Liz Coyne

In the weekly roundup episode of Blockworks&#8217; podcast &#8220;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lyn-alden-explains-connection-between-inflation-bitcoin/id1558223079?i=1000513411286" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">On the Margin</a>,&#8221; Michael Ippolito, co-founder, sits down with Senior Editor Tyler Neville to talk about the news in macro, including: rates on one-month issued US treasuries turning negative, Japanese gaming company <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/game-giant-nexon-puts-100m-bitcoin-on-balance-sheet/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nexon</a> buying $100 million in Bitcoin, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/institutional-interest-in-eth-doubles-down/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ETH</a>&#8216;s run, and Germany embracing crypto.



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<iframe loading="lazy" title="Negative Rates Hit US, Nexon Buys Bitcoin, ETH Outperforms" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OiiC7Od5Yus?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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&#8220;On the Margin&#8221; is a two-part show.&nbsp;Once a week, Mike interviews industry experts, and then at the end of the week he is joined by co-host <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/newsletter/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tyler Neville</a> where they break down the top crypto and macro stories. Episodes go live every Wednesday and Saturday morning.



Subscribe to &#8220;On the Margin&#8221; today on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lyn-alden-explains-connection-between-inflation-bitcoin/id1558223079?i=1000513411286" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple</a> or <a href="https://spoti.fi/3bTa9uw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spotify</a>, or watch the episode on <a href="https://bit.ly/3vy1UvK" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>.

Negative Rates, Nexon Buys Bitcoin and ETH

Darren Kleine

Is there a better way to gauge public sentiment these days than by Twitter poll? It seems to work pretty well for Elon Musk, anyway.



In a recent <a href="https://twitter.com/santiagoroel/status/1663620846185766914?s=20">tweet</a>, seed investor Santiago R. Santos pitched investment possibilities to followers, asking what he should build in order to “have the most impact” in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/crypto">crypto</a> industry. The preferred choice won by a landslide.



The large majority — 77% of the more than 2,000 votes — were in support of building a new “crypto-friendly bank.”&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">I have a growing desire to build something in crypto beyond investing my own capital and education thru the Empire podcast. I have a few ideas and thought it would be good to open source the process of what I do next by gathering external input. This is the commencement of that…&mdash; Santiago R Santos | #9159 (@santiagoroel) <a href="https://twitter.com/santiagoroel/status/1663620846185766914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 30, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The recent collapses of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/signature-silicon-valley-bank-made-whole">Silicon Valley Bank</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/signature">Signature</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/silvergate">Silvergate</a>, the most prominent crypto-friendly banks in America, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/operation-choke-point-2-0">left a vacuum in the space</a> for industry clients. Santos spoke to Blockworks on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MHwnbLSxAs">the Empire podcast</a> about his plans to fill the void.



Santos prefaces the conversation by confiding he’s not “a good builder,” but is a “better investor.” He chuckles as he says this is “probably the worst time” to start up a crypto-friendly bank, “given everything that&#8217;s going on.”



“Every small bank is collapsing.”&nbsp;



“It’s really hard,” he says, “specifically if you want to do crypto stuff — Signature’s down, Silvergate’s down,” along with a number of traditional banks.



<h2>Rebuilding something that actually works</h2>



But Santos says when he looks at the current precarious situation, he is inspired to build.



The investor admits that he has no interest in directly running a bank. “There are smarter, more competent people to do that,” he says. His role would be to assemble a team and guide it with everything that he’s lived through “over the years in crypto” and from his experiences in traditional finance.



“Someone&#8217;s gonna pick up the ashes and rebuild something that actually works.”



Asked whether he’s envisioning a business or consumer-focused banking service, Santos replies that he imagines building “an everything bank,” servicing individuals who are on and off-boarding from crypto, as well as businesses and institutions.



“This is a huge, Herculean effort,” he says. “It might not work.”



Santos says he would likely start the venture in Europe. He understands “how banks operate” on the continent, “whether it&#8217;s in the UK, France, or Switzerland.” The <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/european-parliament-mica-doesnt-touch">recently established MiCA framework</a> opens up more possibilities, he says.



<h2>JP Morgan quality</h2>



Podcast host Jason Yanowitz pauses and asks Santos, “How serious are you about this?”



He replies, “Pretty serious. I&#8217;ve been in ongoing discussions for the last three months.”



Santos says he would hire executives from both crypto and traditional capital markets to run the show. “If Jamie Dimon doesn&#8217;t run for President of the United States,” Yanowitz smiles, “maybe go talk to him.”&nbsp;



Santos laughs, replying “someone like that, plus also someone in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/regulation">regulatory policy</a> side that really understands crypto.”



<iframe loading="lazy" frameborder="0" height="200" scrolling="no" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=BWG5929329742" width="100%"></iframe>







The key to moving forward, Santos says, is to get a banking license, “and part of getting the license is having a good team.”



Yanowitz suggests buying a license from a distressed business as a shortcut, but Santos promptly shuts down the idea. “I want a clean slate and to make this splash because I&#8217;ve hired the top executives and a serious team.”



“I want <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/jpmorgan">JP Morgan</a> quality,” he says, adding that he wants to build with “high quality, talented individuals” to dominate the market, starting in Europe and building out from there.



“Crypto deserves a good bank and a serious team.”



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‘Crypto Deserves a Good Bank’ — Investor Santos Says He’s Building It

James Cirrone

Just days after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-layoffs-talent-density">reports of layoffs at Binance</a> this week, the world’s largest crypto exchange tapped Richard Teng to lead all regional markets outside of the US.&nbsp;



This move is in stark contrast to Binance’s outlook for the rest of its staff. The exchange told Blockworks this week that it&#8217;s in the process of re-examining employees in top roles and determining which products and business segments deserve the most resources.&nbsp;



Teng appears to be one individual who’s been looked on kindly as the company evaluates its employees, as he has been promoted to Head of Regional Markets, effective Monday. It’s a step up from his previous duties overseeing markets in Asia, Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-29/binance-taps-teng-to-run-all-regional-markets-in-swift-ascension">reported</a>.&nbsp;



In total, Teng has served in four prior positions at Binance, <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/blog/leadership/former-abu-dhabi-global-market-ceo-richard-teng-joins-binance-singapore-as-chief-executive-421499824684902583">starting out</a> in August 2021 as the CEO of its Singapore operations.&nbsp;



Before Binance, Teng has had extensive experience working with financial regulators. He <a href="https://www.weforum.org/people/richard-teng">headed</a> up the Financial Services Regulatory Authority for the Abu Dhabi Global Market from 2015 to 2021. Before that, he was the chief regulatory officer for Singapore Exchange Limited, a stock exchange and clearing house. In that role, he worked closely with “the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to uphold a fair, orderly and transparent market,” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-teng-3497b527/">according</a> to his LinkedIn.



Teng’s rapid ascension of the ranks comes as Binance falls in the crosshairs of regulators around the world. In May, Binance was served with documents regarding a Canadian probe into the exchange’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-canada-probe">alleged violation of Ontario securities laws</a>. Two days later, Binance announced <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-leaving-canada">it was leaving Canada</a>, citing a hostile regulatory environment.



The US CFTC also sued Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao in late March, claiming the executive and his company broke trading and derivatives laws. Notably, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-and-ether-are-commodities-says-cftc-in-binance-lawsuit">the CFTC said bitcoin and ether were commodities</a> in its complaint, contradicting the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-sec-rulemaking-petition">SEC’s lack of clarity</a> on the commodity-security debate.&nbsp;



<h2>Nansen lays off 30% of staff</h2>



On-chain insight provider Nansen announced on May 30 that they were paring back their team by 30%. Forbes reported that 43 employees lost their jobs.&nbsp;



Alex Svanevik, co-founder and CEO of Nansen, released a statement on Twitter explaining the reasons why the job cuts had to be made. In his tweet, he attributed the layoffs to two things: hiring too quickly during Nansen’s initial years and the crypto downturn. Svanevik said he took “full responsibility” as CEO.



“We scaled up the team on the back of breakneck growth in our first years of operating. We wanted to invest and build in a tough market when others needed to scale back. This organic growth led the organization to taking on surface area that&#8217;s not truly part of Nansen&#8217;s core strategy,” Svanevik said.&nbsp;



He continued: “Our cost base is too high relative to where the company is today. We do have several years of runway, but our priority is to build a sustainable business.”



<h2>Other notable hires</h2>



<ul>
<li>Author of “The Bitcoin Standard,” Saifedean Ammous, is <a href="https://twitter.com/bitcoinofficesv/status/1663530702791655424">joining</a> The National Bitcoin Office of El Salvador as an economic advisor.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Crypto venture firm Electric Capital <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/232909/electric-capital-appoints-two-new-general-partners">appointed</a> Ken Deeter and Maria Shen as general partners on Friday.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>



<li>Unicoin invited Pilar Manchón, Senior Director of AI Research Strategy at Google, to join its board of directors.</li>
</ul>



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Crypto Hiring: Binance Promotes Exec to Regional Markets Head, Re-examines Remaining Staff

In a DAO community poll, a split vote scenario was enough to hold back a proposed Uniswap V3 fee switch that had seen popular support.



A recent <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-governance-fee-proposal">GFX Labs proposal</a> aimed to charge liquidity providers a fraction of fees across Uniswap V3 pools, with earnings then redistributed to the UNI community. Even though a total of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/uniswap-doesnt-pass-fee-switch">more than 50%</a> of UNI tokens were in favor of turning on fees, it wasn’t enough for the feedback proposal to pass.&nbsp;



The vote in support of fees was split between a range of options, pitted against a singular “no fee” vote. The proposal had shown “pretty broad base support,” according to <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/bellcurve/ba2d3456-0160-11ee-bc39-fb2d3ac87bd8">Bell Curve podcast</a> host and Blockworks co-founder Mike Ippolito, but failed by a “relatively slim margin.”



“The whole vote,” Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz says, “was structured incorrectly.”



“If you actually look at the vote,” Yanowitz added, the fee switch failed “even though there are more votes in favor of adding a fee than not adding.”



The exact fraction of the proposed fee was split between three possibilities; 1/5, 1/6 or 1/10, while only a single option to vote against any sort of fee was offered. Yanowitz points out that a total of 22 million UNI voted in favor of turning on some sort of fee, but the 18 million who were opposed to fees ended up winning anyway.



“So there should have been two separate polls here.”



“There should have been a yes or no fee switch,” he says, “and then if it said ‘yes’ for the fee switch, it should have been, how big should the fee switch be?”



A series of polls were planned, Framework Ventures co-founder Michael Anderson noted, first to determine fee options, followed by a second regarding the initial deployment chain and a third determining assets held in treasury.&nbsp;



“The first poll,” Anderson says, should have been “whether or not to go forward with this” rather than choosing between fee options. “And that&#8217;s what they should have been voting on here.”



<h2>Consensus is building</h2>



Based on the popular vote, Yanowitz says that “the fee switch is getting closer” to acceptance.



Framework Ventures co-founder Vance Spencer concurs, adding “I wouldn&#8217;t say this is a failure.”



“It seems like the consensus is building,” he says. “I think about Uniswap on the path to this fee switch and then what they will do with it, not whether this is gonna happen at all.”



Ippolito suggests one of the reasons fee switches are being held back is that individual delegates at Uniswap may be fearful of personal liability. He explains that a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-lowers-lbry-fine">recent SEC lawsuit</a> versus LBRY implied that the limited liability protection enjoyed by corporations in America might not extend to DAOs.



“If a fee switch is turned on,” Ippolito says, “then the token ends up looking a lot more like a security than it does today.”



“That hasn&#8217;t been decided yet. That is still in process,” Anderson says.



“The argument put forth is that, in fact, these DAOs are more like unincorporated partnerships,” Anderson says, “which don&#8217;t incur the limited liability protections that you would have with these other legal entity structures.”



Spencer adds, “You should view this as a startup working in the most punitive jurisdiction in the most, probably, punitive potential asset.”



“It&#8217;s pretty interesting, bullish and optimistic that they&#8217;re going down this path despite all of that.”



<h2>Bad timing?</h2>



Yanowitz says now is not the right time to switch fees on anyway. “Why would you turn on the fee switch right now?” he asks.&nbsp;



“Think about turning on the fee switch in a bull market.”



“That is a huge token catalyst,” he says. “You are just wasting that big opportunity in the bear markets.” 



<iframe loading="lazy" frameborder="0" height="200" scrolling="no" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=BWG5848266796" width="100%"></iframe>







Another reason, Yanowitz adds, “is you&#8217;re turning on a fee switch at the most risky time in the history of crypto regulation.”



“The legal and tax implications of turning on the fee switch right now are massive,” he says. “Why take that risk?”



Ippolito counters, “One of the advantages of the bear market is that you have cover.”



“The stakes feel much higher when it&#8217;s a bull market and everything is growing super fast and competition feels really fierce,” he says. “This is the period of time that you have to experiment.”



“If you don&#8217;t take risks now, you&#8217;re not gonna do it during the bull market.”



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Uniswap Fee Feedback Vote Failed Because It Was ‘Structured Incorrectly’

Casey Wagner

Reps. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., and Glenn Thompson, R-Penn., released a draft bill Friday afternoon detailing how the committee chairs think the SEC and CFTC should divvy up crypto regulation responsibilities.&nbsp;



After congressional leaders were able to come to an agreement and send a debt ceiling deal to President Biden’s desk, top House Republicans had turned their attention to crypto with a new legislative proposal.&nbsp;



The draft approach focuses on token classification, CFTC and SEC jurisdictions, and opening up access for crypto trading.&nbsp;



The bill sets up a process for token issuers to petition for their currencies to be considered commodities, as long as the project is sufficiently decentralized. The CFTC will be tasked with overseeing digital commodities, but the SEC can attempt to classify tokens as securities if the agency can successfully make the case to do so.&nbsp;



“The Act includes definitions for a decentralized network and a functional network and provides a certification process under which a digital asset issuer may certify to the SEC that the network on which the digital asset relates is decentralized,” lawmakers wrote in the draft summary. “The SEC may object to the certification if the SEC determines the certification is inconsistent with the Act, but must provide a detailed analysis of its reasons for doing so.”



Reps. McHenry, who heads the House Committee on Financial Services, and Thompson, chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, believe the current guidelines around crypto hinder innovation and fail “to provide adequate consumer protection,” according to the <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AG/AG00/20230606/116051/HHRG-118-AG00-20230606-SD002.pdf">draft</a> summary.&nbsp;



The bill also allows for the secondary sale of digital commodities after initially being sold as investment contracts and permits digital asset trading platforms to register as alternative trading systems.&nbsp;



Although the draft has not made it to the floor for a formal introduction, early reception from the industry was largely positive Friday afternoon.&nbsp;



&#8220;We appreciate the historic joint-committee efforts by FSC &amp; Ag Comms to create a comprehensive framework for centralized crypto-asset activity in the United States,” Polygon Chief Policy Officer Rebecca Rettig said in a statement. “The bill creates a sensible starting point to ensure a robust framework for the industry, and to ensure the U.S. remains competitive in allowing this technology to be built here.”&nbsp;



The offices of McHenry and Thompson did not immediately respond to Blockworks’ request for comment.



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House Republicans Look to Referee the CFTC-SEC Crypto Turf War

Katherine Ross

A Bureau of Labor Statistics report released on Friday morning showed yet another month of hot employment data, prompting more discussion about what the Fed will do when it meets later this month.&nbsp;



Odds show a 67% chance that the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/federal-reserve">Federal Reserve</a> will keep current rates, with a 33% chance that the Fed decides to hike 25 basis points, according to the CME’s <a href="https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html">FedWatch</a> tool.



Bitcoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">BTC</a>), meanwhile, managed to retake $27,000 and has held on to the level throughout Friday trading.&nbsp;



On Wednesday, Daily Price Action’s Justin Bennett <a href="https://dailypriceaction.com/crypto/bitcoin-what-todays-selloff-means-for-june/">wrote</a> that the selloff earlier in the week “means the $27,500-$27,650 area flips back to resistance. It also re-exposes the $26,500 support region.”



Right after the jobs report release, odds of no hike for the Fed were at 72% compared to a 27% chance of a 25 basis point hike.&nbsp;



Both Fed Governor Philip Jefferson and Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker voiced their support for no rate hike in June prior to the release of the jobs data, with Harker calling it a “skip.”



However, Harker noted that the jobs report “may change my mind.” The <a href="https://t.co/ZwrVfLviqL">report</a> was strong, though the unemployment rate ticked up.



The economy added 339,000 jobs last month, once again topping expectations of 195,000. Unemployment jumped to 3.7%, above the expected 3.5%.&nbsp;



“Markets may obsess over job statistics, but their role in determining the trajectory of inflation and interest rates is debatable,” Noelle Acheson <a href="https://noelleacheson.substack.com/p/friday-june-2-2023?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=1104537&amp;post_id=125501145&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;utm_medium=email">wrote</a> in her Substack, Crypto Is Macro Now.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">so, US unemployment came in higher than expected to reach a 7-month high of 3.7% &#8211; but actual employment also came in *much* higher than expected, even though participation rate was more or less unchanged and this is all very confusing <a href="https://t.co/Z0hVmTCTSu">pic.twitter.com/Z0hVmTCTSu</a>&mdash; Noelle Acheson (@NoelleInMadrid) <a href="https://twitter.com/NoelleInMadrid/status/1664612393719156737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



But the report isn’t the only macroeconomic factor playing into the overall market mood going into the weekend.&nbsp;



The Senate passed a debt ceiling deal late Thursday, just barely ahead of the June 5 deadline suggested by Treasury Secretary <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/janet-yellen">Janet Yellen</a>. Yellen warned legislators on Capitol Hill that the Treasury wouldn’t have enough money to pay off all of its bills if a deal wasn’t pushed through before June 5, meaning that a default was possible.



The package — negotiated by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden — suspends the debt ceiling into early 2025 and advances the Mountain Valley Pipeline as well as changes work requirements for federal food aid.



On top of the macroeconomic picture, the VIX — an index used to gauge overall market volatility — is at a 52-week low. The lower the VIX gets, the cheaper options prices become while options prices become more expensive when the VIX is higher.&nbsp;



The gauge of a so-called normal VIX — what traders look for in other words — is 21. At the time of publication, it had dropped to 14.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">A <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24VIX&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$VIX</a> under $14.10 takes up to pre Covid <a href="https://t.co/Yj4G7iYEDA">pic.twitter.com/Yj4G7iYEDA</a>&mdash; Tom Hearden (@followtheh) <a href="https://twitter.com/followtheh/status/1664674982352265217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



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Market Focuses on Possible Hike ‘Skip’ in June After May Jobs Report

Bessie Liu

Zero-knowledge rollup solution zkSync Era has added its first liquid staking protocol, Rocket Pool, to its network.&nbsp;



ZkSync Era <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zksyncs-evm-era-opens-to-the-public">first launched</a> on Ethereum in March. Including Rocket Pool, 58 projects are now live and operating on the layer-2 solution.



Users will have the ability to stake ether (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/eth">ETH</a>) on Era through holding <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/reth">rETH</a> in their wallets, with staking rewards occurring automatically, just like on mainnet.&nbsp;



Nick Ashley, Rocket Pool’s marketing manager, told Blockworks that Rocket Pool has had to face specific challenges that present themselves in keeping the protocol running smoothly while staying true to the ethos of decentralization and remaining permissionless.&nbsp;



“These include shuttling validator statuses and balances from the Beacon Chain to the Execution Layer, monitoring for protocol compliance, and calculating rewards,” Ashley said.



The liquid staking derivative is keeping a close eye on industry developments, whether that’s distributed validator technology or zero-knowledge (zk) proof technology, Ashley noted.



Following its deployment on Era, Rocket Pool’s research team has been looking into how zk proof technology could assist in the competing oracle tasks in an even more decentralized way than it is currently.



“Potential benefits include lower costs, increased efficiency and reliability, and an overall more streamlined system,” Ashley said. “But at the same time, this is juxtaposed with an abundance of caution and strong safety culture.”



The liquid staking derivative is currently also deployed on optimistic rollups Arbitrum and Optimism, and Ashley remains cautious about deploying on new networks.&nbsp;



“The main factors that would be considered when choosing which network to launch on are whether there are similar shared core values […] we are committed to helping the ecosystem to grow and scale while also remaining secure and decentralized. We are always open to considering a launch elsewhere but don&#8217;t have any immediate plans right now.&#8221;



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zkSync Era Welcomes its First Liquid Staking Protocol

Bankrupt crypto exchanges and Web2 digital payment apps have something in common: They aren’t insured by the FDIC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) reminded users this week.&nbsp;



In a Thursday release, the CFPB warned users that keeping cash in apps like Venmo, Cash App and PayPal is inherently dangerous.&nbsp;



“Billions of dollars” are currently stored in apps like <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/venmo">Venmo</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/paypal">PayPal</a>, the release said, but if these platforms were to go under, there is no guarantee clients would be made whole.



The companies disclose as much in their published legal terms. For instance, PayPal <a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/pp-short-form">notes</a>, “FDIC insurance does not protect you against the failure of PayPal,” but individual consumers may nevertheless be unaware.



&#8220;Popular digital payment apps are increasingly used as substitutes for a traditional bank or credit union account but lack the same protections to ensure that funds are safe,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in the <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-finds-billions-of-dollars-stored-on-popular-payment-apps-may-lack-federal-insurance/">release</a>.



Similarly, crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/fdic">FDIC</a>). Bankrupt firms including <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/voyager">Voyager</a> Digital, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/celsius">Celsius</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/blockfi">BlockFi</a> are among many crypto companies that operated banking services without protection under the government.&nbsp;



The FDIC has for months attempted to crack down on crypto companies using “misleading” statements about their status as insured institutions.&nbsp;



In a July 2022 cease and desist <a href="https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2022/pr22056.html">letter</a> to Voyager Digital, the FDIC alleged the brokerage firm falsely advertised itself as an insured institution. 



“Based on the information gathered to date, it appears that these representations likely misled and were relied upon by customers who placed their funds with Voyager and do not have immediate access to their funds,” the FDIC said in the letter. 



Voyager advertised to clients that deposits of up to $250,000 would be insured through the FDIC because Voyager had partnered with FDIC-backed Metropolitan Commercial Bank to maintain a deposit account on behalf of users.&nbsp;



“Voyager is not itself insured by the FDIC, though, and so customers who invested through its cryptocurrency platform would not receive insurance coverage in the event of Voyager’s failure,” the FDIC added in the letter.&nbsp;



In August 2022, the FDIC informed crypto safety information provider CryptoSec.info, now known as ChainSec.io, incorrectly was advertising certain crypto exchanges as being FDIC insured. 



“The FDIC does not insure any crypto exchanges,” the <a href="https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2022/cryptosec-info-letter.pdf">letter</a> stated.



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Not Just a Crypto Issue: PayPal and Venmo Lack FDIC Insurance Too

Rena Shah

Bitcoin price predictions are always absolutely everywhere. Everyone who pays attention to crypto, whether for investing, building or entertainment, cannot avoid reading daily wild headlines about where the price of BTC is heading.



“The Fed May Have Just Triggered a $100 Billion Bitcoin Price Boom as Ethereum Surges Back,” “Bitcoin Price Drops Below $28,000 Post Labor Day – Rough Road Ahead,” and “Bitcoin at $100,000? Insiders Say the Cryptocurrency Could Test New Highs This Year,” are some of my recent favorites.



From $1,000,000 price bets to the proverbial “imminent crash,” those who have been around long enough in this space have either learned to tune predictions out or play into their hyped narrative themselves.&nbsp;



With the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-litecoin-halvings" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">next bitcoin halving event</a> less than a year away, it’s a given that prices will move, maybe even wildly. So it’s time we stop predicting the price of bitcoin like it’s something interesting, useful, or even, frankly, predictable at all.&nbsp;



Instead, there’s an argument to be made that a new challenger to the bitcoin price prediction has entered the room — a contender for new predictions that could actually bring some useful insight to the community.



The challenger? Bitcoin transaction fees.



If we were able to provide more insight about bitcoin transaction fees, our predictions could actually be useful instead of hollow headline grabbers&nbsp;— we could help users find the lowest fee moments to dive into new use cases on Bitcoin, or help builders develop and scale Bitcoin layers more efficiently.



<h2>Bitcoin was meant to scale</h2>



<a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&amp;q=bitcoin%20transaction%20fee">Interest</a> surrounding all aspects of the Bitcoin blockchain has hit record levels, as <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ordinals" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ordinals</a>, Stamps, BRC-20 tokens and other new protocols have sprouted up this year. Bitcoin’s average daily transactions over seven days reached <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-transactions-record-ordinals" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">record highs</a>, the first time it’s done so since December 2017. We’re entering this era where people actually want to do something more with Bitcoin than just point out its price.



Glassnode <a href="https://studio.glassnode.com/metrics?a=BTC&amp;m=transactions.Count&amp;mAvg=7&amp;s=1682985600&amp;u=1685505599&amp;zoom=">reported</a> that the average transactions reached 586,704.42 throughout May. The average transaction fee reached as high as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-bitcoin-withdrawals" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">seven dollars</a>, as Ordinal inscriptions surpassed three million in May 2023.&nbsp;



The thing we have forgotten is <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/bitcoin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bitcoin</a> was always meant to scale. Low fees were always going to be temporary. That’s why Bitcoin layer-2 solutions exist. As is the case with every other major layer-1 blockchain, when the base layer began to bloat, layer-2s were designed to efficiently scale usage and reprioritize where demand went toward the base layer. 



Read More: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ron-desantis-bitcoin-politics">Ron DeSantis Posturing On Bitcoin Is Just Performative Politics</a>



The Bitcoin builders community has <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/5dbdd774-f8ec-11ed-9fad-4b0caf9e5c8d" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">talked</a> about the idea of DeFi and other use cases coming back to Bitcoin from other layer-1s for years, and now we are seeing that prediction become a reality. This revival of activity for Bitcoin means that the day-to-day price of transaction fees is going to matter more for many users than the daily moving average cost of one BTC.



I’ll go first with this new prediction model.



I predict that we will see another 10x from here in transaction fees.&nbsp;



As the Bitcoin thesis continues playing out, and as layer-1 apps grow and scale into layer-2s, we will see multiple spikes in the daily transaction price that will worry some and excite others. Ultimately, the higher fees will benefit the entire Bitcoin community.&nbsp;



Now, it’s your turn.



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


<div class="wp-block-post-author-biography">Rena Shah is the Head of Operations &amp; Strategy at Trust Machines, a company building the largest ecosystem of applications on Bitcoin. Previously, she was the Head of Exchange at Binance.US, where she grew the exchange from $30M to $3B in daily trading volume within 18 months. Shah is a veteran in the crypto space with previous roles at Ember Fund, a retail-focused app, and with a market maker, Apifiny. Rena spent time on the commodities side with a unique background as a drilling engineer. She spent her early career offshore on drilling rigs while spinning up Bitcoin mining pools. 
</div>


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Stop. Predicting. Bitcoin’s. Price.

In a third amended complaint, plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk are making fresh allegations centered around dogecoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/doge">DOGE</a>) and insider trading. Among them: That Elon Musk himself “manipulated the market of Bitcoin.”



In the complaint, which was filed on Wednesday, the plaintiffs allege that “Dogecoin is a domestic security subject to the Court’s jurisdiction under the Exchange Act.” The <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sec">SEC</a> has not alleged that dogecoin is a security.



Second, the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Third-Amended-Complaint-2.pdf">new allegations</a> “plausibly allege” that Musk “also manipulated the market for Bitcoin while Tesla was trading that cryptocurrency.”



The third complaint names Musk and Tesla as defendants, and dropped the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/dogecoin">Dogecoin</a> Foundation.



Here’s a look at the new allegations:



<ul>
<li>Securities fraud: If not for Musk’s “material misstatements and omissions, Plaintiffs and the Class would not have purchased Dogecoin.” Plaintiffs also claim that this manipulation is supported by Musk’s “market manipulation of Bitcoin.”</li>



<li>Insider trading: Musk and Tesla artificially inflated the price of dogecoin to profit from it.</li>



<li>Common law fraud: Musk “knowingly and recklessly made material misrepresentations” to dogecoin investors.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Unjustly enriched: Plaintiffs argue that <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/elon-musk">Musk</a> and Tesla were “unjustly enriched by billion of dollars” due to “undisclosed sales of dogecoin based on insider information.”</li>
</ul>



“The proposed amendments would not be futile because they provide further detailed factual allegations concerning Plaintiffs’ claim that Defendant Elon Musk has been manipulating the cryptocurrency market and that together with his company, Tesla, Inc., he insider traded on foreknowledge of his market manipulative moves,” lawyers wrote in the most recent complaint.



Back in February 2021, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/tesla">Tesla</a> purchased $1.5 billion in bitcoin and announced that it would be accepting payments in <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">BTC</a>. However, in May, Musk announced that Tesla would not accept bitcoin for purchases and cited environmental concerns.



The complaint also alleges that Musk “took extensive responsibility for the Dogecoin enterprise as a whole, thus giving rise to the fiduciary relationship required to state a claim for insider trading.”



Though it’s not clear exactly how Musk took “responsibility” for dogecoin, the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Third-Amended-Complaint-2.pdf">filings</a> cited “Dogecoin enthusiasts’ choice of Musk (from among four candidates) as ‘CEO’ was accepted by Musk.”



“The @dogecoin account then ‘quote retweeted’ Musk’s tweet with the remark, ‘It looks like you’re the CEO now, @elonmusk, DM [i.e., ‘direct message’] us where to email the access codes :-D’ and Musk replied, ‘Uh oh.’ Later that day, Musk tweeted a Dogecoin-themed meme,” the filing said.



Plaintiffs had <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Second-Amended-Complaint.pdf">previously claimed</a> that dogecoin counts as a security under the Howey test in the second amended complaint, which Musk’s legal team petitioned to dismiss back in March. The complaint alleged that Musk claiming that SpaceX would send Dogecoin “to the moon” in 2022 — which did not happen — was “deceptive” because it cannot be sent to the moon.



Musk’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/musk-dogecoin-lawsuit-memes">lawyers claimed that Musk</a> did not break any laws by tweeting “funny pictures about a legitimate cryptocurrency.”



On April 3 — days after Musk’s legal team asked the court to dismiss the second amended complaint — Musk changed the Twitter logo to the Doge logo. The complaint claims that the logo change happened in 2022, but it actually happened in 2023.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/musk-dogecoin-lawsuit-memes">Musk Lawyers Say ‘Nothing Wrong’ With Memes in $258B Dogecoin Lawsuit</a>



According to the newest complaint, the price of dogecoin spiked 30% and promptly fell when Twitter replaced the logo with the blue bird.&nbsp;



The lawsuit was <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/original-complaint.pdf">first filed</a> in June 2022 following Musk’s infamous Saturday Night Live appearance. At the time, the plaintiffs made a series of allegations against Musk and Tesla, including that Musk is a “partner in the Dogecoin Crypto Pyramid Scheme.”



It cited his tweets and comments about dogecoin going back to 2019, and claimed that the defendants had committed wire fraud, gambling, negligence and deceptive practices.&nbsp;



“Plaintiffs motion for leave to file that complaint is likely to be granted, since there is not likely to be any prejudice against the Tesla Defendants, and leave to file an amended complaint is freely to be granted,” Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote in a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Judge-Ruling-on-DOgecoin-Lawsuit.pdf">document</a> released on Wednesday.



According to a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/memo-from-judge-elon-musk-class-action.pdf">memo</a> filed on Wednesday, the defendants have until June 14, 2023 to file an opposition to the amended complaint.



The lawsuit originally sought $258 billion. The fully-diluted market cap of dogecoin is about $10 billion.



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Plaintiffs in Dogecoin Lawsuit Against Musk Make Wild New Allegations

After seeking feedback on CBDCs in February, Kenya’s Central Bank (CBK) has come out with a firm position, saying that in the current environment, “a CBDC in Kenya may not be a compelling priority in the short to medium term.”&nbsp;



On top of that, CBK argued that “on the global stage, the allure of CBDCs is fading.”



Notably, CBK didn’t completely shut down the idea of a digital Kenyan shelling, pledging to monitor CBDC developments around the world and work with other central banks that have issued their own digital currencies, according to a press <a href="https://www.centralbank.go.ke/uploads/press_releases/103592893_Press%20Release%20-%20Issuance%20of%20Discussion%20Paper%20on%20Central%20Bank%20Digital%20Currency%20-%20Comments%20from%20the%20Public.pdf">release</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



CBK issued a discussion paper in February going over some <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/kenya-seeks-public-opinion-on-potential-cbdc">possible deployments of a CBDC</a> and has now received over 100 responses from individuals, commercial banks, payment service providers and others.&nbsp;



Some of the benefits respondents highlighted included lower transaction costs, better foreign exchange rates and increased transparency.&nbsp;



One notable downside that the CBK mentioned was financial exclusion, which could very well happen if certain citizens don’t have access to the technology necessary to engage with the digital currency. A large majority of respondents, 87%, told CBK it was the job of the central bank to prevent that from happening.



Other risks CBK listed were disintermediation of banks, high implementation costs, and cyberattacks.&nbsp;



Additionally, CBK has witnessed some of the issues nations that have launched CBDCs have faced, so it has decided to take a wait and see approach.



“Central banks that were first to roll out CBDCs have recently faced challenges that have hampered implementation,” the central bank said in its statement. “Major global central banks have deferred the decision on the adoption of CBDCs. This measured approach is consistent with the approach that CBK is taking.”



So far, 11 countries — most of them Caribbean nations — have created CBDCs, according to the Atlantic Council’s CBDC <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/cbdctracker/">tracker</a>.



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‘Allure of CBDCs Is Fading’ Globally, Says Kenyan Central Bank

For any decentralized finance or DeFi ecosystem to function efficiently, stablecoins are crucial. They enable liquidity — the easy movement of value from one place to another — with less friction and volatility risk.



Both <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/solana">Solana</a> have enjoyed vibrant <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/defi">DeFi</a> environments, at least partly due to the ease of access to stablecoin utility within their networks. This has not yet been the case for the appchain ecosystem that calls itself the “internet of blockchains” — <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Cosmos</a>.



The folks at Noble and Celestia are well aware of this shortcoming. Recently deciding to team up for the cause, the companies behind <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/noble-solve-cosmos-liquidity">Noble</a>, a general asset issuance chain and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/celestia-raises-55-million-for-new-modular-blockchain">Celestia</a>, a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sovereign-rollups-blockchain-scaling">data availability</a> (DA) layer, are together building native <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoin</a> capacity into the Cosmos ecosystem.



On the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPVvYCMXaR8">0xResearch podcast</a>, Blockworks Research senior analyst Sam Martin says the two companies are partnering up to “enable the minting of native <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/usdc">USDC</a>, by default, for any modular chain that leverages Celestia as a DA layer.”



The move is an important step, Martin says. “In order to have a vibrant DeFi ecosystem, stablecoins are incredibly important.” Stablecoin tokens like USDC and USDT allow investors to generate yield on digital assets while minimizing the risks of market volatility through the token’s steady value, which is pegged to fiat currency.



“That&#8217;s been a main pain point for Cosmos,” Martin says, “but now that they have USDC, I feel like there&#8217;s gonna be a lot less liquidity fragmentation.”



“I definitely think that this is a huge development,” Blockworks Research analyst Ryan West agrees. “The reason that their DeFi hasn&#8217;t taken off, despite them being around for a while, is because there wasn&#8217;t that native stablecoin.”



The ability to use <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/circle">Circle</a>’s USDC stablecoin natively via Celestia’s DA layer will “supercharge” growth for the ecosystem, West believes.&nbsp;



Celestia is a layer-2 <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/rollups">rollup</a> that uses light nodes to verify that transaction data is public and available “without needing to download all the data for a block.” This is achieved through a mechanism called “data availability sampling,” according to the company <a href="https://docs.celestia.org/concepts/data-availability-faq/">website</a>.



“I think it&#8217;s really gonna jump-start things,” West says.



<h2>Will Tether miss out?</h2>



Blockworks Research analyst Dan Smith asserts that USDC will enjoy “first-mover advantage” as the first native fiat stablecoin in the ecosystem. He imagines the move might encourage leading stablecoin issuer, Tether (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/usdt">USDT</a>) to “copycat” and follow in Circle’s footsteps, “but we haven&#8217;t seen any of those actions being taken.”



Three major ecosystems — Solana, Ethereum and the Cosmos ecosystem of appchains — have been at the forefront of development over the past year, Smith says.&nbsp;



<iframe loading="lazy" frameborder="0" height="200" scrolling="no" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=BWG6523656089" width="100%"></iframe>







“We already have USDC and Tether on Solana,” Smith adds, in addition to their presence on Ethereum and its <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/layer-2-2">layer-2s</a>, but “we haven&#8217;t really seen that happen in the Cosmos ecosystem.”



Smith says he wonders if <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-circle-stablecoin-usdc-noble">the addition of native USDC to Cosmos</a> may spark the beginnings of a “Cambrian explosion of Defi applications and use-cases” in the industry.



&#8220;And if we do start moving in this world,&#8221; he asks, &#8220;is this gonna be a miss for Tether?&#8221;



“It&#8217;s definitely good for Defi to have that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-backs-usdc-shorter-treasurys">trustworthy fiat stablecoin</a> that can provide that one-to-one pegged value,” but it would be preferable, he says, for “market diversity to shard some of the risk of relying on a single asset.”



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Cosmos Boards the DeFi Train with Native USDC Support

Ben Strack

As Japanese banks get set to issue stablecoins under new legislation, the US’ lack of regulatory clarity in the segment is one hurdle blocking institutions in the country from doing the same.



Japan in June 2022 <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/japan-passes-legal-framework-for-stablecoins">passed a legal framework for stablecoins</a>, which took effect Thursday.&nbsp;



The law requires that stablecoins — typically backed by one or more reserve assets — must be pegged to the yen or another legal tender and guarantee redemption to the holder at face value. It also confines the issuance of stablecoins to licensed financial institutions, such as registered banks, money transfer agents and trust companies.



The country’s step to bridge the gap between TradFi and DeFi with this initiative will benefit everyone in the long run, said David Tawil, co-founder of crypto fund ProChain Capital.



“In the US, most depositors, individual and business, have the benefit of free [automated clearing house] transfers intra-national,” he told Blockworks. “But, Japan’s initiative is a first step toward international frictionless, free money transfers.”



Updating from decades-old payment systems to cheaper and faster distributed ledger technology will always be a win for the customer, according to Jeff Embry, managing partner at crypto hedge fund Globe 3 Capital.



“The key will be making sure these stablecoins utilize a trustless, immutable and transparent blockchain versus being in control of one bank or one government like a CBDC would,” Embry added.



Tokyo-based GU Technologies in March <a href="https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000019.000083257.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched</a> a public blockchain — called Japan Open Chain — as a way to allow three Japanese financial institutions to experiment with issuing stablecoins complying with the country’s laws. The stablecoins would be compatible with Ethereum wallets via Metamask, for example.



Embry said that if Japanese banks only look to create their own stablecoins, the stablecoin ecosystem will struggle.&nbsp;



“We like to see stablecoins originate outside of the bank ecosystem bubble, as that is where true, immutable, transparent stablecoin innovation and adoption will prosper,” the Globe 3 Capital executive noted.



<h2>What would it take for US banks to issue stablecoins?</h2>



While regulations would be key for US banks to issue stablecoins, proposed bills on this subject <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/house-stablecoin-crypto-offshore">remain in flux</a>.&nbsp;



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/house-hearings-deepening-party-divide">Recent hearings</a> by the House Financial Services and Agriculture committees show crypto regulation could be two or three years off, according to Compass Point Research &amp; Trading analysts Chase White and Joe Flynn.&nbsp;



“What we saw in these hearings is that members of Congress do not agree intraparty, much less interparty, on the basic tenets of even stablecoin legislation, which is seen by many observers as low-hanging fruit relative to comprehensive crypto legislation,” White and Flynn wrote in a research note last week.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, comments from regulators seem to contradict one another amid <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/house-grapples-with-stablecoins">a war to regulate the crypto space</a>. CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam said in March stablecoins such as tether (<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/usdt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">USDT</a>) could be considered commodities, while SEC chairman Gary Gensler has claimed every crypto asset, besides bitcoin, could be a security.



Aside from a lack of movement and clarity from legislators and regulators, stablecoin adoption might be slow for big US banks who want customers to continue paying wiring fees.



“Banks are slow to adopt because they are the middlemen that blockchain eliminates,” Embry said. “Once customers see the huge benefits of using stablecoins the demand for them will be so great the banks won’t have a choice but to adopt them.”



JPMorgan offers JPM Coin, a permissioned payment rail and deposit account ledger for clients to transfer US dollars held with JPMorgan within the bank’s system. But Embry called the system more of a tool for clients than a true open-sourced blockchain stablecoin.



​​JPMorgan and consulting firm Oliver Wyman said in a joint <a href="https://www.oliverwyman.com/content/dam/oliver-wyman/v2/publications/2023/feb/oliver-wyman-jp--morgan-deposit-tokens-report-final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> published earlier this year that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/deposit-tokens-stablecoins-defi-jpmorgan">using bank-issued deposit tokens</a> to transfer value across chains is safer than using stablecoins.



Similar to his wish for Japanese institutions, Embry said he hopes US banks ultimately adopt stablecoins from third-party innovators rather than creating their own.&nbsp;



Tether’s stablecoin market capitalization <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/usdt-market-share-all-time-high">has surged in recent months</a> — standing at nearly $83.3 billion on Thursday. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-usdc-tether-competition">The market cap of competing stablecoin USD Coin</a> (USDC) was just below $29 billion.&nbsp;



“I think at some point, some country or countries around the world are going to lap us on this, and that’s when we’re going to get into gear here,” Tawil said of US stablecoin adoption. “We don’t do anything in this country until we’re under threat. Debt ceiling, case and point.”



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Japan’s New Stablecoin Framework Could Spur US To Act

Shalini Nagarajan

Given the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-payments-fednow-launch-july">upcoming launch</a> of the FedNow service, which aims to provide instantaneous payments and settlement, there is growing curiosity about how <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stablecoins</a> will adapt and remain relevant.



After all, stablecoins gained traction by addressing the sluggishness and outdated nature of the traditional US banking system.&nbsp;



FedNow is a centralized payment system provided by the Federal Reserve for instant interbank transactions, while stablecoins are decentralized digital assets that aim to provide stability and fast transactions by pegging their value to specific assets or currencies.



So, will stablecoins still have a place in the digital age? Indeed, according to Bitwise crypto research analyst Ryan Rasmussen, stablecoins are expected to maintain their relevance, for several reasons.



One big common factor between the two is that they are capable of processing transactions at any time, unlike traditional banking systems.



But ultimately, stablecoins come out on top with five clear advantages, according to Rasmussen, enumerated in a <a href="https://bitwiseinvestments.com/crypto-market-insights/five-reasons-why-fednow-fails-to-disrupt-stablecoins" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog post</a> published on May 31.



<ol>
<li>FedNow has limited utility and does not have a global reach</li>
</ol>



The analyst noted that stablecoins make the US dollar more accessible worldwide, helping in countries like Venezuela, Argentina, and Turkey where there are shortages of banknotes and high inflation.&nbsp;



By using platforms like Aave and Compound, stablecoins provide access to financial services and can make a positive difference for millions of people around the globe, he said.



<ol start="2">
<li>Stablecoins offer financial access for all</li>
</ol>



FedNow requires users to hold a US bank account, while stablecoins offer financial access without such limitations.



FedNow doesn&#8217;t help the millions of unbanked households, including marginalized communities, while stablecoins provide instant access to the financial system for anyone with a computer or smartphone, the analyst said.



<ol start="3">
<li>Stablecoins power on-chain transactions</li>
</ol>



Stablecoins have seen a massive surge in demand, with their total supply growing by a more than 8,000% since Jan. 2017, according to the researcher.



They are used in DeFi protocols, trading against cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether and for on-chain payments. Unlike FedNow, stablecoins allow dollars to exist on-chain, making them irreplaceable in these applications, he said.



<ol start="4">
<li>Stablecoins offer a way for individuals to send money overseas&nbsp;</li>
</ol>



Stablecoins are borderless and accessible anywhere, making cross-border payments more affordable and accessible. This is reflected in the growing popularity of stablecoin transfers, with over $17 trillion transferred to date, including $2 trillion in Q1 2023 alone, according to the data.



To put that in perspective, $2 trillion exceeds the total transaction volume processed by PayPal throughout 2022, he noted.



<ol start="5">
<li>Stablecoins have no limits on transaction size&nbsp;</li>
</ol>



Unlike FedNow, which imposes transaction limits, stablecoins have no such restrictions. Whether you&#8217;re sending $500 or $5,000,000, stablecoins can handle transactions of any size.



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Will Stablecoins Still Be Relevant After FedNow?

Interoperability protocol Connext has introduced chain abstraction with the goal of simplifying the layer-2 experience.



Similar to how account abstraction is designed to simplify the end-user experience with wallets, chain abstraction is designed to enable users to interact with multiple decentralized applications (dapps) on different chains without ever needing to leave the user interface.



Traditionally when interacting with layer-2s, users may need to bridge their funds to chain A if they want to use a specific liquidity pool on chain A, but they only have tokens available on chain B.



This makes for a complicated user experience and can often deter new users from wanting to transact in the space, as they will need to navigate the process of bridging, paying gas and depositing funds across different networks.



Many different protocols are working on resolving this issue, including Chainlink, LayerZero and Wormhole, to name a few. All of these protocols focus on cross-chain messaging, which enables smart contracts to communicate with each other.&nbsp;



Most of these protocols fall under the three most common bridges that exist today:



<ul>
<li>Native</li>



<li>Externally verified</li>



<li>Optimistic</li>
</ul>



Native bridges are completely trustless, Max Lomuscio, marketing lead at Connext Labs, told Blockworks. Transactions on native bridges are fully verified by one blockchain, but they often only work in one direction.&nbsp;



Another type of bridge — externally verified — uses external parties to verify transactions and relies on trust.&nbsp;



This includes the likes of Chainlink and LayerZero. On Chainlink, for example, users must trust that the oracle is accurate. With LayerZero, there is a 2/2 multisig, where two parties are responsible for all token bridging.



“The problem is that there is nothing to prevent these parties from colluding if they wanted to,” Lomuscio said.



Optimistic bridges are a third type. Similar to how rollups operate, transactions that pass through optimistic bridges must be quarantined for 30 minutes before they are valid.&nbsp;



Lomuscio notes that “any watcher can submit a fraud-proof and slash the transaction, so you only need one good actor to keep in the space watching the transactions to keep the system secure.”



Connext claims that what it introduces with chain abstraction is completely trustless and fast.



“Connext plugs into native bridges to move the data using the most secure path. On top of it, we have an optimistic system so that we can shorten the time to move messages from rollups that would otherwise require seven days,” Lomusico said.&nbsp;



There is also a liquidity and execution layer — Lomusico explains, “where liquidity providers front cash to users immediately then wait for the 30 minute refund on the optimistic layer.”



The Connext toolkit has been audited and is available to developers on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism and Gnosis to use, Lomuscio said.&nbsp;



To use the toolkit, dapps on these platforms will have to import it into their own architecture, Lomuscio notes.&nbsp;



“It doesn’t require any change to their smart contracts although we recommend to customize their UI to make it seamless for their dapp,” he said.



Other chains that will be able to deploy the toolkit in the near future include Linea, Scroll, zkSync, Base and Polygon zkEVM, just to name a few.



“The idea is that with hundreds or thousands of [layer-2s] and [layer-3s] that will launch on the market in the coming years, the experience of users will be completely fragmented and disrupted,” Lomusico said. “The only way for dapps to enable a seamless experience is to abstract the concept of chains and the underlying tech stack in general.”



This is similar to what exists in the internet world today, where users are unaware of which server or storage system websites are running on, Lomusico noted.



Dapps that have already adopted the chain abstraction concept today are betting platform Prode and liquidating bootstrapping protocol Fjord. Other dapps integrating the Connext toolkit still largely remain on testnet, with mainnet launches planned for the coming weeks.



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Connext is Connecting the Multichain with Chain Abstraction

GameStop has partnered with the Telos Foundation to pilot a new Web3 game launcher called GameStop Playr.&nbsp;



&#8220;GameStop Playr is marketing/distributing Web3 games that are built using Telos’ blockchain technology,&#8221; Telos Chief Marketing Officer Peter Nguyen told Blockworks. 



At present, GameStop Playr hasn’t yet launched and no compatible games have been announced, but interested parties can sign up for a waitlist.



GameStop, long known as a brick and mortar game retailer, pivoted to crypto a year after the infamous r/wallstreetbets short squeeze sent its stock skyrocketing in January 2021. In January 2022, GameStop launched an NFT and crypto division, the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/gamestop-entering-nft-and-cryptocurrency-markets-as-part-of-turnaround-plan-11641504417">reported</a> at the time.&nbsp;



Just over a year later, it partnered with Immutable X to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/web3-watch-gamestop-opens-nft-marketplace-magic-eden-fund-focuses-on-web3-gaming">launch its own NFT marketplace</a>, which reached $1 million in trading volume in its first 24 hours.



For now, games compatible on the Telos blockchain will be able to be distributed via the GameStop Playr, according to a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/telos-announces-strategic-collaboration-with-gamestop-to-expand-web3-gaming-301839456.html">statement</a> from Telos.



Some games that are compatible or “close to fully integrated” on the Telos blockchain include gambling platforms such as W3Poker and OwlDAO, as well as a mobile game called Monkey Empire.



However, none of these games are guaranteed to be available through GameStop Playr, Nguyen noted.&nbsp;



Head of business development at the Telos Foundation, AJ Dinger, said this partnership will drive new customers into the Web3 gaming space.&nbsp;



“By combining GameStop Playr with Web3 games utilizing Telos&#8217; high performance blockchain infrastructure, we can break down many of the barriers currently deterring Web2 players from embracing Web3,” Dinger said in a statement.&nbsp;



Shares of GameStop (GME) were relatively unchanged by the news.



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GameStop, Telos Team Up to Build Web3 Game Launcher

As the European Union moved ahead and formally signed its Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) policy package into law, lawmakers also took time to consider areas where the regulation may be lacking.&nbsp;



In a study commissioned by the European Parliament, legal and financial experts noted that MiCA leaves some gaps in crypto regulation, particularly when it comes to token classification, staking and NFTs, among other areas. The study was written by four law and finance professors from international universities.&nbsp;



MiCA does not adequately consider the nuances between DeFi protocols and their respective levels of decentralization, authors wrote.&nbsp;



“Partial decentralization, even intensified decentralization as in the case of (apparently) ‘fully decentralized services,’ provides a number of additional challenges,” the <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2023/740083/IPOL_STU(2023)740083_EN.pdf">report</a> said.&nbsp;



“Decentralization enhances challenges with regard to defining regulated activities, risk management and ensuring business continuity in insolvency and/or a general market crisis in crypto.”&nbsp;



The report also references US policy, noting that the EU should consider the US ’s Howey Test when classifying tokens, especially when it comes to lending and staking protocols. Specifically, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-lender-blockfi-to-pay-100m-in-fines-to-us-regulators">BlockFi’s settlement with the US regulator over its Earn product</a> raises interesting points about how investors are granted interest and their “reasonable expectation of profit.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Industry members and lawmakers have admitted there are areas where MiCA falls flat for months ahead of the law’s enactment.&nbsp;



“We think that MiCA is a great step forward for Europe, we don&#8217;t agree with everything that&#8217;s in MiCA, but that doesn&#8217;t mean that it doesn&#8217;t get a lot right,” Lee Scheider, general counsel at Ava Labs, told Blockworks ahead of MiCA’s adoption. “You can notice with MiCA that they actually do sort of understand that the nature of the asset matters.”  



The EU Parliament voted 517 in favor and 38 against passing MiCA <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/eu-parliament-passes-mica-vote">during their late April vote</a>.



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European Parliament Considers Laundry List of Areas MiCA Doesn’t Touch

EffortCapital

ATOM

Cosmos Hub: ATOM Economic Zone

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This year&#8217;s event will be held in our nation’s capital, where industry leaders, policymakers, and institutional experts will come together to discuss the latest developments and challenges in the ever-evolving world of cryptocurrency.



What you can expect:



<ul>
<li>Insights on the impact of regulatory implications and the need for realistic policy</li>



<li>Access to institutional dinners and exclusive networking events,</li>



<li>Unparalleled insights from industry leaders</li>
</ul>



And more! Don’t miss out on the opportunity to be in the room when the future of crypto is decided.



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March 18-20 | Washington, D.C.

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Digital Asset Summit 2024 | Washington, D.C.

2022 was a meme. Skeptics danced, believers believed. Eventually, newcomers turned away, drained of liquidity and hope. Now, the tide is shifting and it&#8217;s time to rebuild.



Permissionless II is the brainchild of Blockworks and Bankless. It’s not just a conference, but a call to action for those who want to build a better future together.



Permissionless II embodies the ethos, electricity and excitement for crypto and Web3, all while acknowledging that somewhere in 2022, we lost the script.&nbsp;



If you’re still here, you can see the opportunity before us. Together, we can get it right this time.&nbsp;



Permissionless II: Coming to theaters in Austin, TX this September.

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Speakers

Erik Voorhees

Anatoly Yakovenko&nbsp;is the co-founder of Solana and CEO of Solana Labs. He has almost two decades of experience building high-performance operating systems, including leading OS development at Qualcomm and holding engineering roles at Dropbox and Mesosphere. Yakovenko has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Anatoly Yakovenko

Mary-Catherine (MC) Lader is the Chief Operating Officer of Uniswap Labs, a developer of foundational web3-based products and applications. In this role, she oversees the company’s growth efforts, strategic initiatives, and operations. Previously, she held various leadership roles at BlackRock, including as the Global Head of the firm’s digital sustainability business, Chief Operating Officer of the firm’s digital wealth business, and leader of the firm’s strategic fintech investments and blockchain activities. MC began her career as an investor in Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group. She received her J.D. and M.B.A. degrees at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, respectively, and her B.A. at Brown University.

Mary-Catherine Lader

Congressman Tom Emmer was sworn in for his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 6, 2015. He is currently serving his fifth term.



After serving as the Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee for the 116th Congress and again for the 117th Congress, Tom was elected by his fellow Republican colleagues to be the House Majority Whip. Currently, he sits on the House Financial Services Committee.&nbsp;



Born in 1961, Tom grew up in Minnesota and attended St. Thomas Academy. He received his BA in Political Science from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and his JD from William Mitchell College of Law.



After practicing law for several years, he opened his own law firm. The next 20 years were spent balancing family, business, coaching hockey, and serving on the city councils in Independence and Delano.



Before coming to Congress, he served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2004-2008.



He and his wife Jacquie have been married for over 30 years and have seven children. They reside in Delano.

Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN)

Raj Gokal&nbsp;is the co-founder of Solana and COO of Solana Labs. He previously was director of product at Omada Health; an entrepreneur-in-residence at Rock Health; the co-founder of Sano, a minimally invasive glucose sensor company; and an investor at General Catalyst Partners. Raj has a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.&nbsp;

Raj Gokal

Jesse Pollak is the creator of Base and is the Head of Protocols at Coinbase, where he works on Ethereum L1, L2, and new onchain efforts. Prior to Base, Jesse led all of Coinbase’s consumer-facing engineering from early 2017 to middle 2021, including building Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, and Coinbase Wallet. Jesse joined Coinbase through the acquisition of Clef, a company he founded and ran for five years that built passwordless identity solutions for crypto companies.

Jesse Pollak

Zaki Manian is a Co-Founder of Sommelier, the most powerful coprocessor yet for DeFi traders and Liquidity Providers. He’s also a Co-Founder of iqlusion, which provides infrastructure like a data center and a Cosmos validator for next-gen crypto technologies. Previously, Zaki helped build the Cosmos ecosystem, including launching the first public Cosmos testnet, and served as a director of Tendermint. Zaki has been a leading developer in the blockchain space since 2014, when he taught himself cryptography and began contributing to projects including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Zcash, and Tendermint. Having studied history of science at the University of Pennsylvania, Zaki’s skill sets in software engineering, programming, and computer science are largely self-taught.

Zaki Manian

At Alluvial, Chief Growth Officer Mara Schmiedt focuses on advancing industry participation and adoption of Liquid Collective, seeking out world-class partnership opportunities, and overseeing Business Development, Sales, and other strategic functions. Mara recently joined Alluvial as Chief Growth Officer from Coinbase, where she served as the Head of Sales for Coinbase Cloud, the leading developer platform for blockchain-based infrastructure products and APIs. She expanded Cloud's staking business, supporting large-scale organizations, enterprises, and institutional investors. Prior to joining Coinbase, she managed Business Development at Bison Trails, a leading provider of blockchain-based infrastructure acquired by Coinbase in February 2021. Mara also served as Strategy Manager at ConsenSys, where she supported the strategic development of Codefi, the blockchain application suite for Web3 Commerce and Finance.



Mara is passionate about open-source technology and has published multiple research reports and papers on liquid staking, such as <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/13-s15SvCIUBukhSZiNkpd0sTff3izQ5G/view">The Internet Bond</a> and <a href="https://consensys.net/insights/eth-2-staking-ecosystem-report/">Ethereum 2.0 Staking Ecosystem Report</a>.&nbsp;



Additionally, she has led various industry initiatives, including leading the working group with the Ethereum Foundation that developed the Ethereum Launchpad and the first distributed validator technology (DVT) PoCs. Mara's deep experience in bringing technology and blockchain-based products and services to market — as well as her track record of building world-class business and sales organizations — bolsters Alluvial's support of Liquid Collective.

Mara Schmiedt

Stani Kulechov

Hasu

Christine is a Partner and Head of Digital Asset Strategy at Apollo Global Management, Inc. In this newly created position, Christine leads digital asset strategy across the firm, exploring more ways to apply blockchain technologies to Apollo’s business. She also plays a key role in Apollo’s strategy to invest in some of the most innovative digital asset companies and founders, with a specific focus on those transforming the financial services sector where Apollo can serve as a validator and enabler of new technologies. Previously, she was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan and led its Blockchain/Crypto/Metaverse program through initiatives in digital assets, tokenized payments, internet of-things, decentralized identity, NFTs, and virtual worlds. She is a graduate of Brown University. Christine was named in Fortune’s The Ledger 40 Under 40 list of “the most impressive, young superstars transforming business at the leading edge of finance and technology.”

Christine Moy

Media and entertainment executive with 14 years experience scaling and monetizing premium IP. Most recently the President of Billboard and was responsible for transforming the brand from a stale music trade magazine to a global multi-platform experience for fans. Under Julian’s leadership Billboard has developed new products and businesses with partners like Twitter, Meta and Google, ultimately propelling the company to record revenue and profitability. He has previously held leadership positions with MRC Studios, Dick Clark Productions, and NBC Universal.

Julian Holguin

Trevor McFedries is the founder of Friends With Benefits, Web3’s premier Social DAO, as well as the Founder and former CEO of Dapper Collectives, an organization dedicated to decentralizing media and social via DAOs. McFedries is the creator of virtual pop star Lil Miquela and founded technology startup Brud, which was acquired by Dapper Labs. Since its inception in 2017, Brud has raised funds from Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, and SV Angel amongst others. Friends With Benefits pioneered social tokens and counts Andreesen Horowitz, Spark, Pace Capital, and Kindred Ventures as investors.



Before creating Brud and FWB, Trevor was known professionally as Yung Skeeter and worked as a DJ, producer, and director for acts including Ke$ha, Azealia Banks, and Katy Perry. McFedries has performed at music festivals Lollapalooza and Coachella, served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Bad Robot, and was an early employee at Spotify. He currently serves on the board at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and Rhizome (New Museum, NYC).

Trevor McFedries

Santiago Roel Santos (CryptoPunk #9159) is an investor focusing at the intersection of DeFi and the Web3 metaverse (NFTs/gaming). Most recently was a Partner at ParaFi Capital, one of the largest crypto funds specializing in DeFi. Prior to that, he was at Sageview Capital investing in Internet and software and, before that, at JP Morgan investment banking. Santiago began investing in crypto in 2012.

Santiago Roel Santos

Michael Anderson is the co-founder of Framework Ventures, one of earliest and largest VC firms to enter the “DeFi” or Decentralized Finance industry. With over $1B in AUM, the firm has since expanded into additional maturing verticals like blockchain gaming and social crypto. Prior to Framework, Michael and his co-founder Vance Spencer launched Hashletes, a digital collectible startup with official licensing from the NFL. Before entering crypto, Michael served as a product manager at both Snapchat and Dropbox, where he helped build out their monetization platforms.

Michael Anderson

Soona Amhaz is founder and GP of Volt Capital, a venture firm that focuses on pre-seed and seed companies in the digital assets space. Soona is also an advisor to On Deck, Forbes 30 under 30 in VC, and an alum from the University of Michigan School of Engineering.

Soona Amhaz

Colleen Sullivan is Co-Head of Ventures at Brevan Howard Digital. Prior to joining Brevan Howard Digital, Colleen co-founded and served as CEO of CMT Digital, where she was also a partner with the broader CMT Group and commenced activities in the crypto industry in 2013. Prior to starting CMT Digital, Colleen co-founded Sullivan Wolf Kailus, a boutique law firm that specializes in hedge fund, private equity, venture capital, digital assets, and other alternative investment products. Colleen also previously practiced law in the Investment Funds and Derivatives group at Sidley Austin LLP and, at age 25, co-founded a company called iOptions Group LLC, which developed hedging and monetization strategies for holders of employee stock options. Ms. Sullivan currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Chamber of Digital Commerce.

Colleen Sullivan

Tarun is an alumni of D. E. Shaw Research (DESRES), Vatic Labs, an HFT firm, and Cornell. He fell into the blockchain world in 2011, when he was working on ASICs at DESRES and observed Bitcoin ASIC mining rigs substantially delay DESRES’s ASIC production. He has spent the last seven years working on simulation-based R&amp;D at the intersection of high-performance computing and AI and is applying this knowledge to the blockchain ecosystem.

Tarun Chitra

Kevin Owocki is the founder of Gitcoin.co — Where builders &amp; funders come together to build the open web.  Gitcoin has delivered <a href="http://gitcoin.co/results">$50mm worth of value</a> to OSS devs in the last several years. He has a BS in Computer Science, 15 years of engineering leadership experience in Open Source Software and Web Startups. Kevin is a community organizer in the Boulder Colorado Tech Scene.

Kevin Owocki

Meltem Demirors is Chief Strategy Officer of CoinShares, a publicly listed investment firm that manages over five billion in digital assets on behalf of a global investor base, and is a trusted partner to investors and entrepreneurs navigating the digital asset ecosystem.



 An established veteran of digital asset investing, Meltem draws on her substantial experience and widespread influence to accelerate growth and acceptance of the asset class. Prior to joining CoinShares, Meltem helped build and grow Digital Currency Group, raising capital from the world’s largest corporations and managing a portfolio of 120 companies and 4 subsidiaries. Before she was bitten with the bitcoin bug, Meltem worked in the Oil &amp; Gas industry in trading, corporate treasury, and M&amp;A roles. 



Meltem has been recognized for her personal contributions to the industry and serves as an outspoken advocate. She is a founding member of the World Economic Forum Blockchain Council. Meltem teaches at her alma mater MIT as well as Oxford, and is passionate about privacy and civil rights.

Meltem Demirors

Vance is the co-founders of Framework Ventures, a thesis-driven venture capital firm whose team of technologists, researchers, and investors partner with founders and teams to build token-based networks and develop the requisite cryptoeconomics, governance, and community to scale.

Vance Spencer

Jim Bianco is President and Macro Strategist at Bianco Research, L.L.C. Since 1990 Jim’s commentaries have offered a unique perspective on the global economy and financial markets. Unencumbered by the biases of traditional Wall Street research, Jim has built a decades long reputation for objective, incisive commentary that challenges consensus thinking. In nearly 20 years at Bianco Research, Jim’s wide ranging commentaries have addressed monetary policy, the intersection of markets and politics, the role of government in the economy, fund flows and positioning in financial markets.



Jim appears regularly on CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business, and is often featured in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Grants Interest Rate Observer, and MarketWatch. Prior to joining Arbor and Bianco Research, Jim was a Market Strategist in equity and fixed income research at UBS Securities and Equity Technical Analyst at First Boston and Shearson Lehman Brothers. He is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) and a member of the Market Technicians Association (MTA). Jim has a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Marquette University (1984) and an MBA from Fordham University (1989).

Jim Bianco

Mr. Forman is the Founder and Managing Partner of ParaFi Capital. ParaFi is a leading investment firm focused on the blockchain and digital asset markets, and an early pioneer in decentralized finance (“DeFi”). ParaFi is one of the largest investors, users, and governance participants within the DeFi ecosystem, spanning the full network lifecycle from pre-launch to full decentralization. Mr. Forman serves as the Chief Investment Officer across the firm’s strategies, which include investing in public and private cryptoassets, systematic credit and market neutral DeFi strategies, and blockchain-focused venture capital and growth equity investing.



Prior to founding ParaFi in 2018, Mr. Forman spent 10 years at leading alternative investment managers, including KKR and TPG. While at KKR, Mr. Forman served as a Director in the Credit business, investing across a wide array of industry sectors and strategies, including distressed special situations, private credit, and opportunistic and liquid credit. Prior to KKR, Mr. Forman served as a Vice President with TPG’s former credit business, Sixth Street Partners, as one of the first investment professionals to join the platform, helping scale its private credit vehicle, TPG Specialty Lending, which listed publicly in 2014. Earlier in his career, Mr. Forman worked in private equity at Littlejohn &amp; Company and investment banking at Rothschild &amp; Co. Mr. Forman graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ben Forman

Vanessa Grellet is a Managing Partner at Aglaé Ventures. Vanessa is a Global Executive with over 20 years of expertise in the Financial Services and Tech industry. At Aglaé Ventures she manages the Web 3 focused fund. Prior to joining Aglae she has Head of Portfolio growth at CoinFund and Executive director at ConsenSys where she focused on driving adoption for Ethereum based products,  Strategic initiatives, Alliances and Channels.  She was involved in setting up the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), the Accounting Blockchain Coalition (ABC) and the Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition (BSIC). Prior to ConsenSys she was a Strategy Executive at NYSE focused on investments and M&amp;A and a key member of PwC’s global wealth management team. Vanessa is a Founding Board member of AABC focused on Blockchain and Art, a member of the Advisory Council of ConsenSys, a Milken Institute Associate, a contributor to the  World Economic Forum Digital Future Council and part of <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/top-people-in-crypto-and-blockchain-2022/vanessa-grellet">Cointelegraph’s list of 100 most influential people for 2022</a>. Mrs. Grellet graduated Cum Laude from Law School (Paris II Assas) and Business School (HEC).

Vanessa Grellet

Mihailo Bjelic received his MSc in CS from the University of Belgrade. Prior to entering Web3/blockchain industry, he co-founded an AI/ML-powered platform for automotive industry and several other smaller startups and side projects. In 2017, he decided to join the Web3 movement full-time, primarily as a researcher interested in Ethereum scaling and multi-chain paradigms. In parallel with his work, he became one of the prominent Ethereum proponents and community members. In 2019, he started working on Polygon and conceptualized its architecture, vision and brand. In 2020, he joined hands with the Matic Network team and they have been working together on Polygon since then.

Mihailo Bjelic

Ben is a co-founder of Optimism, a leading Ethereum L2 ecosystem. He served as Chief Scientist before becoming a director at the Optimism Foundation. In his free time, he makes Ethereum-based parody songs under his stage name, Weird ETH Yankovic.

Ben Jones

Kristin is the CEO of the Blockchain Association, the Washington, D.C.-based trade association representing more than 100 of the industry’s leading companies. She also serves as a board member of the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web. Kristin serves as a liaison between policymakers and the cryptocurrency industry to assist in the creation of legislation and regulation that promotes the growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in the U.S. She is also a leading, public voice advocating for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry through top-tier media interviews, op-eds and letters to the editor, and global speaking engagements. Kristin is a renowned voice for the industry, having been featured on Fortune’s 2020 40 under 40 list, CoinDesk’s 2021 50 people who defined the year in crypto, and CoinTelegraph’s 2022 top 100 Influencers in Crypto and Blockchain. Prior to leading the Blockchain Association, Kristin helped blockchain and technology companies achieve their public policy objectives in Washington. She served as a Senate and congressional aide on Capitol Hill for nearly ten years, much of which was spent focusing on technology policy.

Kristin Smith

Avichal is a successful entrepreneur with executive experience at Google and Facebook, which acquired his previous company. As an angel investor, Avichal has invested in 15 unicorns and 5 decacorns including Airtable, Boom Supersonic, Color Genomics, Cruise, Deel, Figma, Newfront Insurance, Notion, Nova Credit, Pulley, and others. He co-founded Electric Capital in 2018 and has grown it to one of the largest crypto venture firms globally. Electric is an investor in many of the leading web3 protocols and companies such as Bitwise, Bitnomial, dYdX, Frax, Kraken, Magic Eden, NEAR, and Solana.

Avichal Garg

Matt Hougan is one of the world’s leading experts on crypto, ETFs, and financial technology. He is Chief Investment Officer for Bitwise Asset Management, a pioneer in cryptoasset index funds with more than $1.2 billion in assets under management. He was previously CEO of ETF.com, where he helped build the world’s first ETF data and analytics system, the leading ETF media site, and the world’s largest ETF conference, Inside ETFs. Hougan is co-author of both “A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds” and “Cryptoassets: The Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies for Professional Investors” from the CFA Institute’s Research Foundation. He is a crypto columnist for Forbes, and a three-time member of the Barron’s ETF Roundtable.

Matt Hougan

Li Jin

Ethan is the co-founder of the Cosmos network and serves as the CEO of Informal Systems. Informal Systems is a member-driven worker’s cooperative building software that enables trustworthy relationships between protocols and people to flourish. Ethan also serves as the President of the Interchain Foundation which funds and coordinates development of public goods in the Cosmos ecosystem. Ethan sees local money systems as the basis for self-sufficient local economies to prosper. With a background in cell biology, neuroscience, mathematics, machine learning, and distributed systems, his goal is to build systems that encourage humans to work cooperatively through methods of self-organization. He is currently focused on blockchain technology as a means to bring greater political and economic sovereignty to local communities around the globe. Prior to Informal Systems, Ethan co-founded the Tendermint and Cosmos projects, and served as CTO of Tendermint Inc. Today, dozens of projects are adopting technology conceived in the original Cosmos whitepaper, including the Inter-Blockchain (IBC) Communication protocol – an industry-standard for permissionless communication between sovereign blockchains. Today, the Cosmos ecosystem continues to pioneer technological paradigms for building interoperable application-specific blockchains.

Ethan Buchman

As founding partner and COO, Cynthia oversees the business operation and leads global business development and sales. Previously Investment Director at Bitmain Technologies, Cynthia focused on investments in blockchain technology and decentralized applications.



Prior to venturing into crypto, Cynthia was Vice President at Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX), responsible for derivatives product development and institutional sales. She started her career in HK as a commodities trader.

Cynthia Wu

Tyrone leads J.P. Morgan’s Blockchain team and is responsible for creating innovative Web3-focused products &amp; solutions for J.P. Morgan’s businesses and clients, and for engaging with the industry at large in order to provide a holistic blockchain strategy for the firm. Tyrone is also the Head of Onyx Digital Assets, a multi-asset tokenization platform that enables the exchange of value for various types of digital assets. Tyrone was previously a Senior Blockchain Product Manager in J.P. Morgan’s Blockchain Center of Excellence and was also the Head of Product for Quorum, an open-sourced Ethereum-based blockchain platform built for Enterprise use. Prior to moving into the blockchain industry in 2015, Tyrone was a software engineer within J.P. Morgan's Credit Markets business, and before that he spent several years in Product transformation, managing and delivering large strategic programs across various businesses within J.P. Morgan, across Front, Middle and Back Office risk and trading systems. Tyrone sits on the Board of Directors of The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and The Hyperledger Foundation.

Tyrone Lobban

Rich is a Co-Founder and President of GSR and leads the group across strategic initiatives and growth. He began his career at Goldman Sachs where he spent 11 years between New York and London in commodities trading as a Managing Director and Global Head of Crude Oil and Derivatives Trading. Prior to joining GSR, he spent a few years on the buy-side, running energy trading teams at two New York-based hedge funds. Rich earned a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Columbia University.

Rich Rosenblum

Jelena is CEO and Co-Founder at Noble, a purpose built native asset issuance chain for the IBC ecosystem. She is also Co-Founder of the Canadian Web3 Council, a national advocacy organization for the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem

Jelena Djuric

Kain Warwick is an Australian cryptocurrency entrepreneur most-known as the founder of Synthetix protocol. Synthetix is a financial primitive that enables the creation of synthetic assets, offering unique derivatives and exposure to real-world assets on the blockchain.&nbsp;In 2020, Kain popularised the concept of yield farming that sparked the 2020 DeFi boom, earning the moniker: ‘the father of modern agriculture.

Kain Warwick

Brian Quintenz is the Head of Policy for a16z crypto, where he helps to translate between the crypto and policy communities.



Brian has long stood out as an innovative thinker in crypto and DeFi and was one of the earliest leaders in Washington to recognize the value of crypto. Brian initially joined a16z crypto as a senior advisor. In December 2022, he moved to the full-time role leading its policy team.



Prior to joining a16z, he was nominated by both Presidents Obama and Trump to serve as commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and, in August 2017, was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He also led the agency’s Technology Advisory Committee, which hosted the most comprehensive set of public crypto-related policy discussions and briefings of any federal financial regulator. During his service, the CFTC oversaw the listing of the first U.S. regulated Bitcoin and Ether futures contracts on derivatives exchanges, and the rapid expansion of DeFi. All the while, he was a champion for tailored, risk-calibrated regulation.



Prior to his appointment to the CFTC, Brian was the Founder and Managing Principal of Saeculum Capital Management, LLC where he developed and implemented Saeculum’s long term, momentum-based investment process for both traditional discretionary accounts as well as a managed-futures, commodity pool hedge fund.



Brian began his career on Capitol Hill, where he worked for 6.5 years and served as senior policy aid to a Member of Congress. He received his B.S. from Duke University and M.B.A. from Georgetown University.

Brian Quintenz

Robby Yung, Animoca Brands’s CEO of Investments, partner at Animoca Capital, a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification with a portfolio of products and games including the REVV and SAND tokens, as well as investment and partnerships with companies like Axie Infinity,  OpenSea, Dapper Labs, and Alien Worlds and subsidiaries like The Sandbox, Gamee, Quidd, and Lympo. Robby has been in gaming since 2012 and blockchain gaming since 2018. He served as the first CEO of Animoca Brands after taking the group public in 2015. Prior to that, he cofounded magazine publisher, One Media Group, which he listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. He also founded Chinese television and outdoor media concern, Redgate Media Group, which was acquired by  Inno-Tech Holdings . He began his career in technology, building wireless telecom networks in China and Indonesia with Metromedia.

Robby Yung

Papua New Guinean-Australian Paff Evara (they/them) is a marketing director turned creator, speaker and web3 founder. A natural storyteller, Paff went viral during lockdown, building an audience of over 110K people as they empowered people to take up more space as their authentic selves.



In 2022, Paff and their wife Han founded Take Up Space, a web3 community turned media DAO and metalabel for change-makers. Through intersectional media, community and events, their mission is to create culture in motion both on and off-chain.&nbsp;

Paff Evara

Motty Lavie serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Braavos, a cutting-edge smart contract wallet designed to offer a seamless UX and prime security through true multi-factor authentication.. As a seasoned entrepreneur, Motty has established companies within the traditional web2 sector and successfully scaling them into multimillion-dollar global enterprises. Motty holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Mathematics from the prestigious Technion Israel Institute of Technology

Motty Lavie

Lucas Vogelsang is the CEO and Co-founder at Centrifuge, focusing on bringing Real World Assets to DeFi since the early days of Ethereum. Before diving into crypto in 2017 Lucas has been working at the intersection of tech and business since dropping out of University. He co-founded the Swiss e-commerce startup DeinDeal as its CTO. After its successful sale, he helped the German startup KaufDA with their international expansion. Lucas spent 6 years in Silicon Valley where he was working at early stage startups including Taulia where he met his Centrifuge co-founders.

Lucas Vogelsang

Matt&nbsp;McElroy&nbsp;is Vice President, Digital Business Operations &amp; Innovation for Warner Brothers Discovery Sports. In this role, Matt oversees business operations for NBA Digital, live PPV events on Bleacher Report as well as WBD Sport’s growing efforts to put live sports on Max.&nbsp; He also leads a number of emerging Web 3 initiatives for the company including Blocklete Golf and B/R Watch to Earn, among others.



Previously&nbsp;Matt&nbsp;helped launch B/R Live, Turner Sports' premium live sports streaming subscription product, which transitioned into Bleacher Report in 2021.  During his 17-year tenure at Turner/WarnerMedia/Warner Brothers Discovery,&nbsp;McElroy&nbsp;has worked in various roles across the media portfolio including time at Cartoon Network, <a href="http://pgatour.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">PGATOUR.COM</a>, <a href="http://ncaa.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NCAA.COM</a>, as well as Corporate Strategy and Emerging Media teams.



McElroy&nbsp;earned his MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and his bachelor’s degree in communications from Florida State University.

Matt McElroy

Tara is a growth-oriented leader who believes blockchain technology will fundamentally alter the way the world works and what is possible. As Cofounder &amp; CEO of Co:Create, she helps innovative brands unlock the power of their community with gamified, self-owned loyalty and reward programs. She began her crypto journey as Chief Revenue Officer of Alto, a leading cryptoIRA and digital asset IRA custodian. There she established partnerships with institutional crypto asset managers and grew company revenue by 25X in 18 months. She previously was Chief Commercial Officer at a consumer lending FinTech firm, where she led an advocacy campaign to change the tax treatment of employer-sponsored student loan repayment programs that was passed into law as part of the CARES Act. She is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the University of South Carolina.

Tara Fung

Alex is a member of the Core Team at Velodrome Finance, the leading DEX on Optimism. Prior to getting involved in DeFi, Alex worked in politics, technology, and consulting.

Alex Cutler

Mike Silagadze is the founder and CEO of&nbsp;<a href="http://ether.fi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ether.fi</a>, the first ETH staking protocol that allows stakers to maintain full control of their keys throughout the entire staking process, making it the only truly decentralized liquid staking platform. Prior to founding&nbsp;<a href="http://ether.fi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ether.fi</a>, Mike was CEO and co-founder of Top Hat, which he grew into the market leader in student engagement software, with 500 employees and $60 million in annual revenue.



He is also an active speaker and lecturer in the higher education, technology, and startup communities, having lectured at the Rotman Commerce Entrepreneurship Organization, the ASU GSV Summit, MaRS, Tech Fest Toronto, SAAS North and T­E­Dx­Laurier­University, among many others.

Mike Silagadze

Dan Elitzer is a co-founder of Nascent (nascent.xyz), a team of builders who have backed over 100 early-stage founders creating products and primitives for an open financial world.



Previously, Dan co-founded IDEO CoLab Ventures, a crypto-focused venture firm associated with the renowned design agency, IDEO. During that time, he also helped launch YAM Finance.



Dan began his career in social enterprise and microfinance, working with both domestic social impact organizations and international development agencies. Dan earned an MBA from MIT Sloan, where he co-founded the MIT Bitcoin Club and MIT FinTech Club, and a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Pomona College.

Dan Elitzer

Blake Finucane is the Chief Strategy Officer for Emergent Entertainment, where she runs an NFT Fund and is building a Web 3 MMORPG called Resurgence. She is also the host of the podcast Context: Views on Crypto and Culture, presented by Boys Club. She wrote one of the first academic thesis on crypto art which was published in 2018, as part of her Master’s degree in Art History. She is based in Vancouver, BC.&nbsp;

Blake Finucane

Kevin is currently a Vice President at BlockTower Capital where he leads investments and initiatives involving tokenized assets, DeFi, and credit. Prior to joining BlockTower, Kevin completed his first year at MIT Sloan, where he served as an officer of the Sloan Blockchain Club and developed a web3 product as a founder. His career in the crypto industry started in 2017 at Deloitte Consulting, where he managed teams applying blockchain solutions to institutional clients within financial services.

Kevin Chan

Nikil Viswanathan is the co-founder and CEO of <a href="http://alchemy.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alchemy</a>, the world's leading blockchain developer platform. Alchemy is hailed as the fastest-growing company in history after going from public launch to being worth <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/08/alchemy-which-aims-to-be-the-de-facto-platform-for-developers-to-build-on-web3-raises-another-200m-and-is-now-valued-at-10-2b/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$10 billion dollars</a> in 16 months. With a team of only 37 at the $10 billion mark, the company also had one of the highest team-to-impact ratios in history. Alchemy powers over $100 billion in transactions globally including the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-21/nfts-mushroom-into-billion-dollar-market-with-help-from-alchemy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">majority of the NFT industry</a>, top web3 companies, and traditional enterprises. Alchemy is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Silver Lake, Lightspeed, Stanford University, the Google chairman, founders &amp; execs of Charles Schwab, Linkedin, NYSE, and many more.

Nikil Viswanathan

John Zettler is the Staking Product Lead at Coinbase. He was a cofounder of $cbETH and has led a number of products at Coinbase through the years including Commerce (crypto payments) and Asset Hub. Before Coinbase, John founded one of the first art NFT marketplaces (RARE Art) and the first combined crypto/stock trading platform for US investors. In a past life, John worked on Wall Street.

John Zettler

Steph Alinsug is the founder &amp; CEO of&nbsp;<a href="https://onvessel.world/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Vessel</a>, the home of onchain luxury media, and the producer of Broadcast, a summit series and digital magazine on the future of onchain media. Prev. Seed Club. Highly online, @cryptohun3y on Twitter and many other places on the internet.&nbsp;

Steph Alinsug

Simon Jones is CEO &amp; Co-Founder of Voltz Labs, the creators of Voltz Protocol—DeFi's first synthetic interest rate swap AMM and non-custodial clearing house. Prior to creating these core DeFi rails, which recently surpassed $20B of notional trade volume, Simon was the founder/early team of two Fintech startups, one of which was majority acquired by an international bank. The guiding principle at all these businesses has been the opportunity to create a more transparent, equitable, and anti-fragile financial system. Simon completed his Executive Education at Stanford.

Simon Jones

Brandon Millman is the CEO and co-founder of Phantom, a self-custodial crypto wallet native to Solana and now available on Polygon and Ethereum. Phantom aims to become the cross-platform entry point for mainstream consumers to interact with web3 app, and has set a new UX and UI standard for web3 users. In a short time, Phantom has become the fastest-growing crypto wallet in history.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Prior to building Phantom, Millman oversaw the growth of the engineering teams at 0x, a decentralized exchange for trading ERC 20 tokens. His teams were responsible for the development of multiple cutting-edge decentralized technologies including 0x's RFQ system which provided tools for professional market makers to provide liquidity, and 0x API, the most performant multi-chain DEX aggregation engine. During Millmans time at 0x, its products powered billions of dollars of trade volume per week. Before crypto, Millman was a senior engineer at Twitter and worked on many product teams spanning recommendations, infrastructure and Twitter for iOS to build out the social medias’ explore, moments, home and search frameworks.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Brandon Millman

Ken Smith is a Rocket Scientist and member of the Grants and Management Committee at Rocket Pool, a permissionless decentralized Liquid Staking Protocol. Since its mainnet launch in 2021, Ken has served as a Node Operator with Rocket Pool. He is also the founder of NextBlock Solutions LLC, an Ethereum blockchain consulting company that offers training and educational services to web3 organizations. Currently, Ken serves as an advisor to NodeSet, a staking-as-a-service (SaaS) company that is building on top of the Rocket Pool protocol. In 2014, Ken began his journey in crypto mining altcoins using homebuilt rigs.

Ken Smith

Ben Fisch is co-founder and CEO of Espresso Systems, the developers of the Espresso Sequencer network which brings decentralization and improved interoperability to L2s. Espresso Systems are also the developers of the CAPE data privacy application. Ben is additionally an assistant professor of computer science at Yale. Previously, Ben earned his PhD at Stanford working in the applied cryptography research group. His research on Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs) sparked a multimillion dollar industry initiative (see VDF Alliance) and plays an important role in several blockchains including Ethereum 2.0, Chia, and Filecoin. His research on Proofs of Replication is the basis of Filecoin's incentive layer and consensus protocol. Filecoin is a live distributed storage system that already has reached a storage capacity exceeding 1.5 exabytes.

Ben Fisch

Aidan Salzmann is the co-founder of Stride and Stride Labs. He has a background in product and engineering, having built multiple software startups before founding Stride. He holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Aidan Salzmann

Luca Netz is a serial entrepreneur with over $500M in CPG sales. Today, he is the CEO of Pudgy Penguins, Web3's leading IP company.

Luca Netz

Uri is a co-founder and CEO at StarkWare, and a member of its Board of Directors.



He has a B.Sc. (Magna cum Laude) in Computer Science from the Hebrew University, and an MBA from MIT Sloan. Uri is a serial entrepreneur, who has co-founded several technology companies, among them OmniGuide (an MIT spinoff developing optical fibers for endoscopic surgery), and Mondria (developer of tools for visualization of big data). Previously, Uri also served as an EIR with two Israeli VC firms, and as an analyst at McKinsey.

Uri Kolodny

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