The 1inch Network unites three separate decentralized protocols, aggregating liquidity from a variety of decentralized exchanges to facilitate cost-efficient transactions. 

Its native token, the 1inch token (1INCH) serves two primary purposes: As a governance token granting voting rights towards the 1inch DAO and as a utility token, where it is used as a connector to achieve high-efficiency routing in the 1inch Liquidity Protocol. It will also be used in the tokenomics of all future protocols developed by the 1inch Network.

1inch

Donovan Choy

McDonald’s this week announced a brand collaboration with Web3 brand Doodles, dubbed the “GM Spread Joy” campaign.



Starting on Nov. 18, McCafe cups will feature Doodles’ signature rainbow-themed graphics. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">drinking out of the McCafé x Doodles Holiday cups exclusively starting 11.18✨☕️ <a href="https://t.co/nBdc8VroYl">pic.twitter.com/nBdc8VroYl</a>&mdash; McDonald&#39;s (@McDonalds) <a href="https://twitter.com/McDonalds/status/1857061165760741780?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Purchasers of any McCafe hot drinks in the US can unlock various goodies including an access pass to the pilot episode of Doodle&#8217;s animated TV series <a href="https://youtu.be/FqxZuwnA4sQ">Dullsville and the Doodleverse</a>, <a href="https://x.com/jyp_nft/status/1857070291060392197/photo/3">digital apparel</a> for a Doodles avatar, and physical enamel pins.



Doodle’s digital apparel can be used within Doodles Stoodio, an avatar creation app that was <a href="https://x.com/doodles/status/1818001988581474812">migrated</a> from the Flow blockchain to the Base L2 in July 2024.



McDonald’s has in the past experimented with Web3 tools for branding like limited NFTs for the <a href="https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/our-stories/article/40-anniversary-mcrib.html">McRib</a> sandwich’s 40th anniversary.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Team Liquid launches fan engagement platform on Sui</h2>



Leading esports organization Team Liquid launched <a href="https://teamliquid.com/myblue">MyBlue</a> on Thursday, a fan engagement platform on the MoveVM-based L1 Sui.



MyBlue is a reinvention of Liquid+, Team Liquid’s original fan platform that <a href="https://teamliquid.com/news/2021/01/27/team-liquid-launches-liquid-plus">launched</a> in 2021.



With MyBlue, Team Liquid fans will be able to customize the mascot avatar of Team Liquid “Blue” with digital collectible items that are earned from completing fan engagement quests such as watching live esports matches, player streams, or general social media engagement.



Fans will also be able to unlock physical merchandise like exclusive signed jerseys, store discounts, in-game currency, or even a trip to an esports event.



Anthony Palma, Head of Gaming Partnerships at Mysten Labs said of the launch: “Through integrating Sui, Team Liquid fans will have a frictionless journey on MyBlue, acquiring collectibles to showcase their fandom without the need for a deep understanding of the underlying blockchain technology the platform is built on.”



Team Liquid’s partnership with Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui, was first announced in February 2024.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">One interesting stat:</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>98% of NFT drops in 2024 are dead, while only 0.2% have been profitable for investors, according to the <a href="https://nftevening.com/state-of-2024-nft-drops/">State of 2024 NFT Drops</a> report.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Also of note:</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>White Rabbit, a crowdfunded anime film on Ethereum by NFT artist pplpleasr and Maciej Kuciama made its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuQMm0J1SK8">world premiere</a> at Devcon 2024 Bangkok. </li>



<li>Solana-based NFT marketplace platform DRiP launches <a href="https://drip.haus/volumes">VOLUMES</a>, a music-focused initiative for indie artists compilations.</li>
</ul>



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Web3 Watch: McDonald’s strikes up branding collaboration with Doodles

Ben Strack

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Pre-election <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/future-crypto-etf-filings-in-limbo">crypto ETF filings</a> that went beyond bitcoin and ether (focused on solana, XRP, etc.) appeared to be fund firms <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/xrp-etf-contingent-on-election-and-sec-appeal">betting on a Trump victory</a> and a change in SEC leadership.&nbsp;



The election outcome is no longer unknown, and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/revisiting-trumps-crypto-promises-after-his-election-win">Trump’s win</a> appears to have made ETF issuers more optimistic of potential approval across more types of funds.



People were thus on the lookout for more filings — ETF Store president Nate Geraci included:



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Prediction… There will be several spot crypto ETF filings this week. XRP, SOL, ADA, etc. Assume multiple issuers were highly prepared for election results. No downside to getting aggressive now.&mdash; Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) <a href="https://twitter.com/NateGeraci/status/1855794053423452381?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 11, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



We indeed saw some fund plans this week.



Canary Capital filed on Tuesday for an ETF that would hold HBAR, the native asset of the Hedera Network. The firm had previously filed for <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/canary-capital-litecoin-etf">XRP- and litecoin-focused products</a>.&nbsp;



Then, Bitwise <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/nysearca/2024/34-101470.pdf">revealed</a> plans on Thursday to have its crypto index fund converted to an ETF. If the SEC allows that, it would trade on NYSE Arca.&nbsp;



This came about a month after NYSE Arca <a href="https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/nyse/markets/nyse-arca/rule-filings/filings/2024/SR-NYSEArca-2024-87.pdf">sought</a> a rule change to have the Grayscale’s <a href="https://www.grayscale.com/crypto-products/grayscale-digital-large-cap-fund">Digital Large Cap Fund</a> trade on its exchange. Hashdex in June <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hashdex-proposes-etf-holding-btc-and-eth">plotted an ETF</a> that would hold both BTC and ETH (and potentially other crypto assets as regulations evolve).&nbsp;



Along with bitcoin and ether, the <a href="https://bitwiseinvestments.com/crypto-funds/bitw">Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund</a>’s holdings include: solana, XRP, cardano, avalanche, bitcoin cash, chainlink, uniswap and polkadot.



It makes sense for issuers to attempt new US crypto launches given the upcoming administration change. Still, we likely won’t see an SEC ruling for a while (and don’t even know yet who Trump will pick to replace SEC Chair Gary Gensler).&nbsp;



ETF.com senior analyst Sumit Roy called this Bitwise/NYSE Arca filing “a major test of the new administration’s views on crypto ETFs and crypto more broadly,” noting <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-files-ripple-appeal-precedent">the SEC has considered XRP a security</a> in the past.



Roy added: “An approval would suggest that the new administration will be much more permissive when it comes to crypto, while a rejection could temper some of the enthusiasm among crypto bulls and clarify what the SEC will allow going forward.”



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Crypto ETFs filings to test an SEC likely to change

Casey Wagner

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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As if we didn’t already have enough lawsuits to keep track of, 18 Republican state attorneys general sued the SEC and Chair Gary Gensler Thursday for allegedly infringing upon states’ rights to enforce the crypto industry.&nbsp;



The states — including Kentucky, Florida and Texas — claim the securities regulator is “attempting to shoehorn digital assets into ill-fitting federal securities laws and inapt disclosure regimes,” according to the complaint.&nbsp;



Their argument is that economic policy, like those concerning cryptocurrency, should be left up to state regulators. The SEC is violating federalism and separation of powers, the attorneys general state.&nbsp;



The language is reminiscent of similar suits we’ve seen in the past. In <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-appeals-sec-rulemaking-petition">Coinbase’s lawsuit</a> against the SEC, the exchange alleged securities regulators were unlawfully overstepping.&nbsp;



“The [SEC] is asserting sweeping new authority over a vibrant, rapidly expanding industry — digital assets,” Coinbase’s team wrote in the opening brief of the case. “But the SEC is pursuing this power grab <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-2023-crypto-enforcement-actions">through enforcement actions</a>, and it has refused to set forth its new interpretation of its enabling statutes in a rulemaking, where the lack of legal basis for its self-aggrandizement would be laid bare.”



The states’ legal action comes as the industry continues to hold out hope that President-elect Donald Trump’s second term will bring a new era of crypto policy. Trump’s campaign promises to “fire Gary Gensler on day one” and hire Tesla CEO Elon Musk to overhaul &#8220;government efficiency” have many crypto fans hopeful the “regulation by enforcement” age is coming to an end.&nbsp;



Gensler, who has not shared any plans to leave the agency, <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/gensler-remarks-pli-s-56th-annual-institute-securities-regulation-111424?utm_source=forward-guidance.beehiiv.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=states-serve-sec">said</a> during a Thursday legal conference in New York that the SEC, under his leadership, has been backed by the law.&nbsp;



“Court after court has agreed with our actions to protect investors and rejected all arguments that the SEC cannot enforce the law when securities are being offered — whatever their form,” Gensler said.&nbsp;



When closing out his Thursday remarks, though, Gensler made a comment that could be an allusion to his possible departure.&nbsp;



“It’s been a great honor to serve with them, doing the people’s work, and ensuring that our capital markets remain the best in the world,” Gensler said, thanking the staff and his fellow commissioners at the agency.&nbsp;



As we wrote about last week, SEC chairs tend to resign when the incoming administration differs from the one under which they were appointed. Former Chair (and new US attorney to the SDNY) Jay Clayton announced his resignation on Nov. 16, 2020 after President Joe Biden won.&nbsp;



I don’t know what’s going to happen. But if history is any indication, I’d keep your eyes peeled on Monday.



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GOP state attorneys general side with crypto industry in suit against SEC

Jack Kubinec

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A month ago, Solana’s onchain demand metrics spiked to all-time highs after a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-ai-bot-goat-memecoin">viral AI memecoin</a> set the trading world alight with fresh interest in AI-crypto integrations. The joke at the time was that a weird <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ai-memecoin-trumps-wlfi-token-sale">AI chat bot had upstaged</a> Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto token launch.



That order of things wouldn’t last long however, as Trump’s presidential election win sent crypto markets surging and overshadowed the resurgent AI-crypto interest. Still, the AI projects spawned and spotlighted during October’s rally have continued apace, even if their star now shines a little less brightly.



There’s still the goat-themed token that started it all, whose chat bot will occasionally post about tokens on X but spends most of its time consumed with edgy posts and uncanny valley AI art. That hasn’t stopped its coin from surging to over $1.1 billion in market capitalization however, leaving the AI bot’s public wallet with almost half a billion-worth in crypto.



Truth_terminal set off a wave of interest surrounding AI agents who interact with humans to do some kind of blockchain action.&nbsp;



Virtuals Protocol is one such project on the Base layer-2. “Pump dot fun for AI agents” lets users purchase tokens associated with autonomous AI agents in hopes of the AI bots attracting more investment as they do more interesting things. The most popular Virtuals agent has sprung to $115 million in market capitalization, a 106% increase over the past 24 hours as much of the Ethereum community gathers for Devcon in Thailand.



But memecoins are the center of the late AI hype, and Solana is the center of memecoins. One new project in this domain is ai16z, a group that has an AI bot which invests in memecoins based on the recommendations of its members. The project came out of daos.fun, a new crowdfunding mechanism for DAOs on Solana <a href="https://x.com/lmrankhan/status/1846257066500923817">spun</a> up at Alliance DAO. Ai16z’s AI version of Marc Andreessen also <a href="https://x.com/pmarca/status/1850312932757770385">drew</a> a social media shoutout from the real life version of the a16z boss, which is apparently becoming an important component of launching a crypto-AI project.



There are also crypto-AI outfits with grander ambitions. This week, I spoke to Ryan Trattner from DAIN protocol, which is a network for onchain AI apps and bots. Trattner, who was formerly a contractor at the Solana University non-profit, thinks that the future will comprise many AI agents doing different things, so he’s helping build DAIN to house them all. He demonstrated to me how an AI agent on the network can <a href="https://x.com/dainprotocol/status/1847780512732950949">order</a> a Chick-Fil-A sandwich and how a different one could trade bitcoin based on Polymarket’s presidential election odds.&nbsp;



Trattner said DAIN could let him “order food in the same [interface] where I&#8217;m trading my memecoins.” That doesn’t strike me as the most in-demand use for AI, but then again, with bitcoin shooting above $90,000, everything seems to be on the table right now.



So even though the headlines and X feeds seemed to have cooled on AI-crypto integrations for the moment, those AI-crypto startups don’t seem to be losing steam.



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Solana AI projects surge despite Trump stealing headlines

Macauley Peterson

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Devcon Bangkok is seeing a lot of debates about Ethereum’s future. The latest keynote on the topic was Martin Koeppelmann of Gnosis, who spoke Friday on the event’s main stage.



Wearing a <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/tornado-cash">Tornado Cash</a> t-shirt, Koeppelmann challenged the status quo of layer-2 <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/rollups">rollups</a>, proposing that Ethereum should instead develop and deploy its own zk-proven rollups.



Köppelmann emphasized the limitations of existing rollups such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/base">Base</a>, which he argued are bringing users not to Ethereum but to corporate-controlled platforms.



&#8220;I have the highest respect for Jesse [Pollack] and Coinbase,&#8221; he remarked, &#8220;but bringing people to those L2 ecosystems is quite different from being on Ethereum.&#8221; He warned of the potential for shareholder-driven decisions — like the introduction of additional fees in the future — that could undermine the Ethereum ethos.



A central critique was the marketing claim that rollups “inherit Ethereum’s security.” While possible in principle, Koeppelmann noted that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/layer-2-secured-by-ethereum">none of them does</a> in practice.



He illustrated vulnerabilities such as central sequencers’ ability to censor withdrawals or manipulate state in DeFi platforms like Aave, <a href="https://x.com/koeppelmann/status/1857053973431103955">as articulated</a> in a Devcon talk by James Prestwhich. Moreover, he noted that most assets on rollups are native to those chains, not subject to Ethereum’s security guarantees.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What would native L2’s look like?</h3>



Koeppelmann envisioned 128 identical interoperable native L2s, rigorously built with Ethereum’s high standards — no multisigs, multiple client implementations, and community scrutiny.



The number is a bit arbitrary, but “the idea is to make it clear that building on Ethereum is a long-term viable option,&#8221; he explained, with a goal to achieve a &#8220;100x increase in effective block space&#8221; over the next two years.



These rollups would maintain strong composability with Ethereum while addressing scalability, cost, and user adoption for billions of users.



Key to his proposal is integrating these rollups into Ethereum’s economic framework. For instance, Ethereum validator rewards could incentivize proof correctness, enhancing security and aligning rollups with Ethereum’s values.



Developers would have the option to build directly &#8220;on Ethereum&#8221; rather than on external ecosystems, with the choice of a specific rollup dependent on the dapp’s needs.



&#8220;If there are other applications you want to regularly interact with [on a specific rollup], then it would be wise to choose that rollup.&#8221; However, for developers requiring only Ethereum mainnet connectivity, &#8220;you should just choose the rollup that is used the least, because that will be the cheapest.&#8221;



He also called for distinct namespaces to prevent address collisions across these L2s, improving cross-chain clarity.



Köppelmann concluded by urging the Ethereum community to act decisively. Without native L2s, he warned, Ethereum’s role could diminish: “The connection between rollups and Ethereum becomes a meme.”&nbsp;



Conversely, embracing native rollups could position Ethereum as “the most important economic zone in the world.”



Ethereum stands at this crossroads, Koeppelmann said, as he challenged the broad community to rethink scalability and governance while staying true to its decentralized ideals.



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Gnosis founder argues Ethereum needs native L2s

David Canellis

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Long ago, skeptics insisted that bitcoin was worthless because it had no intrinsic value. Times have really changed.



BTC wasn’t backed by anything, they’d say. There’s no revenue, cashflow or profits pooling with a single source, so no reliable framework for figuring how much each coin is worth. To zero, they said!



The correct answer was: Bitcoin doesn’t need to be backed by anything. Bitcoin backs bitcoin. After all, the first coins were sold only for the cost of the energy spent to mine them.



Today, there’s so much more to it. Bitcoin isn’t just powered by its industrialized mining sector.&nbsp;



There’s now a whole Crypto-Industrial Complex forging a path for bitcoin and the wider crypto space — and it’s worth almost half a trillion dollars.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="944" height="1067" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png" alt="" class="wp-image-94487" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png?w=944 944w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png?w=265 265w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png?w=906 906w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png?w=227 227w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png?w=231 231w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png?w=194 194w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-14.png?w=71 71w" sizes="(max-width: 944px) 100vw, 944px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The half-trillion behemoth at the heart of crypto</figcaption></figure>



To be clear, the entire crypto market — as in the actual coins and tokens — has a $3 trillion-plus capitalization. The Crypto-Industrial Complex is a different beast.&nbsp;



It consists of the most prominent, influential, valuable entities and vehicles in the industry right now:&nbsp;



Publicly-traded stocks: MicroStrategy, Coinbase, bitcoin miners and ETFs.



Stablecoins: USDT, USDC and USDS (formerly DAI)



DeFi governance: Uniswap and Raydium (DEXs), Aave (lending) and restaking apps (Lido and Jito).



There are, of course, other big players worth including. Perhaps Ethereum giant Consensys, last <a href="https://consensys.io/blog/consensys-raises-450m-series-d-funding">valued</a> at $7 billion in March 2022. Or Solana Labs and Binance, although the latter would’ve almost certainly taken a meaty hit to its valuation after its run-in with the DOJ.



Not to mention the other funds holding billions in crypto altogether that aren’t ETFs, which don’t show up in this data, like Bitwise’s index fund BITW and the ever-expanding roster of Grayscale trusts.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1030" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png" alt="" class="wp-image-94486" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=399 399w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=405 405w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=340 340w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-13.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The Crypto-Industrial Complex now closely follows the price of bitcoin</figcaption></figure>



Still, for many, the Crypto-Industrial Complex as presented here would be the first points of entry into crypto (and, perhaps more critically for this newsletter, their valuations are easily trackable: up 140% year-on-year and 50% above its previous top in 2021).



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Michael Saylor, the bitcoin alpha bull provides the orange pull. </li>



<li>Tether, the stablecoin with a compelling history, reveals just how deep the rabbit hole goes. </li>



<li>Uniswap, Lido and Aave form the basis for DeFi 101.</li>



<li>All while the public miners help keep Bitcoin humming.</li>
</ul>



The Crypto-Industrial Complex is always churning, gobbling up coins much faster than they can be mined and sold.



And here we are, just one more ~10% rally away from $100,000. If it felt unrealistic before, perhaps it’s because the Complex was much smaller than it is today, with fewer players.



Who knows what happens on the other side.



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There’s a $450 billion behemoth forging BTC’s path to $100k

Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Bitcoin once again hit $90,000 early Friday.



Thursday’s pullback, Galaxy’s Alex Thorn tells me, was “anticipated.”



“Some consolidation below the new $93,000 all-time high is healthy; it clears out recent leverage, creating a more stable foundation for another upward move. $100,000 by year’s end is very possible — or we might even see it within weeks,” he said.&nbsp;



We saw bitcoin quickly take on fresh price records before falling back slightly, which left one question on my mind: Wen $100,000?



Sounds like, from my chats with folks, Thorn’s thesis about the end of the year is the general consensus.



Brian Rudick, managing director of research at GSR, told me that “new demand takes time to materialize, and will likely occur over the coming months.”



Admittedly, I wondered aloud if we could see holders hit the sell button when we hit six figures, due to how big of a milestone it’ll be. Rudick, however, doesn’t buy it.&nbsp;



“The possibility of a US strategic bitcoin reserve will likely dampen selling. For example, whereas one may have been happy to let their bitcoin go at $95,000 before, it is now tougher to justify selling at that price when $500k is a real possibility, should the US add it as a reserve asset,” he told me.



Thorn added that the “emerging catalysts, particularly from the Trump transition team, could keep momentum strong, pushing BTC beyond this mark” despite the fact that it’s a “psychological barrier.”



Maybe it’s time to start asking: Wen $500,000?



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Bitcoin could hit $100K ‘within weeks:’ Galaxy

Ethereum circles are endlessly debating whether ETH should be seen as “money” in the same way bitcoin is embraced as a commodity currency.



In a Devcon talk Thursday, Ethereum Foundation researcher Mike Neuder <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HAh09a5Qec">laid out</a> his case for ether’s foundational attributes both as a permissionless and programmable asset, and as a resilient form of decentralized money. Neuder explored how <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/eth">ETH</a> can serve as a secure, global currency— one with intrinsic safeguards for property rights, censorship resistance, and self-sovereignty across the multi-layered Ethereum ecosystem, eventually including its <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/rollups">rollups</a>.



To explain Ethereum’s “permissionlessness,” Neuder referenced Hayek and Friedman on property rights, emphasizing the unique ownership Ethereum provides to holders of ETH being permissionlessly transferable, storable, and programmable.



To distinguish ether from assets whose access can be limited by third parties, Neuder included a critique of centralized stablecoins such USDC and USDT, noting that despite their similar programmability, they lack true property rights. Issuers can, and do <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tether-freezes-funds-doj">freeze funds</a>. For Neuder, this capacity marks ETH as a distinct asset within onchain finance.



A pivotal part of Neuder&#8217;s presentation highlighted the expanding property rights of ETH across <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/layer-2-2">layer-2</a> rollups. But there’s a caveat: Rollups haven’t yet reached a <a href="https://l2beat.com/scaling/summary">Stage 2</a> decentralization classification. Once they do, they will allow users to bridge ETH in and out, permissionlessly, maintaining Ethereum’s property rights.



The ability to force withdrawals ensures that users can always reclaim their assets even if a rollup’s sequencer, or central operator, attempts to censor or disrupt transactions. It’s a core feature of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/layer-2-secured-by-ethereum">what it means to be a layer-2</a> network. <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/arbitrum">Arbitrum One</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/optimism">OP Mainnet</a> have already reached Stage 1.



Neuder detailed Ethereum’s commitment to this mechanism as a way to enhance scaling while protecting users&#8217; autonomy in Ethereum&#8217;s rollup-centric strategy.



The talk also addressed Ethereum’s inflation model compared to other cryptocurrencies, situating it alongside <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/bitcoin">Bitcoin</a> as an increasingly “sound” currency.



Since Ethereum’s transition to <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/proof-of-stake">proof-of-stake</a> in the 2022 <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum-merge">Merge</a>, supply growth has significantly slowed, with inflation sitting near 0.9%. This is comparable to Bitcoin’s current 0.8%, which it will maintain until the next <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/history-of-bitcoin-halvings-2">halving</a> in 2028. Ethereum achieves this balance through a combination of issuance, staking rewards, and an <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/eip-1559">ETH burn mechanism</a> that fluctuates with network demand, effectively absorbing inflationary pressures during periods of high transaction volume.



Neuder argued that this adaptive model is crucial for long-term security, contrasting with Bitcoin&#8217;s fixed supply cap, which <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-network-secure-fees">may pose challenges</a> for future network security once block rewards vanish.



In response to a question about the stability of the ether issuance curve, Neuder acknowledged that adjustments to issuance rates over time — from changes to the block reward under proof-of-work, to current proposals of tweaking the curve — have sparked ongoing debate over the importance of maintaining &#8220;strong assurances&#8221; regarding ether’s total supply.



While Neuder noted that altering the curve could offer benefits — such as averting risks associated with high staking rates or the emergence of a dominant liquid staking token (LST) — he cautioned that frequent changes might undermine confidence in stability.



This uncertainty could in turn impact &#8220;credible neutrality,&#8221; another core value vital for Ethereum&#8217;s long-term resilience. Assessing the long-term trade-offs will require careful analysis, ideally involving input from macroeconomists, Neuder said.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="929" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-94469" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=450 450w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=377 377w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image.jpeg?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://x.com/mikeneuder">Mike Neuder</a></figcaption></figure>



One crucial component of Ethereum’s deflationary mechanics is the blob burn effect resulting from layer-2 activity. Ethereum rollups post transaction data to the Ethereum mainnet in &#8220;blobs&#8221; — bundles of data stored efficiently to reduce costs. As these blobs are published on the mainnet, they <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-blob-base-fee-surges">incur fees</a>, a portion of which is burned, contributing to the overall ETH burn. This design enables Ethereum to absorb more L2 transaction activity without overwhelming the base layer, maintaining lower L1 gas fees.



As L2 usage grows, so does the blob burn effect, intensifying Ethereum’s deflationary pressure during periods of high activity, such as we are seeing this week.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="679" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png" alt="" class="wp-image-94468" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-12.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/eth">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>



The total dollar value of ETH burned, over time, spiked dramatically beginning in early November to nearly $15 million. This increase in burned ETH is due to heightened network activity, as transaction fees contribute to the burn rate. As a ratio, the burn ratio reached 182%, resulting in a net reduction of ETH supply in recent days.



Some within the Ethereum community prefer to de-emphasize the role of ether as “sound” money, or even dismiss it outright.



For instance, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin tends to <a href="https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html">discuss</a> Ethereum’s value in terms of its programmability, flexibility, and commitment to decentralization rather than focusing on ETH as a purely monetary asset.There’s a balance to be struck, and Neuder underlined Ethereum’s prime aim, to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-inclusion-lists-scrutiny">retain</a> credible neutrality and censorship resistance, positioning ETH as a form of digital money grounded in the ethos of self-sovereignty.



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ETH as money? Exploring ether’s unique role

It’s been a busy week for crypto M&amp;A — a signal the post-election sentiment shift could be a catalyst for even more such deals.&nbsp;



Architect Partners founder Eric Risley noted that crypto regulatory uncertainty in the US has put a damper on M&amp;A activity, given the country’s “outsized influence” on that front.



But Donald Trump’s election victory has spurred crypto price momentum, in part due to industry expectations around greater regulatory clarity and a less antagonistic approach to the segment.&nbsp;



“It&#8217;s frankly too early to have a clear vision as to exactly what those regulations will look like or timing,” Risley said. “However, it&#8217;s clear the tide is shifting.”



Since hitting a peak in March, trading volumes have been roughly flat over the past six months. The number of crypto M&amp;A deals shrunk from 50 during the second quarter to 35 in Q3, Architect Partners data shows.



“Perhaps we&#8217;re now at a new level of sustainable volume which is a major factor in the growth and profitability of trading-related crypto businesses,” Risley explained.&nbsp;



Six of the 22 crypto M&amp;A deals so far announced in Q4 were revealed this week.&nbsp;



That includes two asset management-centric transactions shared yesterday: Bitwise’s buy of Ethereum staking provider Attestant and an intended merge between Arca and BlockTower. Then this morning, Crypto.com said it bought Fintek Securities, a brokerage service and trading company with an Australian Financial Services Licence.



And let’s not forget the other big deal last month (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stripe-bridge-acquisition-stablecoin-infrastructure">Stripe’s buy of Bridge</a>), which Risley said “caught senior executive and board level attention across a broad array of crypto and traditional financial services companies.”



The tldr? Crypto M&amp;A developments could accelerate in Q4 and 2025, perhaps serving as a barometer for the sector’s trajectory.



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Latest crypto M&A deals signal ‘the tide is shifting’

Felix Jauvin

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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As investors and market participants begin to digest the impact of Donald Trump’s win and the red Congressional sweep that came with it, the focus is now on trying to unpack how Trump’s unique perspective on economics, global trade policy and the global American security complex will play out.



Many things were said during the campaign. The difficult part of trying to gauge which promises are both realistic and probable now begins.&nbsp;



This week I sat down with Dr. Stephen Miran, fellow at the Manhattan Institute and senior strategist at Hudson Bay Capital. Miran was also at the US Treasury during the first Trump Administration.&nbsp;



His latest economic paper provides a toolkit of how to unpack and understand a world of increased global tariffs and other protectionist economic policies.&nbsp;



Titled “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System”, the paper is a fascinating roadmap into understanding the ultimate question surrounding a heavyhanded tariff policy: Will it be inflationary or not?



Stephen began our interview discussing the “Triffin world” we live in. Simply put, a Triffin world is the consequence that comes with being the global reserve currency.&nbsp;



The dollar’s status has for decades resulted in an overvalued currency (when compared to interest rate parity theory) and persistent and rising twin deficits (both a fiscal and a trade deficit).&nbsp;



A Triffin world can quickly become a crisis for the reserve currency issuer &#8211; i.e a Triffin’s dilemma, when the total share of global GDP secularly declines — like it has for the US in recent years:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1089" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png" alt="" class="wp-image-94459" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=378 378w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=383 383w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=322 322w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-11.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Because of this, deficits widen and further strain the priorities of the reserve currency, creating an imbalance between domestic and international priorities.&nbsp;



As proposed by Trump and analyzed by Dr. Miran, one way to “recalibrate” this strain is through either tariffs that rebalance these trade imbalances or an outright currency devaluation that brings the US dollar back in line with interest rate differentials.&nbsp;



The big question from here is what could the impact of a tariff-heavy policy on domestic inflation be? How much of the price increases gets passed onto consumers?&nbsp;



As Dr. Miran analyzes in the paper, the key to this question lies in how much the currency offsets the increase in price:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="712" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png" alt="" class="wp-image-94458" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-10.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Further, one of the key considerations for these tariffs being implemented is the context of the business cycle that we are in, as this will, in part, determine the tariffs’ success.&nbsp;



The other side of the coin that the paper and interview discuss is outright multilateral and unilateral currency agreements and how they could also help recalibrate the USA from spiraling into a Triffin dilemma.&nbsp;



As for understanding the specifics of what style of currency agreement would work best, well you’re just going to have to listen to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65aE9KFMR3Y">interview</a> to find out.



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Unpacking Trump’s potential tariff policies

Sling Money, a global peer-to-peer payments app leveraging stablecoins and Solana, has launched for users with US bank accounts, the startup announced this morning.&nbsp;



The app was conceived as a global equivalent to Venmo that uses the Solana network and Paxos’ USDP stablecoin to move money around instantly for low fees. The move comes as the crypto industry as a whole seems emboldened operating in the US following Donald Trump’s presidential election win last week.&nbsp;



Sling Money was founded in 2022 by Mike Hudack, who previously was chief product officer at the UK-based neobank Monzo. I spoke with Hudack back in August, and he said he became interested in building a global Venmo with crypto rails after sending crypto from London to a friend in San Francisco while investing in a Montana-based DAO. The KYC protocol and wallet onboarding was onerous, but the payment went through almost instantly, and Hudack realized he’d hit on something useful.



Since then, Sling Money has deployed in more than 75 countries, which now includes the US. By using stablecoins in tandem with Solana, which charges a fraction of a cent in transaction fees, Sling Money is very efficient, at least if you put aside the question of on- and off-ramping funds. It also plans to make use of RTP and FedNow, which are faster payments networks developed by banks and the Federal Reserve.



Sling Money has raised $20 million in seed and Series A funding, but its cap table doesn’t have typical crypto names on it: Union Square Ventures led its Series A in August, and Ribbit Capital and Slow Ventures are also investors. USV does a good number of crypto deals — it notably invested in Coinbase — but it is more of a generalist tech outfit. The same can be said for Ribbit and Slow. This is all to say that Sling Money isn’t really styled as a crypto app, and it doesn’t feel like one when you use it for peer-to-peer payments.



“It’s not necessarily a crypto product or a fiat product. It’s a payments product,” Hudack told me in August.



Venmo, the PayPal-owned payment platform with tens of millions of accounts in the United States, is the incumbent that Sling Money will have to chase. Like Venmo, Sling charges no transfer fees.&nbsp;



In an email, Hudack said he plans to pry away Venmo’s market share by starting “where Venmo isn’t” — that is, through international payments. Hudack said the team plans to follow WhatsApp’s growth model by building a “critical mass” of users for its international offering before convincing them that its product is good for use at home, too.&nbsp;



Hudack added that Sling Money’s bank transfers are faster than Venmo’s, and it sees a potential opportunity to undercut the 1.5-3% that Venmo charges for instant bank withdrawals.



Ben Mills, who is a Solana ecosystem founder who previously headed up product at Venmo, told me on the Lightspeed podcast that despite all its users, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOCmHx8Dids">Venmo was not profitable</a>. The legacy money transfer system is riddled with expenses that Venmo abstracts away, but Mills compared this to “putting lipstick on a pig.” With cheap and instant transfers facilitated on blockchain rails, Sling Money could ditch some of these expenses altogether.



“As a society we’ve spent the last ~25 years connecting the world through media,” Hudack said. “You can stream video from any point on earth to any other point on earth, you can text anyone in the world, you can email, you can have a voice call with anyone on the planet. All for free. We’ve got the technology now to connect the entire world financially and we’re going to do it.”



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Sling Money opens ‘global Venmo’ to US users

Jersey City’s pension fund plans to buy bitcoin ETFs in the coming weeks after starting the process to allocate to such products earlier this year.



The upcoming purchase comes after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/revisiting-trumps-crypto-promises-after-his-election-win">Donald Trump’s election win</a>, which industry watchers have said is likely to spur <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/matt-hougan-crypto-reputational-risk">another wave of institutional crypto adoption</a>.



“Would we have liked to get involved at $60,000 as opposed to $90,000?” Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said Tuesday. “The answer’s obviously yes. But I think if you look in a year or two years from now, it’ll still be much higher than it is today.”



Fulop, a Democrat, said in July that Jersey City’s pension fund was planning on getting exposure to BTC funds. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Not my normal subject matter in a post but I’ll share anyway &#8211; the question on whether Crypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is largely over + crypto/Bitcoin won. The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JerseyCity?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JerseyCity</a> pension fund is in process of updating paperwork to the SEC to allocate % of the fund to Bitcoin ETFs… <a href="https://t.co/5iNEqRqHGM">https://t.co/5iNEqRqHGM</a>&mdash; Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) <a href="https://twitter.com/StevenFulop/status/1816452663191450015?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 25, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Jersey City Business Administrator John Metro said he and Fulop started talking about this around the time <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/wisconsin-discloses-blackrock-ibit-shares">Wisconsin’s investment board revealed</a> a roughly $100 million allocation in bitcoin ETFs. That was back in May.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/btc-exposure-pensions-endowments">Pensions’ move to BTC is slow, steady</a>&nbsp;



Metro then presented the idea to the pension fund’s board, composed of five commissioners. The board had questions — such as the time horizon it might hold the BTC products — but did not show opposition, the Jersey City officials noted.&nbsp;



Because of the limited track record for the US spot bitcoin ETFs (they <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/how-we-got-here-bitcoin-etf">launched in January</a>) compared to other assets with year-over-year track records, the board had to update some of its investment rules.&nbsp;



That was done about a month ago, Metro said. And standard protocol, he added, is for the pension fund to abstain from making any significant changes in the month of an election, due to volatility.&nbsp;



“Now that the asset is identified as part of our investment strategy, we’ll actually go to the physical market in the next three weeks,” Metro told Blockworks Tuesday. He noted the post-election time was not intended, but rather how the timeline played out given the various steps needed before allocating.



The pension fund — with about $225 million — is looking at the BTC products offered by BlackRock and Fidelity, given their high volumes. It could look to establish a 2% or so position in bitcoin ETFs as a start, the officials said — trimming allocations in other assets to make room.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Fulop and Metro didn’t detail which assets it would reduce exposure to. However, the mayor did note the similarity between gold and bitcoin when it comes to serving as a “store of value.”



“And if you think about the utility relative to gold, in many ways bitcoin is more advantageous in the sense that you can move bitcoin around instantaneously,” Fulop added.



Keep reading for more excerpts from my interview with Fulop.



______________________________________________________________________



Blockworks: When did you first get interested in crypto? Fulop: I have been a believer in the importance of crypto and blockchain — both separately — since 2018, 2019. I’ve been a personal investor for some time in different cryptocurrencies. I believe in the technology, I think it’s important and I think at this point it’s inevitable. The conversation about whether it’s going to exist long term, or not exist, has been put to bed. I think we all recognize it’s here to stay long term and it’s an asset class in and of its own.



Blockworks: What do you make of Donald Trump’s crypto stance?



Fulop: His policies and his comments certainly reflect the fact that he’s a supporter. Now, who knows in actuality how he feels about it. But I do think that he’s politically smart in the fact there are tens of millions of crypto wallets out there among Americans — particularly younger Americans.&nbsp;



So capturing that audience, he was very smart to do, and the reality is the people who have those crypto wallets are not only skewing younger but they’re people who certainly believe in the technology, have concerns about fiat money and are looking to be engaged in the political system in a way to make sure that this remains a viable asset class. Do I think he’s going to follow through in promoting or appointing an SEC chairman and individuals that are crypto friendly? Yes. So I think you’re still in the early phases of all this stuff.



Blockworks: Might Jersey City’s pension fund look to allocate to ether ETFs next?



Fulop: The pension fund has only looked at bitcoin at this point. I think that we’re in the early phases of getting people comfortable with a pension fund allocating any resources toward crypto.



I personally think Ethereum is here to stay and I would feel comfortable, but it’s not all my money in the pension funds. And I think pension fund fiduciaries and the board recognize they need to be cautious with that.



Blockworks: Are you considering any other crypto-related policies or initiatives?



Fulop: We haven’t started thinking about accepting crypto or bitcoin as an official payment for anything with regards to City Hall’s day-to-day operations.&nbsp;



And one of the reasons for that is I think there’s a little bit of time before there’s more stability in the price. You’ve seen even over the last week the huge run from $68,000 to $90,000 per coin — and, like I said, I think you’re in the early phases of that. Is that related to Trump? Is that post-halving? What does it look like in 10 years? There’s a lot of questions that create fluctuation. It’s clearly a volatile space; I think that’s fair to say. And, generally speaking, when city governments get involved in accepting a payment for something, you’re not looking for extreme volatility because we have to run an operation here day to day.



This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.



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The Jersey City pension fund’s path to BTC exposure

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Blockchains, when implemented correctly, transcend borders. And US authorities can’t seem to stand it.



All anyone ever really needs to use crypto is a halfway decent device and an internet connection. Even by <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/guides/how-to-run-a-bitcoin-node-from-satellite">satellite</a>.&nbsp;



To the blockchain itself, your location or nationality isn’t a factor. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana don’t care if you’re signing transactions from a cafe in Belize, a WeWork in New York or the mountains of Nepal.&nbsp;



But your IP address — and thus your approximate location — is logged when you use most services built on top of those blockchains. MetaMask collects user IP addresses when using its default relay Infura, for instance, which caused a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/consensys-update-data-practices-privacy-backlash">big fuss</a> when it was found in its privacy policy in 2022.



Uniswap Labs <a href="https://support.uniswap.org/hc/en-us/articles/30934457771405-Uniswap-Labs-Privacy-Policy#:~:text=Uniswap%20Labs%20does%20not%20collect,your%20use%20of%20the%20Services.">says</a> it does not retain personal information, including IP addresses, but the data is still transmitted to its servers whenever you visit its website.&nbsp;



It’s part of how the internet works, and it allows Uniswap and MetaMask front-ends to geoblock visitors from OFAC-sanctioned jurisdictions. The law states that giving crypto access to users based in those countries would constitute sanctions evasion and even terrorism financing.&nbsp;



It’s also how Polymarket can restrict US users from accessing its platform. If their website’s backend detects an IP address from a local service provider, they’ll be shown an unclosable popup telling them to scram.



Most crypto apps and services do the same or risk a visit from a three-letter agency.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">It’s discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents. We are deeply committed to being non-partisan, and today is no different, but the incumbents should do some self-reflecting…&mdash; Shayne Coplan 🦅 (@shayne_coplan) <a href="https://twitter.com/shayne_coplan/status/1856838409861386722?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



FBI agents reportedly <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/11/13/business/fbi-seizes-polymarket-ceos-phone-electronics-after-betting-platform-predicts-trump-win-source/">confiscated</a> Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan’s phone and devices on Wednesday over concerns that US-based users were skirting Polymarket’s geoblock, which has been in place since a CFTC <a href="https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8478-22">penalty</a> in 2022.



At this point, the geoblock is one of the last “gotcha” tactics from regulators. Of course, geoblocks aren’t completely effective. A basic VPN gets around them, so it’s entirely imaginable that US-based users indeed gambled on the US election via Polymarket.



That’s how Binance was stung by the US government this time last year — knowingly <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/system/files/2023-11/20231121_binance.pdf">allowing</a> users from the US, as well as sanctioned countries including Iran, to trade on the platform. Binance settled for a combined $4.4 billion over the charges.



Authorities stated that Binance executed more than 1.67 million trades between US persons and users in sanctioned locations across five years. Polymarket handled more than 12 million trades in October alone.&nbsp;



How many of those trades included someone in the US? Who knows, and over a long enough timeline, that question will become practically unanswerable.



Anyone from any jurisdiction in the world can, hypothetically, code their own transactions and interact with these smart contracts directly, or at least, fork an app and run the instance themselves without the geoblocking functionality.



After all, there is no need for VPNs to avoid geoblocks if you trade on Uniswap via the command line.&nbsp;



Perhaps blockchain-enabled AI agents that handle our crypto for us directly will be the answer.



Apparently, for US-based crypto entrepreneurs like Coplan, they can’t come soon enough.



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The US government might be cracking down on Polymarket

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Franklin Templeton is launching its Benji tokenization platform on the Ethereum network, marking its fifth launch this year after Aptos, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Base. It was previously only available on Stellar and Polygon.



“The launch of our Benji platform on the Ethereum network represents an important milestone in our ongoing efforts to develop new and innovative blockchain solutions for our clients,” Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul exclusively told us.&nbsp;



“We look forward to further exploring ways in which we can utilize the network’s Ethereum Virtual Machine and smart contract functionality to unlock new capabilities for our tokenized funds.”



According to rwa.xyz data, tokenized treasuries have jumped nearly 2% in the last seven days, boosting their total market cap to over $2.37 billion. Franklin’s onchain market fund sits at $409 million.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1246" height="678" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png" alt="" class="wp-image-94432" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png?w=1246 1246w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-9.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1246px) 100vw, 1246px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: rwa.xyz</figcaption></figure>



Franklin’s is the third largest fund after BlackRock’s BUIDL and Ondo’s USDY.&nbsp;



And perhaps there’s something in the water, because BUIDL is also expanding to different chains, now available on Aptos, Optimism’s OP Mainnet, Polygon, Arbitrum and Avalanche.&nbsp;



I asked Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo if the expansion is a sign of maturity, given that BUIDL is one of the newest funds in the space. Franklin’s, for example, has been around since 2021 and was the first registered money market fund to use blockchain technology to record transactions.&nbsp;



BlackRock’s bullish stride into crypto otherwise really started this year, with the launch of the bitcoin ETFs in January and then BUIDL shortly after.&nbsp;



Domingo said that this is “just the beginning” for the fund and that it plans to roll out more features. He told me that this is also the first time that Securitize has issued the same asset on multiple chains versus picking one chain and issuing the asset there.&nbsp;



“So for us, there&#8217;s been a major change in the way we run our infrastructure on top of the different blockchains, so it&#8217;s encouraging,” he said.



No question about it, the tokenized fund space is heating up.



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Franklin Templeton launches Benji on Ethereum in ‘milestone’ move

Blockchain interoperability is mission-critical for the Web3 industry.&nbsp;



Bogged down by fragmented networks, siloed data, and poor user experiences, the industry continues to pour resources into solutions to overcome these barriers and achieve seamless communication across chains.&nbsp;



In this article, we’ll review the importance of blockchain interoperability, its current challenges, and the potential solutions offered by <a href="https://union.build/">Union</a>, a leading interoperability protocol that connects chains across ecosystems like Ethereum, Cosmos, Bitcoin L2s, and more through modular, permissionless, and hyper-efficient solutions.



Let’s get started with the basics.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Understanding blockchain interoperability</h2>



Blockchain interoperability allows different blockchain networks to communicate and exchange data seamlessly. This connectivity drives liquidity across chains, promoting efficient capital flows and expanding market access for dApps. By breaking down technical barriers, interoperability opens new opportunities for DeFi and other sectors, enabling projects to scale across multiple ecosystems without reliance on a single network.



Without interoperability, blockchains operate in isolation, limiting growth and adoption. Developers often face the challenge of balancing their product vision with the need for access to essential resources like liquidity and users, hindering industry-wide innovation. As blockchain ecosystems and user bases expand, so does the demand for efficient cross-chain interactions. Interoperability’s economic potential is significant: it’s projected to reach <a href="https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/blockchain-interoperability-market">a global market valuation of $3 billion by 2034</a>, rising at a CAGR of 27.5% across the decade.



The economic advantages are particularly evident in unlocking liquidity and accessing broader user bases, enabling capital and assets to flow freely between chains. This connection of previously siloed ecosystems stands to greatly increase the overall efficiency of DeFi and other Web3 sectors, benefiting both developers and end-users alike.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The interoperability models you should know</h3>



Two primary models of blockchain interoperability exist: centralized and decentralized.



In centralized interoperability models, a single entity manages communication between blockchains. While this centralization can lead to greater efficiency, it also introduces vulnerabilities by relying on a single point of control, making the system more susceptible to failures or attacks. In contrast, decentralized networks enhance resilience and security by distributing control across multiple validators or nodes, reducing the likelihood of a single point of failure. This distributed approach can, however, lead to slower decision-making and reduced efficiency.



Union takes a different path.



Instead of trying to balance tradeoffs, Union’s decentralized interoperability framework supersedes the status quo by embracing trust-minimized principles in its modular architecture, allowing for secure and efficient cross-chain communication.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Progression toward consensus verification</h2>



With new chains continuously launching, blockchain ecosystems are becoming increasingly fragmented. As users, applications, and liquidity spread across multiple L1 and L2 layers, secure interoperability becomes essential. This fragmentation, however, can disrupt composability, making cross-chain interactions less efficient.



Consensus mechanisms, such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/proof-of-stake-investors-guide">Proof of Stake (PoS)</a>, are essential for validating and securing transactions within individual blockchains. However, for cross-chain interoperability, consensus verification—where one blockchain verifies that consensus was reached on another—is the gold standard to ensure secure communication between chains. However, consensus verification can be resource-intensive, making it cost-prohibitive to implement in certain ecosystems.



To address these challenges, <a href="https://union.build/blog/consensus-verification">Union integrates Zero-Knowledge (ZK) circuits</a> to reduce the computational complexity of consensus verification.&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">A high-efficiency approach to cross-chain security</h3>



Union builds on the <a href="https://tutorials.cosmos.network/academy/3-ibc/1-what-is-ibc.html">Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC)</a> by embedding consensus verification within ZK circuits. By verifying consensus without needing to validate every validator&#8217;s signature on the counterparty chain, Union’s ZK circuits enable faster, more cost-effective cross-chain interactions. This setup allows one blockchain’s state to be verified within another’s environment without external trust assumptions, minimizing computational overhead while boosting speed and cost-effectiveness.



Notably, Union’s approach supports global interoperability by <a href="https://docs.union.build/architecture/cometbls/">aggregating Boneh–Lynn–Shacham (BLS) signatures within its ZK circuit</a>, which combines multiple validator signatures into a single proof. This boosts security and transaction efficiency while reducing computational costs and latency.



Through its network of ZK Proofs (ZKPs), Union provides a highly efficient cross-chain communication system, validating each chain’s state in real-time and unlocking seamless cross-chain composability.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Modular interoperability: building flexible and scalable solutions</h2>



Modular interoperability refers to the ability to selectively implement interoperability as part of a broader modular architecture. Union offers SDKs that empower developers to integrate multi-chain interoperability without significant overhead, promoting flexibility while ensuring applications can grow smoothly across multiple blockchain ecosystems. This design reduces barriers to entry, supports long-term scalability, and allows developers to adapt their solutions based on specific needs, enabling gradual adoption as demand grows.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Union’s role in the future of interoperability</h2>



Union plays a pivotal role in lowering barriers to entry for developers by simplifying blockchain interoperability. Without advanced solutions, developers face high costs and technical complexity when integrating cross-chain functionality. Union’s SDKs help alleviate these challenges by reducing the effort and expense associated with cross-chain communication, making advanced interoperability accessible to a wider range of projects.



Union differentiates itself by prioritizing scalability, speed, and trustless security, while seamlessly integrating with multiple execution environments like EVM, SVM, and altVMs (supporting languages like Solidity, Rust, and Move). In a sector often reliant on centralized solutions, Union’s decentralized framework drives widespread adoption and innovation. This flexible, efficient architecture reduces computational load, improves scalability, and enables faster, more secure, and cost-effective interactions, making Union adaptable to diverse blockchain ecosystems and an ideal solution for developers aiming to minimize integration costs.



Union’s increasing arsenal of capabilities are highlighted by the following recent innovations:



Intents Bridging Union’s <a href="https://research.union.build/Intents-Bridging-10c79e5af45d80a3a0f8dde7159138af">intents bridging</a> allows third parties, or solvers, to instantly fulfill cross-chain transactions, significantly reducing finality lag. By stepping in to complete transfers before they are finalized, solvers unlock near-instantaneous cross-chain experiences for users while assuming the associated risks. This model not only improves transaction speed but also creates new opportunities for developers to build more efficient and flexible applications by leveraging intent-based mechanisms, further enhancing the liquidity and responsiveness of decentralized networks.



State Lenses <a href="https://research.union.build/State-Lenses-9e3d6578ec0e48fca8e502a0d28f485c">State lenses</a> facilitate direct chain-to-chain connections, allowing transfers to bypass intermediate settlement layers, e.g., transfers can now move directly from Chain A to Chain C, without needing to re-execute the transfer on Chain B. This streamlined approach reduces both latency and computational costs, which enhances Union’s efficiency and scalability, and makes it well-suited for decentralized financial systems and other cross-chain applications.



Unifying Settlement Union acts as a highly efficient <a href="https://research.union.build/Unifying-Settlement-11c79e5af45d80d48a60cb9cfbce1f17">settlement layer</a> by leveraging light client updates similar to rollup settlement functions. With minimal data stored, light clients can verify transaction validity and maintain the state root. Union&#8217;s architecture extends to both ZK and optimistic rollups, enhancing cross-chain settlement speed and flexibility. By incorporating proofs of execution and supporting multiple Data Availability (DA) layers, Union enables fast finality and seamless settlement across ecosystems.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Empowering the future of blockchain interoperability</h2>



Blockchain interoperability is critical for the future of decentralized systems, enabling seamless communication and data transfer between different blockchains. Union plays a pivotal role in driving this evolution by providing modular, permissionless, and highly efficient tools. Through its innovations in consensus verification, ZK Proofs, and decentralized architecture, Union empowers developers to build faster, more secure, and scalable applications across multiple chains.



To learn more about the protocol and get involved in its journey, builders can browse their <a href="https://docs.union.build/">comprehensive documentation</a>. Follow Union on <a href="https://x.com/union_build">X (Twitter)</a> and explore <a href="https://union.build/">their website</a> to stay up to date on all the latest developments in blockchain interoperability.



This content is sponsored and does not serve as an endorsement by Blockworks. The veracity of this content has not been verified and should not serve as financial advice. We encourage readers to conduct their own research before making financial decisions.  



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The Investor’s Guide to Blockchain Interoperability

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Trading app Robinhood on Wednesday added four new cryptocurrencies to its platform: solana, cardano, XRP and memecoin pepe. The move comes after the SEC has, in separate instances, named both SOL and Cardano’s ADA token securities.&nbsp;



The SEC classified SOL and ADA, along with 11 other crypto assets, as securities in its June 2023 <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-sec-rulemaking-appeals-court">lawsuit against Coinbase</a>. That suit is ongoing. Both tokens were also called out in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/forward-guidance-newsletter-wells-notice">Wells notice</a> the securities regulator sent to Crypto.com last month.&nbsp;



Robinhood’s move comes as the crypto industry continues to ride a wave of euphoria and higher prices in the wake of Donald Trump’s win last week. His promises to overhaul SEC leadership and make the US a hub for digital asset businesses have many feeling optimistic.&nbsp;



But let’s consider a scenario. Even if Trump replaces Gary Gensler with another current commissioner, most legal experts agree that Trump can’t actually remove Gensler entirely. So he’d still be a commissioner even if, say, Mark Uyeda becomes acting chair in January.&nbsp;



To drop a lawsuit (such as the one against Coinbase), SEC staff would have to propose it to the commissioners, who would then vote. Even if the vote passes, the SEC would still have to have the motion approved by the court.&nbsp;



A lot of ‘ifs’ here. I wouldn’t hold your breath.



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