.
- Friend.Tech Token Reaches All-Time Low as Two Other Metrics Plummet
Friend.Tech's native FRIEND token, total value locked, and protocol revenue have all fallen to or near all-time lows, after the project dropped plans to launch its own blockchain. On Friday, FRIEND slid to 17.7 cents before settling at 20 cents, down 79.2% over 30 days, with market cap at $18 million according to CoinGecko. Total value locked shrank more than 31%, from 2,650 ETH one month ago to 1,820 ETH at presstime, and weekly revenue since June 16 has been under $20,000, per DefiLlama. Nansen identifies Jeffrey "Machi Big Brother" Huang as holding 8.7 million FRIEND tokens.
- Crypto: The Game Is in the Running for a 2024 Emmy Award Nomination
Crypto: The Game (CTG), a native onchain project, is under consideration for a nomination for Outstanding Emerging Media Program at the 2024 Primetime Emmy Awards, which would be believed to be the first such project on an Emmy ballot. The Television Academy is considering it alongside 25 other programs, according to the 2024 nominating ballot for emerging media. The same week, Uniswap Labs acquired the game in its entirety. Dylan Abruscato, CTG founder, said that if nominated, "the next step [is] taking it home," and voting ends June 25 with nominations announced July 17.
- Celebrity Tokens Continue to Bleed With Some Memecoin Traders Losing Six-Figures
Six tokens launched by five mainstream celebrities in late May 2024 showed a similar pattern of an initial price surge followed by a steep drop. Over the prior 24 hours, Iggy Azalea's MOTHER fell 41%, Rich The Kid's RICH slid 52%, and Caitlyn Jenner's Solana token dropped 67%. Lookonchain reported that many traders lost money on Jenner's $JENNER token, including a BOME memecoin trader who lost over $133,000 in a day. Bubblemaps identified insider activity on MOTHER, where insiders bought 20% of the supply at launch before Azalea's announcement, and Lookonchain reported that the wallet that created DAVIDO sold 121.88 million tokens for roughly $474,400.
- Ethereum L2 Networks Reach Record High of 7 Million Distinct Addresses
Distinct addresses interacting with Ethereum layer 2 networks reached an all-time high in the week of May 13 to May 19, 2024, a sign that the rollup-centric roadmap is progressing, according to L2 analytics platform GrowThePie. The count topped seven million, more than double the figure from the last week of 2023. Arbitrum led with 3.7 million addresses, or 52% of the total, while Base was second with nearly 815,000, and Ethereum's base layer had 2.1 million active addresses.
- Why ETH Spot ETFs Could Benefit Stakers and Make Ethereum More Resilient
Spot Ether ETFs will likely exclude staking, which the article says could benefit direct stakers and help balance Ethereum's staking ratio. Fidelity and BlackRock excluded staking in their filings, and Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said on Unchained he expected the SEC to take this route. ETF investors would miss staking rewards of around 3% APY, per Staking Rewards data, which the article says would shift value to those who stake directly or through services like Lido or Rocket Pool. The article adds that the ETFs could also help keep staked ETH from growing too large, though this depends on the SEC never approving staking in these products.
- Tether Expands Beyond Stablecoins With Four New Divisions
Tether is reorganizing into four business divisions, Tether Power, Tether Data, Tether Edu and Tether Finance, as it expands beyond stablecoins, according to a blog post. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the evolution beyond its traditional stablecoin offerings will support cutting-edge technology. Tether Power will pursue sustainable Bitcoin mining, with a $500 million expansion in Uruguay, Paraguay and El Salvador that Ardoino said was nearing completion. Tether Data will focus on emerging technologies such as AI, and Tether Finance will continue the firm's stablecoin products while expanding into financial infrastructure such as a tokenization platform.
- Friend.tech to Migrate From Base to Its Own Blockchain - Unchained
Friend.tech plans to migrate from Coinbase's layer 2 network Base to its own blockchain, Friendchain, using FRIEND as the gas token. The Friend.tech team announced on X on June 8 that it had teamed up with crypto infrastructure platform Conduit to build the network. The token's price rallied over 60% to a high of $1.34 within 30 minutes of the announcement, but had fallen to around $0.70 at the time of writing, according to CoinMarketCap data. Base creator Jesse Pollak said he would be sad if the team left Base but would support its decision.
- Senator Cynthia Lummis on Crypto Support in US Congress - Unchained Podcast
Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, discusses recent crypto regulatory action in Washington, including bipartisan votes to repeal SAB 121 and the SEC's approval of spot ether ETFs. In the Unchained interview, she says the SEC's approach to regulating the industry "is not the American way" and disagrees with how Gary Gensler's SEC is handling it. She also addresses the lack of a clear reason for the SEC's change of heart on ether ETFs, Wyoming-chartered Custodia Bank's denial of a master account, and the ban on a Chinese-owned, Wyoming-based Bitcoin mining firm.
- Frog-Inspired Memecoin PEPE, Seen as ‘ETH Beta,’ Climbs to All-Time High
PEPE, a frog-inspired memecoin, reached an all-time high price of $0.00001454 on May 23, 2024, with a market cap of $5.79 billion, as traders view it as a leveraged bet on ETH. CoinGecko data cited in the article shows PEPE up over 40% in seven days and 3.2% in 24 hours, while the total crypto market cap fell 3.2%. Lookonchain reported one whale withdrew about $8.2 million of PEPE from Binance on Wednesday, and Nansen data showed "smart money" wallets with net inflows of about $444,000 over 24 hours. The gains came as expectations rose for a spot ether ETF approval, after Bloomberg analysts raised their odds from 25% to 75%.
- 39 Ways to Lose Money in Crypto: How to Keep Your Money Safe
The article is a list of 39 ways crypto users have lost money, framed as a safety guide for avoiding such losses. It cites a roughly $1.5 billion loss in 2024 reported by blockchain security firm Immunefi, and it describes methods including honeypot scams, SIM swaps, rug pulls, North Korean exploits and reentrancy attacks. Examples include the DAO hack of 2016, in which the attacker siphoned between $12.6 million and $19.8 million per hour, and Sunny Aggarwal's view that most crypto losses stemmed from lost seed phrases.
- What's Best Way for Ethereum to Grow? Justin Drake and Martin Köppelmann Debate
This Unchained podcast episode, posted November 26, 2024, features Martin Köppelmann, co-founder of Gnosis, and Justin Drake, researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, debating how Ethereum should scale amid competition from rivals such as Solana. The discussion covers the trade-offs between native and based rollups, fragmentation across rollups, and whether Ethereum's deliberate pace of innovation could leave it vulnerable. The hosts also raise whether ETH has strayed from its ultrasound money narrative, which the episode says has been reshaped by Ethereum's shift to rollups and blob data. Show highlights include Drake's optimism about pre-confirmations, and Köppelmann's view that Ethereum is not building for developers.
- Aave on Par With Traditional Banks as Net Deposits Reach All-Time High of $31B
Aave, a decentralized finance lending protocol, has reached a record $31.4 billion in net deposits, a 50% rise from $20.9 billion at the start of November. The Federal Reserve's September 30 data would rank that amount 63rd among insured U.S.-chartered commercial banks by consolidated assets, ahead of Commerce Bank and BNY. Its outstanding loans also hit a record $12.5 billion, and its native token AAVE rose about 14% in 24 hours to $234, a level not seen since April 2022. Part of the rally is tied to a governance proposal that would let AAVE holders collect rewards from protocol fees, though it still requires further steps including an onchain vote.
- The Chopping Block: AI Memecoins, Trump’s Token Flop, & Ethereum’s Malaise
Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra and Robert Leshner discuss AI-powered memecoins, the rise of GOAT token, and Ethereum's rivalry with Solana. They ask whether AI-driven assets are lasting or mostly clever stagecraft, and they analyze Trump's World Liberty Finance token sale, which the description says missed the mark, asking whether accredited investor rules and a lack of memes are to blame. On Ethereum, they debate whether competition among its layer-2 rollups is confusing new users and hurting its narrative against Solana's single-layer approach.
- ETH Is Down Bad, While Layer 2s Are Ripping. Are L2s Parasitic to Ethereum?
Justin Bons and Ryan Berckmans debate whether Ethereum's Layer 2 networks are parasitic to ETH, since rollups collect fees while paying little to the base chain. Bons criticizes L2s for centralizing Ethereum, claims the blockchain trilemma no longer exists, and says Solana has a better roadmap. Berckmans argues that L2s enhance Ethereum's network effects, decentralization and long-term value, and predicts that L2 adoption will surge and drive up L1 fees.
- The Risks of Using Telegram for Crypto Users
Telegram updated its FAQ to clarify how users report illegal content, following the arrest of founder Pavel Durov in Paris last month, but Telegram declined to say what happens after content is flagged. Electronic Frontier Foundation Director of Cybersecurity Eva Galperin says crypto users often overestimate Telegram's security, since only private chats in "Secret Chat" mode are end-to-end encrypted, and that is not the default setting. Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matthew Green has questioned Telegram's MTProto 2.0 protocol, which he says has not been extensively peer-reviewed. Galperin recommends that users who want private communications avoid Telegram and use Signal instead.
- Optimism Plans Layer 2 Hard Fork After Security Audits
Optimism's network has been reverted to a permissioned state while vulnerabilities found in third-party audits are patched, and OP Labs has proposed a "Granite" upgrade to fix them. The upgrade includes smart contract changes and a layer 2 hard fork meant to improve the performance of the fault proof system, which went live on mainnet in June. OP Labs said none of the identified vulnerabilities had been exploited and that no user assets were ever at risk, a claim Mofi Taiwo, a protocol engineer at OP Labs, repeated in the proposal. If the community votes to pass it, the upgrade would execute on Sept. 10 at 16:00:01 UTC, and some governance delegates raised concerns about a hard fork that has not been audited.
- Ethereum User Spends $88,000 to Send $2,200 ETH
An anonymous Ethereum user paid $88,000 in ether fees to send a $2,200 transaction on Sunday, apparently due to a "fat finger" entry error. X user DeFiac first noticed the transaction, and blockchain security firm PeckShield later flagged it. The transaction comes as the median Ethereum gas fee sits at a five-year low of 1-2 gwei, which The Block reports is affecting the ETH issuance schedule. Gnosis co-founder Martin Köppelmann said on X that raising the gas limit could be part of a strategy to boost L1 activity, and he stated that a minimum gas fee of 23.9 gwei is needed to offset validator staking rewards.
- Do Kwon Will Be Extradited to South Korea
Montenegro's Appeals Court ruled on August 1, 2024 that Do Kwon, former CEO and co-founder of Terraform Labs, should be extradited to South Korea rather than the United States, because South Korea was the first country to request his extradition. The ruling was not appealed, so the decision has become final. The article notes that many believe Kwon's punishment would be far less severe in South Korea, and cites Terrence Yang, managing director at Swan Bitcoin, who told Bloomberg in March that a South Korean trial could result in an acquittal or a "comically light sentence." The article also reports, citing SEC court documents, that Montenegro's Prime Minister Milojko Spajic invested in Terraform Labs in 2018, though it is unclear whether Spajic has any ties to Kwon.
- CoinStats Temporarily Shuts Down After 1,590 Wallets Drained - Unchained
CoinStats, a crypto portfolio tracker, said a security incident drained funds from 1,590 wallets and temporarily shut down its platform to isolate the attack. CEO Narek Gevorgyan estimates that about $2 million was drained, with most of the stolen funds reportedly belonging to two wallets that had imported their seed phrases into CoinStats. The attack followed a phishing notification sent to some iOS users inviting them to claim a 14.2 ETH reward, which led to a malicious website. Gevorgyan said the company has significant evidence that the attack was part of a group of hacks described in an FBI report as having ties to North Korea.
- Airdrops Just Aren’t Working Anymore
Airdrops, long a popular way for crypto projects to distribute tokens and attract users, are losing their appeal as "mercenary airdrop farming" becomes more common. Mode, Manta, and Renzo saw significant declines in total value locked (TVL) and activity after their airdrops, and their tokens fell sharply in value as recipients sold. Mode's market cap dropped 67%, from $90 million to $30 million, after six weeks of distribution. Robert Leshner of Robot Ventures said the system "doesn't seem to work that well for distributing a token," and Haseeb Qureshi of Dragonfly said "there must be better ways than this aggressively gamed airdrop system."
- Who Are the Top 3 Delegates of ZKsync’s New Governance Token?
ZKsync's three largest delegates hold 431 million of the 1.12 billion delegated ZK governance tokens, more than a third of the delegated total, according to the article. SyncSwap, the top decentralized exchange on the platform, leads with 261 million tokens, followed by DeFi user Olimpio with 120 million and the analytics platform L2BEAT with 50 million. The article reports that 2.944 billion ZK tokens have been claimed so far, with 78.39% of eligible addresses participating in the airdrop, and that according to Nansen, 41.7% of the top 10,000 addresses have sold their entire allocation.
- ZkSync Users Claim $630 Million Tokens in First Ten Hours of Airdrop
Users of the zkSync layer 2 network had claimed more than 2.62 billion ZK tokens, worth about $630 million, in roughly the first ten hours of the airdrop, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard. Nansen data cited in the article shows 37% of the top 10,000 addresses sold their entire allocations, while 33.4% still hold all of theirs, including two of the top three claimers. After opening near 30 cents, ZK had fallen 27% to 22.8 cents, and the network congestion caused by the event delayed claims and led Binance to suspend ZK withdrawals.
- The Chopping Block: Iggy Azalea, Hamster Kombat, & Airdrop Insights
This episode of The Chopping Block, hosted by Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Robert Leshner, and Tarun Chitra, examines how celebrity-launched memecoins and tap-to-earn games intersect with crypto market sentiment and airdrop design. The hosts discuss Iggy Azalea's $Mother coin and the phenomenon of celebrity-launched memecoins, along with the rapid growth of click-based games like Hamster Kombat. The discussion also covers airdrop controversies involving zkSync and LayerZero, the challenge of Sybil attacks, and the need for clear, ungameable airdrop metrics.
- Web3 Has Given Us the Chance to Own Our Online Data, But Do We Want It?
Web3 has the potential to give users ownership of their online data, but the author argues that onboarding must improve before most people will adopt it. The piece says Web2 users know in general that platforms exploit their data, yet few have moved to Web3 platforms such as Lens, Farcaster and friend.tech. It cites Statista figures showing X's active users falling from 368.4 million in 2022 to 335.7 million today. The author points to Worldcoin, which offered up to $600 for retina scans, as the clearest example of showing people the value of ownership, and to Ethereum Name Service as a way to replace hard-to-read wallet addresses.
- CRV Sitting on Exchanges Reaches an All-Time High as CRV Price Hits All-Time Low
CRV, the token behind the Curve stablecoin exchange, fell 22% to 23.9 cents, an all-time low, on the same day exchange reserves of CRV reached an all-time high. CryptoQuant data showed exchanges holding 613 million CRV worth over $177 million, a 76% rise from the prior day, which the article says is likely a sign traders are offloading tokens. The price decline forced liquidations of Curve founder Michael Egorov, and Arkham Intelligence reported that his positions worth $140 million in CRV were liquidated across 5 protocols. Egorov said on X that the liquidations left 10M of bad debt and that he had already repaid 93% of it.
- Should Ethereum Layer 2s Urgently Decentralize Their Sequencers?
Consensys' Linea halted block production after a $6.8 million exploit on the Velocore DEX, renewing calls to decentralize Ethereum Layer 2 sequencers. Offchain Labs CEO Steven Goldfeder says the sequencer is centralized but validation is not, and that decentralizing sequencers is a "bit smaller than what a lot of people might expect." Galaxy Digital's Christine Kim argues that rollups should also build working fault proofs, robust governance and lower reliance on admin controls, since a decentralized sequencer may be among the hardest goals. Of the top five L2s by TVL, only Arbitrum has a fraud system in place, according to the article.
- Matter Labs Drops All ‘ZK’ Trademark Applications After Being Slammed
Matter Labs, the company behind the zkSync Ethereum layer 2 network, has dropped all of its trademark applications for the term "ZK" after criticism from other industry members. The company had filed applications in nine countries the previous week, and co-founders and executives at StarkWare, Polygon, Algorand, Polyhedra and Kakarot publicly condemned the move as an attempt to annex a public good. In a post on X, Matter Labs said it would have been impossible to agree on a group of people perceived as credibly neutral by nearly everyone.
- [Video] Prometheum & Paradigm Debate: Can Status Quo Work for Crypto?
This Unchained podcast episode debates whether Prometheum, a trading platform that recently acquired a special-purpose broker dealer license for digital asset securities, shows a compliant path for crypto in the United States or shows that the SEC's crypto regime is unworkable. Co-CEO Aaron Kaplan argues the former, while Paradigm Special Counsel Rodrigo Seira maintains the latter. The episode covers whether crypto exchanges can register compliantly after SEC Chair Gary Gensler's public statements, which tokens Prometheum can list, and whether Rodrigo's view that Prometheum has a license but not a business holds up.
Most discussed
- Starknet active addresses go down by 71% after airdrop
- Friend.tech to Migrate From Base to Its Own Blockchain - Unchained
- Ai16z Is Rebranding as ElizaOS After Request From Venture Firm a16z
- Why the Ethereum Community Is Up in Arms Against a Proposal
- Ethereum Developers Set March 13 for Ethereum’s Major ‘Dencun’ Network Upgrade