TLDR CRYPTO 2023-08-24

SOLANA PAY INTEGRATES PLUG-IN WITH SHOPIFY FOR USDC PAYMENTS

Decentralized payment protocol Solana Pay has integrated with Shopify, giving shoppers the option to use USDC (and other cryptocurrencies in the future) for their purchases. Credit card transaction fees are typically somewhere between 1.5% and 3.5% of a purchase, whereas USDC payments through Solana Pay can be as low as $0.00025, so there is actually real incentive for Shopify store owners to leverage this option.

FEDERAL COURTS

The founders of Tornado Cash, the scrutinized crypto mixing service, are facing charges from the US Attorney’s Office for alleged money laundering and sanctions violations. The crypto service, a byproduct of Zcash's open-source research, has allegedly been used to launder over $1 billion in assets, some of which were linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group. This investigation, ongoing since last August when the regulators declared it illegal for US citizens to interact with Tornado Cash, has raised questions about responsibility and blame in a decentralized network, as Tornado Cash runs on immutable smart contracts.

WITH CARD PAYMENTS

EUROe, a euro stablecoin compliant with the upcoming MiCA regulation, has expanded to Solana. Digital money app Wirex, which boasts over six million users, will support EUROe on Solana from day one. EUROe's integration with Solana creates a native fiat bridge between several blockchains and traditional finance in hopes of making Solana a more attractive ecosystem in which to build and transact.

MARKETS

Base64, built as part of Base’s On-Chain Summer Hackathon, creates on-chain 'power-of-2' tournament prediction markets. It allows users to compete in on-chain tournament prediction markets, with the outcome decided by oracle or voting. Potential use cases could be products within companies like DraftKings and FanDuel. It’s important to note that this contract remains unaudited, may be buggy, and could have legal consequences upon deployment to mainnet.

THE ENGINEER’S GUIDE TO BLOCKCHAIN FINALITY

Security researchers have discovered that some applications, like Juno and Pathfinder, are not checking for finality or are incorrectly doing so. This opens the door to attack vectors like double spend attacks. After reporting this issue to the protocols in question, the researchers put this guide together to discuss their findings, thoroughly describe finality, and propose an alternative way of checking for finality.

TOKEN

This thread cautions against using a rollup protocol’s native token for gas fees. The process risks creating no net new token demand as users sell the tokens to cover transaction costs, potentially leading to the protocol subsidizing rollup usage. Additionally, it can create issues for interoperability, complicate users’ token inventories, and add user-experience hurdles. The thread goes on to suggest alternatives like buybacks with excess sequencer revenues for more sustainable demand and stronger incentive alignment.

NETWORK

Offchain Labs, the team behind Arbitrum, has launched AnyTrust - a lower-cost alternative to rollups for developers seeking to launch on Arbitrum's network. The innovation relies on a Data Availability Committee, which stores call data temporarily, making transaction costs for rollups leveraging this option cheaper, with faster withdrawals. This innovation comes as more protocols are choosing to launch their chains on top of other stacks like the OP stack instead of creating their own stack.

CENTRAL BANKS WARN

Global central banks say that cryptocurrency assets have increased financial risks in less developed economies and should be regulated like other assets. The Consultative Group of Directors of Financial Stability urged a quicker, bolder regulatory approach, especially if crypto assets are more broadly adopted by retail investors. However, it’s not clear what risks they are referencing here - whether it’s asset volatility risk or protocol vulnerability risk. It’s been well documented that stablecoins have provided a safe haven for individuals in high-inflation environments, so it seems like it would be difficult to argue that those assets increase risk.

CRYPTO HACKS

According to the FBI, North Korean Hackers have amped up activity lately and are getting ready to cash out $40m in funds.

AMID ROYALTY DEBATE

Rarible has decided to stop aggregating NFT marketplaces that are not enforcing royalties as a show of support for creators.

DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL MEDIA FARCASTER TO MIGRATE TO OP MAINNET

Farcaster, a decentralized social media protocol, is migrating from Ethereum to the OP Mainnet L2, enabling permissionless sign-ups and enhancing platform functionality.

BNB fell to $204 after reports of Binance potentially violating Russian sanctions. This is yet another item to add to the litany of qualms regulators have had with Binance that have also been putting pressure on the token price.