Former President Donald Trump speaks Saturday at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville.

Attendees shared their hopes for the speech with CoinDesk.

NASHVILLE — It's finally here: President Donald Trump Bitcoin Conference Speech Eve. That means Friday is the last weekday you'll exist in a world where a U.S. presidential candidate hasn't given the keynote speech at the Bitcoin Conference.

As his appearance looms, people wonder: What will he talk about?

There is speculation he'll announce plans, or at least hopes, for the U.S. government to hoard a bitcoin strategic reserve. Trump has spoken previously about wanting bitcoin {{BTC}} to be made in America, so perhaps that'll come up again. Maybe he'll diss his likely opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for declining an invitation to the very conference he's speaking at.

CoinDesk journalists are in Nashville for the event. Here's what attendees on the show floor and speakers on stage had to say.

'A bold statement'

Venture capitalist and Trump supporter Peter Thiel echoed talking points many hope the former president embraces: "If the U.S. were to have a strategic reserve for bitcoin, they could project power," he said on stage. "The U.S. needs to be the largest holder of bitcoin and the largest miner of bitcoin."

Others buzzing around the conference floor are excited about what Donald Trump will say tomorrow – or want him to amp them up.

"I want to hear [Trump] give a bold statement on the future of crypto and spark up what we all want," someone who gave his name as Caesar and said he founded the MAGA VP memecoin told CoinDesk during an interview. "And that's a movement and that's a run. And that's what we're here for and that's what we're here to promote. We are all chasing the dream of that freedom."

Whether "movement and run" is in reference to a bitcoin price spike or more empowerment or wider liberty or further freedom is up to interpretation, though the answer could easily be "all of the above."

Help the dollar with bitcoin

And then there was The Crypto Patriot, the pseudonym for a member of the MAGA MEME PAC. That's a group of crypto advocates who are visiting swing states to register voters in an attempt to unify the crypto vote. (Despite the name, MAGA Meme PAC is not an officially registered political action committee.)

"I hope he just keeps his same tune," The Crypto Patriot said. He's a fan of the U.S. having a bitcoin reserve. "Hopefully they're going to back our reserve with bitcoin and that's what I'm hoping, to give the dollar some stability," he added. "The dollar is currently under attack and the rest of the world is catching on to what we're doing. If we can back it with bitcoin and bring back that standard where the dollar can't be inflated, I think that would be a great strategic move to not only grow the entire crypto sphere but also help America prosper."

Crypto advocate and former political candidate Michelle Bond remarked on the evolution of Trump's crypto stance from hater to fan. "Look at how he's come full circle. We know what's on the platform already, but I think the message should be: We're going to do everything we can to keep this industry onshore and keep the United States the leader in this space."

She added: "I would really like to hear him detail the ways to get there. Also, I think the biggest and best way to do that is through the tone of the talk. You have this positive message and then you say: 'All right, what do I need to do?' and you put in the right financial regulators, you nominate people who are not anti-crypto. One of my ideas for him is to create a crypto czar in the administration and that person be the coordinator among the regulatory agencies and crypto. And he can do executive orders, we have lots of negative executive orders, what about a positive one?"

'Some red meat'

While many are excited about the Trump speech, not everyone has excitable views on the topic. Bittrex Global CEO Oliver Linch, who is British, brings a more laissez-faire view on the Trump speech. "Will there be any show stoppers, like the bitcoin reserve? Who knows? There'll be some red meat for the crypto enthusiasts, because of course there will be, but I think the fact that he's doing it at all is the story." Linch added: "In the U.K., neither major party even mentioned crypto" in the leadup to that nation's recent election.

And then there are the regular attendees, unattached to any sort of organization – someone like Phil Whatley, a retired software developer from Alabama, who told CoinDesk he hopes Trump clarifies that bitcoin transactions are tax-free. "If you're trading peer-to-peer, with a truly distributed system, then how're you going to tax them?"

What will happen after Trump's Saturday speech? Will bitcoin pump? Will it dump? Will it do nothing? Who knows, though it's hard to see how Trump, the current favorite to win the election, speaking about the topic does anything but help the crypto market.

Something that might get it there? Copying the bullishness of fellow presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent. At a conference side event called Karate Combat, he said: "I am a huge supporter of bitcoin. I have most of my wealth in bitcoin. I am fully committed."

It will surprise approximately no one that Michael Saylor remains wildly bullish on Bitcoin {{BTC}} and the MicroStrategy executive chairman didn't disappoint on Friday, saying he sees the world's largest crypto rising to $13 million by 2045 in his base case scenario.

Delivering a keynote address at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Saylor noted that at bitcoin's current price around $65,000, it's got a market cap of $1.3 trillion, or just 0.1% of all global wealth.

For bitcoin to get to his base case of $13 million in 2045, said Saylor, would require an annual rate of return of 29%. At that level, he continued, bitcoin would have a market cap of $280 trillion and account for 7% of global wealth.

In a bull case, Saylor said bitcoin could be worth as much as $49 million and account for 22% of global wealth; his bear case was a value of $3 million and 2% of global wealth.

Under Saylor's leadership, business software company MicroStategy has accumulated a bitcoin stack of 226,331 tokens over the last four years that's currently worth about $15 billion, or roughly 80% more than the cumulative purchase price.

Read more: VanEck Sees Bitcoin Hitting $2.9M by 2050 – but a Lot Has to Happen First

Zero-knowledge SNARK (Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge) refers to a process where one can demonstrate knowledge without revealing that information and without the prover and verifier interacting.

"The development represents a major leap forward for the BitVMX proving system, demonstrating the ability to challenge and validate the execution of a SNARK verifier on-chain," Rootstock's team said.

Bitcoin layer 2 Rootstock has interactively verified a SNARK proof in a potential breakthrough for the development of zero-knowledge proofs on the original blockchain network.

Rootstock verified the SNARK using BitVMX, which is Rootstock's modified version of BitVM, a computing paradigm designed to allow Ethereum-style smart contracts on Bitcoin.

Zero-knowledge SNARK (Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge) refers to a process where one can demonstrate knowledge without revealing that information and without the prover and verifier interacting.

The verification took place on Rootstock's mainnet on Thursday, having been completed on the testnet the day before.

"The development represents a major leap forward for the BitVMX proving system, demonstrating the ability to challenge and validate the execution of a SNARK verifier on-chain," Rootstock's team said in an emailed statement on Thursday. "This breakthrough opens the door for replicating this process with any program compiled to the RISC-V architecture, utilizing BitVMX’s general-purpose virtual CPU."

Read More: Bitcoin Layer-2 Chain Bitlayer Raises $11M Led by ETF Issuer Franklin Templeton

Switzerlands' financial markets supervisor proposed new requirements to help mitigate the risks arising from banks providing a default guarantee to stablecoin holders.

In the event of irregularities at the stablecoin issuer, the bank providing the default guarantee may suffer reputational damage, the regulator said.

Stablecoin issuers operating in Switzerland create a risk for the banks they work with, the country's financial markets regulator, FINMA, wrote in guidance published on Friday.

That's because the issuers, who take deposits from the public and might otherwise be treated as banks themselves, can obviate the need for a banking license by reaching an agreement with a registered lender to repay their customers in case of default.

"This creates risks for the stablecoin holders and the bank providing the default guarantee," FINMA said in the guidance note. "In the event of irregularities at the stablecoin issuer, the bank providing the default guarantee may suffer reputational damage due to its contractual relationship with the issuer and may also be exposed to legal risks."

Concern over the backing carried by issuers of stablecoins, which are crypto tokens whose value is tied to another asset such as the U.S. dollar or gold, has proliferated for years. As far back as 2021, Tether, whose USDT is by far the largest stablecoin by market cap, published its first account of reserves to deal with queries about its funding. Circle, whose USDC is the No. 2, followed suit in 2022.

FINMA's guidance, which builds on an initial note from 2019, sets out a number of requirements to ensure adequate protection. Customers must have their own claim against the guarantee-providing bank, and the guarantee must cover the full amount of deposits and interest. In addition, the bank must ensure that the deposits it receives don't surpass the cover provided by the guarantee.

The regulator plans to ensure that the risks associated with default guarantees are addressed in future discussions.

Crypto wallet provider Ledger has unveiled its second new product of the year as it seeks to make self custody of cryptocurrency more accessible and convenient.

Ledger has also unveiled its new Security Key app, which offers passkey capabilities as an alternative to conventional passwords.

Take-up of self-custodial wallets may have been hindered historically by the seemingly unforgiving nature of having to store and remember one's own seed phrase.

Crypto wallet provider Ledger has unveiled its second new product of the year as it seeks to make self custody of cryptocurrency more accessible and convenient.

"Ledger Flex", like the more expensive Stax wallet which launched in May, incorporates touchscreen technology to "redefine the experience of self-custody," CEO Pascal Gauthier said in an emailed statement on Friday.

Ledger has also unveiled its new Security Key app, which offers passkey capabilities as an alternative to conventional passwords.

Instead of using a password, the app uses a cryptographic passkey login system where there is essentially a private key stored in the secure element for logging into the service. These are tied to the user's seed phrase that it used to restore access to coins in the event of losing access to their wallet.

Collapses of high-profile crypto firms in 2022 highlighted the importance of users taking custody of their assets rather than entrusting them to exchanges. However, take-up of self-custodial wallets may have been hindered historically by the seemingly unforgiving nature of having to store and remember one's own seed phrase - a random string of words that are used as a failsafe for restoring access to coins.

Thus, Ledger are attempting to mitigate these concerns by embedding the recovery phrase in security tools that users are accustomed to when logging into mobile devices or websites, such as passkeys.

Read More: Crypto Wallet Provider Exodus Aims to Solve Web3's User-Friendly Issue With 'Passkeys Wallet'

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2263.97, up 4.4% (+95.43) since yesterday's close.

Nineteen of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: RNDR (+12.6%) and NEAR (+7.7%).

Laggards: XRP (-0.1%) and ICP (+1.1%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

A Singapore terrorism threat assessment noted an increasing use of cryptocurrencies in terror financing, though cash and other means remained dominant.

The report also said the threat level was elevated since the Israel-Palestine conflict escalated.

Singapore's government noted an increasing use of cryptocurrencies in terror financing, even though cash and other informal value transfer systems remain the predominant means for financial transactions.

A report by the Ministry of Home Affairs assessed the threat to Singapore from terrorists and determined that while there was no indication of an imminent attack, the threat to the city-state remained "very real" and "high."

It pointed to monthly funds sent in crypto by ISIS to individuals at the Al-Hol detention camp in Northern Syria, where ISIS-affiliated and displaced individuals are placed. The report also highlighted how pro-ISIS groups in Southeast Asia shared a poster "soliciting cryptocurrency donations."

"As a global financial centre and transport hub with a significant migrant workforce, Singapore remains a potential source of funds for terrorists and terrorist organisations abroad," the report said. "Our strongest defence is our collective vigilance."

The report also said the threat level was elevated since the Israel-Palestine conflict re-escalated.

In the months after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, a Wall Street Journal report claimed Palestinian groups received substantial funds in crypto. The report was rebuffed by blockchain analytics firms like Chainalysis suggesting such claims are likely overstated, and blockchain security firm Elliptic, which said such claims are likely exaggerated.

Read More: Bipartisan Anti-Crypto Terror Financing Bill Heads to U.S. Senate

This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter, putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.

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Bitcoin rose about 5% in the past 24 hours, regaining $67,000 during the Asian morning. BTC has outperformed the wider digital asset market, which has added around 4%, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20). Attention will likely turn to Nashville for cues on the next move for world's largest cryptocurrency, as the BTC 2024 conference gets underway. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called himself "a huge supporter of bitcoin," and said he had most of his wealth in BTC, in a conference speech on Thursday. Republican candidate Donald Trump is set to speak on Saturday.

Ether continues to underperform the wider crypto market following $152 million of outflows from ETH exchange-traded funds. Current cumulative flow for the ETFs since they started trading this week is negative $178.68 million. That's mainly owing to withdrawals from Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which converted to an ETF. "This situation is very similar to the bitcoin ETF product launched at the beginning of the year," CoinShares analysts said in an emailed note. Outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which converted from a closed-end structure into an ETF that allowed redemptions for the first time in 10 years, weighed on bitcoin's price over the first weeks. Ether has risen by around 2% in the last 24 hours, sitting at $3,240 at the time of writing.

The municipal pension plan of Jersey City, New Jersey, will soon invest in bitcoin via ETFs, according to a Thursday social media post from Mayor Steven Fulop. The move follows a Wisconsin pension making a similar decision earlier this year. The investment is expected to be completed "by the end of the summer," according to Fulop's post on X. Though Fulop did not specify exactly how much of the pension funds' assets will be allocated to bitcoin ETFs, he said it would be “similar” to the 2% allocation made by Wisconsin’s state pension fund. Fulop did not specify which bitcoin ETF Jersey City was considering for the investment.

Chart of the Day

The chart shows the daily net inflow of BTC into wallets tied to centralized exchanges.

On Wednesday, centralized exchanges recorded a cumulative net inflow of nearly 50,000 BTC, of which 42,000 coins were deposited in wallets tied to Kraken.

Most of the inflow likely stemmed from Mt. Gox moving coins to exchanges as part of reimbursing creditors.

Source: CryptoQuant

- Omkar Godbole

Trending Posts

Elon Musk’s X Quietly Removes Bitcoin, MAGA Emojis From Hashtags

VanEck Sees Bitcoin Hitting $2.9M by 2050 – but a Lot Has to Happen First

Staking in Ethereum ETFs Might Be a Question of When, Not If

Bitcoin and crypto hashtags on X no longer display emojis automatically.

X did not publicly announce the removal, and the reason behind the apparent change is unclear.

Automatically generated emojis no longer accompany bitcoin and crypto hashtags on the Elon Musk-owned social application X, which houses some of the largest active cryptocurrency communities.

X's social media accounts or press pages did not publicly announce the removal as of European morning hours on Friday.

Crypto users on X started to comment early Friday that they could no longer see emojis when posting “#bitcoin” on the service. Some later found out that hashtags for #bnbchain and #cryptocom, which also showed emojis, no longer display the brand images.

NEW: BITCOIN HASHTAG ICON HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM @X pic.twitter.com/UvDd9DozOG

— DEGEN NEWS (@DegenerateNews) July 26, 2024

As of Friday's European hours, an emoji for #MAGA that previously featured Republican candidate Donald Trump was also removed ahead of his scheduled appearance at the ongoing Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville.

Love the little emoji for #MAGA !!! pic.twitter.com/JW7FPvk3de

— 𝓓𝖗. 𝓥𝖔𝐱 𝓞𝖈𝖚𝖑𝖎, 𝐌𝐃 👁️‍🗨️ (@Vox_Oculi) July 18, 2024

The Bitcoin emojis were first introduced in 2020 when Jack Dorsey owned X, then known as Twitter. Dorsey tried to popularize the bitcoin symbol to Unicode, a text encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized.

X, as Twitter at the time, reportedly charged companies up to $1 million to add a branded emoji or symbol after a designated hashtag to help differentiate their branding from that of their competitors and create a buzz amongst consumers.

BTC is closing on a trendline hurdle that capped the upside on Monday and in May.

Friday's U.S. core PCE and Trump's impending Bitcoin conference speech could power a stronger rally, BRN said.

Blockchain fundamentals are biased bullish, Matrixport noted.

Analysts are growing optimistic about bitcoin's {{BTC}} price prospects after a rebound toward a crucial resistance level that capped gains earlier this week.

Since testing the 50-day simple moving average support near $63,500, the leading cryptocurrency has bounced sharply to breach $67,000, CoinDesk data show, and is closing on a resistance line identified by the trendline connecting March and April highs. The so-called descending trendline proved a tough nut to crack on Monday – as well as when it last came into focus in May – becoming a level to beat for the bulls.

That might happen soon, if the mood among analysts is a guide.

One trigger could be the U.S. core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure, scheduled for release at 12:30 UTC (08:30 ET). Another is Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's impending speech at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville.

"Incoming PCE data could be the final nail in the coffin for high interest rates and lead to imminent rate cut announcements, while Trump’s speech at the Bitcoin conference could start a stronger rally if rumours of an announcement of a national strategic reserve for BTC come true," Valentin Fournier, an analyst at digital assets analyst at advisory firm BRN, said in an email.

These factors could bring bitcoin to new highs, Fournier added.

The PCE reading is forecast to show a 0.1% rise in June, following virtually no change in May and gains of 0.3% in the preceding three months, according to FactSet. The annualized figure is forecast to print at 2.4% for June, the smallest increase since 2021.

The continued progress toward the Fed's 2% target strengthens the case for interest-rate cuts by the central bank. Renewed liquidity easing against the backdrop of resilient economic growth highlighted by Thursday's US. GDP data could galvanize bids for risk assets, including cryptocurrencies.

Crypto investors are also anticipating Trump's scheduled speech on Saturday. Speculation has swirled all week that he might announce a bigger role for BTC in the financial system.

Other factors like the mining hashrate, which measures the amount of computing power dedicated to the network, and increasing stablecoin supply also flash bullish signals, according to crypto services provider Matrixport.

"The Bitcoin mining hashrate, a leading indicator for bitcoin rallies, has improved. Instead of inventory slashing, Bitcoin inventories continue to increase. The inventory build-up suggests confidence in future price increases despite some miners shutting down unprofitable machines," Matrixport said in a note to clients Friday.

Matrixport also noted that fiat-to-crypto inflows have picked up, as indicated by the recent increase in the market capitalization of the stablecoin sector.

"Historically, such increases have been bullish, signaling a shift of funds from traditional financial markets into the crypto sector," it said.

BTC outperformed the wider crypto market as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index during the Friday Asia trading session.

One analyst said the performance of ether exchange-traded funds mirrors that of the bitcoin ETFs after their launch in January.

Bitcoin {{BTC}} outperformed the broader crypto market during the Asia trading day, adding 4.4% to test $67,000 while the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) rose 3.3%.

Solana’s SOL jumped over 5% to lead gains among major tokens, CoinGecko data shows, with ether {{ETH}}, BNB Chain’s BNB and Cardano’s ADA adding 3%. Dogecoin {{DOGE}} rose 4%, while Solana-based memecoin popcat (POPCAT) jumped more than 8% to lead gains in that category.

For the third day, ether products led liquidations across crypto futures, with over $70 million in longs liquidated compared with $55 million on BTC-tracked futures.

Open interest – or the number of unsettled futures bets – dropped by $1 billion over the past 24 hours, indicative of money leaving the market.

Bitcoin Outflows

According to data from SoSoValue, bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) added a net $31.16 million, bringing the cumulative net flow since their introduction in January to just under $17.5 billion. Total net assets of the ETFs amount to $59.14 billion, or about 4.6% of the entire market cap of the largest cryptocurrency.

Ether, the second-largest, rose 2.8% to top $3,200, according to CoinDesk Indices data. The ether ETFs experienced a net daily outflow of $152 million, SoSoValue data shows. Current cumulative flow for the ETFs since they started trading this week is negative $178.68 million. That's mainly owing to withdrawals from Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which converted to an ETF.

"This situation is very similar to the bitcoin ETF product launches at the beginning of the year," CoinShares analysts said in an emailed note.

Outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the world's largest bitcoin fund at the time, which converted from a closed-end structure into an ETF that allowed redemptions for the first time in 10 years, weighed on bitcoin's price over the first weeks. Later, inflows to rival funds overcame the negative trend, propelling BTC to an all-time high in March.

The Grayscale Ethereum Trust is following the same path but faster, making the decline a "prime buying opportunity," said Mads Eberhardt, a crypto analyst at Steno Research.

Really speed running grayscale unwind https://t.co/DrIl6ULEGx

— THE CMS (@cmsholdings) July 25, 2024

"If this trend continues, the outflow from the Grayscale Ethereum ETF could end much quicker than it did for bitcoin in January, perhaps as early as mid-next week," Eberhardt said. "After this, we estimate we will see strong net inflow, due to the inflow into the other ETFs as observed over the last few days."

Rachel Lin, CEO and co-founder of SynFutures, disagreed, saying she expects short-term pain for ETH traders.

“As we saw with Bitcoin, Grayscale's ETH ETF fund is becoming a net seller on the market with over $810 million in outflow since the ETF launch,” Lin said in an email to CoinDesk.

“Grayscale currently holds over $8 billion worth of Ether, and nearly 10% of it was sold in just the past two days. If the trend continues, Grayscale might reach the 50% mark far sooner than with Bitcoin. However, that would also mean more downside for Ethereum."

Aave outperforms

Looking away from BTC and ETH, AAVE, the native token of the Aave decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol is up 15% as the market reacted to a token buyback proposal.

The proposal, which is currently in a "temp check" phase, where feedback is solicited, would contribute more protocol revenue to buying back AAVE tokens from the secondary market and redistributing them to stakers.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doubled down on his support for bitcoin during the BTC 2024 conference

Crypto and its role in the economy has become a hot-button issue in the election.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doubled down on his support for bitcoin at the BTC 2024 conference in Nashville.

"I am a huge supporter of Bitcoin. I have most of my wealth in Bitcoin," he said. I am fully committed."

🚨RFK JR: "I am a huge supporter of Bitcoin. I have most of my wealth in Bitcoin. I am fully committed." pic.twitter.com/GrDB8nSirI

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) July 26, 2024

Bitcoin has become a hot-button issue in this electoral cycle with Republican nominee Donald Trump's campaign announcing it would accept crypto donations in May. Many crypto entrepreneurs have come out to support the Trump campaign, with Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell donating $1 million in crypto to Trump and the Winklevoss Twins donating to a Trump-aligned PAC.

Kennedy, a libertarian-leaning candidate, took aim at the Federal Reserve, saying the central bank had the interest of bankers, not the general public, at heart.

“The relationship between Congress and the Fed is both parasitical to our country, and it’s a symbiotic relationship. The Fed is not a public institution … The decision-makers are appointed by the banking industry," he said during a conference panel hosted by TheStreet.

Kennedy also argued that Covid lockdowns were vastly in favor of billionaires and not "Main Street."

"Lockdowns … shut down all the small business in this country, which is what we should be nurturing, and kept open the Walmarts, and the Amazons, and Facebook, and the oil industry, and the processed food industries, and Big Ag. They all flourished during that period," he said.

Earlier this year Kennedy spoke at CoinDesk's Consensus conference in Austin, Texas where he said crypto is key to "transactional freedom."

"We need sovereignty over our own wallets, transactional freedom and a currency that is transparent. We need to make sure America remains the hub of blockchain technology," he said during Consensus.

The municipal pension plan of Jersey City, New Jersey, will soon invest in bitcoin via exchange-traded funds, according to a Thursday social media post from Mayor Steven Fulop.

While it's not likely to be a gigantic sum, the decision is another symbolic win for cryptocurrency on the road toward wider adoption. The move follows a Wisconsin pension making a similar decision earlier this year.

Read more: As a Pension Embraces Bitcoin, Hope Grows for Cryptocurrency's Long-Term Prospects Even Among Conservative Pros

Fulop, who has been the mayor of Jersey City since 2013, took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce the forthcoming investment, writing: “Not my normal subject matter in a post but I’ll share anyway – the question on whether [c]rypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is largely over [and] crypto/Bitcoin won.”

Fulop, a Democrat, has thrown his hat into the ring for New Jersey’s 2025 gubernatorial election. Incumbent Governor Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, has already served two terms and is ineligible for reelection.

Not my normal subject matter in a post but I’ll share anyway - the question on whether Crypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is largely over + crypto/Bitcoin won. The #JerseyCity pension fund is in process of updating paperwork to the SEC to allocate % of the fund to Bitcoin ETFs… https://t.co/5iNEqRqHGM

— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) July 25, 2024

Fulop added that the city’s pension fund, the Employees Retirement System of Jersey City, is currently in the process of updating paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allocate a percentage of the fund to bitcoin {{BTC}} ETFs. According to Fulop’s tweet, the investment is expected to be completed “by end of the summer.”

Though Fulop did not specify exactly how much of the pension funds' assets under management will be allocated to bitcoin ETFs, he said it would be “similar” to the 2% allocation to bitcoin ETFs made by Wisconsin’s state pension fund earlier this year. Fulop did not specify which bitcoin ETF Jersey City was considering selecting for its investment.

“I’ve been a long time believer (through ups/downs) in crypto but [b]roadly, beyond crypto [I] do believe blockchain is amongst the most important new technology innovations since the internet,” Fulop said.

Interest in bitcoin from public pension funds is growing slowly but surely.

Wisconsin’s public pension plan – the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, which has roughly $156 billion in assets under management – is the biggest pension plan to dive into crypto so far, with a $160 million investment into spot bitcoin ETFs earlier this year. Some small pension funds like the Houston Firefighters’ Relief and Retirement Fund, which has about $5 billion in assets under management, have been invested in crypto for several years.

The pensions of Fairfax County, Virginia, also invested in crypto exposure through VanEck's New Finance Income Fund, which became a creditor to crypto firm Genesis as it filed for bankruptcy last year.

Outside of the U.S., public pension plans including Japan’s $1.4 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund, the largest pension plan in the world, put out a request for information on bitcoin investments earlier this year.

“I’m sure eventually it will be more common,” Fulop said of pension funds allocating to crypto in his tweet.

The Jersey City Mayor’s Office did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment by publication time.

By 2050, bitcoin may settle 10% of international trade and 5% of local trade gain with central banks' holding it as a reserve asset, asset manager VanEck said in a report.

Bitcoin layer-2 networks will play a key role to overcome scaling issues and allow BTC to be used as a medium of exchange, the firm said.

There are risks for bitcoin's growth, including rising power demand, concerted government crackdowns and competition with other digital assets, the report said.

Asset manager VanEck, an issuer of spot bitcoin {{BTC}} and ether {{ETH}} ETFs, says that BTC's price may reach $2.9 million by 2050 – assuming some pretty high hurdles are cleared.

Under VanEck's assumptions in a Wednesday report, bitcoin would become an essential part of the international monetary system in the next decades as rising geopolitical tensions and ballooning debt servicing costs erode the current system.

"As we look at the world right now, we see enormous economic imbalances, rising distrust in existing institutions and continued deglobalization," Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at Van Eck and one of the report's authors, said in a Wednesday interview on CNBC.

"We think many of these distortions stem from ... a massive misallocation of capital since the global financial crisis as G7 governments have abused the printing press, spending borrowed money on impossible goals," Sigel explained.

"Bitcoin ... is the ultimate hedge against this rising fiscal recklessness," Sigel said.

In the report's base case scenario, BTC would become a key medium of exchange in local and global trade, representing 10% of international trade settlement and 5% of GDP.

Meanwhile, it would also gain as a global reserve asset at the expense of the four largest foreign reserve currencies – the U.S. dollar, euro, British pound and Japanese yen – reaching a 2.5% weight in international currency reserves.

If things play out as VanEck envisions, bitcoin's price will increase in value by 44 times, gaining 16% annually from its current price of just below $65,000. Its market capitalization would soar to $61 trillion.

The proliferation of layer-2 networks will play a key role in overcoming the Bitcoin blockchain's bottlenecks and scaling issues that prevent BTC from being a useful medium of exchange, the report said. The sector could collectively be worth $7.6 trillion by 2050, applying the same valuation framework as for Ethereum layer 2s.

VanEck also warned about potential risks ahead that could stifle bitcoin's expansion.

Increasing energy demand by miners will require innovation, while revenue from processing transactions has to grow dramatically to replace diminishing mining rewards (which get cut in half every four years via halvings) to incentivize miners to sustain the network. Concerted efforts by governments around the world to restrict or outlaw bitcoin are also a threat.

Further risks highlighted in the report include competition from other cryptocurrencies and large financial institutions exerting too much control.

What a difference a week makes. On Thursday, July 18, Donald Trump formally accepted the GOP nomination as its candidate for the 2024 presidential election at the Republican National Convention, just days after he survived an assassination attempt. On Sunday, July 21, at 1:46 pm ET, as President Biden announced his decision not to seek re-election, everything changed. The political landscape became as volatile as a bitcoin price chart.

With an endorsement from Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris has quickly become the presumptive nominee for Democrats, raising small-dollar donations at a pace reminiscent of Barack Obama’s insurgent 2008 presidential campaign. However, the enthusiasm stops at the door of a well-funded crypto industry that has taken an offensive position to protect itself from a hostile regulatory environment and driven it to coalesce around a single-issue voting block set to cast its votes for the GOP nominee.

Almost as soon as the Biden news broke, I began to see social media posts from the crypto community about what a Harris administration’s stance on crypto would be. Would she continue a regulation-by-enforcement and hostile policy position, or embrace the opportunity to reimagine crypto policy with a view toward embracing the new economy? Or set off in a new direction?

Then, I saw a flurry of social media musings that Vice President Harris is considering attending the Bitcoin 2024 Conference, taking place from July 25 to July 27 in Nashville, Tennessee. Trump, Michael Saylor, and Elon Musk are also expected to appear, making it a significant event with high stakes.

On Thursday, July 24, conference organizer and Bitcoin Magazine’s CEO David Bailey shared on X that VP Harris declined to attend. It seemed highly unlikely that she would be able to attend given that scheduling a senior Federal official takes longer than 48 hours. The process involves coordination, review and vetting by multiple offices and the requisite approvals.

Nonetheless, even the consideration is a win. With the crypto industry’s voice on the Harris campaign’s radar, Harris now has an opportunity to address a deeply concerned and invested group of bitcoiners and begin the reparative work of bridge-building to counter the anti-crypto aggression and regulation-by-enforcement initiatives deployed by the current administration.

The Biden Administration’s Anti-Crypto Policy

Under Biden, cryptocurrency regulation has been marked by a confusing and confounding enforcement-heavy approach, largely influenced by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Known for her skepticism of the crypto industry, Warren has advocated for strict regulatory measures to protect consumers and maintain financial stability. Her influence is evident in the administration's "Chokepoint 2.0" strategy and in the stance of her ally SEC Chair, Gary Gensler, as well as prudential regulators who restricted the crypto industry’s access to traditional banking services, effectively “de-banking” the sector.

Fueled by misinformation and a kernel of truth, Warren’s approach has focused on addressing the risks associated with cryptocurrencies, including fraud, money laundering, and terrorism financing without right-sizing the discussions to balance risks with the considerable economic justice opportunities and separate fact from fiction.

A Technological Moderate

Vice President Harris's prior approach to technology regulation is characterized by a more moderate tone compared to the current administration’s approach. Throughout her career, she has forged strong relationships with major technology companies such as Facebook and Google. She has been a notable presence at their headquarters and has enlisted employees and allies from these companies to advise her campaign on tech policy. Her approach emphasizes finding a balance between regulation and allowing technological advancement. A strategic policy shift to incorporate past openness to innovation coupled with her campaign’s focus on economic empowerment of the middle class may create an opportunity for a both/and approach that optimizes investor and consumer protections with the support of robust development of the Web3 economy on the rails of blockchain and powered by cryptographically secured digital assets.

But what signals that she would be open to a pivot on crypto policy? For one, billionaire Mark Cuban noted on X this week that Harris’ team has been asking numerous crypto-related questions. That, added to her pro-innovation record and entertaining discussions of appearing at Bitcoin 2024 all bode well for a different approach in a Harris Administration.

Ten Policy Shifts for a New Era

As the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has the unique opportunity to chart a new course for crypto policy, one I am calling "New Economy 2025," which balances sensible and transparent regulation with robust innovation for investors, consumers and businesses alike. This approach would ensure that the U.S. remains a leader in the digital asset economy while promoting financial inclusion and protecting consumer interests.

To that end, here are ten policy shifts that could redefine the Democratic party’s stance on digital assets and foster a more inclusive financial ecosystem under a Harris presidency:

Amend Securities Laws for Clarity and Innovation

What: Revise existing securities laws to clarify the distinction between a security and a commodity in the context of cryptocurrencies. I advocated strongly for this in my testimony before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology & Inclusion.

How: Ensure relevant and specific agencies are designated to regulate the crypto industry, preventing overly broad or conflicting interpretations that could hinder market growth and stifle innovation.

Update Banking Regulations for Crypto Integration

What: Modify the Bank Secrecy Act and other banking regulations to create clear guidelines for banks dealing with cryptocurrency businesses.

How: Promote a crypto-friendly banking environment, enabling financial institutions to engage with the crypto sector confidently, reducing perceived and actual risks, and fostering greater integration and accessibility. Additionally, consider the legislative and regulatory shifts needed to add bitcoin reserves as part of the Central Bank’s reserve portfolio.

Reform Tax Policies to Support the Digital Economy

What: Reform tax policies to address the unique aspects of digital assets, providing clear guidelines on the taxation of crypto transactions and holdings.

How: Create a framework for individuals and businesses to comply with tax obligations while participating in the digital economy safely and legally, ensuring fair participation across all economic income levels.

Enhance Consumer Protection Laws

What: Strengthen consumer protection laws specific to the crypto market, ensuring transparent disclosures and protections against fraud.

How: Implement measures to provide clear recourse for victims, building consumer trust and ensuring a safer crypto market, particularly protecting vulnerable populations.

Develop Robust Privacy Laws for Individual Data Protection

What: Formulate strong privacy laws to safeguard individual data in blockchain and digital identity systems.

How: Promote privacy-friendly digital identities and ensure crypto transactions respect individual privacy rights, protecting marginalized communities from exploitation.

Integrate Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Education

What: Incorporate cryptocurrency and blockchain education into national education standards, including financial literacy programs.

How: Equip individuals with the knowledge needed to navigate the digital economy confidently and responsibly through school curriculums and adult education programs, ensuring opportunities for all demographics.

Allocate Federal Funds for Blockchain R&D

What: Allocate funding to support research and development in blockchain technology.

How: Encourage innovation, create jobs, and maintain the U.S.'s competitive edge in the global digital economy by investing in R&D, particularly benefiting underserved communities through job creation and economic inclusion.

Promote DeFi Platforms for Financial Inclusion

What: Encourage the development and adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms to offer financial services without traditional intermediaries.

How: Increase access to financial services for underserved communities, promoting financial inclusion and bridging the wealth gap.

Form Public-Private Partnerships for Public Good

What: Establish partnerships between government agencies and private blockchain companies for public infrastructure projects.

How: Develop digital identity systems and transparent supply chains leveraging blockchain technology, improving public services and economic opportunities for all. Also, consider regulatory sandboxes to further promote and support innovation in collaboration with government stakeholders to learn so they can effectively lead.

Harmonize International Crypto Regulations

What: Position the U.S. as a global leader in crypto regulation by collaborating with international bodies.

How: Develop harmonized regulations to ensure the U.S. plays a central role in shaping the future of the global digital economy, promoting stability and fostering cross-border innovation.

By implementing these initiatives, the Harris administration can create a regulatory environment that not only protects investors and fosters innovation but also promotes economic justice and opportunity for all, ensuring the U.S. remains at the forefront of the digital asset economy.

"New Economy 2025" vision would emphasize the transformative potential of blockchain and cryptocurrency, harnessing technology to create a more equitable and inclusive financial system that ushers in increase investment opportunities, job creation and economic growth, consumer, investor and industry protection from fraud and scams, tax simplification, financial inclusion and economic justice, and industry stability and confidence.

Crypto is political; not partisan. At least it shouldn’t be. Harris’s track record of championing technological advancement and protecting privacy rights positions her uniquely to harness the transformative potential of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

As we move forward, advocating for regulatory clarity, consumer protections, financial literacy, and global collaboration is essential to solidify the U.S. as a leader in the digital asset economy. By embracing this reimagined approach, we can truly democratize access to financial opportunities, empower marginalized communities, and uphold the values of freedom and privacy, paving the way for a prosperous and inclusive New Economy 2025.

Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.

Spot ether exchange-traded funds successfully debuted in the U.S. on Tuesday, but regulators didn't let the ETFs generate income for investors by staking their ETH.

The absence represents a disadvantage over directly holding the cryptocurrency, but issuers are hopeful regulators will eventually allow staking.

Eight newly approved spot ether {{ETH}} exchange-traded funds got off to a busy start following their debut this week, despite lacking a key feature of Ethereum's native token: staking income.

While the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which has existed in non-ETF form for years but just converted into an ETF, has seen about $811 million of outflows, new products from the likes of BlackRock saw almost $800 million deposited in the first two days. Issuers say they're pleased.

This early success wasn't a given, especially after several issuers announced that they would not stake ether for yield, which they had initially planned to do in earlier filings. This was likely due to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission telling them to remove the feature as staking could potentially violate federal securities laws as it constitutes unregistered securities offerings, as the SEC had previously argued in other cases.

With a new administration taking office in January, things could change quickly and issuers remain hopeful that the feature could eventually become part of the products.

That being said, it is not currently "an active discussion," Rob Mitchnick, head of digital assets for BlackRock, said in an interview with CoinDesk. He added that the SEC made its view on that clear.

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, did not initially apply to be able to stake in their application but others, including Fidelity and Franklin Templeton, did.

"I certainly would hope that as an industry, we're going to be able to help to educate and provide perspective on how it is that we can bring staking capabilities to investors in these products," said Cynthia Lo Bessette, head of digital asset management at Fidelity. "Staking is a critical component of the Ethereum ecosystem as it is the activity that secures the ecosystem and so, therefore, it's an important part of the investment experience and being able to invest in your ether."

Former President Donald Trump seems to have won over the hearts of many leaders in the crypto industry and is their favored choice in this year's election given his recent endorsement of the space.

"I believe staking within spot ether ETFs is a matter of when, not if," said Nate Geraci, president of the ETF Store. "That said, there is no question that politics are intertwined with the timing of the 'when.'"

He added: "Indications are that a Trump administration would be much more crypto-friendly, which could certainly accelerate the timeline of when staking might be allowed. Otherwise, ETF issuers could be left waiting on a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework to be put in place, which would likely take significantly longer."

For Franklin Templeton, who, like Fidelity, was keen on making staking a part of the ETFs, starting without that feature seemed natural and made the overall process of getting the product approved easier.

"The easier path or path of least resistance was clearly to do it as an unstaked version," said Christopher Jense, director of digital asset research for Franklin Templeton's Digital Asset Investment Strategies Group. "It just works better, it's simpler, it's easier, and the execution risk was lower, so I think it's very natural that that's where we started."

If staking will be part of the ETFs in the future, it doesn't seem to be up to the asset managers, but is a question of whether the regulatory landscape in the future will be open to it.

"I think it's very tied into the regulatory clarity that we think will happen over time of whether that will or won't happen," said David Mann, head of ETF product & capital markets for Franklin. "This is the framework we're dealing with today and if it evolves, we'll be ready to evolve with it."

Bernstein said bitcoin miners have upside from the power portfolios they control.

Miners that focus on an active power strategy and efficiency are more likely to see a valuation rerating, the report said.

Large miners remain focused on bitcoin production and Riot Platforms, CleanSpark and Iris Energy are best positioned to grow market share, the broker said.

Bitcoin {{BTC}} miners have significant potential upside from the power portfolios that they control, broker Bernstein said in a research report on Wednesday.

“We believe, bitcoin miners by focusing on an active power strategy and pushing the frontiers of power efficiency, can make a stronger case for a valuation re-rating,” analysts led by Gautam Chhugani wrote.

Investors can profit by valuing the companies as “efficient power shells with data center capabilities,” as opposed to just bitcoin mining operations, the report said. Bernstein noted that miners trade at around a 90% discount to general data center valuations.

The bitcoin mining sector has rerated in recent months after Core Scientific (CORZ) inked a 12-year artificial intelligence (AI) deal with cloud computing firm CoreWeave. The market is pricing in the potential AI and high-performance computing (HPC) opportunity and the upside stemming from alternative and more accretive use cases for bitcoin mining sites.

Large miners remain focused on growing bitcoin production and their respective hashrates, the broker noted, and Riot Platforms (RIOT), CleanSpark (CLSK) and Iris Energy (IREN) are best positioned to expand market share.

There is also headroom in power efficiency and uptime, the note said, and miners can benefit from extracting more hashrate from their existing portfolios by upgrading their hardware to the latest generations of ASICs. The hashrate, a measure of computing power, is a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty.

Iris Energy and CleanSpark rate well in terms of power efficiency and uptime, and Core Scientific ranks highly with regards to data center uptime, Bernstein said. Riot’s efficiency should improve as it energizes its large power sites and Marathon Digital’s (MARA) efficiency should recover as it builds out its self-mining portfolio.

“Customization and innovation in mining systems and software can further boost efficiency,” the note said.

The broker has an outperform rating on CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Iris Energy and Riot Platforms, and a market perform rating on Marathon Digital.

Read more: Bitcoin Miners With Attractive Power Contracts Are Potential M&A Targets, JPMorgan Says

Last year, a social experiment called $GREED aimed to teach crypto enthusiasts a lesson, tricking them into tweeting an embarrassing message.

The project is back. This time, there's real money involved – a lot of it.

"In Sh*tcoin Season, any pointless cryptocurrency with a Twitter account can enchant thousands of traders into playing memecoin musical chairs. Throwing money at the wall and reason out the window, they let greed get the best of them. Sometimes literally."

That is how I started my May 2023 story about $GREED, a social experiment that duped crypto traders hoping to score a quick buck into embarrassing themselves on Twitter (now X). It was a lesson in good judgment disguised as a money-making opportunity.

The story's moral did not stick. In less than a year, speculators' memecoin greed prompted them to once again trade their good judgment for too-good-to-be-true returns. Presale scammers pitching exclusive memecoins earlier this year stole $122 million from wannabe get-rich-quick degens, according to on-chain sleuth ZackXBT.

I was interested to see how much SOL has been sent as a result of the presale meta and calculated >655,000 SOL ($122.5M) raised from 27 presales. pic.twitter.com/dvsW4TSoov

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) March 19, 2024

It was a devolution of the zero-sum casino games that give crypto a shady reputation. Forget about exchange tokens that traders believe have value, or well-known memecoins that have graduated from pure joke to, well, billion-dollar jokes like DOGE or SHIB. These presale tokens were literal scams. But people were willing to suspend their disbelief to get in early.

"This is so stupid, people are just going to get rugged," $GREED's creator, who goes by Voshy, said in an interview. "How do you teach these people a lesson?"

He decided to recreate his social experiment with a twist. Last time, his nonexistent $GREED token made a mockery of its "victims" without costing them any capital: He duped them into giving him access to their Twitter accounts, letting him shame them by posting an embarrassing tweet about their succumbing to their own greed.

This time, like last, $GREED would not cost its participants anything, nor would there be a token at all. Instead it would be the lure for a surprisingly lucrative staking freeze. $GREED's unwitting participants would lock their own SOL in a staking account, safe from presale predators. While their money was working for them, it would also work for $GREED: an education initiative that Voshy hopes will teach the entire space a lesson.

The plan

For part two of $GREED, Voshy started by tweeting vague promises of what seemed like an upcoming airdrop of a GREED token. It caught on. Just like in 2023, crypto traders started angling for a token they knew nothing about.

Soon, Voshy upped the ante with a website with wallet-connection capabilities. People could now seemingly commit their SOL to GREED. But for what? The website didn't say it was conducting a presale. It made no promises about what it was for, or what people would get. Details didn't matter; in the first hour, 1,527 wallets pledged 6,220 SOL (currently worth about $1 million).

That's where Voshy's experiment diverged from the scammy sh*tcoin presales. Instead of taking people's money in exchange for a token (or in exchange for nothing, as scammers do), Voshy's website had prompted them to stake their SOL tokens to a Solana validator. When they signed the transaction, they locked their tokens to this validator for six months, until mid-September.

"Locking it for three days, nobody would care. We wanted the people to notice, we wanted the people to feel something, to remember it just like last $GREED," Voshy said.

Last year's $GREED experiment taught its unwitting participants to be "very careful" about giving out access to their social media accounts lest they be embarrassed again, the prankster said. With this year's $GREED, "we wanted to achieve that people don't just send their assets out."

Those who locked their money in $GREED aren't completely stranded. They can get their tokens out by creating a governance proposal and then convincing 15 other $GREED participants to vote for their assets' release. A couple hundred of the GREEDy have attempted to lobby their way back to liquidity, with mixed success.

"Vote for me if you also hate presale meta and will never send to anyone again," wrote one participant who failed to get their SOL unlocked through a vote last month.

Unlikely moneymaker

One of the benefits of duping people to stake their SOL during presale scam season is, well, protecting their SOL from presale thieves. But another lucrative benefit: staking yield. Staked SOL earns more SOL.

For those who don't get their money out in votes, they'll have the option to withdraw come Solana's Breakpoint conference in September. At that point, the lock freeze will thaw and with it a pile of extra tokens from $GREED's partner protocols: Samoyed memecoin, the Marms NFT collection, Texture, Famous Fox Federation, Racket and Cyberfrogs. They all pitched in an assortment of tokens and NFTs that will go to those who leave their money in $GREED to the end.

"Everybody who put their SOL in there is going to get more" than they had if GREED was actually a token, Voshy said. He mused: A good chunk would have likely lost their SOL tokens to some other scam if their money wasn't stuck. Instead of losing it, they're earning more through staking at an annualized rate near 8%.

Most validators take a commission on the earnings generated by its staked assets, but the $GREED validator, run by Triton, doesn't, Voshy said. All of its staking yield goes to the frozen stakers, the ones who locked their SOL up for months.

$GREED academy

Voshy's $GREED experiment is attempting to teach the whole space a lesson. Though the validator at the heart of it doesn't take a commission, it does collect tens of thousands of dollars in SOL every month from transaction tips. All that money will go toward education initiatives, according to Voshy.

"Mostly we want to empower people in the ecosystem to educate others," Voshy said. He spat out a few ideas: dapps that incentivize learning about crypto, TikToks and YouTube videos, that kind of thing.

"It's going to be fully crypto education and quite Solana-focused," he said.

Altruism turned $GREED's validator into an unlikely success story. Though a couple thousand SOL were staked before the lockup "gotcha" was widely known, a tsunami of SOL poured in after word got out. The $GREED validator currently has nearly 900,000 SOL tokens – a hoard worth roughly $150 million. More continues to pour in ahead of an end-of-July deadline, he said.

BitcoinOS Verifies First-Ever ZK Proof on Bitcoin Mainnet

July 25: BitcoinOS, a network of Bitcoin-based rollup chains, has verified the first-ever zero-knowledge (ZK) proof on Bitcoin's mainchain. ZK cryptography is looked to as a key technology for scaling blockchain throughput and usefulness, but the tech is complicated and computationally intense – meaning it was unclear if or when it would make its way to the comparatively bare-bones Bitcoin network. According to the BitcoinOS team, "This is the first permissionless upgrade of the Bitcoin system and the first time Bitcoin has been upgraded without a soft fork." Bitcoin can now be "infinitely upgradable," the team told CoinDesk, "while requiring no changes to the consensus code." BitcoinOS aims to be the "ultimate implementation of a Bitcoin rollup system," eventually serving as a bridge connecting any number of rollups – quick and cheap layer-2 blockchains that are secured by the Bitcoin blockchain and ZK proofs.

Roxom Raises $4.3M and Launches Bitcoin-Based Stock, Commodities and Futures Exchange

July 25 (PROTOCOL VILLAGE EXCLUSIVE): Roxom raised $4.3 million in pre-seed funding to launch the first stock, commodities, and futures exchange denominated in Bitcoin. The company was founded by CEO Borja Martel and CTO Nick Damico. Martel previously founded the LATAM-based crypto exchange Lemon. Roxom's round was led by Kingsway, Draper, and David Marcus, among others. "Bitcoin native financial markets are an important step for holders to access a wide range of financial services natively. Roxom is an important step in that direction," said Marcus.

P2P Validator Service Integrates with Avail Network

July 25: P2P.org is set to integrate the just-launched Avail Network into its non-custodial staking platform. According to the team, the integration with Avail's data availability network will enable "smoother cross-chain transactions, improving overall blockchain interaction." Key highlights, according to P2P, include a "0% fee incentive for the first three months of staking AVAIL, successful testnet phases managing over 300 million requests and 37,000 concurrent connections, and the deployment of innovative solutions like a proxy balancer for enhanced network capacity."

Elastos Introduces Native Bitcoin Staking

July 25 (PROTOCOL VILLAGE EXCLUSIVE): Bitcoin-based Layer-2 service Elastos says it has introduced native bitcoin staking for the first time ever. From the team: "Using the Elastos BeL2 SDK, partners can develop Native Bitcoin dapps aimed at encouraging the staking of over 1 Trillion dormant Bitcoins." The SDK debuted at Bitcoin Nashville 2024, with the StarBTC demo loan app. "Elastos is the sole L2 with innovative arbiter node technology and smart contracts, facilitating dispute resolution and revenue opportunities to node holders who stake Elastos ELA or BTC," said the team.

Protocol Village is a regular feature of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. Project teams can submit updates here. For previous versions of Protocol Village, please go here.

Total value locked on EigenLayer has dropped by 13% to $15.1 billion in the past 30 days, even though ether is trading at a similar level to June.

Outflows can be attributed to the fickle nature of points farming and the limited returns on restaking protocols.

Ether.fi has bucked the trend, experiencing growth in the period.

Billions of dollars worth of ether {{ETH}} has been withdrawn from restaking protocols over the past month as the once trendy sector gets its first taste of the fickle nature of crypto investors.

On June 25, ether {{ETH}} was trading at $3,300, a shade higher than Thursday's price of $3,200. During that period, however, the total value locked (TVL) on EigenLayer – a protocol that links restaking protocols – slumped by $2.28 billion to $15.1 billion. Restaking protocols like Renzo and Kelp have lost 45% and 22% of their TVL, respectively, data from DefiLlama shows.

A portion of the outflows can be attributed to depositors looking to harvest points that will eventually be converted to airdrops subsequently moving on to another project to maximize returns.

For others, the yield is too low when compared with specific yield-generation protocols like Ethena. Renzo offers an annual yield of 3.43%; Ethena offers more than 10%.

Restaking is a strategy that investors use to secure an additional yield on ETH that is already staked on the main Ethereum blockchain. Protocols like Ethena generate a yield by harvesting funding rates, which can be more volatile.

One restaking project that has managed to buck the trend is ether.fi, which has seen a $100 million increase in TVL.