Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's play wrap-up of the astir important stories successful cryptocurrency tech development. We’re Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler, CoinDesk’s Tech & Protocols team.
In this issue:
- Sandeep Nailwal Takes Control of Polygon Foundation, Charts New Course, Retires ZkEVM
- Ethereum Foundation Unveils New Treasury Policy With 15% Opex Cap
- Bitcoin Core 30 to Increase OP_RETURN Data Limit After Developer Debate Concludes
- Plume Launches Genesis Mainnet to Bring Real-World Assets to DeFi
Network News
SANDEEP NAILWAL TAKES CONTROL OF POLYGON FOUNDATION, RETIRES ZKEVM: Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has officially assumed the relation of CEO of the Polygon Foundation, marking a pivot successful the organization’s enactment constitution and a sweeping overhaul of the network's longterm roadmap. Nailwal, who launched the task successful 2017 erstwhile it was inactive called Matic Network, volition consolidate power and reorient the squad toward AggLayer — Polygon’s caller cross-chain liquidity protocol that promises seamless interoperability crossed networks. The instauration volition besides discontinue zkEVM, Polygon's rollup network. "This renewed power marks the opening of a strategical propulsion for Polygon to reclaim its presumption astatine the forefront of Web3," the squad wrote successful a property merchandise shared with CoinDesk — Marguax Nijkerk Read more.
ETHEREUM FOUNDATION’S NEW TREASURY POLICY: The Ethereum Foundation published an updated treasury policy, outlining a bid of caller plans astir token sales, fiat purchases and transparency practices designed to guarantee the organization's "long-term agency, sustainability, and legitimacy." The EF, a Swiss non-profit, plays a cardinal relation successful the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem. In summation to employing researchers, builders and assemblage liaisons, the instauration was granted a ample trove of ether (ETH) tokens astatine Ethereum's genesis which it uses to money its operations and enactment different projects successful the ecosystem. In a blog post, the instauration stated it plans to annually designate 15% of its treasury to operational expenses ("opex"), with a 2.5-year buffer kept astatine each times successful its reserves. "We mean to trim yearly opex astir linearly implicit the adjacent 5 years, ending astatine a semipermanent 5% baseline," the instauration wrote. "This argumentation reflects our condemnation that 2025-26 are apt to beryllium pivotal for Ethereum, warranting enhanced absorption connected captious deliverables.” — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
BITCOIN CORE 30 TO INCREASE OP_RETURN DATA LIMIT: The developers of Bitcoin Core, the superior open-source bundle for connecting the blockchain down the world's largest cryptocurrency, said October's mentation 30 merchandise volition summation the default bounds for OP_RETURN data transactions from the existent 80 bytes to astir 4MB, a bounds imposed by Bitcoin's artifact size. The connection for the change, which was confirmed successful an update connected GitHub, had sparked statement wrong the Bitcoin community. Critics argued that removing the bounds could promote accrued embedding of arbitrary data, perchance starring to web spam and a displacement from bitcoin's superior relation arsenic a fiscal tool. — Sam Reynolds Read more.
PLUME MAINNET GOES LIVES: Plume, a blockchain web focused connected real-world assets, announced the motorboat of its hotly anticipated Genesis mainnet.The launch, according to a connection shared by the Plume team, marks the "next generation" of asset-backed DeFi — tokenizing accepted fiscal instruments, oregon real-world assets (RWA), truthful they tin interact with blockchain-based fiscal tools. RWAs person taken implicit the satellite of blockchain, arsenic they are viewed as a marketplace that could beryllium worthy trillions of dollars with accepted fiscal institutions steadily dipping into crypto. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
In Other News
- Safe, the fashionable multiparty crypto wallet antecedently called Gnosis Safe, has launched a caller improvement unit, Safe Labs, successful a determination aimed astatine consolidating its operations and sharpening its merchandise roadmap aft it was targeted successful February's $1.4 cardinal ByBit hack — the largest crypto heist to date. Along with the change, Safe is gathering a much "opinionated" V2 of its level targeted astatine endeavor customers. — Sam Kessler Read more.
- Morpho, a permissionless cryptocurrency lending protocol, unveiled an update that seeks to further align decentralized concern (DeFi) with accepted lending by bringing much successful the mode of bespoke, predictable indebtedness terms. Morpho V2 delivers market-driven fixed-rate, fixed-term loans with customizable terms, features antecedently unseen successful DeFi, which are required to conscionable the demands of institutions and enterprises looking to physique oregon migrate fiscal products on-chain, Morpho said successful a property merchandise connected Thursday.— Ian Allison Read more.
Regulatory and Policy
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is moving connected argumentation to exempt decentralized concern (DeFi) platforms from regulatory barriers, said Chairman Paul Atkins. Software developers gathering DeFi tools person nary concern being blamed for however they're used, Atkins and different SEC Republicans contended astatine the final of 5 crypto roundtables that person been held astatine the bureau since the enactment turnover nether President Donald Trump.The president told a roundtable of DeFi experts that he's directed the SEC unit to look into changes to bureau rules "to supply needed accommodation for issuers and intermediaries to question to administer on-chain fiscal systems." Atkins called that imaginable exemptive alleviation "an innovation exemption" that would fto entities nether SEC jurisdiction bring on-chain products and services to marketplace "expeditiously." — Jesse Hamilton Read more.
- The planetary portion of Alipay proprietor Ant Group plans to question stablecoin licenses successful Hong Kong and Singapore, Bloomberg reported connected Thursday. Ant International volition use for a stablecoin issuer's licence erstwhile the regulatory authorities comes into effect successful August, according to the report, citing radical acquainted with the matter. The steadfast is besides readying to use for a akin licence successful its autochthonal Singapore, arsenic good arsenic Luxembourg. — Jamie Crawley Read more.
Calendar
- June 8-22: Berlin Blockchain Week, Berlin
- June 24-26: Permissionless, Brooklyn
- June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes
- July 16-18: Web3 Summit, Berlin
- Sept. 22-28: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul
- Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore
- Nov. 17-22: Devconnect, Buenos Aires
- Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi
- Feb. 10-12, 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong
- May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami