First Digital USD

Jack Kubinec

On Monday, the experimental currency Ore won $50,000 from a Solana Foundation-supported hackathon focused on identifying Solana’s “next wave of high-impact projects.”



“High-impact” presumably refers to Ore’s potential for making a positive change to Solana’s adoption figures. But so far, Ore’s impact has been more like a gut punch: The project <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-price-falls-ore-mining">halted mining in mid-April</a> after the avalanche of network usage from mining the currency <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-network-congestion-transaction-volume">made it difficult</a> for Solana users to get their transactions included in blocks.



Ore is an experiment in using the proof-of-work security mechanism on the Solana blockchain. PoW systems essentially pay miners native currency rewards in exchange for computing power that makes blockchains difficult to attack. Bitcoin is secured in this fashion, in contrast to <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/solana">Solana</a>, which combines a system called proof-of-history with proof-of-stake, Ethereum’s chosen consensus mechanism.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-price-falls-ore-mining">Solana price falls further as Ore suspends mining on the network</a>



Ore rewrote a more egalitarian version of the Bitcoin protocol as a Solana smart contract, the project’s pseudonymous creator Hardhat Chad explained in a demo <a href="https://blog.colosseum.org/announcing-the-winners-of-the-solana-renaissance-hackathon/">video</a>. Unlike Bitcoin, which gives 3.125 bitcoin to the fastest miner to return a certain cryptographic hash every ten minutes, Ore is <a href="https://github.com/hardhatchad/ore?tab=readme-ov-file#how-it-works">set</a> up where multiple miners can win a sliver of the network’s block rewards. An average of one ORE is created every minute, split between successful miners.



For many in Solana’s speculation-loving ecosystem, the idea of “Bitcoin on Solana” was simply too juicy to pass up, and Ore mining transactions drove up activity and soon clogged the network. One miner <a href="https://x.com/shoucccc/status/1779323261278666991">posted</a> about “blindly sending millions” of transactions every second in hopes that some would land.



Amid the flurry of usage, Solana users saw more and more of their transactions being dropped rather than included in blocks, and Solana developers <a href="https://x.com/Austin_Federa/status/1777995577696874850">rushed</a> to patch the overloaded network. Perhaps mercifully, Ore temporarily ceased mining on April 16. Soon after, Solana <a href="https://x.com/SolanaStatus/status/1779727821834686592">released</a> a network upgrade to help ease the congestion.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/empire-newsletter-no-12">Empire Newsletter: Solana patch targets congestion woes</a>



In an X post announcing the mining pause, Hardhat Chad said Ore had become Solana’s most-used program by transaction count within two weeks of launching. Solana could thank Ore for the stress test, but the project would be redeploying a better-constructed v2, the developer <a href="https://x.com/HardhatChad/status/1780249833510510964">intimated</a>.



Ore mostly disappeared from view before winning the “Solana Renaissance” hackathon, which was <a href="https://www.colosseum.org/renaissance">judged</a> by key figures in Solana’s ecosystem, including the chain’s co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal. Colosseum, which runs Solana hackathons including this one and makes venture investments in some of the winners, has <a href="https://x.com/solana/status/1787476156238921912">said</a> the contest drew over 1,000 entries. The Solana Foundation, a non-profit supporting Solana’s ecosystem, is a limited <a href="https://www.colosseum.org/accelerator/">partner</a> in Colosseum’s venture fund.



Solana’s thought leadership seems to believe a second iteration of Ore can be less chaotic than the first go-round.&nbsp;



“The network should handle anything like this,” Jon Wong, ecosystem engineering lead at the Solana Foundation, told Blockworks. “It’s not about Ore in particular, it’s about continuous stress testing the network in order to get better.”



Hardhat Chad is optimistic as well.



“Ore exists for one reason: to provide the world with a fast, cheap, private, inflation-proof digital currency everyone can mine,” Hardhat Chad <a href="https://x.com/HardhatChad/status/1787487182317367514">wrote</a> on X in celebration of the hackathon win.



Ore v2 is “[f]eature complete” and currently running simulations while awaiting audits, Hardhat Chad <a href="https://x.com/HardhatChad/status/1787507236492775539">said</a> Monday. 



Those who got their hands on the Ore that was mined before the halt are growing richer in the meantime. The token’s price rose more than 90% Monday after the announcement, according to CoinGecko, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ore">trading</a> hands at around $228 at press time.



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Solana congestion culprit Ore wins $50K from hackathon

Casey Wagner

A crypto bull market, coupled with the still-uncertain regulatory environment is going to create the perfect storm for increased enforcement actions, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnam said.&nbsp;



“We find ourselves with a growing market, growing capital [and] investments, growing market capitalization, and I think a renewed interest by a lot of the entrepreneurs,” Behnam said Monday during a discussion at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles.&nbsp;



“From my standpoint, as a regulator, we&#8217;re going to probably see in the next six to 18 months or six to 24 months another cycle of enforcement actions.”&nbsp;



Without action from Congress and increased regulatory transparency, Behnam added, agencies are going to lean more heavily on lawsuits.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bank-secrecy-act-doj-kucoin">Bank Secrecy Act vs crypto: A new DOJ lawsuit revives old tactic</a>



“If you actually count the number of [Congressional] working days between now and the election…it’s really not that much time,” Behnam said when asked about the odds of any of the crypto-related bills making it to the floor for a vote in the House and Senate.&nbsp;



“Getting legislation done these days is difficult,” he added, but noted that there is “momentum” and “desire” from lawmakers to close some of the regulatory gaps around crypto, particularly with regards to <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoin</a> legislation.&nbsp;



Behnam’s comments come days after retail trading platform Robinhood announced it <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-wells-notice-sec">received a Wells notice</a> from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Securities regulators plan to proceed with an enforcement action relating to cryptocurrencies traded on the exchange, Robinhood said in a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783879/000178387924000138/hood-20240504.htm">filing</a> Saturday.&nbsp;



“After years of good faith attempts to work with the SEC for regulatory clarity including our well-known attempt to ‘come in and register,’ we are disappointed that the agency has decided to issue a Wells Notice related to our US crypto business,” Dan Gallagher, Robinhood’s chief legal and compliance officer, said in a statement.&nbsp;



Last week, Consensys revealed it was also served a Wells notice from the SEC, in addition to a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/empire-newsletter-consensys-legal-salvo-sec">number of subpoenas relating</a> to Ethereum. The SEC has not yet brought an enforcement action against Consensys, but the crypto firm is suing the exchange preemptively.&nbsp;



Behnam did not comment Monday on his agency’s relationship with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sec">SEC</a> with regards to crypto industry regulation, but Congressional leaders have been debating about how to address the so-called “turf war” between the agencies for over a year.



&#8220;When we have two agencies <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cftc-ether-security-commodity-conflict">contradicting each other</a> about whether one of the most utilized stablecoins in the market is a security or a commodity, we end up with uncertainty,” Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., who chairs the House Subcommittee on Digital Assets, said during an April 2023 hearing.



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

CFTC’s Behnam warns crypto industry that more enforcement actions are coming 

Ben Strack

Hong Kong’s newly launched spot crypto ETFs might help us predict what ether ETF demand could look like in the US.&nbsp;



Or not.&nbsp;



Either way, the new funds offer a jumping-off point, so to speak, for considering the current differing investor appetites for ETH and BTC and how that could evolve.



The Securities and Exchange Commission approving spot bitcoin ETFs in January offered exhilaration during a month often marred by the holiday hangover.&nbsp;



Many wondered what the demand for these long-awaited products would amount to out of the gate, and long-term. Another common question after the industry’s regulatory victory: When will we see spot ether ETFs?&nbsp;



After all, ether is the second-biggest crypto asset by market capitalization, with its $370 billion market cap nearly a third of bitcoin’s $1.25 trillion. US issuers started trying to launch spot ETH products as far back as 2021.



Not to mention ether has a regulated futures market, and (whaddya know) the SEC already approved ETFs that hold ETH futures contracts. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ether-futures-etfs-vaneck-proshares-bitwise-offerings">Those launched last October</a>.



Though the regulator is set to rule on spot ether products sometime this month, it remains unclear when the SEC could ultimately allow those to trade.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ether-etf-approval-unlikely-soon">Ether ETFs coming in May? Here’s why many are bearish</a>



But aside from the launch timeline, the other question is what demand will be if and when they do debut.&nbsp;



Between ether futures ETF asset bases, US spot bitcoin fund flow data and the seed capital for Hong Kong bitcoin and ether offerings, perhaps we start to paint a picture.&nbsp;



Or maybe crypto-related fortune telling — even with data inputs&nbsp;— is a fool’s game.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Trying to make sense of the numbers anyway&nbsp;</h2>



Hong Kong’s six new spot crypto ETFs — three bitcoin funds and three ether funds — opened $292 million worth of seed capital, according to Farside Investors <a href="https://farside.co.uk/?p=1508">data</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The bitcoin funds attracted significantly more of the initial capital, with ether ETF day one assets amounting to 15% of that total, analyst Eric Balchunas <a href="https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1786035915040674061">noted</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



He and others pointed to the seed capital for the offerings — used to fund the ETF’s creation units — as one indicator to compare demand for BTC and ETH. Subsequent flows into the six funds have been trivial at about $23 million over the last three trading days, making the seed capital perhaps the better barometer.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1172" height="1004" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Farside-Hong-Kong-Crypto-ETF-Chart.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-85395" style="width:683px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Farside-Hong-Kong-Crypto-ETF-Chart.png?w=1172 1172w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Farside-Hong-Kong-Crypto-ETF-Chart.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Farside-Hong-Kong-Crypto-ETF-Chart.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Farside-Hong-Kong-Crypto-ETF-Chart.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Farside-Hong-Kong-Crypto-ETF-Chart.png?w=305 305w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Farside-Hong-Kong-Crypto-ETF-Chart.png?w=256 256w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Farside-Hong-Kong-Crypto-ETF-Chart.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1172px) 100vw, 1172px" /></figure>



The US and Hong Kong differ of course, and the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/hong-kong">Hong Kong</a> ETFs just launched. But at least we have some numbers to work with.&nbsp;



Sumit Roy, a senior analyst at ETF.com, said the initial 15% asset share for ether ETFs in Hong Kong sounds about right to him.&nbsp;



“It&#8217;s not peanuts,” he told Blockworks. “But with ether having much less name recognition that bitcoin, it&#8217;s natural that it would attract fewer investment dollars than bitcoin from ETF investors.”



Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of digital assets research, noted that the Hong Kong ETH funds accept in-kind subscriptions and redemptions — a feature the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sec">SEC</a> is unlikely to allow for the proposed US <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ether-etfs">ether ETFs</a>.



Such a transaction model lets investors buy and sell ETF shares using the ETF’s underlying asset — in this case ETH — rather than cash.



Given that expected difference, the Hong Kong BTC-to-ETH ratio “may not be the best proxy” to predicting US demand, he argued — adding that they could collect less than 15% of the inflows that bitcoin funds have seen.&nbsp;



The 11 US spot bitcoin ETFs have combined for nearly $11.6 billion since most of them launched on Jan. 11.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">‘Ethereum story’ has room to grow</h2>



While it would make sense for spot ether ETFs to initially see a similar percentage of bitcoin ETF assets in the US as they did in Hong Kong, Roy said, that might be short-lived.



“As the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a> story becomes more well known and people come to appreciate the yield — if it&#8217;s available to ETF investors — that comes from staking ether, they might even prefer the cryptocurrency over bitcoin,” he noted.



Whether ether ETFs are able to stake could be the key to wider adoption.&nbsp;



The Hong Kong funds do not offer that perk. Prospective spot ether ETF issuers in the US added language to their applications in recent months about staking the assets they hold.&nbsp;



<a href="https://ethereum.org/en/staking/">Staking</a> ether is the process of depositing ETH to help secure the Ethereum blockchain — and earning yield on that ETH for doing so.



Christopher Jensen, who leads crypto research at traditional finance giant Franklin Templeton, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/franklin-templeton-institutional-bitcoin-etf-allocation">told Blockworks in an April interview</a> that the simple “store-of-value” characteristics of bitcoin can be a “hang-up” for certain institutional investors.&nbsp;



ETH resonates with some of them better.&nbsp;



“A lot of times, [an investor will say] ‘with Ethereum, I understand that it generates revenues and has a yield and it looks more like a [traditional finance] asset,’” Jensen noted.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Roy said he expects ether ETFs to attract the same types of investors as bitcoin ETFs at first — albeit in lesser numbers. These include those that want to speculate on price or invest in an alternative store of value.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Sigel agreed that a non-staking ether ETF would likely be appealing to more speculators than long-term investors.&nbsp;



“But over time,” Roy added, “ether ETFs may attract a wider spectrum of investors compared to bitcoin ETFs when people come to appreciate that ether is much more than just a store of value.”



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

What Hong Kong crypto ETFs may tell us about US ETH fund appetite

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) converted to an ETF nearly four months ago.&nbsp;



It took that long for the fund to see its first day of net inflows.&nbsp;



That unprecedented event occurred on Friday, when GBTC saw $63 million in net money enter the ETF, according to Farside Investors data.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/why-etf-flows-do-dont-matter">Why tracking bitcoin ETF flows matters. And why it doesn’t.</a>



GBTC had suffered net outflows for 78 days before that — piling up to equal $17.4 billion.



Just don’t expect the GBTC inflows to become a regular thing, one segment observer says.



“It’s difficult to discern what might be behind the flows into GBTC,” said Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store. “ETF buyers are an extremely diverse group with varying motivations. That said, I would be surprised if the inflows become a trend.”



Part of the reason it will have a hard time consistently attracting new money? Its cost, Geraci noted.



Industry watchers have attributed <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/gbtc">GBTC</a>’s constant asset spillage to the fund’s fee of 1.5% — a much higher level than its 10 competitors in the US.&nbsp;



Beyond the fee, bankrupt lender Genesis was among those <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bankrupt-genesis-offloading-gbtc-shares">offloading its GBTC holdings</a>, contributing to the asset exodus from the fund.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



And still, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/grayscale">Grayscale</a> holds the assets under management lead in the category. GBTC manages roughly $18.1 billion in assets, while BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is close behind with about $16.9 billion.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/grayscale-fee-higher-bitcoin-etf">Grayscale has defended its higher fee</a>, previously pointing out GBTC’s “market-leading liquidity, tight spreads, high trading volumes and a decade-long track record of operational success.”



“While GBTC can still hang its hat on ample liquidity and tight spreads, there are now competing products which can boast the same,” Geraci told Blockworks.&nbsp;



The crypto asset manager also filed to set up the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC), which would cost a fraction of GBTC’s price. The company has not yet revealed a final proposed expense ratio.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/grayscale-takes-page-from-blackrock-playbook">Grayscale’s planned GBTC sibling is a page from BlackRock’s playbook</a>&nbsp;



GBTC would seed the new fund as part of a “spin off” mechanism unique to commodity ETFs, <a href="https://www.grayscale.com/blog/general-updates/what-is-grayscale-bitcoin-mini-trust">according</a> to Grayscale. In addition, a portion of GBTC’s bitcoin holdings would be allocated to the proposed Mini Trust.



Beyond Grayscale’s inflows on Friday, it was a day of net inflows for most of the 11-fund US spot <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/bitcoin-etf">bitcoin ETF</a> category — amounting to $378 million collectively.&nbsp;



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/unprecedented-us-spot-bitcoin-etf-outflows">The asset gains were an anomaly of late</a>, snapping a record seven-day net outflow streak for the segment.&nbsp;&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">First time ever 1D flows all green, no red for the Bitcoin Bunch. Not going to spike the football like some did during the outflow period but will point out that over 95% of the ETF investors HOLD-ed during what was a pretty nasty and persistent downturn. Will same happen next… <a href="https://t.co/3l3uwwmqGy">pic.twitter.com/3l3uwwmqGy</a>&mdash; Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1787468690583081214?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 6, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Analysts and executives have pointed to expectations of the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates higher for longer as one reason demand for bitcoin ETFs have stalled.&nbsp;



The asset’s price also trended downward in April. 



Bitcoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">BTC</a>) was trading at about $64,000 at about 10:30 am ET Monday — up about 1.4% from a week ago but down nearly 6% in the last 30 days.



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Bitcoin ETF snapshot: GBTC surprise helps end sector’s seven-day outflow run

Katherine Ross

Michael McSweeney

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Take it to court!</h2>



Crypto’s long been regarded as the “Wild West” and one of the biggest reasons that the comparison still sticks — despite how far the market has come since Satoshi’s days — is because of the regulation via enforcement approach that some government bodies have taken (looking at you, Gary Gensler).



But now it looks like the Department of Justice is trying to join the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ranks, at least when it comes to unlicensed money transmission.&nbsp;



The DOJ is alleging, in two separate cases, that wallet developers should be charged with the violation.&nbsp;



As CoinCenter’s Peter Van Valkenburgh <a href="https://www.coincenter.org/dojs-new-stance-on-crypto-wallets-is-a-threat-to-liberty-and-the-rule-of-law/">pointed out</a> last week, this approach marks a change for the DOJ. Since roughly 2013, the stance from other arms of the government had been that developers and users of non-custodial wallets weren’t transmitters.&nbsp;



But it looks like the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/doj">DOJ</a> has changed its mind, at least in the Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet cases.



Read more from our opinion section: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/samourai-wallet-matters-memecoins-privacy">Samourai Wallet matters more than your memecoins</a>



CoinCenter broke down the historical context, highlighting that FinCEN — the Treasury’s financial enforcement bureau — said in 2013 that crypto could be a value “that substitutes for currency” but that it’s not inherently a currency or “funds.”



FinCEN’s 2019 guidance also backed this up.&nbsp;



“The person participating in the transaction to provide additional validation at the request of the owner does not have total independent control over the value,” the agency wrote at the time.



Van Valkenburgh said the Tornado Cash developers —&nbsp;the DOJ is taking aim at Roman Storm and Roman Semenov in this case — and the Samourai Wallet founders didn’t have “any actual control over the cryptocurrency that users of the tool owned.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tornado-cash-privacy-debate">Tornado Cash arrests spur privacy debate</a>



“Under clear and long established FinCEN guidance and under any common sense reading of the underlying law, these developers are not money transmitters. Nonetheless the prosecution persists unjustly,” he continued.



CoinCenter noted that Samourai Wallet, in particular, didn’t have “total independent control” over funds, which wouldn’t make them money transmitters.



Senator Cynthia Lummis, notoriously pro-crypto, echoed Van Valkenburgh’s concerns.



“This stance contradicts existing Treasury finance, common sense and violates the rule of law,” she <a href="https://twitter.com/SenLummis/status/1785695683514630367">said</a> last week.



Here’s the thing: Crypto is dealing with the repercussions of the lack of regulation already.&nbsp;



Take a look at the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-investigation-of-eth-as-security">Consensys suit against the SEC</a>. I know we’ve talked about this extensively, but the SEC investigating ETH as a security would mark a huge change in how it approaches regulation (though all of this is just alleged at this time).&nbsp;



The SEC’s public stance has been that ETH — like bitcoin — isn’t a security. Changing its stance would not only pit two agencies against each other (the CFTC has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cftc-alleges-eth-as-commodity-kucoin-lawsuit">previously claimed</a> it’s a commodity), but it shows just how far we have to go when it comes to regulation in this industry.



The DOJ’s wallet transmitter arguments could set up something similar.&nbsp;



Read more from our opinion section: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ether-commodity-or-not">Ether is the Schrödinger’s cat of crypto</a>



The Justice Department’s filings further muddy the water, not to mention the public disagreement with the previous policies. For their part, CoinCenter said they’ll continue to watch and “defend both the wrongly accused developers” and previous policies



So grab your popcorn and take a seat. It’s just another day in the land of crypto, I guess.



— Katherine Ross



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Data Center</h2>



<ul>
<li>Crypto VCs invested $2.49 billion in Q1 of this year, according to Galaxy Digital.&nbsp;</li>



<li>That figure represents a 68% quarter-over-quarter increase.</li>



<li>One more point from <a href="https://www.galaxy.com/insights/research/crypto-and-blockchain-venture-capital-q1-2024/">Galaxy’s May 3 report</a>: A whopping 80% of that amount went to early-stage firms, meaning VCs spent the period betting on new teams and projects.&nbsp;</li>



<li>BTC cracked above $65,000 this morning, though it has slid slightly to about $64,400 as of the time of writing.&nbsp;</li>



<li>A new dashboard co-developed by Visa posits that less than 10% of stablecoin transactions <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-05/more-than-90-of-stablecoin-transactions-aren-t-real-study-finds?utm_source=telegram&amp;utm_content=crypto&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;sref=3REHEaVI&amp;embedded-checkout=true">represent</a> “organic payments activity.”&nbsp;</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ghosts of crypto past</h2>



And in other DOJ news…



Even as the crypto industry plows ahead with new trends and tech —&nbsp;looking at you, memecoins and staking —&nbsp;some of the issues of yesteryear keep popping back up.



The DOJ rolled out indictments against a trio of former execs from crypto lender Cred late Friday.&nbsp;



If you don’t remember Cred, you can perhaps be forgiven. The lender declared bankruptcy in 2020, a move that kicked off a multi-year legal process that saw Cred accuse exchange platform Uphold of essentially <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/07/22/failed-crypto-lender-cred-blames-uphold-exchange-for-its-demise-in-suit/">orchestrating</a> its downfall. Uphold, as expected, denied the accusation. The bankruptcy process remains ongoing, though a reorganization plan was approved in 2021.



That era saw a raft of crypto lenders go belly-up in the wake of the downfall of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Cred wasn’t among them, but some of that story’s components — a problematic retail-focused lending product, bankruptcy, and court drama —&nbsp;presaged the era of financial turbulence that culminated with FTX’s downfall.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sam-bankman-fried-found-guilty">Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty in landmark crypto trial</a>



Which brings us to the Cred indictments. James Alexander, Joseph Podulka and Daniel Schatt were hit with wire fraud and money laundering charges, with the group accused of “making false and fraudulent statements to customers and investors about Cred’s lending and investing practices” per a DOJ press statement.&nbsp;



Before the collapse, Cred’s execs presented two realities, the DOJ alleged. Publicly, Cred said everything was fine. But in the background, market volatility, culminating with 2020’s <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/bitcoin-loses-half-of-its-value-in-two-day-plunge.html">crazy crypto flash crash</a>, pushed the lender into dangerous waters.&nbsp;



Cred kept driving forward, the DOJ alleged: “Nevertheless, rather than disclose to Cred’s customers and investors the reality of Cred’s finances, defendants allegedly attempted to keep the business afloat by bringing in new customer funds and by discouraging existing customers from seeking and obtaining redemptions from their investments.”



The damage: hundreds of millions of dollars in lost value for customers’ crypto assets.&nbsp;



The Cred trio face decades in prison. But will their day in court be as flashy or, in a word, historic as the FTX trial? I wouldn’t bet on it.



Still, the move is another highlight in the DOJ’s slow march across the crypto ecosystem. The Binance settlement and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/changpeng-zhao-sentencing-verdict">four-month jailing of Changpeng Zhao</a>, as well as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/doj-alleged-kucoin-violation-aml-laws">lawsuits against KuCoin</a> and longtime bitcoin investor Roger Ver, signal that US prosecutors continue to return to crypto’s past in an effort to shape its future.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/roger-ver-tax-fraud-charges">DOJ charges Roger Ver with tax fraud</a>



While the press might not flock to see the US government grill Cred, it’s worth paying attention —&nbsp;what plays out in those hearings and court docs may set important precedent. Stay tuned.&nbsp;



— Michael McSweeney



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Works</h2>



<ul>
<li>A16z’s Chris Dixon says there’s a “void” of crypto representatives following the sentencings of CZ and SBF, Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-05-06/silicon-valley-crypto-investor-chris-dixon-wants-to-overhaul-the-industry?srnd=homepage-americas">reports</a>.</li>



<li>Grayscale notched its <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/grayscale-bitcoin-trusts-shares-jump-after-first-inflow-since-january-2024-05-06/">first inflows</a> since January on Friday after it saw over $17 billion in withdrawals.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Bitcoin surpassed one billion transactions over the weekend, The Block <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/292579/bitcoin-surpasses-one-billion-transactions-processed-eight-hundred-weeks-after-launch">reports</a>.</li>



<li>Jack Dorsey left the board of decentralized social media platform Bluesky, according to a <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/bsky.app/post/3krrebumv3k2h">post</a> from the company.</li>



<li>Bernstein analysts <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/292594/bernstein-bitcoin-price-150k-usd?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss">think</a> bitcoin could still hit $150,000 this cycle.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Morning Riff</h2>



Has bitcoin bottomed out?



It doesn’t matter if you’re on Wall Street, in your mom’s basement, or just checking on your wallet, everyone always has the same question after a price dip: Is this the bottom?



Let’s look at bitcoin, which dipped below $60,000 last week and is down roughly 3.7% over the last month. It’s been one hell of a ride for bitcoin so far this year between <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-all-time-high">all-time highs</a>, the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/bitcoin-halving">halving</a> and, of course, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-approves-bitcoin-etf">bitcoin ETFs</a>.&nbsp;



Unfortunately, macro events persist and bitcoin’s shown weakness during previous macro conditions.



But it may not be the overall environment either, because — as we’ve previously reported — analysts expected weakness after the halving. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/jpmorgan-bitcoin-looking-overbought">JPMorgan predicted that</a> bitcoin could go as low as $42,000 post-halving, while others are eyeing $50,000.&nbsp;



Given that bitcoin’s up nearly 3% over the past week, I think it’s fair to say that, even if it has further to fall and I’m gonna leave that analysis to the experts, it looks like there’s still a lot of room for bitcoin to regain its footing.



— Katherine Ross



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Empire Newsletter: The DOJ’s about-face on money transmitters

Graeme Moore

Many interpret BlackRock pouring $100 million into Ethereum as a sign that institutional tokenization will finally take off on public, permissionless networks.&nbsp;



It will — but <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-ethereum-memecoins-tornado-cash-dusting">BlackRock’s tokenized fund</a> is only melting the tip of a Titanic-sized iceberg.



The crypto industry has cried wolf about institutions coming many times. By this point, we definitely know they’re interested in tokenization. The big players —&nbsp;BNP Paribas, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, the Hong Kong government, Franklin Templeton, Hamilton Lane and now BlackRock — have already been exploring blockchain technology for a while.



It’s certainly a watershed moment when the world’s largest asset manager opts for a public chain over a private platform like JPMorgan’s Onyx or Goldman Sach’s solution. BlackRock’s tokenized fund on Ethereum signals institutional trust in a public, permissionless network, bringing much-needed legitimacy to the nascent public ecosystem. The move will also encourage other traditional institutional players to transition to on-chain funds.&nbsp;



But while BlackRock’s tokenization on Ethereum was a bold move worthy of the headlines it made, the reality is tokenization is predominantly taking place on private, permissioned blockchains.



To date, the majority of institutional efforts have involved private networks. The Hong Kong government’s $100 million tokenized green bond used GS DAP, deployed on the privacy-enabled blockchain Canton.&nbsp;



Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, Cboe Global Markets and other firms recently wrapped up a series of pilots on the same network. HSBC has used its platform, the Orion digital assets platform, to tokenize gold for everyday investors in Hong Kong. And BlackRock has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-barclays-jpmorgan-chase-dapp-tcn">used</a> the private Tokenized Collateral Network on JPMorgan’s Ethereum-based Onyx to tokenize shares in one of its money market funds.



Read more from our opinion section: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fintech-blockchain-breakthrough">Fintech has hit a wall. Blockchain will break through it.</a>



Bitcoin proved that a multi-billion dollar market can essentially come out of thin air. The industry believed that everything could be tokenized and traded via blockchain and enjoy increased liquidity. However, the glittering promise of liquidity for real-world assets has (so far) proven a mirage.&nbsp;



The initial token boom of 2018 hyped trillions of dollars in tokenized assets on public networks. Almost seven years later, there are only a few billions of dollars in total assets under management on public networks — a tiny piece of what’s theoretically possible. Meanwhile, private networks are moving billions of dollars in daily transactions.&nbsp;



The crypto industry loves to float the $16 trillion in illiquid assets Boston Consulting Group <a href="https://web-assets.bcg.com/1e/a2/5b5f2b7e42dfad2cb3113a291222/on-chain-asset-tokenization.pdf">projects</a> to be tokenized by 2030. Even the more conservative estimate —&nbsp;McKinsey &amp; Company’s <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/tokenization-a-digital-asset-deja-vu">$5 trillion</a> in tokenized real-world assets —&nbsp;is huge.&nbsp;



If we look at the trends and what’s happening, though, it’s clear that a majority of these assets will first be tokenized on private networks.&nbsp;



Unlike crypto — which is an entirely new asset class existing within open ecosystems — real-world assets inherit the legacy of traditional finance. This legacy favors control over assets and customers, closed ecosystems and compatibility with traditional markets — a direct contrast with the ethos of public, permissionless networks.&nbsp;



This explains why financial institutions favor private networks. Private networks operate closer to the existing financial infrastructure and can facilitate easier compliance. These networks are more capable of meeting business needs, as they provide flexibility in governance and customization, like modifications to the blockchain’s consensus protocol, transaction validation rules and permissions. These networks can also handle higher transaction volumes, which is essential for scalability.&nbsp;



There’s also the issue of regulation. It’s only in the past couple of years that regulators have begun to pass and enact comprehensive frameworks guiding involvement in crypto assets. As a result, public blockchain technology has felt untouchable until recently to these institutions, for whom compliance is paramount.



For securities, there is at least some clarity. Tokenized securities are still securities and must operate within the existing regulatory framework. However, some assets — like real estate — which are not necessarily securities off chain will be considered securities once tokenized. The industry is still figuring out what it would take for these assets to meet existing requirements.



Today, nobody doubts the benefits of blockchain technology. The issue for traditional finance is mostly one of integration and technology costs, infrastructure compatibility and regulatory concerns. While public networks offer more transparency, immutability and decentralization, private networks are more practical and familiar for financial institutions.&nbsp;



There are also a few technology issues to sort out. Let’s use BlackRock’s chosen Ethereum as an example. While Ethereum has made progress with initiatives like layer-2 solutions and the Merge to Ethereum 2.0, the network faces challenges meeting the demand for speed, privacy and compliance necessary for transactions involving regulated institutions.



As the technology matures and regulatory frameworks evolve, we can expect to see more tokenization migrating to public blockchains and a new wave of innovation. However, at least for the near future, the majority of institutional tokenization will take place on closed, permissioned networks.&nbsp;



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


<div class="wp-block-post-author-biography">Graeme Moore is the Head of Tokenization at the Polymesh Association, a not-for-profit dedicated to the growth of the Polymesh blockchain ecosystem. He is also the author of B is for Bitcoin, the first ever ABC book about Bitcoin. Prior to Polymesh, Graeme was the first employee at Polymath; the creative director at Spartan Race; and an associate at Canada’s largest independent investment advisory firm.</div>


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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

The future of tokenization? Permissioned blockchains

Robinhood Crypto has received a Wells notice from the SEC, according to a Monday disclosure. 



Robinhood, according to an 8K disclosure, said that the US securities regulator had probed “among other topics, RHC’s cryptocurrency listings, custody of cryptocurrencies, and platform operations.”



The company received the notice Friday. The SEC uses Wells notices to inform investigation subjects about pending enforcement actions.&nbsp;



According to Robinhood, the stock and crypto trading app company faces an enforcement action stemming from alleged violations of the Securities Exchange Act.&nbsp;



“The potential action may involve a civil injunctive action, public administrative proceeding, and/or a cease-and-desist proceeding and may seek remedies that include an injunction, a cease-and-desist order, disgorgement, pre-judgment interest, civil money penalties, and censure, revocation, and limitations on activities,” Robinhood <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783879/000178387924000138/hood-20240504.htm">said</a>.&nbsp;



The company said it had cooperated with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sec">SEC</a>’s investigation so far.&nbsp;



“After years of good faith attempts to work with the SEC for regulatory clarity including our well-known attempt to ‘come in and register,’ we are disappointed that the agency has decided to issue a Wells Notice related to our U.S. crypto business,” Dan Gallagher, Robinhood’s chief legal and compliance officer said in a statement.&nbsp;



“We firmly believe that the assets listed on our platform are not securities and we look forward to engaging with the SEC to make clear just how weak any case against Robinhood Crypto would be on both the facts and the law,” Gallagher continued. 



A spokesperson for the SEC told Blockworks that the regulatory doesn’t comment “on the existence of nonexistence of a possible investigation.”



The firm is set to announce earnings on Wednesday.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-q4-earnings-2024">Robinhood reports crypto revenue of $43M in Q4</a>



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/robinhood">Robinhood</a>’s reveal represents the latest Wells notice issued by the SEC to a firm that does business in crypto. Last month, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-issues-uniswap-wells-notice">Uniswap said it was served</a> a Wells notice.



The company has previously disclosed subpoenas probing its crypto products, according to a 2022 filing with the SEC.&nbsp;



“In connection with the Early 2021 Trading Restrictions, we and our employees, including our co-founder and CEO, Vladimir Tenev, have received requests for information, and in some cases, subpoenas and requests for testimony” from various government agencies, including the SEC, the filing <a href="https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001783879/a9a57907-3e1a-4c89-aa64-06a27e537dbc.pdf">said</a>.



The firm was also charged with “repeated misstatements” about revenue sources, which resulted in Robinhood paying $65 million to settle with the SEC.&nbsp; In 2022, the company’s crypto segment was <a href="https://www.dfs.ny.gov/reports_and_publications/press_releases/pr202208021">accused</a> of anti-money laundering and consumer protections violations by the New York Department of Financial Services. It ended up paying a $30 million penalty.



Consensys was also allegedly served with a Wells notice, according to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/consensys-files-lawsuit-against-sec%5C">a suit it filed against the SEC</a> in a Texas court.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/consensys-sec-lawsuit-debate">Is the SEC weighing a lawsuit against Consensys?</a>



Both Uniswap and Consensys have come out against the SEC, with the latter saying that its notice represented the “latest example of aggressive SEC regulatory overreach.”



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Robinhood discloses Wells notice over its crypto business

Bessie Liu

Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, has been hired as a policy adviser for Coinbase.



Villaraigosa, who served as the mayor of LA between 2005 and 2013, will join the cryptocurrency exchange’s global advisory council.



Faryar Shirzad, the chief policy officer at Coinbase, <a href="https://twitter.com/faryarshirzad/status/1785680450410750328">wrote in a post on X </a>that Villaraigosa will advise the leadership team at Coinbase to advance “economic freedom around the world.”&nbsp;



“When 18% of America is underbanked, including 25% of Black &amp; Hispanic households, it means the traditional financial system doesn&#8217;t work for everyone. It&#8217;s time to update the system,” Shirzad wrote.



According to the LA Times, Villaraigosa will not lobby on behalf of the global exchange but will only advise the company on developing a fair and robust regulatory framework so that it can provide services for US-based customers, noting that crypto participants “need regulatory protection.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Paradigm special counsel leaves&nbsp;</h2>



Rodrigo Seira, the special counsel of the crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm, has resigned and returned to Cooley LLP, a law firm where he previously worked.



Seira served at Paradigm for two and a half years and helped spearhead the company’s policy lab. He was also a founding member of blockchain and crypto-focused law firm DLX Law.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Former Citibank executive joins BitGo</h2>



Brett Reeves, a former Citibank executive who has been in the banking industry for over two decades, will join BitGo, a scalable wallet solution, to expand EMEA Sales.



Reeves most recently held the position of head of business development at Bequant, a digital asset prime broker. He previously held roles at Citibank, Nomura and Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore.



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Hiring roundup: Former LA mayor joins Coinbase

Coinbase’s layer-2 blockchain Base has welcomed the second iteration of its Onchain Summer, where it will be inviting builders and creators to bring more users onto the blockchain.



To mark the initiation of the event, Base will be hosting a month-long online hackathon beginning June 3 with 200 ETH (~$613,200). worth of rewards to be distributed to finalists. 



In total over the Summer, over 600 ETH (~$2 million) will be offered to creatives in the form of grants, prizes, and gas credits. 



Base launched its mainnet in August last year with Optimism’s OP stack and has quickly become one of the most popular L2s today. According to <a href="https://l2beat.com/scaling/summary">L2Beat</a>, it currently has a TVL of $5.52 billion and an estimated total market share of 14.18%.



<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">Onchain summer is back. We’re inviting builders, creators, brands, and artists to co-create Onchain Summer with us, and Base and our partners are offering over 600 ETH ($2 million) in prizes, grants, and gas credits What are you building?<a href="https://t.co/MykF3JSh1i">https://t.co/MykF3JSh1i</a>&mdash; Base 🛡️ (@base) <a href="https://twitter.com/base/status/1786079119824019650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



According to a <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/QOHev4zxGJOtsHpobhRxb7-MgVRSX9UCBBHBEpVVCzc">blog post</a> by Base, the previous Onchain Summer saw over 700,000 mints from over 268,000 different wallets and collaborated with companies such as Coca-Cola, FWB, Parallel, anotherblock, and others.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">NodeMonkes becomes the most popular Bitcoin NFT</h2>



NodeMonkes has become the most popular Bitcoin NFT by market capitalization, with a total market cap of 3,979 BTC ($246 million) and a floor price of $24,603, according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft">CoinGecko</a>.&nbsp;



The collection consists of 10,000 8-bit digital collectibles designed to feature animals, predominantly monkeys. Its market cap briefly surpassed that of Bored Apes in March this year and is the <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft">7th most traded NFT </a>in the past 24 hours.&nbsp;



Another Bitcoin NFT worth noting is Bitcoin Puppets, which surpassed NodeMonkeys in 24-hour trading volume. Bitcoin puppets currently have a market capitalization of 3,230 BTC (~$199 million) and a 24-hour sale price of 0.31 BTC (~$19,200).



One interesting stat:



Uncategorized Ordinals sales are <a href="https://www.cryptoslam.io/uncategorized-ordinals">topping charts</a>, with 24-hour sales volumes topping over $4 million.



Also of note:&nbsp;



<ul>
<li>FriendTech token launch receives<a href="https://twitter.com/Degentraland/status/1786414262946017753"> backlash</a>; the price of its token dips by over 90% following launch.</li>



<li>Bitcoin “Jesus” Roger Ver was charged with tax fraud by the US Department of Justice after he allegedly<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/roger-ver-tax-fraud-charges"> evaded $50 million</a> in taxes.</li>
</ul>



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Web3 Watch: Base kicks off Onchain Summer 2.0

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has privately purchased $90 million worth of Optimism’s OP token.



According to <a href="https://unchainedcrypto.com/a16z-makes-90-million-private-purchase-of-optimisms-op-token/">Unchained Crypto</a>, the investment will be subject to a two-year vesting period and is one of the largest crypto investments that the venture capital firm has made to date.&nbsp;



The purchase was made prior to a16z’s most recent fundraise, during which the venture capital giant disclosed that it had secured $7.2 billion to invest in American Dynamism, Games, Apps, Infrastructure, and Growth.



Read More: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/a16z-seven-billion-fundraise">A16z raises $7.2B</a>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ex Revolut exec secures $6.5M for new hybrid exchange</h2>



Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, former head of crypto ops at Revolut, has secured $6.5 million to create his own new hybrid exchange, x10.



X10 has the typical features of a centralized exchange, but also offers full-custody and settlement on-chain, enabling its users to perform DeFi perpetuals trading with fast latency and throughput.



“We want to give our users and traders the best of both worlds. Imagine the features and the speed of Coinbase or Binance but with full self-custody,” Fakhrutdinov said in a press release reviewed by Blockworks. 



Fakhrutdinov added, “The FTX situation, where users only got back a third of their funds, serves as a wake-up call for the industry. It urges us to reinforce trust and efficiency in crypto trading through on-chain trade settlement, validation, and self-custody.”



Other notable fundraises this week:



<ul>
<li>STYLE Protocol secures $2.5 million to fuel interoperability among digital worlds</li>



<li>AI infrastructure company Wisdomise concludes $9.5 million funding round to accelerate product and community development</li>



<li>Wasabi lands $3 million in a seed round led by Electric Capital</li>
</ul>



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Funding Roundup: a16z made a $90M bid on Optimism

Alun Evans

Imagine spending countless hours upgrading your race car in your favorite game, fine-tuning every detail and unlocking new features as you play to make it both beautiful and blazingly fast…only to lose it forever when you stop playing the game.&nbsp;



What if you could truly own and monetize your in-game creations? Enter the world of tokenized user-generated content (UGC).



Throughout history, humans have prized self-expression and individuality. And in the gaming sphere, this desire has reached new heights with the rise of UGC. Games like Roblox and Minecraft — which average hundreds of millions of players monthly — have revolutionized the industry by empowering players to create worlds, characters, and experiences.



Yet, one key aspect is missing in the majority of these types of games: true ownership.&nbsp;



While players can create and share content, they have little control over how it’s used or monetized. They spend hours making worlds and upgrading in-game items that add massive value for a studio, driving player retention and enjoyment, without benefiting from the rewards.&nbsp;



Think about it. The average Fortnite player spends a whopping ten <a href="https://www.esports.net/wiki/guides/how-much-time-i-spent-on-fortnite/#:~:text=Most%20players%20spend%20around%206,hour%20a%20day%20on%20average">hours</a> a week playing, and some of the most popular builds in the game are player-created. Epic Games (its creator) is directly benefiting from the time these players put into playing and building in the game.



How can we address this challenge and empower players with real ownership and fairer rewards for their creations?&nbsp;



Tokenization offers a transformative solution.



By representing in-game assets as unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the blockchain, players can assert ownership rights and track their creations’ provenance securely. Smart contracts can automate royalty payments, ensuring fair compensation for player contributions.&nbsp;



To demonstrate this further, imagine if my daughter’s Lego car creation was tokenized. By creating a digital token or NFT of the car, she can formally certify it as her own and earn rewards when it’s traded. She could even receive royalties if someone used her car in their own game. Tokenization makes this possible in the digital realm.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The billion-dollar opportunity</h2>



Deloitte predicts that UGC gaming platforms will <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/insights/industry/technology/technology-media-and-telecom-predictions/2024/user-generated-content-video-game-trends.html">pay out</a> nearly $1.5 billion to content developers in 2024. But to realize tokenized UGC’s full potential, we must address negative perceptions surrounding blockchain technology in gaming.



To begin, we need to address the user experience issue. Many early blockchain games suffered from clunky interfaces, complicated wallet setups and a lack of intuitive design. Layer this with exploitative microtransactions (think <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/gamers-hated-virtual-goods-long-before-nfts/">Axie Infinity</a>), and it&#8217;s no surprise mainstream gamers were left wary.&nbsp;



Imagine a gamer having to manually manage private keys or decipher cryptographic hash functions just to play. That&#8217;s a surefire way to deter adoption.&nbsp;



Instead, the focus should be on creating immersive worlds where the blockchain functions invisibly in the background, enabling ownership and monetization without compromising the gaming experience.



The NFT market has also been prone to wild speculation, with some assets selling for eye-popping sums while others go to zero. While this has generated buzz, it has also led to concerns about market stability and the potential for bubble-like behavior.&nbsp;



For tokenized UGC to gain mainstream acceptance, it&#8217;s crucial to foster a more stable, sustainable market driven by the inherent utility and value of the assets rather than mere speculation. This means designing in-game economies with balanced incentives, sinks and faucets to ensure long-term viability. By shifting the focus from speculation to utility, we can build trust and stability in the market.



Read more from our opinion section: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/memecoin-mania-learn-risk-management">Memecoin mania can teach us something</a>



As more games embrace tokenized UGC, blockchain networks will need to handle a massive influx of transactions. If the infrastructure can&#8217;t scale to meet demand, we risk congestion, high fees and a degraded gaming experience.&nbsp;



We want to avoid another <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42237162">Crypto Kitties-style</a> Ethereum network breakdown. To prevent this, developers must choose scalable blockchain architectures that can grow with their player base. This may involve using layer-1 solutions that can bridgelessly connect to other blockchains, sharding or other techniques to increase throughput without sacrificing decentralization or security. It&#8217;s also crucial to optimize smart contracts and game logic to minimize unnecessary transactions and reduce the load on the network.&nbsp;



One of the most important prospects of tokenized gaming is the ability for a users’ in-game assets to move seamlessly between different game worlds. Imagine being able to take your hard-earned sword from one game and use it in another, or having your spaceship navigate through various universes. This level of interoperability would unlock incredible possibilities for player expression and engagement.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The road to mainstream adoption</h2>



Achieving this vision requires overcoming significant technical and coordination challenges. Different games may use different blockchain networks, token standards and data models. Bridging these gaps requires robust cross-chain communication protocols and standardized metadata formats.



It will take a concerted effort from developers, players and the wider blockchain community. But if we get it right, the future of gaming will be a more open, collaborative and rewarding space for all.



And we’re on the right track. Over the past two decades, the UGC gaming landscape has undergone rapid transformation, with what once seemed improbable now on the brink of becoming commonplace, thanks to the integration of blockchain technology.&nbsp;



Tokenization is the catalyst for creating this billion-dollar gamer-driven economy, where players have unprecedented control over their creations.&nbsp;



The ownership revolution is here; it&#8217;s up to us to seize it.



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


<div class="wp-block-post-author-biography">With over 20 years of experience leading and designing games and tech companies, Alun is well-versed in creating innovative products that tackle experiential and developer challenges. In addition to his stewardship of LAOS Network, he is CEO and co-founder of the company building LAOS, Freeverse, which focuses on building scalable blockchain infrastructure. His history as the co-creator of ‘Barcelona World Race &#8211; THE GAME,’ a cutting-edge video game enabling virtual participation in real-world events, and his wider passion for gaming, have fed into his vision for LAOS Network as a solution for the intersection of Web3 tech with both gaming and real-world applications. Alun also led Shar3d.io, a pioneering company enabling collaborative 3D web applications, and served as CTO of Bodypal.com, a virtual garment services company. He holds a Ph.D. in Medical Physics from University College London.

</div>


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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Gaming needs tokenization

Those keeping tabs on the crypto industry (this writer included) have been quick to refresh pages of daily bitcoin ETF flow data and digest them.



News headlines have kept segment observers up to date on the money going into, and more recently leaving, these funds.&nbsp;



The pent-up angst over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s long term refusal to approve spot bitcoin ETFs left many speculating about the potential investor capital these products would attract out of the gate.&nbsp;



There were also considerations about whether this demand would be enough to spur further interest, in order to draw both retail and institutional investors, along with their capital, into the crypto space.



We now have the initial data to answer some of these pressing questions.



On day one, the funds tallied <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/day-1-bitcoin-etf-trading-volume">trading volumes of $4.5 billion</a>, and $655 million of net inflows. By two months in, after the category <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-etf-inflows-price-rally">welcomed $1 billion in assets on March 12 alone</a>, the funds’ inflows amounted to $11.1 billion.



The total stands at about the same level today as momentum has slowed in recent weeks.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Continued GBTC outflows have coincided with stalled demand for the category’s most consistent flow-gatherers: BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).&nbsp;



And in an unprecedented turn Wednesday, 10 of the funds — including those by BlackRock and Fidelity — each saw outflows, spurring a $564 million exodus on the day.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/unprecedented-us-spot-bitcoin-etf-outflows">BlackRock, Fidelity bitcoin ETFs bleed Wednesday, joining GBTC</a>



With this background established, we can now zoom out to examine the broader implications of bitcoin ETF flows.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bitcoin ETF flow impact&nbsp;</h2>



Because bitcoin is a speculative investment, inflows and outflows typically dictate price moves, said Bryan Armour, director of North America passive strategies research at Morningstar.&nbsp;&nbsp;



After all, bitcoin ETFs actually buy and hold bitcoins. The number of bitcoins in circulation will ultimately be capped at 21 million, and the new bitcoin entering the supply dropped by half on April 19.&nbsp;



Ipso facto, bitcoin ETF issuer purchasing in response to demand for the funds was a contributor to bitcoin’s price rally to a new all-time high of about $73,000 in mid-March. The opposite can happen when people sell shares of their bitcoin ETFs.&nbsp;



“ETF flows are meaningful because they provide a glimpse of how a substantial portion of the market that previously lacked straightforward exposure to crypto is behaving,” said David Lawant, head of research at FalconX. “I expect, therefore, ETF flows to continue to influence crypto price action.”



And we know many people care about bitcoin price action.



But what the flows represent, beyond numbers, is also worth noting.



Bitcoin ETF acceptance proved there was untapped demand for crypto and that institutions were willing to jump into the space, Armour told Blockworks.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/franklin-templeton-institutional-bitcoin-etf-allocation">New mix of bitcoin buyers bode well for ecosystem: Franklin Templeton exec</a>



“That signals support for future growth and interest in the broader crypto market and the future of blockchain technology,” he added.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ignoring the shorter-term noise</h2>



Though bitcoin ETF flows will contribute to BTC price movements, this impact is set to unfold gradually over the coming quarters and years, Lawant said.



“While monitoring these flows is crucial and short-term fluctuations may capture headlines, I think it&#8217;s essential to filter out the short-term noise and focus on the factors that are more relevant in the long run,” he noted.



The seven straight days of bitcoin ETF net outflows may cause some alarm to the space’s interest parties. But this reversal was expected, Armour said.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Demand cannot continue at the rapid pace seen early on for spot bitcoin ETFs,” he told Blockworks. “Demand will become intermittent, but I wouldn’t expect major sustained outflows without a significant price decline.”



Bitcoin’s price stood at about 61,700 at noon ET — up 4.5% on the day and down 4% from a week ago. 



Other segment observers took to the platform formerly called Twitter to let new ETF investors know that outflows are a thing that happens, regardless of the underlying asset.



Nate Geraci pointed to year-to-date outflows for State Street Global Advisors’ SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), which stand at about $2.9 billion, according to ETF.com. That comes despite the price of gold being up about 11% from the start of 2024.&nbsp;



“This is what ETFs do,” Geraci <a href="https://twitter.com/NateGeraci/status/1785849570552852579">wrote</a> on X. “Inflows don’t go up in [a] straight line.”



A little spat broke out when macro strategist Jim Bianco highlighted the latest bitcoin ETF outflows in an X <a href="https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1786004000401424438">post</a> Thursday. The president of Bianco Research had formerly <a href="https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1749779829531058250">said</a> that “normies” getting into crypto had been “rugged” following a so-called sell-the-news correction in the weeks after the fund launched. &nbsp;



Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas noted that outflows for the day in question (Wednesday’s $564 million of bleeding) roughly represented just 1% of the category’s assets under management.&nbsp;



The outflows over the past few weeks combined to amount to less than 5% of the segment’s total assets, which Balchunas added “is totally normal for [a] risk asset ETF during sell-off.”



“Are you saying yesterday was not a beginning, but an end?” Bianco replied.&nbsp;



Balchunas: could see the ETFs shedding 10% of assets under management if bitcoin’s correction worsens. “But, it&#8217;s a good [question] in that all of this is just beginning if we zoom out,” the Bloomberg Intelligence analyst noted. “These ETFs will be around for years, decades. And they tend to win assets and volume [versus] other vehicles over time, albeit not always in a perfectly straight line.”



<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">You can have this one, I&#39;ll give it to you bc I&#39;m a good sport. So enjoy your TD dance but keep in mind yesterday&#39;s outflows were like 1% of aum, and past few wks combined less than 4% of aum, which is totally normal for risk asset ETF during selloff. If we see 70% or more leave…&mdash; Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1786013932596924747?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



There is only so much you can surmise from bitcoin ETF inflows and outflows, as the data gathered doesn’t shed light on where prices go next, Armour said. “Will speculators flee during a bear market to the point of creating an existential crisis?” Armour posed. “Will crypto’s integration into daily life support current price levels? I don’t think a framework exists for accurately predicting where crypto will go from here.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-price-movement-post-halving-etfs">What could drive BTC price with halving complete, ETF demand stalled</a>&nbsp;



Spot bitcoin ETFs are “just one cog in the bitcoin machine,” Armour added. They represent roughly 4% of bitcoin’s market cap.&nbsp;



“Their rapid ascension had an outsized impact on the price of bitcoin, but the broader bitcoin ecosystem will regain its influence as US ETF flows stabilize,” Armour said.



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Why tracking bitcoin ETF flows matters. And why it doesn’t.

The price of bitcoin was back above $61,000 this afternoon in New York while stocks rallied on reports that hiring is starting to slow.&nbsp;



Bitcoin was up more than 4% over 24 hours at time of publication, paring losses from earlier in the week that saw the largest cryptocurrency dip as low as $56,500, per Coinbase. Ether similarly bounced Friday, once again hitting the $3,000 level after hovering in the high $2,000 range for most of the week.&nbsp;



US stocks broadly opened higher Friday after the latest jobs report showed the economy added 175,000 positions in April, finally coming more in line with the pre-pandemic average of 183,000 job gains per month.



The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes were up 1% and 2%, respectively, at time of publication. The end-of-week rally was enough to push both indexes into the green over the past five trading days.&nbsp;



Crypto-related stocks posted mixed returns midway through Friday’s session. Coinbase lost 3% even after earnings released Thursday showed that revenue beat expectations by close to 20%. MicroStrategy and mining operation Marathon Digital, on the other hand, were in the green, posting around 8% and 3% gains, respectively, Friday.&nbsp;



The latest jobs data comes days after the Federal Reserve announced that interest rates would be holding steady for the time being. Central bankers will need to see further evidence that inflation is falling and the labor market is cooling, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said.&nbsp;



Even after Friday’s promising report, Fed fund futures markets still showed only a 14% chance of a rate cut in June, according to <a href="https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html?redirect=/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html">data</a> from CME Group. The delayed cut cycle could bode well for risk assets like cryptos, though, analysts said.&nbsp;



“With rate hikes off the table and markets already pricing in little to no cuts for 2024, we think that this bodes constructively for risk assets as the worst of stagflationary headwinds might be behind us,” analysts from Ryze Labs said in a note Friday.



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Bitcoin is back above $60K, stocks rally on cooler jobs data

13F filings continue to pour in and are a good gauge of institutional interest in bitcoin ETFs.&nbsp;



The forms were first filed at the beginning of last month and will continue to come in until mid-May.



The document is a required form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission which discloses the quarterly holdings for institutions that manage $100 million or more.&nbsp;



Two of the biggest institutions to disclose holdings in a bitcoin ETF so far have been BNP Paribas and BNY Mellon.



BNY Mellon’s 13F <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1390777/000139077724000062/xslForm13F_X02/xml_filing.xml">shows</a> that it owns nearly 20,000 shares of IBIT and roughly 7,000 shares of Grayscale’s bitcoin ETF GBTC.&nbsp;



BNP Paribas, on the other hand, only owns about 1,000 shares of IBIT.



The holdings, clearly, are small potatoes. But there are some smaller firms with much bigger bags.



Take a look at Pittsburgh-based registered investment manager Quattro Advisors, for example.&nbsp;



The 13F <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1705929/000121465924007055/xslForm13F_X02/infotable.xml">showed</a> that they own 468,200 shares of BlackRock’s ETF. There’s also Legacy Wealth Management, which <a href="https://t.co/DJBJpuHWp0">disclosed</a> that it owns over 350,000 shares of Fidelity’s ETF.



But one of the largest IBIT holders is Yong Rong, which disclosed in its 13F that it holds over a million shares of BlackRock’s fund. According to the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1738071/000173807124000004/xslForm13F_X02/20240331.xml">filing</a>, this makes BlackRock one of the biggest holdings in the manager’s portfolio.



Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas pointed out that Yong Rong isn’t the only Hong Kong asset manager to leap into the bitcoin ETFs. Ovata, Balchunas posted on X, holds multiple bitcoin ETFs including Fidelity, Grayscale and Bitwise alongside IBIT.



<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">While Yong Rong has highest single ETF inv at $30m of <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24IBIT&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$IBIT</a> there&#39;s another HK firm called Ovata that holds four of the spot bitcoin ETFs with total value of $74m, making it the biggest total allocator to date. It went Full Degen too as 4/5 biggest holdings are btc ETFs <a href="https://t.co/ePztBd6uUV">pic.twitter.com/ePztBd6uUV</a>&mdash; Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1786381912031781168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



These companies join a list of firms who’ve previously disclosed their holdings, including Brookstone Capital Management —- which owns both Fidelity and Bitwise’s ETFs — and LexAurum, another IBIT holder.&nbsp;



As <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/empire-newsletter-uniswap-sec-woes">Blockworks previously reported</a>, some analysts have said that this is just the starting line and not to expect too much from this first quarter of 13Fs. But, as we continue to monitor the filings, the appetite may pick up. Some of the bigger institutions tend to wait to file until closer to the deadline. 



A version of this article was included in today’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire newsletter</a>.



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

What 13F filings tell us about institutional appetite for bitcoin ETFs

Analysts said it would be a strong quarter for Coinbase. Boy, were they right.



The crypto exchange saw a storm (the perfect kind, for its purposes) come together in the first three months of 2024 as bitcoin’s price reached new ground.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Coinbase’s ability to cross-sell its products is its “superpower,” according to Alyssa Choo, crypto equities specialist at Bitwise Asset Management.



While the crypto price rallies and launch of spot bitcoin ETFs made it a favorable environment for the company, the second quarter could prove a tougher period to post the same kind of numbers.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/coinbase">Coinbase</a> had a higher adjusted EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — in the first quarter than it did during all of last year. That number hit $1 billion, up from $324 million during the quarter prior.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-q1-earnings-bullish-sign">Coinbase earnings show a bullish start to the year</a>



Net income also broke the $1 billion mark — at nearly $1.2 billion — for the first time since the last bull cycle in early 2022.



“However, Coinbase’s net income benefited from $737 million in pre-tax crypto asset mark-to-market gains, the vast majority of which were unrealized,” Choo noted.&nbsp;



This reflects the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new rule. Previously, if a company was holding a crypto asset and the price of said asset rose, entities could not mark up the value unless it sold its crypto.



Transaction revenues doubled quarter over quarter, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-q1-earnings-results">mostly in line with analyst expectations</a>. Consumer trading volume and institution trading volume was up 93% and 105%, respectively.&nbsp;



While Choo said she expects these transaction trends to continue throughout the year, GraniteShares Chief Revenue Officer Paul Marino isn’t so sure.



Coinbase generated about $300 million of total transaction revenue in April, the company said in its Thursday shareholder <a href="https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/files/doc_financials/2024/Shareholder-Letter-Q1-2024.pdf">letter</a> — slightly behind the roughly $360 million monthly average it saw in Q1.&nbsp;



“Despite a very solid report, the stock traded lower after hours with concerns that trading volumes will decrease based on downward movement in bitcoin and the fact that more insider sales occurred in the quarter than any other time since Coinbase went public,” he told Blockworks.&nbsp;



Though bitcoin hit a new all-time high of about $73,000 in mid-March, the asset was trading at about $61,000 on Friday morning — down 5% in the last week



Coinbase’s stock price hovered around $226 just after 10 am ET — down about 1% on the day.&nbsp;



The crypto exchange would benefit from interest rates staying flat or declining, Marino noted, as well as continued institutional crypto buying.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A lift from the ETFs, stablecoin revenue</h2>



Coinbase is a custodian for eight of the 11 US spot bitcoin ETFs — a fund category that has collectively tallied $11.2 billion of net inflows since launch on Jan. 11.&nbsp;



Its assets under custody rose 69% from the prior quarter to $171 billion, while custodial fee revenue jumped 64% to $32 million.



Despite BlackRock and Fidelity products leading a flood of inflows into the category out of the gate, demand for those funds has stalled in recent weeks.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-etf-outflows-persist-third-straight-week">Bitcoin ETF snapshot: A few firsts during another week of outflows</a>



But in the first quarter, the ETFs seemed to unlock customer engagement across the crypto exchange’s Coinbase Prime products, Choo noted.&nbsp;



The institution-focused platform — offering custody, trading, financing and staking —



notched record trading volume and active clients, according to Coinbase’s letter. About 40% of Coinbase’s institutional clients engaged with three or more of the Prime products during the quarter.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Base becoming more key to the exchange</h2>



Coinbase started seeing major traction for its layer-2 network, with developer activity increasing eight times quarter over quarter.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Base has processed over twice as many transactions as the Ethereum network in the last 30 days, Coinbase noted.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/base-coinbase-l2-success">Based culture: Inside Coinbase’s L2 feat</a>



“Base has strong unit economics, so as transaction volumes grow, Base should become a material contributor to the company’s revenue and profits long term,” Choo told Blockworks. “Coinbase’s superpower here is their ability to cross-sell products. The company already has more than 100 million verified users on its platform, mainly engaging in trading activities, she pointed out.



“Now that they’ve made Base faster and cheaper to use with fee reduction by about 80% through protocol upgrades, over time it should become accessible and attractive to use for non-crypto native Coinbase users,” Choo added.&nbsp;



By Coinbase starting to integrate USDC on Base, it could also see a continued lift in its stablecoin revenues. 



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbases-circle-investment-reflects-the-shoring-up-of-major-revenue-stream">Interest earned on Coinbase USDC reserves</a> was $197 million during the quarter, up 15% from the fourth quarter of 2023.



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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

Coinbase cross-selling on display during impressive Q1

Nathaniel Harmon

People typically care about price above all else when it comes to the Bitcoin halving.



Instead, what they should be paying attention to is the net positive Bitcoin can have for the future of humanity.&nbsp;



While Bitcoin has long been criticized for being bad for the environment, the trend toward renewables and mining actually shows the opposite. Yes, fossil fuels are still a major component of the Bitcoin network, but with the halving freshly behind us and the block subsidy cut in half, miners with fewer operational expenses, like renewables, will continue their ascent.&nbsp;



The halving will be a catalyst for a greener, more renewable bitcoin mining movement to finally be recognized among its most staunch critics as a net positive for the environment.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Fossil fuels are the fiat of bitcoin mining&nbsp;</h2>



Bitcoin mining has been constantly criticized for its energy consumption and use of non-renewable energy sources. While the trend is reversing, a significant portion of bitcoin mining still relies on fossil fuels.&nbsp;



But why has there been a reliance on fossil fuels in the first place? Simply because fossil fuels have incredibly high energy density and are relatively stable, making them ideal as an energy carrier.&nbsp;



Read more from our opinion section: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-halving-cycle-miners-energy-strategy">This Bitcoin halving cycle, miners need a new energy strategy</a>



While fossil fuel plants have relatively low upfront costs to build, they require the continuous procurement of fuel, i.e. low capex high opex. And that fuel is subject to variable pricing and increasingly prone to shocks. With climate change taking center stage this year, and with the role fossil fuels play, there is increased regulatory risk. Fossil fuels are essentially borrowing against the future for instant gratification, and it is we the people who will inevitably foot the bill for the consequences, with compounding interest. This is the definition of high time preference thinking — and it’s antithetical to Bitcoin’s philosophy.&nbsp;



But the good news is that there is a trend toward renewables and longer term, low time preference thinking already taking shape.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The economics of renewables&nbsp;</h2>



In addition to the environmental benefits, the shift towards renewable energy sources in bitcoin mining also makes economic sense. While renewables have a high initial capital expense, once they are installed, the energy produced has a low marginal cost — it costs nothing for the sun to shine or the wind to blow or the geo to therm. If there is no buyer for any given kWh, then the cost of said unit of energy will go to $0. This is increasingly the case for renewable generation capacity that has yet to connect to the grid.



What’s more, renewable energy sources like ocean thermal, wind and solar power, have become increasingly cost-competitive with fossil fuels in recent years. As a result, miners using renewable energy sources can enjoy lower operational costs, making them better positioned to weather the reduced block subsidy as we progress through the fifth epoch.&nbsp;



Additionally, the use of renewable energy sources enables energy sovereignty and decentralization. Whereas only a few nations have fossil fuel deposits, every country has access to renewables. This has led to massive centralization in the energy industry where a handful of super majors and state-run oil companies exert vertical control on the entire supply chain.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Facing the long term economics&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2>



Despite the economics favoring renewables over fossil fuels for the bitcoin mining industry, there are still challenges to overcome in the long term. The external cost of fossil fuel use has yet to be factored into their cost. This amounts to a government and taxpayer subsidy that artificially depresses the price today, making fossil fuel use more attractive in the short term.



What’s more, the intermittency of some renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, poses grid balancing challenges. But in areas with significant renewable energy resources, like Texas, bitcoin mining is gaining recognition for its ability to nearly instantaneously cycle on and off. During times of excess production, mining facilities provide a buyer for unused energy, while during high demand, the facilities are able to shut down to free up that power. This unique attribute is being integrated directly into the generation side, expanding renewables to new frontiers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Gradually, then suddenly</h2>



As bitcoin mining continues to favor renewables and decarbonize energy markets in this fifth epoch, it will be undeniable how powerful this one two punch is. We will see more renewable, off-grid mining operations pop up, and we will even see historically dominant fossil fuel miners integrate renewables into their mix. It will likely take bitcoin mining catalyzing a new renewable energy source, like ocean thermal, for some of the staunchest critics outside of the industry to come around and see mining as a net positive. But it’s only a matter of time. 



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


<div class="wp-block-post-author-biography">Nathaniel Harmon is the co-founder of OceanBit, a leading ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) provider ushering in an era of clean baseload energy. Nate is the inventor of Demand Response OTEC, a chemical oceanographer and engineer who received his M.S. in Marine Geology, Geochemistry, and Marine Geology and a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Hawaii where he focused on autonomous oceanographic instrument development and microfluidic chemical engineering. Prior to co-founding OceanBit, Nate worked on proposals and research for the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative and founded the Bitcoin-software development and consulting firm Blockchain Solutions Hawaii. 	</div>


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



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.

First Digital USDFDUSD

market data

First Digital USD Stats

What is the market cap of First Digital USD?

What is the current trading activity of First Digital USD?

What is the current price of First Digital USD?

How many First Digital USD are there?

What is the relative popularity of First Digital USD?

latest First Digital USD news