TLDR CRYPTO 2024-10-25

PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE PASSES BIPARTISAN BILL TO BRING REGULATORY CLARITY TO DIGITAL ASSETS

Pennsylvania's House of Representatives has passed House Bill 2481 with strong bipartisan support, establishing regulatory clarity for digital assets. The bill protects self-custody rights, ensures Bitcoin payment capabilities, and provides explicit tax guidelines. The Satoshi Action Fund created the bill as part of a wider national effort. The bill will move to the Senate after the election. 12% of Pennsylvania's population owns digital assets.

MICROSOFT ASKS SHAREHOLDERS TO VOTE AGAINST INVESTING IN BITCOIN

Microsoft shareholders will vote on investing in Bitcoin during its annual shareholder meeting in December. The board of directors has recommended that shareholders vote against it.

KRAKEN ANNOUNCES INK: AN OP SUPERCHAIN L2

Kraken, the sixth-largest crypto exchange, has announced its plans for Ink, an Ethereum L2 built using Optimism's OP Stack technology. Set to launch in early 2025, with a testnet going live in 17 days, Ink joins a growing list of companies like Sony and Coinbase to build L2s using Optimism's technology. The OP Stack now powers 43 rollups with $18 billion in TVL across its Superchain.

INTRODUCING PULSE: THE OPEN HEALTH NETWORK AND WEARABLES

Pulse is launching a crypto-native health network and wearable to enable users to encrypt health data onchain and monetize access to it. The health data market is expected to reach $540 billion in the next 10 years, with established players like Whoop and Oura not offering users monetization of their data. Pulse plans to support an ecosystem of apps leveraging user health data. It will initially release 10,000 genesis devices.

THE VERTICAL INTEGRATORS: ETHENA, HYPERLIQUID, AND UNISWAP

Major DeFi protocols like Ethena, Hyperliquid, and Uniswap are launching general-purpose chains and L2s focused on their strengths. Ethena uses USDe for capital efficiency, Uniswap capitalizes on its DEX dominance and MEV capture, and Hyperliquid utilizes its derivatives trading ecosystem. Vertical integration suggests that apps, not chains, control user relationships, potentially threatening traditional general-purpose without clear differentiation. App-centric chains may be better positioned to capture more value from their existing user bases than undifferentiated L1s.

DEMYSTIFYING THE CRYPTO X AI STACK

This post outlines a vision for the convergence of crypto and AI centered on the emergence of an “Agentic Web” where AI agents operate with crypto rails and become the primary drivers of economic activity. There are two core segments – decentralized AI that brings crypto to AI infra and onchain AI that uses AI to enhance crypto apps – and four layers: compute, data, middleware, and applications. Crypto is predicted to become the preferred payment rail for agent-to-agent commerce.

MEMECOINS ARE THE FIRST CRYPTO-NATIVE VIDEO GAME

STATE OF CRYPTO VENTURE - Q3 2024

This post highlights the top-performing crypto deals from 2022-2024, identifies the lead and follow-on investors in those rounds, and analyzes their hit rates to gauge investment success. It also shares a dynamic matrix ranking investors.

BEERMEWORLD (YC F24), A FUN, GLOBAL PAYMENTS APP BUILT ON USDC

BeerMe is a global payments app that enables users to send money through platforms they already use using USDC.

ACCEPT USDC PAYMENTS WITH ONE-CLICK CHECKOUT

OnchainKit simplifies crypto payments for merchants with fast integration using Coinbase Commerce, offering tools for trend tracking, reporting, and receipt generation.

$20M POTENTIALLY STOLEN FROM THE US GOVERNMENT

Around $20 million in US government-linked crypto assets were moved to new addresses and are suspected to have been stolen.

MAGICEDEN'S TESTNET CLAIM

The $TestME event will run from 10/29 to 10/31, allowing users to test the mobile claim experience ahead of the official $ME token claim.