Parse notes
A week after its registration showed up on Delaware’s site, BlackRock has officially filed for a spot Ethereum ETF with the SEC. The trust aims to mirror Ethereum's price performance, giving investors easy exposure to the asset in their brokerage accounts. Coinbase will be the trust’s custodian. This comes as BlackRock continues to wait for approval of the Bitcoin Spot ETF it filed in June.
Tether, the firm behind USDT, is investing around $500 million to bring a Bitcoin mining facility online, according to incoming CEO Paolo Ardoino. The ambitious expansion includes the construction of new mining facilities in Uruguay, Paraguay, and El Salvador, aiming to work up to 1% of BTC mining's total computing power. Tether also plans to increase its direct mining operations to 120 MW by year-end, reaching up to 450 MW by 2025's end.
A new platform called Liquid Delegate has been launched, providing a marketplace for tokenizing and trading asset utility. It accommodates various asset functionalities including gaming, event ticketing, airdrop access, and social media authentication. The platform introduces Delegate Market, ensuring zero counterparty risk. Users can tokenize, transfer, and trade delegate tokens while maintaining control of the spot asset. Participating projects receive a share in trading fees to incentivize their partnership.
Coinbase has enhanced its Commerce product with a new open source Onchain Payment Protocol. Aimed at facilitating a better payment experience, the feature supports Ethereum, Polygon, and Base ecosystems for now. The upgrade also addresses common problems merchants and customers face such as crypto volatility. By offering automatic crypto conversion to USDC, Coinbase is making the product more user-friendly and efficient.
Sponsored
Share your thoughts [10] on blockchain development and your favorite platforms, for a chance to win amazing prizes such as a Raspberry Pi 5, YubiKeys, a Ledger Nano S Plus and many more! Take the survey now [10] and be part of the blockchain revolution!
This post provides a good overview of the MEV landscape on Solana. Present strategies include atomic arbitrage, liquidations, and NFT mints. MEV on Solana is still in the early stages compared to the EVM ecosystem, with strategies differing from those on Ethereum due to Solana's continuous block building and propagation. The growth of Solana's DeFi ecosystem could lead to more complex MEV extraction tactics and increased validation centralization, which may challenge network decentralization.
Layer 3 protocols are designed to provide advanced scalability and allow developers to create application-specific blockchains. They aim to solve issues of scalability, interoperability, and customization. Notable examples include Orbs, Arbitrum Orbit, and zkSync Hyperchains. Primarily, they work atop existing Layer 2 solutions, inheriting the security of the Layer 1 blockchain while enhancing the overall functionality and flexibility for developers.
Firedancer, the long-awaited new client developed by Jump, is now partially live on testnet. Jump has rewritten three major functional elements of the existing Solana Labs client with the aim of overhauling the software. This will bring scalability improvements for Solana. Early simulations show a potential for almost linear scaling as bandwidth and hardware capabilities increase. The full Firedancer is set for a testnet launch in H2 2024.
ZetaChain, a California-based startup, aims to include Bitcoin in the booming DeFi sector via its Layer 1 blockchain. Developers can build apps and get access to other networks without needing bridges or wrapped coins on ZetaChain. Notably, Zetachain enables the deployment of smart contracts that interact with native Bitcoin. Recently, it announced native Bitcoin support on decentralized exchange Sushi, enabling users to swap Bitcoin across 30 networks.
In this open letter, ENS criticizes Unstoppable Domains for patenting blockchain domain technology despite advocating for open innovation, urging them to legally commit to open standards in web3.
ProtonMail is developing a blockchain-based email authentication feature to enhance privacy and security, automating recipient verification using public key encryption.
South Korea's National Pension Service bought $19.9 million worth of Coinbase shares, marking its first foray into the digital asset space.
CoinShares has reportedly secured an option to buy Valkyrie Investments' ETF unit, potentially securing a US presence amid expectations of SEC approval for a bitcoin ETF.