The Protocol: Bitcoin Gets a DEX, Union Labs Gets $12M

As someone who has been immersed in the dynamic world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies for years now, I find the recent developments both fascinating and somewhat daunting. The rapid growth and evolution of this space is truly remarkable, with new players constantly emerging and established ones continuously innovating.

Hello there! Here’s your weekly digest from The Protocol – a round-up of crucial headlines in the world of cryptocurrency technology development brought to you by yours truly, Marc Hochstein, CoinDesk’s deputy editor-in-chief overseeing features, opinions, and standards. Enjoy the read!

In this issue:

Bitcoin gets a DEX, thanks to the Nomic bridge
Union Labs gets $12M to build more bridges
Base’s Jesse Pollak looks back on BALD
Justin Drake discusses Ethereum’s Beam Chain plan … and Solana

Network News

Growth in Ethereum’s Transaction Income: According to Steno Research, the transaction income generated by the Ethereum blockchain has significantly grown since Donald Trump’s election as U.S. President. Analyst Mads Eberhardt wrote this in a report published on Monday. He stated that this development is significant for all on-chain activities. The increase has resulted in enhanced staking rewards and more Ether (ETH) being destroyed through transaction fees, as per the report. This situation reinforces Ethereum’s economic structure, making Ether a more attractive asset. Steno Research also highlighted that the quantity of USDT on the Ethereum network exceeded the supply on the Tron blockchain for the first time in over two years. This is indicative of a thriving on-chain activity, leading to increased demand for ether to process transactions and higher transactional revenue. For further details, please read more.

Bitcoin now has access to a decentralized exchange (DEX) through the integration of Nomic’s bridge with Osmosis, a DEX built for the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem. This move is part of Osmosis’ strategy to focus on the world’s largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. The governing body of Osmosis, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), approved this integration in June. The bridge became operational on Tuesday, allowing users to swap their Bitcoin for a token called alloyed BTC (allBTC) on Osmosis. Matt Bell, CEO of Turbofish, the developers behind Nomic, explained that what makes Nomic unique is its complete decentralization: from having Bitcoin in your wallet to the Bitcoin being traded on Osmosis, the entire process remains decentralized without any intermediaries like Bitgo or Coinbase. Several projects are working to unlock the value of BTC, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and bring liquidity to the broader crypto market. Learn more here.

In a recently concluded Series A funding round, Union Labs, a project aimed at facilitating communication between various blockchains, has garnered $12 million. This investment was primarily led by Gumi Cryptos Capital and Longhash Ventures. The newly acquired funds will be utilized for team expansion, enhancing partner integrations, and promoting growth within the ecosystem. This fundraising follows an earlier seed financing round of $4 million last year. Borderless Capital joined in this new round, along with angel investors from the Polygon, Celestia, Movement, and Berachain communities, as per Union Labs’ announcement on Tuesday. The primary product of Union Labs is a modular, zero-knowledge (ZK) interoperability layer, designed to make asset transfers smoother between the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems. The mainnet is expected to launch in early 2025. Additionally, Union Labs has expressed interest in developing within the Bitcoin ecosystem, aiming to overcome Bitcoin’s scripting limitations to enable secure asset transfers across Bitcoin L2s and the multichain ecosystem, thereby boosting DeFi on Bitcoin.

As an analyst, I’d rephrase the sentence like this: Boldly Going… or So It Seemed: Critics argue that the Base blockchain, developed by Coinbase, leans too heavily toward centralization. However, if that were the case, wouldn’t it be impossible for someone to launch BALD, a meme coin on Base last year that humorously referenced Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s baldness? Jesse Pollak, Base’s founder, points out that BALD demonstrated that Base wasn’t going to be an overly groomed, carefully managed, controlled, and centralized platform. Unfortunately, like a rug being pulled out from under someone, it turned out that BALD was a scam. Delve deeper into the details for further insights.

ETHEREUM’S JUSTIN DRAKE SEES NO THREAT IN SOLANA

In simpler terms, Ethereum developer Justin Drake stated that his extensive plan to revamp the consensus layer of the second-largest blockchain is not about competing with rivals, but rather ensuring its longevity and continued presence in the future.

Last month at the bi-annual Devcon event held in Bangkok, Drake presented his plan, referred to as the Beam Chain, while the Ethereum network’s native token, ETH, was struggling to keep pace with the leading tokens on other prominent layer-1 blockchains.

The Ethereum network enjoyed wide adoption over the last few years, making it more expensive and slower to use. In response, a cohort of layer-1s, known as “Ethereum killers,” emerged in 2020 to compete with Ethereum on transaction speeds, and Solana has been seen as the leader of the back.

Lately, there’s been a significant increase in transactions on the Solana network, largely driven by the rise of meme-based cryptocurrencies. This has sparked discussions among users about whether Solana could potentially dethrone Ethereum as the leading “trending” blockchain.

However, Drake expressed that he doesn’t view Solana as a danger to Ethereum in the near future, and similarly, he doesn’t perceive Beam Chain as an immediate solution for Ethereum to regain its advantage.

In a conversation with CoinDesk, Drake emphasized that the Beam Chain’s primary focus is on enhancing the durability of its long-term health and safety within the consensus layer. It’s not concerned with performance issues.

According to Drake, Solana disregards health concerns, prioritizing only performance. Their main focus is minimizing delay (latency) and boosting data flow rate (throughput).

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW BY COINDESK’S MARGAUX NIJKERK

Money Center

What are the odds?

Polymarket Retains Loyal User Base a Month After Election, Data Shows

Deals and grants

GraFun Expands to TON Network to Enable Memecoin Creation Right in Telegram
Tokenized Uranium Goes Live on the Tezos Blockchain with Archax, Cameco Involved
Grayscale Files To Convert Solana Trust Into ETF

Greasing the skids

XRP Account Fees Fall by 90% After XRPL Validator Vote
Coinbase Plugs Apple Pay Into Its Fiat ‘Onramp’ for Third-Party Crypto Apps

Regulatory and policy

Crypto Cash Fueled 53 Members of the Next U.S. Congress
Opinion: De-banking Deserves Urgent Attention

Calendar (See #content-announcements channel in Slack)

Dec. 4-5: India Blockchain Week, Bangalore
Dec. 5-6: Emergence, Prague
Dec. 9-12: Abu Dhabi Finance Week
Dec. 11-12: AI Summit NYC
Dec. 11-14: Taipei Blockchain Week
Jan 9-12, 2025: CES, Las Vegas
Jan. 15-19: World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland
January 21-25: WAGMI conference, Miami.
Jan. 24-25: Adopting Bitcoin, Cape Town, South Africa.
Jan. 30-31: PLAN B Forum, San Salvador, El Salvador.
Feb. 1-6: Satoshi Roundtable, Dubai
Feb. 19-20, 2025: ConsensusHK, Hong Kong.
Feb. 23-24: NFT Paris
Feb 23-March 2: ETHDenver
May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto.
May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas.

2024-12-04 22:15

The Protocol: Bitcoin Gets a DEX, Union Labs Gets $12M

Network News

ETHEREUM’S JUSTIN DRAKE SEES NO THREAT IN SOLANA

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