Funding Wrap: Polymarket gets backing from Vitalik Buterin, Founders Fund in $70M raise

blockworks.co This week’s funding was led by the betting platform Polymarket, which disclosed a whopping $70 million raised from two separate rounds. The announcement was slightly unusual…

Pump dot Fun exploiter identified and arrested in London

blockworks.co The alleged exploiter of Solana memecoin protocol Pump dot Fun has been arrested in London. British police apprehended Jarett Dunn, a former contractor for the protocol, who…

Web3 Watch: Naked in the metaverse

blockworks.co A new crypto-related lawsuit has landed in the Southern District of New York courthouse. A California resident named Luke Brown is leading a class action lawsuit against…

Layer-3s are the future of scalability

blockworks.co As the blockchain ecosystem grows, so does the demand for flexible, customizable tech. Scalability is about making technology more accessible to Web3 builders and consumers.…

Lightspeed Newsletter: The Pump.fun exploit draws yawns and jeers

blockworks.co Howdy! Happy Friday, folks. New York seems to be holding its collective breath today as the Knicks are about to play the Pacers for a trip to the conference finals. Solana…

Cryptocurrencies rally, stocks trade sideways as traders speculate interest rate decision

blockworks.co Bitcoin and ether extended their rallies Friday, a sign pointing to sustained higher prices ahead, according to some analysts. Bitcoin (BTC) was up around 2% over the past…

Don’t dismiss the misunderstood techno-optimist voter

blockworks.co American citizens, and perhaps citizens of the broader Western world, are nervous about the future. Voters continually express wariness and pessimism about new and emerging…

Binance executive denied bail in Nigeria

blockworks.co A Nigerian court has refused Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan’s bail application, a family spokesperson told Blockworks. The bail was denied on the grounds that the court…

From BTC to HPC: Miners signal evolving focus after the halving

blockworks.co Bitcoin miners have spoken after the halving. Many have said they are looking to wade deeper into the high-performance computing (HPC) space in a world of lower BTC rewards.…

Oklahoma passes bill protecting ‘fundamental bitcoin rights’

blockworks.co Oklahoma passed a bill earlier this week that protects state residents’ right to self-custody digital assets. The bill will go into effect on November 1, 2024. OKHB3594 was…

Why SAB-121 is Massive for Crypto

dcs.megaphone.fm In this episode, Santi and Jason discuss the SAB-121 vote with Blockworks' Senior Reporter Casey Wagner, unpacking its bipartisan political support and huge implications for…

Solana restaking protocol Solayer soft-launches deposits

blockworks.co Solayer, a startup building a product akin to EigenLayer on Solana, opened restaking deposits Thursday afternoon. The invite-only deposit period was capped at $20 million…

Pump.fun pauses trading after apparent flash loan attack

blockworks.co Pump.fun was attacked Thursday by an exploiter who seemingly used flash loans to buy out the bonding curve. In a post on X, Pump.fun said that it was “aware” that the…

Empire Newsletter: Taking stock of who’s buying which bitcoin ETF

blockworks.co Out with a bang The filing deadline for 13Fs was yesterday. Millennium Management disclosed a huge position in BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF, holding roughly 20 million shares…

It’s time to overturn SAB 121

blockworks.co Gary Gensler’s Securities and Exchange Commission has made a name for itself with its hostility towards cryptocurrency. Time after time, over the last few years, his agency…

Senate predicted to overturn SAB 121 in vote Thursday, Hill sources say

blockworks.co The US Senate plans to vote on Joint Resolution 109 on Thursday, and sources on and around Capitol Hill say they believe the measure will draw enough Democrat support to…

Lightspeed Newsletter: Helium eyes the big guys

blockworks.co Howdy! Web3 is helping pay for both my coffee and my cell phone plan. The latter is the subject of today’s newsletter. Who said the millennial lifestyle subsidy was dead? —…

DOJ charges 2 brothers tied to $25M attack on MEV bots last year

blockworks.co Two brothers accused of orchestrating an attack last year on Ethereum trading bots have been indicted by the US government. The Department of Justice unsealed charges…

Yes, Vanguard’s new CEO supported BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF launch

blockworks.co Vanguard has said it doesn’t believe in crypto’s investment case, and it doesn’t allow bitcoin ETFs to trade on its platform. But the fund giant’s new CEO, Salim Ramji, led…

Circle says it plans to ‘redomicile’ company in the US

blockworks.co Circle’s looking to move across the pond. The USDC issuer confirmed to Blockworks that its parent company filed the “required paperwork with the High Court of the Republic…

It’s time for Congress to protect the crypto henhouse

blockworks.co We find ourselves in a strange interregnum for crypto policy in the United States. On one side, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler is ramping up an…

Why the SEC could choose to deny ether ETFs, and what could happen next

blockworks.co Yet another potential milestone for crypto is just days away. Or, we may find out US spot ether ETFs are — for now — not meant to be. The Securities and Exchange…

Robinhood enables Solana staking for customers in Europe

blockworks.co Robinhood’s European crypto branch launched Solana staking. The feature will offer roughly 5% APY at launch, though that could vary as staking rewards change, Robinhood…

Lightspeed Newsletter: Solana caught the layer-2 bug

blockworks.co Hiya! Markets may be down slightly, but that’s not the main thing bumming me out today. Last night, I took a train all the way up to Queens just to see the Mets blow a…

Lens Network to migrate to zkSync

blockworks.co On-chain social network infrastructure Lens is getting a new home. The new Lens Network will build upon the work of the original Lens Protocol as one of zkSync’s ZK Stack…

Stablecoins bots are a feature, not a bug

blockworks.co A Bloomberg headline recently claimed that “more than 90% of stablecoin transactions aren’t from real users,” sparking concern about the authenticity of transactions within…

Bitcoin may stay in a ‘consolidation phase’ until US election: Novogratz

blockworks.co The upcoming US presidential election may spur bitcoin out of its current “consolidation phase,” according to Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz. Crypto will likely stay politicized…

Crypto bill update: What legislation is making its way forward?

blockworks.co As the 2024 election looms, crypto-focused legislation is starting to make its way through the US House. But roadblocks in the Senate still loom. House members last week…

TRON DAO adds Google Cloud as a Super Representative candidate on the TRON blockchain

blockworks.co TRON DAO today announced that Google Cloud has joined its roster of Super Representative candidates on the TRON blockchain. Super Representatives are responsible for…

L3 Degen chain stopped producing blocks 42 hours ago

blockworks.co Degen chain, a layer-3 blockchain, hasn’t produced a block in over 42 hours. According to the last post on Degen’s X account, a resync was expected to be completed at around…

State of Wisconsin’s investment board discloses nearly $100M of BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF

blockworks.co The state of Wisconsin’s investment board disclosed holdings in BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF on Tuesday. The 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that the…

Alexey Pertsev found guilty of money laundering, faces 64 months in prison

blockworks.co A Dutch court found Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev guilty on Tuesday, sentencing him to 64 months in prison. Pertsev was accused of laundering $1.2 billion of crypto…

The Dark Side of Token Launches

dcs.megaphone.fm In today's episode Jason is joined by Arthur of DeFiance Capital and Sean of Fintech Collective. They kick off the episode by discussing the current state of token launches,…

Empire Newsletter: It’s memecoins all the way down

blockworks.co Memecoins show the way What are brand-new projects to do in such a topsy-turvy market, one that’s either teetering on the brink of altcoin season or about to veer off into…

Why FTX is different from other crypto bankruptcies

blockworks.co FTX is nearing the end of its bankruptcy proceedings almost two years after initiating the process. This comes just a few months after its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was…

Tokenized funds could chip away at stablecoin market, Polygon exec says

blockworks.co The growth of tokenized financial products likely represents the tip of the iceberg, as the world’s biggest financial players continue to investigate the potential of…

Stand With Crypto PAC launches as industry interest in campaign funding ramps up

blockworks.co There’s a new crypto Political Action Committee (PAC) on the scene. Coinbase-initiated nonprofit Stand With Crypto announced it is launching a new PAC Friday. The associated…

Strong start, slowing demand: The first 4 months of US spot bitcoin ETFs

blockworks.co The financial world prefers quarterly reviews. But US spot bitcoin ETFs have been alive for one-third of a year, and now seems as good a time as any for a look back. The…

Proof-of-reserves never cut it

blockworks.co Since Bitcoin’s inception, crypto has faced more than its fair share of ups and downs. In more recent years, the collapse of “trusted” crypto institutions such as FTX, 3AC,…

Jito DAO to consider spending $29M on liquidity mining

blockworks.co The DAO governing Jito, the Solana-based liquid staking service, will consider a proposal to spend 7.5 million of its native JTO token on liquidity mining. That’s equivalent…

Empire Newsletter: Not all ETFs buyers were created equal

blockworks.co Beating bitcoin ain’t easy Not all bitcoin ETF investors are built the same. It’s been four months since nine spot bitcoin ETFs hit US markets, alongside the conversion of…

Funding Wrap: Arbelos raises $28M for derivatives-focused exchange

blockworks.co Crypto’s love affair with derivatives drags on. In the week’s largest funding round, Arbelos Markets raised $28 million for a principal trading firm specializing in crypto…

Web3 Watch: Reebok jumps into digital wearable game

blockworks.co If you’ve been pining for the opportunity to have your favorite photos replicated onto a digital Reebok sneaker, you are in luck. On Friday, the sports brand announced a new…

BlackRock and other bitcoin ETFs rob bitcoin of its room to grow

blockworks.co Bitcoin is over 15 years “old,” and more and more companies and brands now accept the cryptocurrency as a way of payment. But for most people, paying with bitcoin is as…

Crypto Hiring: Monad is using its $225M haul to load up on talent

blockworks.co A month ago, Monad raised $225 million on the promise of a high-throughput Ethereum-compatible layer-1 blockchain. It’s now putting those funds to use on the hiring front.…

SEC asks court to deny Coinbase’s motion for interlocutory appeal

blockworks.co The Securities and Exchange Commission asked a court to deny Coinbase’s motion for an interlocutory appeal on Friday. The regulatory agency and the crypto exchange have been…

Rival miners Marathon, Core Scientific each think they have an edge over peers

blockworks.co Following the recent reduction in bitcoin mining rewards, the largest public bitcoin miners have begun to hone in on fresh strategies in an attempt to maintain a competitive…

Who is Responsible for Low Float, High FDV?

dcs.megaphone.fm In this episode, Santi and Yano kick off the episode by discussing the market's choppy consolidation period and comparing it to previous cycles. They delve into the…

Why the SOL Trade Isn't Over

dcs.megaphone.fm In this episode, Santi and Yano kick off the episode by discussing the market's choppy consolidation period and comparing it to previous cycles. They delve into the…

Biden backs Gensler as House advances resolution to power-check SEC

blockworks.co President Joe Biden has promised to back Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler after a resolution to overturn an agency accounting practice advanced out…

Is anyone having fun on Pump.fun?

blockworks.co Howdy! Welcome to Lightspeed, the newest addition to the Blockworks Newsletter suite. We are Solana news, analysis and culture, all the time. If that sounds like you, we’re…

What’s next for FTX after the creditor payback proposal?

blockworks.co FTX’s latest plan to pay back its creditors is another step in a process that could require plenty more negotiation…and time. In other words, the saga is not over. Creditors…

Espresso partners with Polygon Labs to solve rollup interoperability

blockworks.co Shared sequencer solution Espresso will partner with Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Polygon Labs to develop AggLayer (aggregation layer) in order to solve rollup…

AI has a monopoly on power and privacy. Blockchain fixes this

blockworks.co Many Americans got their first glimpse behind the machine learning curtain when details of Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology went public. Instead of pure technology…

Empire Newsletter: The SEC’s internal rift

blockworks.co Crypto gets political In a new interview, Gary Gensler made no bones about his special focus on the crypto space, bristling at what he decried as excessive questions about…

How to Fix Crypto Lending

dcs.megaphone.fm In this episode, we sit down with Bill Barhydt, CEO and founder of Abra, to discuss the company's journey through the crypto lending crash and their groundbreaking SEC…

Vitalik rallies support for temporary smart wallets on Ethereum

blockworks.co Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) on Tuesday that aims to reconcile core developers’ disparate approaches to account…

After billionth Bitcoin transaction, a look at the network’s evolution

blockworks.co Activity on the Bitcoin network has evolved over the span of a billion transactions, with the latest usage starting to resemble that of Ethereum in 2020. Bitcoin transaction…

Ripple and the SEC’s legal fight continues ahead of final judgment

blockworks.co One of the final battles between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Ripple continues. The case, initially launched in 2020, still faces a final judgment. The SEC is…