The Protocol: Behind the Scenes as Big-Tent Consensus Goes Up

Money Center: Cysic Raises $12M, Plume Secures $10M, Bitcoin and Ether ETF Markets to Grow, and More

Austin, Texas is now welcoming throngs of attendees for Consensus 2023, CoinDesk’s yearly crypto event, taking place from Wednesday to Friday. We’re genuinely enthused about the blockchain technology schedule and the prospect of networking face-to-face with numerous industry professionals.

In this article, we provide an overview of essential blockchain technology developments, complete with links to related side events and social gatherings. Additionally, we offer a sneak peek into our upcoming summit focusing on decentralized artificial intelligence. I will be hosting the Protocol Village Stage for 1.5 days and interviewing Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Ordinals/Runes, on the Mainstage on Friday. We’ll also record a live episode of The Protocol podcast on Thursday.

On Tuesday, as the community buzzed with activity, I visited various engagements. I attended a Bitcoin Core developer funding summit organized by Akash from the DePIN project, in collaboration with crypto pioneer Eric Vorhees. Additionally, I stopped by a happy hour gathering hosted by Mysten Labs, Interop Labs, and Big Brain Holdings, an early-stage crypto investment firm. I also strolled through the exhibition area and captured some images. Here they are: [Include photos]

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ETH

The Protocol: Behind the Scenes as Big-Tent Consensus Goes Up

Network news

The gap between the Grayscale Ethereum Trust’s market price and its actual value, or net asset value (NAV), has become smaller due to advancements in Ethereum ETF regulatory approval processes. (Coin Metrics)

Implications of SEC’s Approval for Ethereum ETFs: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given its nod to proposed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) linked to the price of Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, ether (ETH), ending months of anticipation that such approval might be denied. While Ethereum backers generally welcomed this move due to ETH’s subsequent price surge, Consensys, a developer shop involved in a lawsuit against the SEC, criticized it as another instance of the SEC’s inconsistent approach to digital assets.

DOGE’S MOURNFUL TRIBUTE: Kabosu, the real-life Shiba Inu dog whose image sparked the creation of Dogecoin, passed away at the age of 17 last week. The popularity of DOGE subsequently gave rise to numerous other dog-themed cryptocurrencies like Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Floki (FLOKI), collectively forming a significant segment within the industry. The Solana blockchain has also shown support with the term “dogwhatever” (WIF). Elon Musk, the influential billionaire behind Tesla and X, expressed his condolences by tweeting that “the original Doge has ascended to the heavens.” In response, DOGE’s price saw a notable increase of up to 5% within minutes.

In the aftermath of last week’s article on The Protocol regarding the paid advisory roles taken by two Ethereum Foundation researchers with EigenLayer, Aya Miyaguchi, the foundation’s executive director, expressed in a postscript that “we have been developing a formal policy” to tackle potential conflicts of interest. She acknowledged that relying solely on cultural norms and individual judgment has proven insufficient.

If elected once again as the U.S. President, Donald Trump has announced his intention to grant clemency to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road marketplace, reducing his life sentence to time served.

Protocol Village

Top picks of the past week from our Protocol Village column, highlighting key blockchain tech upgrades and news.

Ledger’s new ‘Stax’ touchscreen hardware wallet (Ledger)

1. The crypto hardware wallet manufacturer, Ledger, has begun shipping its new touchscreen device, Stax, to pre-order customers. As stated by the company: “Stax represents the first secure touchscreen gadget, offering clear and assured transaction signing and protection for your digital assets. It was developed under the guidance of Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod. Further orders for Stax can be placed this summer.”>

As a crypto investor, I’m excited to share that Taiko, an open-source and permissionless Ethereum-equivalent ZK rollup project, successfully deployed on the mainnet this week. After two years of dedicated work, we reached this significant milestone with the inaugural block proposed by none other than Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Taiko’s unique innovation is based on Contestable Rollup (BCR), a type of rollup that cleverly merges based sequencing and a contestation mechanism, all backed by multiple proofs.

3. Ethereum Name Service Labs, the company behind the ENS domain name protocol, proposed Tuesday to go through a complete architectural redesign that would turn the network into a layer-2 blockchain. The proposal, dubbed “ENSv2,” will overhaul the project’s registry system as part of the transformation into a layer 2, which is an auxiliary network that provides cheaper transaction fees that can then be settled to the base blockchain, Ethereum.

The Dfinity Foundation, a significant player in the Internet Computer (ICP) ecosystem, has recently activated its “EVM RPC canister,” which is essentially a new API enabling ICP smart contracts to exchange data with various blockchains. This announcement marks another significant achievement for Dfinity’s Chain Fusion framework as it lets Internet Computer contracts interact directly with major chains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, other EVMs, and soon, Solana, without the need for intermediaries.

As a researcher studying the latest advancements in blockchain technology, I’m excited about the announcement made by Horizen Labs regarding their new project, zkVerify. This dedicated verification network is specifically designed to optimize settlement processes on the Horizen blockchain and tackle the scalability and efficiency issues that currently plague zkRollups and zkApps.

Consensus 2024 Sneak Preview

Beginning on Wednesday in Austin, Texas, our highly anticipated yearly conference will take place. We’ve been making the rounds and snapped a few photographs for your perusal.

Eric Vorhees, the veteran figure in crypto world, gave a talk on Tuesday at Austin’s side event. He is currently developing Venice.ai, a permissionless AI chat application. In attendance was Greg Osuri, Overclock Labs’ CEO, who is behind Akash – an open network enabling secure and streamlined transactions of computing resources. (Bradley Keoun)

As a financial analyst, I attended the Bitcoin Network Longevity Summit where we explored avenues for financially supporting Bitcoin Core programmers. Investors, developers, and businesspeople were all in attendance, engaged in insightful discussions about this crucial aspect of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Show floor going up. The blink rate will be high. (Bradley Keoun)

CoinDesk’s programming coordinators conduct a full-dress rehearsal with their tech team. (Bradley Keoun)

At Mysten Labs, Interop Labs, and Big Brain Holdings’ joyful get-together during happy hour, Bradley Keoun observed the scene.

Money Center

Fundraisings

Cysic, a ZK (zero-knowledge) hardware acceleration company, announced that it has successfully raised $12 million in a pre-A funding round.
Plume has raised $10 million in seed funding for what it says will be the first layer-2 blockchain purpose-built for real-world assets, or RWAs, in a round led by Haun Ventures.

Data and Tokens

Regulatory and Policy

‘Innovation Continues to Occur in Siloes’: DTCC Digital Head Nadine Chakar on Responsible Blockchain Building
Grassroots Policy Advocates Are Key to Seeding Crypto Innovation, writes Polygon‘s Rebecca Rettig

Calendar

XRP

Cardano

2024-05-29 21:22