The Protocol: Trump Makes More Pro-Crypto Appointments

5 months ago

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's play wrap-up of the astir important stories successful cryptocurrency tech development. In this week’s contented of the Protocol newsletter:

Trump’s crypto team

Aptos' enactment shake-up

TikTok meets tokens

Kraken scales up

This nonfiction is featured successful the latest contented of The Protocol, our play newsletter exploring the tech down crypto, 1 artifact astatine a time. Sign up here to get it successful your inbox each Wednesday.

Network News

TRUMP CRYPTO APPOINTMENTS: President-elect Donald Trump continues to make high-profile appointments embracing cryptocurrency and emerging technologies successful his 2nd term. 1) Stephen Miran, tapped arsenic Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, is simply a pro-crypto advocator who aims to integrate blockchain and decentralized concern into the U.S. economy. 2) Bo Hines, a erstwhile assemblage shot player, volition caput the recently formed Crypto Council. Hines is tasked with balancing innovation and user extortion arsenic helium builds a regulatory model for integer assets. 3) David Sacks, a seasoned of Silicon Valley and vocal blockchain supporter, is stepping successful arsenic AI and Crypto Czar. Sacks plans to merge blockchain with AI portion bolstering U.S. dominance successful some sectors. These appointments awesome a wide displacement from Trump’s earlier skepticism of integer assets. The large question present is however these moves construe into meaningful argumentation amid regulatory gridlock and governmental friction.

APTOS LEADERSHIP SHIFT: Aptos Labs CEO and co-founder Mo Shaikh has stepped down, with co-founder Avery Ching taking implicit arsenic CEO. Shaikh, who volition stay a strategical adviser, highlighted the company's achievements, including raising $400 cardinal successful task backing and gathering a thriving ecosystem supported by partners similar BlackRock, Google, Mastercard, and PayPal. Known for its layer-1 blockchain leveraging the Move programming connection from Facebook's Diem project, Aptos Labs is expanding into concern and AI applications with the assistance of advisers similar erstwhile Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein and OpenAI’s Kevin Weil. The enactment modulation underscores the company’s ongoing absorption connected scalability, security, and innovation successful blockchain technology.

SONIC TO AIRDROP TIKTOK: Sonic, a Layer 2 solution connected the Solana blockchain, has announced plans to airdrop its autochthonal token, SONIC, to TikTok users. This inaugural aims to present TikTok's immense idiosyncratic basal to decentralized concern (DeFi) by integrating blockchain exertion with societal media platforms. The airdrop is portion of Sonic's strategy to heighten idiosyncratic engagement and beforehand the adoption of Layer 2 solutions for improved scalability and reduced transaction costs connected the Solana network. By targeting TikTok users, Sonic seeks to span the spread betwixt mainstream societal media audiences and the DeFi ecosystem, fostering broader information successful decentralized fiscal services.

ALSO:

MicroStrategy added 5,262 BTC to its holdings arsenic its banal secures a spot connected the Nasdaq 100, reinforcing its long-standing Bitcoin strategy.

Nokia enters the crypto satellite with a patented technology for encrypting integer assets, signaling its determination into blockchain innovation.

Ripple's ineligible main urges Congress to absorption connected regulating crypto practices alternatively than stifling innovation by targeting the exertion itself.

Feature: Kraken’s Ink Layer-2 Goes Live

Kraken, the seventh-largest crypto exchange, said its layer-2 rollup network, built connected apical of the Ethereum blockchain, has gone live.

The network, called Ink, is based connected the OP stack, a customizable model that lets developers physique their ain rollups utilizing Optimism’s technology. The squad had primitively planned for Ink to spell unrecorded successful aboriginal 2025, truthful the motorboat of its main web is up of schedule.

Kraken agreed to person 25 cardinal OP tokens (worth astir $58 million) arsenic portion of a woody to physique connected the OP Stack. Optimism has acknowledged that handing retired developer grants for participants gathering connected the stack is portion of its strategy, which successful crook contributes backmost to the wider “Superchain” ecosystem.Kraken rival Coinbase said successful August 2023 that it would physique a layer-2 web with OP Stack.

The product, called Base, is present the second-largest rollup web according to L2beat. At the time, Optimism said the Base squad would person up to 118 cardinal OP tokens and, successful return, would lend the higher of 2.5% of its sequencer gross oregon 15% of its profits to the Optimism Collective.

Read the afloat communicative by Margaux Nijkerk here

Money Center

Fundraising

Avalon Labs has secured $10 cardinal successful a Series A backing round to grow its Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, aiming to heighten liquidity and stableness successful the cryptocurrency market. The concern reflects increasing involvement successful Bitcoin-collateralized fiscal products arsenic a span betwixt accepted concern and integer assets.

Deals & Grants

Tether has announced a $75 cardinal deal to get a involvement successful Rumble, a video-sharing platform. The concern aims to enactment decentralized media and aligns with Tether's committedness to fostering unfastened connection technologies.

Data & Tokens

Bonk (BONK) surged 30%, starring a rebound among dog-themed meme tokens, with Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) besides experiencing gains. Additionally, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) classified Floki (FLOKI) arsenic a inferior token, perchance influencing its regulatory status.

Data Corner: 60M USDC Outflows Hit Hyper Liquid

Hyper Liquid, a cryptocurrency speech focused connected perpetual contracts, has reported a grounds outflow of $60 cardinal successful USDC amid speculation that North Korea is investigating the platform. The abrupt exodus of funds raises questions astir the exchange’s liquidity and the stableness of its operations. This highlights the increasing hostility of crypto markets with geopolitical issues, arsenic regulatory scrutiny and imaginable misuse of platforms by authorities actors travel into focus. The incidental underscores the vulnerabilities successful crypto markets, peculiarly for exchanges dealing with high-risk fiscal products similar perpetual contracts. Hyper Liquid’s concern whitethorn punctual further scrutiny of akin platforms, emphasizing the request for stronger safeguards successful the look of expanding planetary regulatory pressure.