Reported by Coindesk, the New York Stock Exchange would consider offering cryptocurrency trading if the regulatory status of such an expansion by the stock market giant was clearer, the company's president said.

"If there was clear regulatory guidance [in the U.S.], it would be an opportunity to look at," Lynn Martin said Wednesday during a panel discussion at Consensus 2024 in Austin, Texas.

U.S-listed spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF) amassing $58 billion of assets is "a strong sign" that there's demand for regulated crypto products, she added.

While traditional financial markets and digital assets are increasingly getting more intertwined with more traditional financial heavyweights offering crypto products, the lack of regulatory clarity is still weighing on the industry slowing innovation, Martin and Tom Farley, CEO of crypto exchange Bullish, discussed during the panel discussion. (Bullish is the parent company of CoinDesk. Farley previously had Martin's job at NYSE.)

"The fact that you've seen $58 billion or so come to the ETFs has been a strong sign that the market is looking for regulation in traditional structures," Martin said. "So, hopefully, the [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] saw the inflows and said, 'Hey, this makes a lot of sense,' considering bitcoin ETFs have been a tremendous success."

NYSE's U.S.-based rival, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), a giant in regulated crypto futures trading, is planning to launch spot crypto trading to clients, the Financial Times reported earlier this month.

Farley highlighted the sudden change of heart towards crypto in U.S. politics, including the ousting of the anti-crypto chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the passage of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) bill in the House, and Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump doubling down supporting crypto in a rapid chain of events.

Reported by The Defiant, Prominent web3-based artificial intelligence projects Ocean Protocol, Fetch AI, and SingularityNET — the “Artificial Superintelligence Alliance” (ASI) Alliance — announced that their forthcoming merger will take place in roughly two weeks.

On May 29, Fetch announced that the merger will begin on June 11, starting with Fetch’s native FET token being renamed to ASI. Users will be able to migrate their FET to ASI on a one-to-one basis, with SingularityNET's AGIX and Ocean Protocol's OCEAN migrations scheduled to go live from June 13 at conversion rates of roughly 0.433 ASI per token.

Fetch said the three projects span more than 200,000 tokenholders combined.

“This merger paves the way for a new era in AI, combining our strengths to achieve unprecedented advancements,” said Ben Goertzel, CEO of ASI Alliance and founder of SingularityNET Founder. “This is only the start of a broader movement to gather together forces working toward beneficial decentralized [artificial general intelligence].”

“This landmark partnership presents a formidable challenge to Big Tech's dominance in AI development,” ASI Alliance said. “This fusion… lays the groundwork for an open, scalable AI infrastructure that leverages blockchain to ensure ethical and trustworthy practices in AI development and deployment.”

The three projects first announced their intention to merge assets and establish a shared “tokenomic network” on March 27. Governance proposals outlining the merger were passed by each project’s respective community in April.

The ASI Alliance seeks to comprise a decentralized alternative to the cartel of centralized tech firms currently leading innovation and development within the artificial intelligence industry.

“Our mission is to combine our platforms to ensure ethical and transparent artificial intelligence to decentralize AI,” said Humayun Sheikh, the founder of Fetch AI and a founding investor in DeepMind.

Reported by Cointelegraph, United States spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have a “legit possibility” of launching by late June, according to analysts, after BlackRock updated a key filing necessary for launch.

On May 29, BlackRock updated its Form S-1 for its iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) with the Securities and Exchange Commission nearly a week after the regulator approved its 19b-4 filing — both need approval for the ETF to start trading.

“Good sign. [Probably] see rest roll in soon.” Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said in a May 29 X post.

There will likely be another round to “fine tune” SEC comments, he added — but an “end of June launch [is] a legit possibility.” However, Balchunas kept his approval odds for around July 4, adding that an earlier approval would be a “long shot.”

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said BlackRock’s updated S-1 is “almost certainly the engagement we were looking for” as it shows “issuers and SEC are working towards spot Ethereum ETF launches.”

BlackRock’s amended S-1 gave information about its seed capital investor — the entity that allocates money to the fund so it can start trading.

On May 21, the investor, a BlackRock affiliate firm, “agreed to purchase $10,000,000 in Shares on May 21, 2024, and on May 21, 2024 took delivery of 400,000 Shares at a per-Share price of $25.00,” the filing said.

The filing also noted the ETF would list and trade under the ticker “ETHA.”

Reported by Cointelegraph, P2P.org, an Ethereum blockchain validator and provider of noncustodial staking tools, is moving to optimize staking rewards with a new API integration.

P2P.org has integrated an automated, end-to-end Restaking API, allowing users to restake Ether on decentralized staking protocols like EigenLayer, the firm announced on May 27.

The newly introduced Restaking API integrates with P2P.org’s existing Ethereum API, allowing intermediaries to both stake ETH and restake it on EigenLayer.

“Intermediaries are continually seeking ways to add value for their clients and differentiate their services in a crowded market,” P2P.org CEO Alex Esin said. “With our new Restaking API, we are providing a powerful tool that does just that,” he noted, adding:

“Our clients can now offer their users the ability to easily restake ETH, maximizing their staking rewards and airdrop opportunities directly from their own platforms.”

P2P.org’s new Restaking API platform features multiple rewards, including staking and restaking rewards, Secret Shared Validator incentives, EigenLayer future rewards, as well as anticipated Actively Validated Services’ airdrops, all accessible through a single integration point.

Aave is looking to launch its own blockchain, dubbed Aave Network, after its forthcoming V4 upgrade. Given the lending protocol’s $13 billion in total value locked (TVL), the proposed network could potentially become one of the largest Layer 2 solutions in DeFi.

On May 1, Aave unveiled its V4 iteration featuring a unified cross-chain liquidity layer and liquidity premiums.

Yesterday, following speculation from Aave DAO members on social media, Aave CEO Stani Kulechov posted, “This is not a drill, Aave Network is planned to come after V4.”

When questioned on the timeline for V4, Kulechov continued, posting, “Next year for sure.” While there is little information publicly available on the potential Aave Network, it is presumed that the network will be secured by Ethereum and act as a hub for both Aave Protocol and its native stablecoin, GHO.

The Aave community was excited by the news, with figures such as Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave-Chan Initiative (ACI), saying, “It would also be the 3rd largest “chain” after Ethereum and Tron.”

Reported by Cointelegraph, BlackRock’s income and bond-focused funds have bought shares of the asset manager’s own spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the first quarter, regulatory filings show.

BlackRock’s Strategic Income Opportunities Fund (BSIIX) snapped up $3.56 million worth of the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) while its Strategic Global Bond Fund (MAWIX) made a $485,000 purchase, according to May 28 Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The IBIT shares are a fraction of BSIIX and MAWIX’s investment portfolios, respectively worth $37.4 billion and 776.4 million.

IBIT currently holds $19.61 billion worth of Bitcoin, according to BlackRock data from May 24.

It only trails the converted Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which holds $19.76 billion as of May 28, Grayscale data shows.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs globally now hold over 1 million Bitcoin worth over $68 billion — equating to nearly 5.10% of its over 19.7 million BTC circulating supply according to CoinGecko.

More than 600 United States investment firms have bought spot Bitcoin ETFs since they launched in January, recent SEC filings revealed.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Royal Bank of Canada, BNP Paribas, UBS and hedge funds including Millennium Management and Schonfeld Strategic Advisors were some of the firm’s buying up Bitcoin funds.

Millennium is the largest spot Bitcoin ETF accumulator, with $1.9 billion invested, including $844.2 million into IBIT and $806.7 million into the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).

Reported by Cointelegraph, crypto exchange Binance has called on small and medium-sized projects to combat the low float and high fully diluted valuations (FDV) trend within the crypto space.

On May 20, Binance invited small and medium-sized projects to apply for its listing programs. The exchange said that the move to support small and medium projects with sustainable models will help enhance the crypto ecosystem. It wrote:

“We hope to enhance the development of the blockchain ecosystem through our support of small and medium-sized projects with strong fundamentals, an organic community base, a sustainable business model, and a dedicated team acting as responsible industry participants.”

The move seemingly responds to a trend of projects launching at high market capitalizations while many tokens remain locked.

On May 17, Binance Research highlighted that launching with low circulating supplies has become increasingly common in token projects. These projects allocate a large portion of the token supply for future releases.

According to the report, these tokens experience rapid price appreciation under bullish market conditions. This is attributed to the limited liquidity available during the launch.

“However, it is apparent that this kind of price growth is unsustainable when a wave of token supply hits the market upon unlocking,” Binance wrote.

Pseudonymous crypto researcher Flow posted on May 17 that in the last six months, 80% of tokens listed on Binance have fallen since their launch.

Flow highlighted that most newly launched tokens function as “exit liquidity” for insiders capitalizing on the lack of retail access because of the low initial circulating supply.

In May 2024, about $3 billion worth of vested crypto tokens were scheduled to be unlocked. Projects like Sui and Pyth Network are expected to unlock over $1 billion in crypto tokens allocated to various crypto holders, such as early investors.

Citing Token Unlocks and CoinMarketCap data, Binance estimated that about $155 billion in tokens will be unlocked from 2024 to 2030.

The exchange noted that the number of tokens set to be released will put significant sell pressure on the market without a corresponding increase in demand and capital flows.

Reported by Cointelegraph, the world’s largest settlement system, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and blockchain oracle Chainlink have wrapped up a pilot program with several major banking firms in the United States aimed at increasing traditional finance fund tokenization.

The Smart NAV Pilot program was conducted to standardize a method of providing net asset value (NAV) data of funds across blockchains, using Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), according to a May 16 DTCC report.

“The pilot found that by delivering structured data on-chain and creating standard roles and processes, foundational data could be embedded into a multitude of on-chain use cases, such as tokenized funds and ‘bulk consumer’ smart contracts, which are contracts that hold data for multiple funds,” it wrote.

These capabilities could support future industry exploration as well as powering “numerous downstream use cases” like brokerage applications, more automated data dissemination, and easier access to historical data for funds, it said.

The pilot helped establish better-automated data management, limited impact on existing market practices for traditional financial institutions, enabled clients to retrieve historical data without manual record keeping, and provided broader API solutions for price data, the DTCC’s report noted.

The U.S. banking firms that participated in the pilot include American Century Investments, BNY Mellon, Edward Jones, Franklin Templeton, Invesco, JPMorgan, MFS Investment Management, Mid Atlantic Trust, State Street, and U.S. Bank.

Reported by Financial Times, CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange, is planning to launch bitcoin trading, aiming to capitalise on surging demand this year among Wall Street money managers to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency sector.

The Chicago-based group has been holding discussions with traders who want to buy and sell the cryptocurrency on a regulated marketplace, according to three people with direct knowledge of the talks. The plan, which has not yet been finalised, would mark a further encroachment by major Wall Street institutions into the digital assets sector following the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval in January of stock market funds that invest directly in bitcoin.

Introducing spot bitcoin trading on CME, which already hosts trading in bitcoin futures, would allow investors more easily to place so-called basis trades. A common strategy among professional bitcoin traders and a staple of the US Treasury market, basis trading involves borrowing money to sell futures while buying the underlying asset, and extracting gains from the small gap between the two. The bulk of the Treasury basis trade takes places on CME venues. CME, which caters largely to hedge funds and proprietary traders, has about 26,000 open positions, worth around $8.5bn, on its market in Chicago, more than double the amount a year ago. Its potential spot trading business would be run through the EBS currency trading venue in Switzerland, which has extensive regulations governing the trading and storing of crypto assets, the people said.

Reported by The Defiant, Sei, a high-speed Layer 1 blockchain, shared its V2 roadmap yesterday, sending its native token soaring.

Sei V2 will bring the first highly performant parallelized EVM into production, kicking off its first phase with a governance proposal. If approved, phase 2 means deploying V2 Alpha, bringing to life EVM-based smart contracts, and beginning infrastructure integrations with the network.

According to the team, phase two is expected to take days rather than weeks while it remains focused on maintaining chain stability.

Phase 3 lacks specific details, but the team said it will announce them when V2 is stable and critical infrastructure such as RPCs, bridges, indexers, and multisigs are ready.

In early February, Sei upgraded its devnet, allowing developers to deploy code compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Upgrading the network to EVM compatibility meant opening its doors to Ethereum’s vast ecosystem of dApps, furthering its move to provide its developer community with more tools and a broader programming language.

The release wasn’t intended for end users but rather for developers to experiment with deploying their applications.

Reported by Coindesk, Humanity Protocol, a zero-knowledge decentralized identity project looking to compete with Worldcoin, said it was valued at $1 billion in a seed funding round led by Kingsway Capital.

The $30 million round, which follows a $1.5 million investment from a combination of angel investors and key opinion leaders in early March, included Animoca Brands, Blockchain.com and Hashed among others, the team said in a post on Medium.

The protocol uses palm scans and a consensus mechanism it calls Proof of Humanity to uniquely verify a user's identity within a decentralized system. Worldcoin, co-founded by Sam Altman, has similar aims and went live last July using a specialized iris-scanning tool. That piqued the interest of several privacy regulators, including those of France, the U.K. and Kenya.

"Proof-of-Personhood is a powerful concept but the solutions that exist today haven't seen adoption because onboarding is invasive and high friction." founder Terence Kwok said in the post. "We're creating a decentralized identity protocol that solves verifiable uniqueness and humanity in a way that protects user privacy and self-ownership of data.”

The team at Humanity Protocol plans to use the funds for hiring and product development. A public testnet launch is planned for the second half.

Reported by The Block, Sonne Finance, a decentralized lending protocol, experienced an exploit on Wednesday morning in Asia, resulting in losses amounting to approximately $20 million.

The project said in a post-mortem report that it was exploited due to a vulnerability in Compound v2 forks (Sonne is one). The hacker “was able to exploit the protocol for ~$20M with the known donation attack.”

In response to the attack, Sonne Finance wrote in a post on X that it had paused all markets on Optimism, while those on Base remained operational.

Sonne Finance’s move came shortly after blockchain security firm PeckShield warned on X and advised Sonne to check their timelock contract. The team added that it became aware of the issue “25 minutes after the exploit.”

The team explained in the post-mortem that it recently passed a proposal to add VELO markets to Sonne.

“We scheduled the transactions on multisig wallet, and because there is 2 days timelock, we also scheduled c-factors to be executed in 2-days,” the team wrote. “The exploiter executed 4 of the transactions when 2-day timelock ends for the creation of markets, and after that, executed the transaction for adding c-factor to the markets.”

Sonne added that while they aren’t able to save the funds, “the investigation on the exploiter’s identity is still going on.”

The project said it is ready to offer a bounty to the exploiter in exchange for return without disclosing more details.

Polymarket has raised a $45 million Series B funding round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and existing investors 1confirmation and ParaFi, with participation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Dragonfly and Eventbrite’s co-founder Kevin Hartz.

Polymarket is a decentralized prediction market platform that utilizes the Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts to allow users to speculate on the outcomes of various real-world events using stablecoins in a transparent and trustless way.

“Polymarket has finally made the vision for prediction markets a reality — an opportunity that we have been passionate about for years,” Founders Fund Partner Joey Krug said in a statement. “Internally at Founders Fund we developed a habit of checking Polymarket at times of breaking news. The tangible benefits of using Polymarket as a complement to consuming news on social and mainstream media was obvious. It became clear to us that Polymarket was the winner in this market.”

The firm behind the predictions market platform also confirmed a previously unannounced $25 million Series A round led by General Catalyst, with participation from Airbnb’s Joe Gebbia and Polychain, among others.

The new investment comes despite a Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposal on Friday to crack down on so-called event contracts that enable derivatives betting on political contests and sports. Polymarket previously settled with the CFTC for $1.4 million in 2022, agreeing to wind down its Polymarket.com front-end website services in the U.S.

Polymarket claims some $202 million worth of predictions have been made via the platform so far in 2024. More than $125 million has been bet on the outcome of the U.S. election alone, according to its website. Donald Trump currently leads Joe Biden with 49% versus 44% odds on the platform.

Reported by Cointelegraph, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a new Ethereum improvement protocol, EIP-7706, focused on a new gas model for transaction call data.

Ethereum-based transactions currently have two types of gas fees: one for transaction execution, which covers the computational effort required to perform a transaction, and one for storage, which is the cost of storing data in “blobs.”

Buterin’s EIP-7706 proposes a third form of gas exclusively for call data — the portion of an Ethereum transaction containing key data transmitted to smart contracts.

This means the Ethereum blockchain will allocate a unique charge to data transferred during transactions, separate from the costs of executing contract code or storing data.

The new gas model will add a transaction type that provides max_basefee and priority_fee as a vector, providing values for execution gas, blob gas and call data gas.

At present, the base fee adjustment uses separate mechanisms for the transaction execution cost and data storage in the form of blobs.

However, Buterin suggested that with the introduction of a third type of gas fee, the Ethereum network should adopt a common approach for all three types of gas fees.

The move aims to reduce the transaction costs associated with data-heavy transactions that are not necessarily computationally intensive. If the proposal is accepted, the Ethereum network will be responsible for setting the call data costs independently of other costs.

Buterin recommended managing all three forms of gas via a dynamic model that modifies fees simultaneously.

Buterin suggested that by implementing a separate gas fee for call data, The “theoretical max call data size of a block would be greatly reduced, while basic economic analysis suggests that on average, call data would become considerably cheaper.”

The Ethereum network has struggled with gas fee issues for years despite the primary motivation of moving from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake being more scalability and lower costs.

However, the changes haven’t improved the network’s scalability as promised, with subsequent EIPs aiding the network.

Reported by Cointelegraph, Alexey Pertsev, the developer of the cryptocurrency mixing protocol Tornado Cash, has been found guilty of money laundering, raising potentially severe implications for open-source code developers.

Pertsev was found guilty of money laundering by Dutch judges at the s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal on May 14. The developer was sentenced to five years and four months in prison for allegedly laundering $1.2 billion worth of illicit assets on the platform.

The sentencing came despite Tornado Cash being a noncustodial crypto mixing protocol — meaning that the funds that go through the protocol are never held or controlled by it.

Despite having no control over the funds, the developer was found guilty after first being jailed in the Netherlands in August 2022, shortly after Tornado Cash was blacklisted by the United States government.

Pertsev’s legal representatives will have 14 days to appeal the court ruling.

According to a previous indictment, Pertsev should have suspected the illicit origins of some of the transactions on the platform that he co-developed.

There is currently no evidence of Pertsev actively facilitating any criminal transactions besides contributing to the open-source code of the crypto mixing protocol.

The ongoing case has sparked widespread concerns among open-source code developers, as it could set a precedent for punishing developers for how criminals use their code.

During Pertsev’s previous trial in March, prosecutors argued that the developer didn’t create sufficient guardrails to prevent illicit money laundering.

Authorities alleged that some of the most notorious hackers, such as the North Korean state-backed Lazarus Group, were among the criminals using the protocol.

Reported by Cointelegraph, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has hit back at Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse over his recent comments that the United States government is “going after” the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, Tether.

Ardoino took to social media platform X to clear the air around potential U.S. agency action against the firm and called out Garlinghouse for spreading “fear about USDT.”

Ardoino suggested that Garlinghouse’s comments were hypocritical, given that Ripple is being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and is trying to launch a competing stablecoin to Tether’s.

The Tether CEO said that USDT is the largest stablecoin by market share, with millions of users across the world, and it has helped bank users in developing economies. He added:

“USDT proved over time to have strong price stability, highly liquid reserves, top tier custodians and profound compliance.”

Ardonio also listed several factors that make USDT compliant and one of the most widely used stablecoins. He said Tether has collaborated with 124 law enforcement agencies across 40+ countries and has blocked over $1.3 billion worth of assets linked to scams, hacks and money laundering since it launched. Of the $1.3 billion in blocked assets, Tether blocked more than $639 million by working with U.S. law enforcement.

Ardonio also revealed that in the last 12 months, Tether has voluntarily complied with 198 requests from law enforcement to block wallets, 90 of which came from U.S. law enforcement agencies. It has complied with 339 requests in the last three years, of which 158 were from U.S. law enforcement.

Reported by The Block, Synthetix co-founder Kain Warwick has released Infinex, a front-end site that unifies decentralized finance applications into a single user-friendly layer.

The launch features what is called the Infinex Account, with a user waitlist process beginning today.

The objective of Infinex will be to lower the entry barriers typically associated with DeFi — such as complicated wallet setups, asset bridging and gas fees, the team noted. Early access is based on deposits and governance points granted.

The Infinex Account will feature cross-chain capabilities and is secured through passkey authentication and social sign-in options. This approach aims to address major barriers to using onchain applications by abstracting away usual complexities.

Kain Warwick, co-founder of Infinex, emphasized the platform’s aim to make decentralized finance more accessible and simpler for all users.

“Infinex will make it possible for everyone to use crypto and gain access to the expansive options of onchain trading without relying on someone’s centralized database and relinquishing control of their assets,” Warwick said.

The platform will operate alongside Synthetix, which has close to $500 million in deposits locked on the protocol. The project is co-founded by Wil Johnston.

The initial networks supported by Infinex currently include six blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism and Base.

Reported by The Defiant, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of the Cardano blockchain, has confirmed that CIP-69 will be included in the network’s upcoming Chang hard fork.

Hoskinson said, "I saw the requests coming in for CIP-69.. there seems to be a lot of community demand for it, and the CF also has been pushing for CIP-69 to be included in Chang."

Developers of decentralized applications (dApps) on Cardano have been struggling with a mutual dependency issue, in which two validators – which confirm transactions – need to recognize each other to function, severely limiting the design and safety of DeFi protocols.

"One issue is two validators that need to know each other's hash. This is a substantial barrier and limits our design space,” the Cardano developers’ forum reads "Tokens are usually made to be able to be minted at any time, leading to further checks on the frontend and more fragility in the systems."

The proposed CIP-69 seeks to enhance security and confidence for developers building on Cardano. This change would permit a more versatile use of a single validator script, allowing it to serve multiple roles, including minting and spending of tokens, without the complications arising from current design constraints.

Cardano has scheduled its next major upgrade for June 30, although Hoskinson acknowledged that introducing CIP-69 will likely delay the Chang hard fork.

The upgrade will usher in the so-called ‘Voltaire’ governance era, which aims to place more power in the hands of the Cardano community in terms of overseeing project developments and managing funds.

“With the introduction of a voting and treasury system, network participants will be able to use their stake and voting rights to influence the future development of the network,” the Cardano roadmap states.

Reported by Cointelegraph, Ethereum restaking protocol Eigenlayer has launched its token-claim process, or “airdrop,” for Season 1, Phase 1 rewards, according to a May 10 blog post from the protocol’s development team. The claims process will allow users who are owed the new EIGEN token to finally acquire it, after weeks of waiting. However, EIGEN is currently nontransferable, so users cannot sell it.

According to the post, EIGEN will become transferable after the team implements new features in the coming months. The tentative target date for these implementations is Sept. 30. The claim process will close on Sept. 7, and users who do not claim before that date will be unable to receive their tokens.

According to Eigenlayer documents, the token is not available to users in over 30 jurisdictions, including the United States, Russia, China and Canada. Most VPN server addresses are also banned from being used to claim it.

A total of 6.05% of the EIGEN total supply has been unlocked through the claims process, and an additional 0.7% will be unlocked from “Phase 2” starting in mid-June, the post states. Beginning in mid-June, users of Kelp, Pendle, Equilibrium and other “similar” apps will be able to start claiming their tokens, whereas the current airdrop is limited mostly to users who restaked Ether or its liquid staking derivatives on Eigenlayer prior to March 15.

Users of liquid restaking tokens (LRTs) can also claim their rewards now, as long as their activities are not categorized as part of “Phase 2.” In addition, users who restaked on Eigenlayer “between March 15th and April 29th” can claim their 100 bonus tokens now, while the bulk of their claims will be available in mid-June along with other Phase 2 participants.

Reported by Cointelegraph, stablecoins running on Bitcoin are edging closer to reality through new functionality built by Lightning Labs using the network’s Taproot upgrade implemented in late 2021.

Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, unpacked the latest development from the Bitcoin development firm at FT Live’s Crypto and Digital Assets Summit in London.

The firm’s co-founder also gave an eloquent explainer of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network to an audience of traditional finance players.

Lightning Labs’ Taproot assets protocol is building functionality to bring stablecoins and tokenized assets to Bitcoin. According to Stark, developers have made significant headway toward this goal, culminating in the testing of transactions on Lightning:

“We released an early part of the code in October and recently demoed the first-ever transaction on Lightning of an asset. The idea is to have crypto dollars and stablecoins on the Bitcoin blockchain.”

Stark added that traditionally, these digital assets have operated on other blockchains that have suffered from high fees and other issues. She argues that Bitcoin’s network is perhaps best placed to facilitate the use of stablecoins because it “is the most secure and decentralized” blockchain.