2023-12-07 22:24
Solana's SOL token has more than tripled since mid-October as DeFi traders return to the ecosystem's on-chain trading, borrowing, lending and yield-generating projects, most notably Kamino. Solana's (SOL) fastest-growing decentralized finance protocol, Kamino Finance, will shortly launch a points program, a contributor said Thursday, a move that sets the stage for a future token airdrop. The points program could further juice growth in what's already become the star of Solana's recent bounceback. Its SOL token has more than tripled since mid-October as DeFi traders return to Solana's on-chain trading, borrowing, lending and yield-generating projects, most notably Kamino. "Kamino's about to start a points program," a contributor to the project with the screen name Marky said in a Twitter Spaces Thursday. This "could well account towards a future token." The nature of Kamino's points program hasn't yet been revealed. Kamino project lead Marius George Ciubotariu did not return a request for comment. Solana protocols this year have taken to gamifying their usage and rewarding their most loyal clients with points. Many traders expect these points will help determine future airdrop allocations and thus plan out their trading and staking and yield farming strategies to maximize their upside. That was the case with Thursday's JTO airdrop by Jito, a Solana-based liquid staking token protocol. Over 80% of the JTO tokens earmarked for the current distribution round are going to early protocol users depending on how many Jito points they accrued. Kamino runs vault products that seek to maximize yields for depositors who want to provide liquidity to various Solana-based DeFi trading venues. It also is building a borrow-and-lend facility. Its total value locked (a measurement of all the cryptocurrencies held on the platform) has grown 257% in a month, the most among Solana-based protocols with a TVL over $10 million. Kamino's TVL sat at nearly $50 million Thursday. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/12/07/solana-protocol-kamino-eyes-airdrop-following-jito-token-launch/
2023-12-07 21:55
The NFT-like Ordinals inscriptions are anathema to some Bitcoin purists who want to preserve the blockchain for financial applications. But a few of the images are fetching eye-popping sums in the in-real-life art world. There's a debate raging among Bitcoin users and developers over whether to filter out transactions in NFT-like "inscriptions" minted using the Ordinals project, since they're not a core financial use in keeping with many advocates' vision for the original blockchain. But over at the auction house Sotheby's, some of the images are considered high art: In an online auction that started this week, two low-resolution cartoon characters and a pixelated avocado are already fetching bids in the 10s of thousands of dollars each. The three digital images come from the BitcoinShrooms collection of Ordinals inscriptions, by the pseudonymous artist Shroomtoshi, according to the Sotheby's website. Nary a trace of irony permeates the auction's promotional materials, penned in a florid style of prose that could just as easily apply to a Renaissance masterwork. "Elegantly weaving the nuanced tapestry of Bitcoin’s history, culture and core technicalities, each unique, pixelated, and hand-crafted piece forms part of a masterful, yet playful guide to the revolutionary realm," the Sotheby's description reads. "Shroomtoshi created a standalone digital art collection that captures the cryptocurrency zeitgeist through nostalgic and hyper-referential modes." The lowbrow-turned-highbrow project could reinforce just how valuable these NFTs-on-Bitcoin might be, at a time when some longtime developers of the original blockchain are taking steps to restrict transactions involving them. Spam filtering Over the past week, controversy emerged on social media after Ocean, a mining pool backed by Block Inc. head Jack Dorsey, who is the former CEO of Twitter (now X), implemented a node software that can filter out many of the transactions involving Ordinals. Luke Dashjr, a developer guiding the project, pushed back against claims that the effort amounts to censorship, arguing that he's merely aiming to curb "spam" on the blockchain. He added that in his opinion, there's a "vulnerability" in the dominant Bitcoin Core software, since it fails to filter out these transactions. Other Bitcoin users say the blockchain should be open to uses beyond financial applications. A fresh round of acrimony exploded Wednesday and Thursday on X after the Bitcoin wallet Samourai posted that Ocean was also censoring its "Whirlpool transactions," or those that are run through a "coin mixer" designed to enhance privacy by making the cryptocurrency hard to track. Dashjr responded that "this is a bug in your software, not an intentional policy on our end." Whatever the case, a digital image called "Sovereign Individual" – technically "Inscription 716" inscribed onto SAT number 628391241467003 – had already garnered 27 bids in the Sotheby's auction that runs through Dec. 13. The current bid is $50,000, according to the auction house's website, well above the original estimate of $20,000-$30,000. The digital avocado, known as "BIP39 SEED," has drawn bids up to $28,000, and a third image is already at $42,000. Screengrab from Sotheby's website. (Shroomtoshi/Sotheby's) In a statement on the Sotheby's site, the artist describes the collection as a "pixelated recap of the first 13 years of Bitcoin, a homage to the 8-bit style of art that expresses a slight nostalgia for the 90s, a way to soil 10s of thousands of SSDs spread across the world with my art (->next level cyber-vandalism), a tool to raise awareness about Bitcoin and what I personally view as its core principles, an ironic way to vent at what I see as its annoying pop elements and aberrations." The auction site goes on to tout the Bitcoin network's "underlying decentralized infrastructure." "All assets transferable through the Bitcoin blockchain are open, neutral, censorship resistant, and globally accessible for anyone to access and interact with," the website reads. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/12/07/this-28k-pixelated-avocado-could-add-to-bitcoins-raging-censorship-debate/
2023-12-07 17:33
The blowups of his UST and LUNA tokens fueled a crisis that gripped the whole crypto industry in 2022, causing losses that reverberated far and wide. A senior official in Montenegro plans to extradite Do Kwon to the U.S. to face criminal charges tied to the collapse of his terraUSD (UST) stablecoin and Luna (LUNA) token, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The blowups of UST and LUNA, which Kwon created, fueled a crisis that gripped the whole crypto industry in 2022, causing losses that reverberated far and wide. Kwon has been imprisoned in Montenegro for months, stuck amid a fight over competing desires by U.S. and South Korean officials to try him. The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Montenegro Justice Minister Andrej Milović has privately said he has decided to send him to the U.S. to face fraud and securities-law charges. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/12/07/montenegro-plans-to-extradite-do-kwon-to-face-us-charges-tied-to-terrausd-and-luna-collapse-wsj/
2023-12-07 16:55
The company's new self-custody wallet consists of an app, hardware device and recovery tools Jack Dorsey's fintech company Block (SQ) has unveiled its self-custody bitcoin wallet Bitkey for pre-order in more than 95 countries. Bitkey consists of a mobile app, hardware device and a set of recovery tools, Block announced on Thursday. The app allows customers to make bitcoin transactions via their mobile phone, while the hardware device stores their assets offline. The app and hardware device form two of the three keys used to secure a customer's bitcoin, with the third stored on Bitkey's servers. The third key is used to verify transactions made by customers using only their phone (when they don't have the hardware device to hand) and to recover their wallet if they lose their phone, device or both. Bitkey commenced beta testing over the summer ahead of the global rollout. Block announced in June that the wallet would connect to its payments platform Cash App and crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) to facilitate buying and selling of BTC within the app. Self-custody of crypto-assets became an increasingly significant area of concern for users following the collapses of numerous centralized cryptocurrency platforms, most notably FTX, but also Voyager and Celsius. Millions of users found out the hard way the truth in the old adage: "Not your keys not your coins." Pre-orders of Bitkey are expected to be shipped in early 2024, Block said. Read More: Trezor Unveils New Hardware Wallets, Corrosion-Resistant 'Keep Metal' for Recovery https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/12/07/jack-dorseys-block-bitkey-bitcoin-wallet-comes-to-market-in-more-than-95-countries/
2023-12-07 16:37
The governance token was airdropped to users of Jito's liquid staking token protocol. Solana-based crypto staking project Jito released its JTO token on Thursday, continuing the march of popular token airdrops into the newly resurgent Solana ecosystem. The new asset opened for trading at a price of $1.20 and then began climbing toward $2 on various Solana-based decentralized exchanges. The debut price undercut futures traders' prelaunch estimates of around $1.50 per token on the perpetual futures trading platform Aevo. Coinbase and Binance are also planning to list it. JTO is a governance token whose holders will have some sway over Jito's treasury and fee rates. The protocol is rewarding past users with airdrops that start at 4,941 tokens and increase depending on how much they used its so-called liquid staking token (LST), jitoSOL. Jito is the second-largest LST protocol for Solana users who want to trade and borrow against the SOL tokens they've locked up with validators. JitoSOL, its flagship asset, is basically a depository receipt for staked SOL. It generates yield from the Solana network's staking processes as well as extra revenue from Jito's MEV-style approach to auctioning blockspace. The token's launch comes as the Solana ecosystem enjoys a rapid rebound in popularity as well as price. Solana's SOL has climbed 542% year-to-date with much of the price rise happening since mid-October. Many on-chain protocols are trying to take advantage of these favorable conditions with token airdrops that could drive yet more activity into their own products. All those airdrops are helping fuel Solana's growth, too, Jito Labs CTO Zano Shermani said on Twitter spaces on Thursday. He said the new breed of projects learned the lessons of their predecessors who released assets with "pretty bad tokenomics" during Solana's previous bull market in mid-to-late 2021. Only 10% of JTO's total supply is being distributed to airdroppers, who, notably, have an 18 month window to claim their treasure. Any unallocated tokens will go into a treasury controlled by Jito's decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), which is managed by JTO holders. The rest of the token supply is earmarked for Jito's investors and core contributors, as well as for efforts to bolster the Jito ecosystem. The price is expected to be highly volatile on Thursday as more airdrop recipients claim their rewards and get the opportunity to hold or sell. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/12/07/even-small-time-jito-airdroppers-are-getting-thousands-of-dollars-in-jto-tokens/
2023-12-07 16:21
The company said it chose Europe to anchor its crypto expansion outside the U.S. because of the region's comprehensive rules. Popular U.S.-based brokerage platform Robinhood (HOOD) on Thursday started letting customers in the European Union (EU) trade crypto, hailing the region's comprehensive digital asset rules. To spur customers to use the service, Robinhood will pay customers a percentage of their trading volume back every month, paid in bitcoin (BTC), according to a Thursday blog post. And users can earn more BTC for referring new customers. This expansion debuts as cryptocurrencies have been rallying after a brutal bear market recovering to a $1.5 trillion total market capitalization, its highest level since May 2022. Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, has soared lately. Rising trading volumes also mean more revenue for trading platforms. Meanwhile, EU countries are on track to implement a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets called MiCA, offering legal clarity for crypto service providers and bolstering the region's global position as a crypto hub. Click here to read CoinDesk's Most Influential list for 2023, a series of 50 profiles of key people in crypto, including Stefan Berger: The Man Who Made MiCA. “The EU has developed one of the world’s most comprehensive policies for crypto asset regulation, which is why we chose the region to anchor Robinhood Crypto’s international expansion plans,” Robinhood Crypto's general manager Johann Kerbrat said in the blog post. The company also unveiled plans in its third-quarter earnings report to start brokerage operations in the U.K. and began to onboard customers last week. Robinhood's stock price is up roughly 40% year-to-date, trailing crypto exchange giant Coinbase's (COIN) huge 300% increase. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/12/07/robinhood-broadens-crypto-service-to-europe-notes-regions-digital-asset-regulation/
