TLDR CRYPTO 2025-05-22

SEC CHARGES UNICOIN WITH $100M `SECURITIES FRAUD`

NYC MAYOR ERIC ADAMS IS CREATING A CRYPTO ADVISORY COUNCIL

Mayor Eric Adams announced a digital assets advisory council to funnel fintech jobs and expertise into New York City, with a chairperson to be named shortly. The council will advise on blockchain and crypto initiatives, such as exploring on-chain storage of vital records, and help shape policies that serve residents. Adams framed the effort as harnessing “technology of tomorrow” and showcased participation from family offices and unicorn startups.

SP1 HYPERCUBE – REAL-TIME ETHEREUM PROVING IS HERE

SP1 Hypercube is ZK's “man on the moon moment,” as it proves over 93% of Ethereum mainnet blocks in under the current block time of 12 seconds. It achieves 5x lower latency and cost compared to SP1 turbo using a novel zkVM optimized for multilinear polynomials. A real-time prover cluster requires roughly 160 Nvidia 4090 GPUs (~$300k), with potential to drop to ~$100k on cost-efficient hardware. By delivering sub-12s proofs, SP1 Hypercube paves the way for L1 scaling, native rollups, and improved interoperability.

AGENT COMMERCE KIT

Agent Commerce Kit provides open-source protocols, including ACK-ID for verifiable agent identity and ACK-Pay for agent-native payments, that bridge AI with legacy financial systems. ACK-ID uses DIDs and Verifiable Credentials to establish cryptographic ownership and secure authentication and privacy-preserving disclosure, while ACK-Pay standardizes payment initiation, flexible settlement across traditional and blockchain rails, and cryptographic receipts with optional human oversight. It also features advanced micropayment and conditional payment features, x402 interoperability, and agent-specific reputation frameworks.

THE RISE OF ONCHAIN AI: AGENTS, APPS, AND COMMERCE

Autonomous AI agents are becoming prolific onchain participants by holding wallets, executing smart contracts, and powering AI-infused applications. Important infrastructure spans trusted execution environments, agent frameworks and toolkits, agent launchpads, multi-agent coordination protocols, Model Context Protocols for external data, and AI app stores for discovery and monetization. This “Agentic Commerce” allows agents to transact with humans and each other via crypto rails and stablecoins, exemplified by protocols like x402 enabling machine-speed, always-on economic activity. While promising rapid growth and innovation, the ecosystem must overcome challenges in agent reliability, blockchain scalability, and novel governance frameworks.

STABLECOINS ARE THE TROJAN HORSE OF CRYPTO

Stablecoin transactions hit $6.8T in Q1 2025 as platforms like Stripe launch native support and issue their own, signaling a shift toward mainstream adoption. With crypto wallets enabling direct stablecoin payments at checkout, stablecoins are becoming a default payment rail for global eCommerce. While Ethereum benefits from this growth, the stablecoin model diverges from Bitcoin's original vision of decentralized, intermediary-free payments.

INTRODUCING SIM: DUNE BEYOND ANALYTICS

Dune has launched SIM, a new language that makes onchain data analysis easier by replacing complex SQL with a more intuitive, spreadsheet-like syntax. It's designed to help users build modular, transparent data models without deep technical expertise.

COINBASE ACQUIRING CIRCLE ISN'T CRAZY

Circle trades at a $5B market cap with $155M net income and a similar 32x P/E as Coinbase, but with USDC poised to grow alongside global dollar demand and regulatory clarity via the GENIUS Act, its future earnings potential is much larger. Even with falling interest rates, a $250B–$500B USDC supply at a 3% yield could generate $7.5B revenue and $2B+ net income, matching Coinbase's current run rate and justifying a $60B market cap boost.

WORLD RAISES $135M TO SCALE ORB-VERIFIED IDENTITY NETWORK

World Assets, Ltd. has raised $135M from Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto through a WLD token sale to expand its Orb-verified World ID network, now used by over 12.5M people.

SOLANA PASSES 50M SOL IN LIQUID STAKING

Solana now has over 50 million SOL in liquid staking tokens (LSTs), representing 12.8% of all staked SOL (up from 6.7% a year ago).

STABLECOIN SUPPLY ON APTOS UP FROM LAST YEAR

Stablecoin supply on Aptos has jumped from ~$430M to ~$1.13B year-to-date, driven by strong growth in both USDT and USDC natively minted on the network.

SONIC LABS CONTINUES FAST GROWTH

Sonic has crossed $1M in annualized revenue, with May showing breakout momentum as the platform generates over $85K in weekly revenue for three straight weeks.

CELESTIA SCALES BY SUBSIDIZING FEES

With TVS nearing $600M, dozens of chains live, and top apps launching soon, Celestia argues it's executing a classic startup playbook: subsidize early, monetize later.