PYTHIA

Jack Kubinec

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



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When Donald Trump paired his Solana memecoin with USDC, the Solana network’s stablecoin supply predictably shot upwards — creating 306 days of supply growth over a long weekend, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-stablecoin-supply-soars">as we put it</a> in this newsletter.



Although much of this supply growth stemmed from a memecoin that had about 48 hours of relevance, Solana’s stablecoin supply is still <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/solana?dashboard=sol-onchain-activity">near</a> its all-time high. On February 11, Solana had $12.4 billion in stables. Today, it has $12.1 billion.



“Definitely it has been stickier than anticipated,” Blockworks Research analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo said of Solana’s stablecoin supply when I asked him about it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXE1V57DOys">on the Lightspeed podcast this week</a>.



The stablecoin supply growth means Solana’s liquidity is deeper now, Gonzalez Campo said, noting the stickiness could be partly a result of bear market conditions where users are swapping out of riskier tokens to hold stablecoins on Solana apps instead. He also noted how USDC borrows on Solana money market Kamino are around all-time highs, which he interpreted as meaning investors are leveraging up on long SOL exposure following its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-shrugs-off-bearish-march">recent price slide</a>.



Solana is also seeing an accelerating number of new stablecoin brands joining the network. One such example is USDG, a new stablecoin from Paxos with backing from partners including Robinhood, Galaxy Digital and Standard Chartered. The token <a href="https://solscan.io/token/2u1tszSeqZ3qBWF3uNGPFc8TzMk2tdiwknnRMWGWjGWH">has</a> a little over $100 million in supply on Solana.



There’s also the stablecoin infrastructure platform M^0, which <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoin-infrastructure-platform-solana">launched on Solana</a> on Tuesday, we reported exclusively. Two new stablecoins from the stablecoin banking outfit Kast are first on the agenda.



USDC and USDT work pretty well as non yield-bearing stablecoins, and some have wondered whether new stablecoins are necessary. I made the case a couple times this week that Solana likely does want to change its stablecoin supply makeup from the current 76% USDC. Circle’s S1 filing revealed that 50% of revenue from the Treasurys backing USDC go to Coinbase, which operates a Solana competitor in the Ethereum layer-2, Base. Why wouldn’t Solana try to find a similarly cushy setup?



“I think your thought process is right, but you&#8217;re skipping a step,” Blockworks Research head of data Dan Smith said in response to this point on our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZMNkxnJfx0">Lightspeed podcast roundup episode</a>. Stablecoin distribution comes from applications, so “I think it skips the chain and goes to the app layer,” Smith said.



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Solana stablecoins have been ‘stickier than anticipated’

Casey Wagner

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



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It’s been quite a week.&nbsp;



We had Manic Monday and then Blink Wednesday, followed by what I’ll dub “That Didn’t Last Long Thursday.” Sadly, today’s not shaping up to be Fun Friday.&nbsp;



The good news: If you bought the S&amp;P 500 when the president told you to, you’re still in the green. For now, at least.&nbsp;



The bad news: everything else. Not to be dramatic.&nbsp;



The dollar is slipping: The DXY is down 3.7% today from Wednesday and the euro is at a three-year high against USD.&nbsp;



Treasury markets are still <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-put-tariffs-market-inflation-bond">selling off</a> — worse now than the Tuesday night meltdown that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-rollout-decisions-46dc0959">reportedly</a> inspired the president’s pivot. Yield on the 10-year once again surpassed 4.5% Thursday morning, and it’s looking like Treasurys will post the biggest weekly loss since 2019, when the Fed had to step in.&nbsp;



Analysts say markets are realizing that a 10% baseline tax on almost all trading partners — although better than the initial plans — could still spell trouble for inflation and growth.&nbsp;



Consumers aren’t feeling too optimistic, either. Consumer sentiment fell to 50.8 in April, down from 57 in March and lower than expected, according to data released this morning by the University of Michigan. The one-year inflation outlook also rose from 5% to 6.7%.&nbsp;



In terms of clarity on the future of trade policy, we are back to where we were pre-Liberation Day. Bulls insisted early last week that no matter what the administration announced, having a concrete plan on the table would be a silver lining.



Now the administration has 88 days to ink deals with 150 countries. There’s also the fallout with China, which this morning raised levies on US imports from 84% to 125%.&nbsp;



Trump’s National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on CNBC today that there’s “a big inventory of deals” approaching the “finish line,” so there’s that. We hope he’s right, but forgive us if the past week of White House communications has made us skeptical. 



I hope everyone is able to unplug this weekend. Maybe <a href="https://x.com/caseywagnerr/status/1908291167365611944">heed the advice</a> a friend gave me last Friday, which I certainly will be doing come 5 pm. We’ll see you back here on Monday.



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Rough dollar performance and Treasury market selloff close out a tumultuous week

Macauley Peterson

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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With the Pectra fork now scheduled for May 7, Ethereum core developers have begun to shift their focus toward defining the next major upgrade: Fusaka. During yesterday’s All Core Devs call, the teams aligned on Pectra client release deadlines and began CFI’ing (considering for inclusion) a new set of EIPs for Fusaka.



Client releases for Pectra are expected by late next week, followed by a public announcement around April 22–23. Barring any last-minute issues, nodes will simply need to upgrade in time for the fork on May 7.



One proposal that didn’t make the cut: a small change to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-upgrade-testnet-hiccup">EIP-7702</a> that would have added an &#8220;authorization success&#8221; flag to transaction receipts. While it would have simplified tooling for account abstraction workflows, client teams warned it was too late in the cycle, and agreed to revisit it post-Pectra.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Performance first, with room for growth</h2>



Fusaka’s scope is now coming into focus. Devs reaffirmed that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/0xresearch-newsletter-ethereum-tps">PeerDAS</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-full-eof-despite-dev-friction">EOF</a> will remain its cornerstone features. The call then moved to evaluate which additional EIPs to include without derailing the 2025 timeline.



Coordinator Tim Beiko set the table: “I think the one thing that literally every single team agreed on with regards to their prioritization is that we should ship Fusaka in 2025, that PeerDAS should be in it,” Beiko said.



Among those CFI’d:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7825">EIP-7825</a>: Introduces a transaction gas cap, preventing single transactions from monopolizing entire blocks — critical for parallel execution and fair bundling.</li>



<li><a href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7907">EIP-7907</a>: Raises the runtime code size limit while metering costs more fairly. An init code size increase will also be bundled in.</li>



<li><a href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7823">EIP-7823</a>: Caps modexp input size, helping reduce attack surface and memory bloat.</li>
</ul>



Blob fee market fixes: Two mutually exclusive EIPs (<a href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7918">7918</a> and <a href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7762">7762</a>) propose more responsive fee floors for blob data. Both were CFI’d for further discussion.



Raising the global gas limit was discussed at length but left unresolved. Teams acknowledged performance improvements are increasingly essential and should be factored into future forks, even if it means fewer new features per upgrade.



As Pectra enters its final testing phase, dev coordination is getting a shake-up. The ACD calls will now focus exclusively on future forks, while a separate weekly ACD Testing call will handle implementation details for current ones starting with Fusaka. Teams are also invited to contribute to the upcoming “Pectra Pages,” a retrospective effort collecting reflections from client teams, due April 28.



Thanks to narrowing scope decisions and core consensus solidifying, Ethereum’s 2025 roadmap is starting to look less like a brainstorm session and more like an engineering plan.



Some things naturally had to be put off. During the call, <a href="https://www.hadriencroubois.com/">Hadrien Croubois</a> presented <a href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7819">EIP-7819</a> — a proposal to generalize 7702-style delegation for smart contracts — live from his local maternity ward, just hours after the birth of his daughter!



“My baby was just born this morning,” Croubois said, explaining his poor audio quality. Now that’s core dev energy! Someone get that man a <a href="https://poap.xyz/">POAP</a>!



“I think the rule is that we owe him a celebratory EIP inclusion now,” EF researcher Ansgar Dietrichs wrote in the live chat.



Unfortunately, while EIP-7819 ultimately wasn’t included in Fusaka, it will be re-evaluated — alongside those not in time to be CFI’d — for the next fork, known as Amsterdam.&nbsp; In any case, the moment instantly joined the pantheon of ACD lore.



“We’ll talk to you all next week, and let’s get Pectra shipped,” Beiko wrapped.



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Fusaka fork takes shape as Pectra enters final stretch

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



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The world often feels very big. Billions of humans scattered across hundreds of countries, speaking thousands of languages and eating even more types of food.



But no matter how big it may seem, we can still reach out and touch it. You can just do things.&nbsp;



Today’s Bitcoin Legend, Plato, understood that much earlier than almost anyone else in Bitcoin. Fourteen years ago, he set off on a road trip across North America with a pioneering plan:&nbsp;



Make it from the East Coast to the West Coast without spending any dollars.&nbsp;



Only bitcoin.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bitcoin Legend — The Real Plato</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeM_r5lgdCOTe1zAASWaH6ZYFGoSw9gCkJToiKa1n4-61jh-eKGH8WdU_RG5aFcDAUJtMUBGKldOLB67P2Vi5gUxiLbVPOPhL7LNxpfPbZ-edSjkCDnlOuDECTRyNloZeegujTM-g?key=RkPfUR_14LpvMCE7dWoA2niK" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://x.com/TheRealPlato/status/1380640014648889357">@TheRealPlato</a></figcaption></figure>



Plato was an early adopter in almost every sense, having first discovered Bitcoin in 2010 and even mined coins when they were worth less than $1.



Inspired by its potential to change the world, Plato was pulled to spread the word. After losing his electrical engineering job in January 2011, by April he’d set off as a Bitcoin pioneer across a land largely unfamiliar with magic internet money.



“I want adventure, and the only other real component is the altruism. I want to help Bitcoin,” Plato said on a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcjy__y3DzI">podcast</a> one week into his 3,000-mile journey.&nbsp;



The goal: prove bitcoin could work in everyday life, even if few people in the real world knew what it was at the time. He was the first known human to attempt travelling across the United States living solely on bitcoin — using it to pay for food, gas and lodging.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcATxNffdirhpZx2VK5GWYg2KNC7Qx5nJl78K4chkw9y5-xlEimEALkwOtvgjap4Q29frnzhwaaP-NdGfmxpeRF8wfh04V2jah2edMozbql5Znp-LDKUa2AB2FOlWJvp_EWJVvzMA?key=RkPfUR_14LpvMCE7dWoA2niK" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Plato was prepared to educate people about Bitcoin as he went</figcaption></figure>



Bitcoin had the power to reshape our lives in incredible ways, Plato believed, but it would first need to “hit some critical mass” of adoption. He only hoped to “accelerate the process a little bit.”



Friendly strangers from across the US could pin an interactive <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ie=UTF8&amp;hl=en&amp;t=h&amp;msa=0&amp;ll=37.044066857423076%2C-101.0983746809892&amp;spn=55.922178%2C135.263672&amp;z=6&amp;mid=10uJ-SWxssIaKv2_TUx6OtfPSfOA">map</a> with their locations, so that Plato could drop by to barter bitcoin for supplies or shelter.



Mostly, surviving on Bitcoin alone in 2011 meant Plato had to regularly convince others to buy stuff for him with their own dollars, before paying them back in BTC.



A <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852698169718517906">video</a> from the trip shows Plato trading bitcoin for gasoline outside a 7/11 in Salt Lake City. The pair stepped through, sending BTC to each other using keys generated by <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/MyBitcoin">MyBitcoin</a>, an early hosted-wallet service that shut down due to a debilitating hack only months later.



Meanwhile, bitcoin was experiencing one of its first parabolic price rallies, going from $1 in March to $2 as Plato reached Alabama only two weeks into his trip, having <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852697570675490863">driven</a> 55 miles per hour the entire way to save gas.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf1qc8nqMrzpi4MaBGR-s-9j328XvN5JcgvugTF6qMDIoXOapa8L24xhNlMRyfmodYJU5gtn-4RATfQ2twF9pPNJTPlDZv-vVUrok9ym8oAX7c-n-gVzK7vOY2qCOClCWa47j--gw?key=RkPfUR_14LpvMCE7dWoA2niK" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Plato’s map: Red pins were offers for gas, blue pins for food, lodging, etc, and green pins marked interesting things.</figcaption></figure>



In Alabama, he gave one of the first college <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852697657837257120">lectures</a> on Bitcoin, a technical breakdown of mining difficulty and transactions in a UXTO system. Bitcoin had climbed to $8 by the time Plato arrived in Denver toward the end of May, where Plato <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852697945419796621">went</a> skydiving and attended concerts.&nbsp;



At one point, having camped out in the woods for days, Plato was offered a place to stay by a friend, whose kitchen had been converted into an ad-hoc home mining setup.&nbsp;



One of those rigs successfully found a block — netting the 50 BTC reward — which was <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852698242418368875">donated</a> to fund Plato’s trip. What was $500 back then would be worth more than $4 million today.



<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">8. Soon, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> surged to $10, but Plato was low on money His friend offered him a place to stay – and donated 50 <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24BTC&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$BTC</a> to his journey Here you can see his insane mining rig set-up in his kitchen❗ <a href="https://t.co/z2IcgCMQx3">pic.twitter.com/z2IcgCMQx3</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852698242418368875?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 2, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Bitcoin broke past $14 when Plato arrived in Las Vegas. It quickly doubled again to $30 for the first time ever in June, and Plato made it to the West Coast shortly after and posted up in Portland.



On July 1, three months after he started the first ever Bitcoin road trip, Plato shared an update on Tumblr:



“Well, in a nutshell, I made it! CT to LA without spending a single dollar. Since then I’ve been exploring San Francisco and Portland. Somehow I’ve met fewer Bitcoiners in either of these cities than anywhere else, so I’ve been mostly sleeping in my car.”



“Portland is really sweet. It feels like a big city in a small town, in a big city… which sounds stupid but w/e. There’s cool people everywhere, and more culture than <s>a tub of yogurt</s> an art museum.”



<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">12. These days, we don’t hear from Plato often… Here he is on X, when <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> hit $10,000 The value of his <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24BTC&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$BTC</a> was up 1 million % 📈 <a href="https://t.co/S6ztSBWTlK">pic.twitter.com/S6ztSBWTlK</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852698585021776009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 2, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Plato introduced hundreds of people to Bitcoin on his journey and <a href="https://therealplato.tumblr.com/post/7100067988/what-happened-to-plato">continued</a> to use bitcoin <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/therealplato/7852020802/paying-btc-for-sysadmin-support">wherever</a> he could.&nbsp;



More critically, he proved that Bitcoin could reimagine money by going all-in himself, at a time when Bitcoin was, at best, an esoteric quirk to most people.



For that, Plato will forever be a Bitcoin Legend.



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First Bitcoin road trip proved it could be money, even in 2011

Kate Irwin

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



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Digg was an early 2000s news aggregator, predating Reddit, that was dismantled and sold for parts in 2012.&nbsp;



The original site was founded by Kevin Rose, a man you might know better as the creator of the Moonbirds NFT collection. Yuga Labs purchased Rose’s NFT company, Proof Collective, and the Moonbird NFT brand for an undisclosed sum in 2024.



Now, more than ten years after Digg’s shuttering, both Rose and Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian are back to reboot the news aggregator.



Rose’s crypto antecedents are clear, and Ohanian has also <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/alexis-ohanian-says-ethereum-is-his-best-early-investment/484104">praised</a> blockchain tech (plus Reddit added NFT avatars in 2022).&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">So is Digg making a crypto-powered comeback?</h2>



A crypto executive familiar with crypto wallet infrastructure firm Privy told Blockworks that Digg is using the firm’s tech — and shared a screenshot showing a login screen with a privy.digg.com URL. Another screenshot of the login screen <a href="https://x.com/devops199fan/status/1910352084052189683">shared on X</a> shows “protected by Privy” with Privy’s circle logo.&nbsp;



Privy will be the sign-in method for Digg at launch, Digg team member Forest Anderson, who describes his title there as “Shovel Sharpener,” confirmed to Blockworks in a DM Friday morning.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdfkYRpIcIbWFmYmz34-fmKvPmezzcqx5JFkaOHlABdLVfPOmVdINDLdMwf__NAQebRJZLBRM0DQiAPNhJkFSDmJa4QfGwyNXLOcFQcJw4TSOdb-5nJXg86TB5T1gp_EL8W-sDOqA?key=7W1jJdoGUnLzkKg0XJqMimf5" alt=""/></figure>



Privy offers crypto-powered login solutions for platforms to help “​​developers onboard any user to web3 apps securely,” according to the company’s <a href="https://www.privy.io/user-guide">website</a>. It can support both self-custodied wallets and embedded wallets. Business clients can tailor the design and login options. Crypto transactions can also be signed in-app after logging in. It’s not unlike what <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/exclusive-horizon-blockchain-games-sequence-rebrand">Sequence</a> is also doing in the space for developers who want to add wallets for users.



A link to Digg’s community platform viewed by Blockworks lands on a “Groundbreakers” early-access page, which triggers a crypto <a href="https://x.com/pixiekate13/status/1910516311173849523">wallet pop-up</a>. Paying $5 via credit card gets “Groundbreakers,” or early community members, into a space where they can get updates on Digg’s development.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXefNzWasZBPPvAewh-1YQOG5Xk9rwvunkDTeLztDzOKcdrzdIH0JofE7h_UFri5248z84yAvGiTh8l6hpr8eugWwACQSIGbkcj-Gy5IF2peCeVBBEBcbbGNHRphbyMeYUcAwGBZ-g?key=7W1jJdoGUnLzkKg0XJqMimf5" alt=""/></figure>



Upon creating a Digg account and choosing a username, users receive a verification code email from Digg, featuring Digg’s logo, which also includes “powered by Privy” at the bottom.



Digg’s use of Privy, or of blockchain tech more broadly, had not been previously reported.



On Friday morning, after multiple tweets from X users about the Privy integration (including my own), and after I reached out to the Digg PR team for comment, Rose wrote this on the Circle community:&nbsp;



“Some of you have noticed we’re using Privy for auth, it’s true! The why: Privy gives us all the modern and legacy authentication methods we&#8217;d like to support. Embedded wallets are a future-proof feature worth having there from day one. We want to preserve maximum optionality as we move into a world of trusted users, their attestations, and powering transparent AI agents. More on this later in the coming weeks as will lift more of the curtain,” Rose wrote (emphasis mine).



Usernames from the Digg Groundbreakers forum will transfer over to Digg 2.0 when it ultimately launches, the team has confirmed.&nbsp;



What’s available on the Digg community platform right now is powered by Circle and isn’t actually what Digg will be in its final form. Rose shared a mockup in a post on the Circle site, showing part of what the real site’s design is looking like at the moment:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcdBUNjhvtkAY6opx_i5lY1J6NA0DybOZMIdyqlldFuAxT100oBoPClO4YZKOR-tZJPEBG47ixPs-96lDH1z4oqEnYSHW4f_xcw1NuSG77zzpAVhRMwGc_7N8YC3-xsy838FTIVCA?key=7W1jJdoGUnLzkKg0XJqMimf5" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: Digg homepage in progress.</figcaption></figure>



That homepage features a leaderboard of top users as well as featured news, top comments, and a look at communities.



A desktop web version and a Digg mobile app are in the works.&nbsp;



Gems — which take the whole digging metaphor to the next level — are an additional way the team wants to reward users for their contributions.&nbsp;



“We think that ‘followers’ was a great vanity metric for a long time,” Rose said in a voice note posted to the early-access forum when explaining his vision for Gems. But he called the follower metric “tired at this point,” in part because of bots.



Rose said he wants Digg users to be able to easily understand why certain types of content is being shown to them, as well.



Right now, it looks like crypto wallets via Privy will be optional in the final version of Digg 2.0.



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The new Digg is using crypto rails for accounts, wallets

Katherine Ross

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



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Nova Labs, the firm behind DePIN Helium, <a href="http://wagmi">announced</a> that the SEC dropped its suit against the firm just a few months after filing it (in one of Gary Gensler’s final moves).&nbsp;



Nova didn’t get off scot-free; the firm still has to pay $200,000 to settle the SEC’s civil securities fraud charge. Basically, the SEC accused Nova Labs of misleading institutional investors about its partnerships, per the original legal filing. Nova Labs didn’t admit to or deny any wrongdoing as part of the settlement. 



On the bright side, Nova doesn’t need to worry about the SEC labeling any one of its three tokens — HNT, IOT and MOBILE — as securities.&nbsp;



“The outcome establishes that selling hardware and distributing tokens for network growth does not automatically make them securities in the eyes of the SEC. It also means that the SEC cannot bring these charges against Helium again,” Nova Labs wrote in a blog post.&nbsp;



Overall, though, the settlement can be read as a win and yet another sign of the times. As the SEC moves forward with new Chair Paul Atkins at the helm, we can expect more changes — though it seems that we’re running out of crypto cases to drop or settle.



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Nova Labs announces SEC settlement

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



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The week between the Liberation Day announcement and the 90-day pause gave a good indication of where folks are at when it comes to huge news events that have potential impacts on crypto.



Everyone approaches sudden downturns differently. Some use it as a buy-the-dip moment, some hunker down and prepare for the worst, and others adopt a wait-and-see mindset that allows them to think an action through before an immediate reaction.&nbsp;



SKALE’s Jack O’Holleran would probably say he’s in the third camp, especially as an executive in the industry.



“If you&#8217;re working in the crypto space, you&#8217;re making decisions that are short term, that impact days and weeks, but you also have to make decisions that impact months and quarters, and so you have to be planning ahead,” he told me.



“And it frankly, makes things incredibly challenging, knowing that there are all these other variables outside of your control that you can&#8217;t accurately predict. You have to build volatility and variability into your plan.”



I asked O’Holleran what he thought about fundamentals in crypto, and if we’ve really started to see that shift play out as Blockworks Research’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-fundamentals-metrics-to-watch">Ryan Connor believes</a>.



O’Holleran thinks we’re still on the path toward fundamentals. I know we’ve heard the 90s comparisons a couple of times here on Empire. But O’Holleran pointed out that at the beginning of the dot-com era (before it was a bubble), speculation swirled around the tech, even when the products weren’t live quite yet. Crypto’s operating similarly, he noted.&nbsp;



In crypto, the evolution toward fundamentals will shift into focusing more on project metrics. The industry is in what O’Holleran referred to as “loss leader” mode.&nbsp;



“People are less concerned about economic values than they are about TVL and trading volume,” he said.&nbsp;



“[In] March there was a strong indicator of success at the infrastructure level. Because I think there&#8217;s a general belief that as incumbents and new players gain market share and build moats, they&#8217;re going to be able to then increase their profitability, or token value capture.”



And one of the key things we’re building up right now is just how we value different segments in crypto. O’Holleran pointed out that folks are still gauging how something like DePIN or layer-2 projects should be weighted in their categories.&nbsp;



All of these things reaffirm what may be a bit obvious to us: The industry is really at a maturity inflection point. Prepare for some growing pains, but figuring out metrics to value a project will, in the long run, be a net positive for crypto.&nbsp;



Bring on the fundamentals.



This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.



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How crypto’s evolving with fundamentals 

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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More than a half decade into DeFi, the sector is still somewhat of a wild west beset by elevated risk, unpredictable yields and the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hyperliquid-jelly-short-blockworks-research">occasional crisis</a>. Mary Gooneratne, co-founder of Solana DeFi startup Loopscale, wants to give blockchain borrow-lend a facelift.



“A lot of those [existing DeFi] architectures were designed kind of as a function of Ethereum’s constraints,” Gooneratne said in an interview.&nbsp;



Lightspeed has learned exclusively that Loopscale is opening its protocol to the public today, marking the end of its closed beta phase.



Loopscale’s distinguishing feature is its order book architecture that executes loans by directly matching lenders and borrowers with fixed rates and terms. This is in contrast to the pool-based model, which allows users to lend into and borrow against different baskets of reserve assets. The Ethereum borrow-lend giant Aave uses pools, for example.



Pool-based lending leaves markets “constrained by the riskiest asset in that basket,” Gooneratne told me. Loopscale’s order book lets borrowers and lenders take a market view on assets rather than adopting the protocol’s pre-set risk profile, she added.



Gooneratne and her co-founder Luke Truitt met while working on a computer science project for an undergraduate class at Duke. They went on to found a defense startup while still in school, which was acquired in 2020.&nbsp;



After graduating, Gooneratne and Truitt began working on a real-world asset lending startup, Gooneratne said. As part of that work, the pair set up a lending market for whiskey — tokenized by the Solana-based <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erz0fAv5Z7Q">liquor collection startup</a> Baxus in which collectors or distillers could borrow against their spirits.



Building on Solana should allow Loopscale to open new forms of decentralized financing, Gooneratne said. She gave the example of DePIN: Since DePIN payment streams are publicly visible, and their ownership can theoretically be transferred to lenders and priced, node operators could use their payment streams as collateral on loans to acquire more nodes.&nbsp;



But since this is cryptoworld, the most popular initial use cases may be the more speculative ones. Loopscale offers a loop product where users can take on leveraged loans by borrowing against a yield-bearing asset to acquire more of the asset. Loopscale also has a points system set up, presumably for users to stake their claim to a future token.



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Loopscale launches for more efficient Solana DeFi

Ben Strack

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



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The SEC yesterday approved options on spot ether ETFs by BlackRock, Fidelity and others. 21Shares also became the latest asset manager to float a dogecoin ETF.



The upshot is that 2025 indeed appears to be a year we could see a lot more crypto products come to market. The level of demand for them will be another story.&nbsp;



When the SEC approved options on bitcoin ETFs in October, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-etf-options-trading-begins">industry watchers highlighted</a> how it would enhance liquidity and price discovery around that ecosystem.



Essentially, institutional investors can better manage their exposures under various market conditions via ETF options, they said. Speculators, too, can use them to leverage their bets should they be particularly bullish or bearish on the underlying asset.



The ETF Store president Nate Geraci said (like after the approval of bitcoin ETF options) we can expect to see a bunch of new ether-related launches from issuers.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Covered call strategy eth ETFs, buffer eth ETFs, etc.,” he noted in an X <a href="https://x.com/NateGeraci/status/1910059591720665326">post</a>.



We’ve seen bitcoin-focused funds using options to offer <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/calamos-btc-etf-downside-protection#">downside protection</a>. And you might recall that, just last week, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/grayscale-launches-crypto-etf-product-innovation">Grayscale filed</a> for options-based “covered call” and “premium income” bitcoin ETFs.



As for the 21Shares Dogecoin ETF proposed yesterday, that filing came alongside news that the Dogecoin Foundation would endorse the product.&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">Bitwise general counsel Katherine Dowling told me in Feb. that DOGE was not among the “dolphins in the fish nets” — alluding to assets with an unclear securities status (per the SEC).<a href="https://t.co/rZvyPq1Jpy">https://t.co/rZvyPq1Jpy</a>&mdash; Ben Strack 🟪 (@strack_ben) <a href="https://twitter.com/strack_ben/status/1910087786570330522?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Federico Brokate, head of 21Shares’ US business, said this planned product was designed for retail investors and institutional investors seeking “high-conviction, non-correlated exposures.”



Dogecoin’s one-minute block times and ultra-low fees make it ideal for everyday payments and microtransactions, he argued. Then there’s the “community engagement and social capital” piece.&nbsp;



Brokate added: “Unlike bitcoin’s narrative-driven scarcity model, dogecoin offers functional utility — an increasingly important trait as digital assets move from speculation to application.”



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SEC approves ETH ETF options, faces new DOGE filing

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



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In some unexpected good news, inflation last month cooled to a five-month low. But tariffs remain a headwind moving forward.&nbsp;



The headline CPI for March rose 2.4% annually. That was lower than projected (2.6%) and down from February, which showed a 2.8% increase. On a monthly basis, prices actually fell 0.1%.&nbsp;



Core CPI (all goods, minus food and energy) increased 2.8% year over year last month — also down from February, when the core print came in at 3.1%.&nbsp;



As Felix Jauvin mentioned in his <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-put-tariffs-market-inflation-bond">discussion of the markets</a>, US equities early in the session were steady, still riding yesterday’s euphoria following Trump’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-tariff-pause-stocks-cryptocurrencies-surge">tariff pause announcement</a>. But renewed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trade-war-hits-treasurys">trade war fears</a> quickly overshadowed any inflation optimism. 



While the White House may have paused its more aggressive tariffs for the next three months, the blanket 10% levy remains in place. That is, except for Chinese imports, which now face fees of 145%.&nbsp;



While 10% may be significantly less than most of the policies announced last week on “Liberation Day,” the levy still is expected to significantly impact prices. Plus, many sector-specific tariffs, like those on auto parts and cars, remain in place.&nbsp;



There’s also no telling what will happen in 90 days with these “paused” policies.&nbsp;



Let’s be honest, there’s no telling what will happen in the next 90 minutes.



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Inflation unexpectedly fell last month, but tariffs still loom

Felix Jauvin

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



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We got the Trump put: The president finally caved after the yield on the 30-year bond hit 5%. As is the theme for this year, the bond market is driving everything, and equity markets are simply along for the ride. 



The bond market started to fall apart late Tuesday evening, and I admittedly got very worried about financial stability. In a two-hour span, the 30-year rose 21bps and hit 5%.&nbsp;



In the early hours of Wednesday morning (for those on the East Coast), the wonkish parts of the monetary plumbing system also began to show signs of strain. For the first time this year outside of period-end dates — when we typically see funding strains — we started to see stress and fracturing. 



A simple way to look at this is the SOFR/IORB spread. For the first time since QT began (and outside of period-end window dressing moments), the spread turned positive. I’ll avoid going into too much detail here, but the point is this: The important parts of the bond/funding market started to show strain:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfKcX08dIPYwbs3p4a968-vusfJ3EV2bd8tVWopC7sAQMvFZ5nt6UmfqmYrsJ2GIEnJ3r-IFPMc3iAe8Mo-1G4sd80aVnjjHJ9wOVyTm3hc_NqMt0PlxIxdr8Z21Gwjepit1dOfNQ?key=mgdAoOkUqQCiJTPL5wnSuR0Z" alt=""/></figure>



As I saw these developments unfold, it turns out I wasn’t the only one glued to the bond market — President Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were, too. 



By Wednesday mid-day, the Trump administration relented and announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs on all countries except for China, which was slapped with additional fees.&nbsp;



This was a welcome reprieve and quickly led to one of the largest single-day rallies of all time:



 <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="624" height="405" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdKpCpwo-E5-O8A9fa3WasIpyPF-mEkfKgDw8uvgu_G3omXkkL0u2dzjB7mLx6V2pemqH5FZrZhy8mIiTQhUAveH2WX4cT5oPPTCJq8tI5K0U6OWJPBu5Y6fShYuGDleM_jwG0CTQ?key=mgdAoOkUqQCiJTPL5wnSuR0Z">



Now, however, the market has to digest where things stand.&nbsp;



Anna Wong, chief US economist at Bloomberg, crunched the numbers to see where the impact on the economy nets out. It turns out the aggregate tariff impact on the economy as a whole is mostly the same; the risk just got transferred to China:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeQK2p3fESTivFggqFaTEjA3xapqY8vJ2PN5pWXAX0eSr-PBrDA9CC60SGxjV1W_COf9S9kwpk2-A_6lqffJvWn3HpIsd54uVZzdNGrJSWlP8RjN_2CSwWP2poJobuRnS2Cz25Z?key=mgdAoOkUqQCiJTPL5wnSuR0Z" alt=""/></figure>



At time of writing, US equities have given back half of the gains from yesterday’s huge rally.&nbsp;



What’s difficult about ascertaining what comes next? None of the economic data we’re receiving is all that useful.&nbsp;



For example, this morning we saw that March marked the first negative month-over-month print on CPI inflation since 2020, and yet, bonds sold off. Something that would typically be very positive for bond markets sent the market in the opposite direction.&nbsp;



Simply put, there are bigger forces at play right now. The fact that bonds couldn’t rally off an ice-cold CPI print tells you there’s some big issues in bond markets. Although Trump’s pivot resulted in a short-term bounce, the fundamental issues remain.



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The Trump put was struck, but at what cost?

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



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Truth Arts — formerly known as Truth Labs, the team behind the 2022 Goblintown Ethereum NFT collection — has released NFT “licenses” inspired by driver’s licenses.



To become eligible to mint a Goblintown license, aspiring drivers had to wait for a seemingly endless amount of time with no end in sight in a DMV. In this case, the wait was at the Goblintown DMV, which was a webpage with a DMV simulator. You took a number, waited, waited some more, and ultimately submitted your email address to the team. (You also need to create a DYLI account with that same email address to claim your license.)



When I stumbled upon the DMV simulator shortly after it launched April 1, I didn’t know what the endgame was, but I figured it would probably end in some exclusive reward. I clicked on it to check it out.&nbsp;



I took a number, saw the depressing knowledge of a long wait and some extremely high numbers (like 99,999), and gave up after about 30 seconds.



I had work to do, okay?&nbsp;



Truth CEO and cofounder Alexander Taub said in a <a href="https://x.com/ajt/status/1907117106295967809">post</a> that wait times were anywhere from one to five hours per customer.



The Goblintown DMV is now closed. If you didn’t get the chance to pass idle hours waiting, the NFTs can be bought on secondary marketplaces.



The “license” NFTs can be claimed until this Friday, April 11, according to an X <a href="https://x.com/goblintown/status/1910041909483163757">post</a>. They’re minting on the Abstract blockchain. There are six possible character designs: “pumplescroob,” “lord buttbat,” “jug,” “gromblar,” “urki,” and “gobbie.”&nbsp;



When asked why the Goblintown team chose Abstract for its latest NFTs, Taub told Blockworks via email: “We are big fans and friends of Luca, Pudgy Penguins, and the Abstract team. The licenses were first and foremost something that we wanted people to be able to physically redeem (if they choose to),” he said, adding: “We are also building more things for Abstract, this just happened to leapfrog those things.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf3bPtvLx5P55AOt_Ee1r95vlmBwApcvVAOD6gIhtrKmj-5MVCtoQBnv_90eOOvIkba0I5kKjF3aB9RcRDQn1utjtR0YBsvM1QieM0cMUZ4aD_IGUfgORZWqqxrxmi8HQ5KEiFa4w?key=_wpzkD5qD2jCe8WvVXiLWgnj" alt=""/></figure>



The NFTs can be “burned,” or removed from the blockchain permanently, in exchange for real-life physical versions of the licenses.



The licenses are thematically tied to the upcoming Goblintown racing game, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3417510/Goblintown_Really_Hard_Driving_Game/#:~:text=Goblintown%3A%20Really%20Hard%20Driving%20Game%20on%20Steam&amp;text=Do%20you%20have%20the%20skill,don't%20forget%20to%20SCREAM!">Goblintown: Really Hard Driving Game</a>, which was announced back in February.&nbsp;



It’s technically not a crypto game, though. The game won’t require any NFTs to play, but it won’t be free-to-play, either (exact pricing is TBD).



“This game is very purposefully a non-Web3 game. The first reason is that you cannot have anything crypto- or token-related and be in good standing on Steam, which is where we will be first distributing the game. This is the number one marketplace for indie games, so that made the decision for us,” Taub explained.



“The second reason is we wanted to make a game that is fun and entertaining and something people WANT to play, not because they might make money or speculate on it. We are building an entertainment and technology company, and creating entertaining games is something we need to deliver on outside of speculative digital assets. So the game has IP origins with Goblintown and our original digital collection, but it is our attempt to build ourselves into a character IP brand,” the CEO continued.



On April 20, Goblintown is <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/goblintown-hosts-high-stakes-gaming-challenge-in-nyc--beat-the-really-hard-driving-game-win-10-000--302422857.html#:~:text=Launching%20Sunday%2C%20April%2020%2C%202025,first%20look%20at%20the%20challenge.">hosting</a> an IRL event in New York City where invitees can try to beat the game for $10,000 in cash.



The game will also be on offer IRL at Pax East in Boston next month and at DreamHack in Dallas at the end of next month. At all of these events, those with NFT licenses will be able to cut the line to play the game.



“We figure you waited at the digital DMV for a minimum of an hour (to 5 hours!), so we can let you skip the line. In the future, we might come up with more fun little things, but tying it to the actual in-game is not something we plan to do,” Taub told Blockworks.



Like Really Hard Driving Game’s title suggests, it’s intended to be very difficult to play.



“This isn&#8217;t just about skill — it&#8217;s about nerves, instinct, and maybe a little bit of chaos. Goblintown has always thrived on unpredictability, and this challenge is no exception,” Taub said in a press release.



Goblintown: Really Hard Driving Game has echoes of Yuga Labs’ Dookey Dash, which was a difficult driving game with obstacles that was released for a limited time beginning in January 2023.&nbsp;



The original Dookey Dash was also for degens and competitive gamers, but it required a “Sewer Pass” NFT to access the game. The winning Dookey Dash key ultimately sold for $1.6 million in February 2023. In September 2024, Yuga Labs released a free-to-play, newer version of the game.



Goblintown’s Really Hard Driving Game will launch before the end of this month, Taub confirmed to Blockworks.



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Goblintown launches driver’s license NFTs ahead of ‘Really Hard Driving Game’ release

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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What happens when a stablecoin isn’t stable, and the founder’s response is “no crying in the stablecoin casino”?



The vibes in the Synthetix and Infinex Discords are down bad. So is <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/susd">sUSD</a>, the Synthetix-native stablecoin, which dropped below $1 in March, but today has slipped dramatically below $0.90 — hitting a low (so far) of about $0.835.



While founder Kain Warwick insists that this is temporary and that the overcollateralized stablecoin is fundamentally safe, the community’s patience is wearing thin. So is its trust.



The root of the problem? The 420 pool, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/synthetix-staking-stablecoin-fix">an upgrade</a> that made sUSD more capital-efficient by letting a pooled SNX staking system mint sUSD at a lower 200% collateralization ratio. In the process, it also forgave $60m in staker debt over 12 months — removing the reflexive peg defense that previously incentivized stakers to buy discounted sUSD to repay debt. That incentive is now gone. And so is the peg.



While the protocol hasn’t sold sUSD, according to Warwick, the new issuance mechanics have flooded liquidity pools, skewing Curve’s sUSD stableswap pools 90%+ toward sUSD. Users trying to exit are getting crushed. One posted a screenshot showing a USDC/sUSD LP with literally 0% USDC remaining.



There are about 51 million sUSD in circulation between Ethereum mainnet and Optimism, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/usd-stablecoin">according</a> to CoinGecko.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/lightspeed/1bd088c0-3f45-11ef-8d0e-33cba733fb4d">Infinex</a>, the frontend product meant to onboard normies, hasn’t helped. It launched an incentive campaign to hold sUSD in the Infinex wallet <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/wednesday-january-15">not long before</a> the depeg, which has been renewed twice. Now Infinex <a href="https://blog.synthetix.io/collectsnx-rewards-on-infinex/">wants</a> people to stack SNX to farm even more rewards. This has users fuming.



“You guys promote sUSD through campaigns, you take responsibility,” wrote one user on the <a href="http://discord.gg/infinex">Infinex Discord</a>.



“Liquidate the collateral and get out of the damn stablecoin business,” wrote another on the <a href="http://discord.gg/synthetix">Synthetix Discord</a>.



Kain’s replies? A mix of sarcasm and stoicism.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe9AkEyW9xTAeKkvho6ezcBXJ1ily5P6203AIra3rTKhPof126metYJXe811E4EaGXup-lJJXU22nVLpzv_XyK_2X-ZCWtorYzXZ88QaIxqTN7fTHsE9iWQaST-cn4418WqUmeOoQ?key=xDlpETItJAmhbYXrOPgoIiCW" alt=""/></figure>



Fair or not, it’s a tough look as users are down 13% on what was marketed as a stable asset.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">So…what now?</h2>



If you bought sUSD for yield expecting stability, you’re in damage-control mode.



Short-term: The peg won’t snap back quickly. No active treasury buybacks, no peg-stabilizing module yet.



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Exit now if you need capital or can’t stomach further drawdown, or</li>



<li>Hold and wait if you believe the peg will recover to $0.95+ via incentives, integrations or treasury action.</li>
</ol>



Or maybe you’re considering buying now, fancying yourself a distressed asset investor.



This is obviously a speculative trade, not a passive stablecoin yield play. A bet on recovery assumes:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>SNX price holds or rebounds (key to overcollateralization premise).</li>



<li>The team executes on liquidity and incentives.</li>



<li>The peg restoration becomes a top short-term priority.</li>
</ul>



A slow grind back to $0.99 is plausible — but so is more chop around $0.85–$0.90 if treasury action lags.



While sUSD isn’t <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/terra">Terra</a>, it’s showing some of the same reflexive fragility. Overcollateralization only helps if the market believes it. Right now, confidence is depegged about as much as price is, and until that’s restored, the status quo will remain.



The “s” in sUSD may really stand for “Synthetix,” but this week, it sure feels more like it stands for “suspect” or “suffering.”



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Synthetix’s sUSD stablecoin sees continued depeg to $0.86

David Canellis

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



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Bitcoin’s first Ponzi scheme was nothing special — but it was early.



After the 1906 inception of the international reply coupon, it took 14 years for Charles Ponzi to come along with his <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-ponzi-we-trust-64016168/">legendary</a> scheme, which he peddled across Boston society to the tune of $20 million at the time ($319 million in today’s money).



Meanwhile, it only took Trendon Shavers, aka Pirateat40, less than three years to pull off something similar on the Bitcoin blockchain: Bitcoin Savings &amp; Trust.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">On This Day – Bitcoin Savings &amp; Trust&nbsp;</h2>



Shavers originally launched the scheme as First Pirate Savings &amp; Trust in November 2011, having cultivated an online persona of a savvy over-the-counter bitcoin trader in IRC channels and on Bitcointalk.



Bitcoin had opened the year at $0.30, hit $30 in June, and had since settled at around $3. Shavers’ supposed OTC desk was now running dry, with requests for more coins only “getting larger and more frequent.”&nbsp;



“Over the last few months I have been selling BTC to a group of local people,” Shavers wrote in his launch <a href="https://pastebin.com/yH0jr6KY">post</a>. “Now this is a ‘don&#8217;t ask don&#8217;t tell&#8217; group of people, so I can&#8217;t tell you exactly where and to whom the coins ultimately end up with, but so far it&#8217;s been pretty painless.”



To help source liquidity, he devised two ways to inspire early adopters to send him their bitcoin, starting at a minimum of 50 BTC ($150 then, $4 million now).



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The “on-demand” tier would pay a 3.5% fee for filling buy orders over what the desk has available.</li>



<li>The “storage” tier would pay 1% per day for bitcoin sent to First Pirate Savings &amp; Trust, with a promise that “you can withdraw your balance at any time.”</li>
</ul>



As was the case with the original Ponzi scheme, initial inflows were rather small, only $60,000 in total over the first two months.&nbsp;



But after rebranding it to “Bitcoin Savings &amp; Trust” on this day in 2012 (with a new website) Shavers’ wallets saw that much on an average day, despite repeated warnings of the community, including <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/ponzi-schemes-the-danger-of-high-interest-savings-funds-1338461999">from</a> Vitalik Buterin.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcVSRh9xXbGUjnpZ8nUZKHr8BqN4bpwt-Pg2qCs4Lxmu6UsQVdHYSyYDygREXaEff6H2bBuJlPQw_wZd72pVBvWkvYT2QpZcpGMn00SGIy2jS1WEb0D6L8sWakXDRtnMLYPpBsN?key=xm2WtSBqbG4DoznrxKgR4WvZ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Bitcoin’s push to $15 was interrupted by Bitcoin Savings &amp; Trust’s sudden closure, but BTC quickly rebounded.</figcaption></figure>



Just like the real Charles Ponzi almost a century earlier, Shavers never really did any of what he said. To go back in time a bit: Ponzi had promised up to 100% returns to investors who’d backed his wacky plan to arbitrage postage stamps between Italy, where they were cheap in the wake of World War I, and the US, where they were still expensive.



Ponzi couldn’t actually redeem his stamps for cash, or ship enough of them from Europe in any case. Still, he easily paid out interest with the waves of fresh capital, splitting the difference with a mansion, luxury car and a honeymoon vacation. Ponzi was sentenced to five years in prison.



Similarly, Shavers was simply selling coins to cover rent, car payments, shopping and casino gambling. Both plans were over and done in under 12 months.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdgGVAZESOhrEeoQfAYeJIfmlI6CeFPdP09OBF4jHYJiBuHdeUSpfU1p3JVVvmEUWjVGEQ5CEWTlRCwyMnpsJRk96bvDPWwt0oa15wQW7p89qyeGzxOvLhBKmA57lbhKu5e7kDmrA?key=xm2WtSBqbG4DoznrxKgR4WvZ" alt=""/></figure>



Shavers’ username is a reference to a Jimmy Buffett song, “A Pirate Looks at 40,” which laments about a man born too late in history to get away with adventurous crimes.



The Feds calculated that Shavers, drawing from about 100 investors, had siphoned 193,000 BTC for himself, worth up to $1.5 million back then and $16 billion today (coincidentally similar to the BTC supposedly held by the US government). He was <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/lawyer-reveals-details-about-the-man-behind-bitcoins-45-million-ponzi-scheme/">fined</a> $40 million and sentenced to 18 months in prison.



Look onchain and you can still spot the robbing of Bob to pay Alice: On every other day, total flows for Shavers’ wallets would be divided fairly evenly between inflows and outflows. Coins in from new investors, coins out to older ones.



And you can still see almost 1.18 million BTC flowing through wallets linked to Bitcoin Savings &amp; Trust in its short history — the equivalent of around 10% of the entire circulating supply at the time.



At risk of searching for a silver lining in the fraud, there’s this: Whereas actual physical records of Charles Ponzi’s scheme are presumably long gone, we’ll at least forever have a perfect account of Bitcoin’s first-ever imitation.



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Bitcoin’s first Ponzi scheme would be worth $16B today

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



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Agora CEO and co-founder Nick van Eck is pretty realistic about where the space stands right now. 



Clearly, there are plenty of reasons to maintain a bullish attitude. But he cautioned folks to rethink the time horizons when it comes to adoption.&nbsp;



The CFOs and CEOs of large US corporations aren’t necessarily aware of the developments in crypto, even when it comes to something like stablecoins. Van Eck believes we’re looking at a much longer time horizon for adoption — three to four years — versus the optimistic outlook of one to two years.&nbsp;



Van Eck told me he’s having plenty of conversations with folks in the TradFi space — including some of the largest hedge funds in the US — and that there’s still a lack of understanding when it comes to the role that stablecoins play.&nbsp;



“We live in our own bubble in crypto…We think everything that&#8217;s going on…everyone else in the world is aware of [it], right?” But that’s not the case.&nbsp;



The real curve we have to tackle is educational. We’re in the early innings here, and that’s the big hurdle now that the regulatory picture is so much better for crypto.&nbsp;



However, once people understand, van Eck is pretty bullish on the stablecoin sector taking off in four to ten years.



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Stablecoin adoption is still 3 to 4 years away: van Eck

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



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We’re thinking about stablecoin classification all wrong, Agora CEO Nick van Eck told me.&nbsp;



It’s easy to lump all of the stablecoins into one single bucket, but the reality is that the offerings are quickly becoming more unique and different as the space matures.&nbsp;



A lot of stablecoins are “very different, and have very different user profiles,” which means they “ultimately don’t even end up competing.”



“Someone who is looking to use USDe as a form of collateral is 95% of the time probably not the same user of AUSD or USDC. Maybe they&#8217;ll use it for trading, but [if]… you want to buy a treasury bill or a treasury bond, you don&#8217;t buy a corporate bond, right?”



You have centralized high-trust stablecoins, which include Agora or Circle. Then there’s centralized opaque, which would be Tether. The difference between the two is the amount of transparency offered, but both categories are focused on the global monetary network perspective.



Another is “centralized captive distribution,” which includes gaming companies or banks like Bank of America (CEO Brian Moynihan previously <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/02/26/bank-of-america-ceo-says-stablecoins-coming-very-soon-cfo/">teased</a> that the bank’s interested in such an offering). The idea here is that companies in this category are more interested in keeping their stablecoin offering within their business rather than expanding globally, van Eck explained.&nbsp;



The fourth and final one is decentralized stablecoins. This broader category captures the likes of Ethena, which van Eck praised as a “very good operator,” and some of the more experimental forays into stablecoins.&nbsp;



Agora’s customer base, van Eck noted, is usually made up of folks just coming into crypto, not more seasoned people who want to make a return on their collateral.



The team aims to create a global stablecoin network.&nbsp;



“We see a world where AUSD is traded on every single exchange and has global liquidity,” he told me. This opens the door for folks to build on top of Agora and “tap into our tooling and cross-chain infrastructure, our centralized exchange infrastructure, our FX on and off ramps.”



As lawmakers mull and vote on stablecoin legislation, van Eck is excited about what it means for the space. While he told me never say never when it comes to yield-bearing stablecoins — that’s not going to be a priority for Agora.&nbsp;



“From day one, I was very much expecting that the US government and the SEC would not allow interest-bearing stablecoins, which is why we designed our model as one-to-one, where we just share underlying economics with the businesses, versus it being natively yield-bearing.”



No skin off of Agora’s back, especially since it seems lawmakers aren’t too keen on yield-bearing stablecoins, either.



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