Full-text search across article titles and summaries. Refine with sector, year, content type, and reading-time filters.
SyncSwap V3 introduces "Range Pools," offering unprecedented capital efficiency and customizable liquidity management alongside existing pool models like Stable and Aqua Pools, cementing SyncSwap's position as a versatile DEX on ZKsync. With the upcoming ZKsync Ignite campaign and significant rewards, this launch sets the stage for deeper liquidity and higher APRs in 2025.
This post describes the makeup of the Eliza framework by @ai16zdao. It enables creating agents with unique personalities and functions using a character config file, database, LLM, plugins, and clients (like Twitter or Discord). Its modular architecture includes runtime logic for coordination, plugin integration for actions (e.g., blockchain tasks), and client modules for interactions across supported platforms.
The Ethereum Pectra upgrade introduces 11 major changes to improve blockchain scalability, validator efficiency, and wallet functionality. Key features include smart wallet capabilities, faster zk-tech, improved staking processes, historical data storage, and doubling blob throughput, setting the stage for better performance, lower fees, and a more user-friendly ecosystem.
The ERC-4337 ecosystem saw exponential growth in 2024, with over 103M+ User Operations (UserOps) executed, a 10x increase from 2023, mainly driven by innovative applications in gaming and decentralized social apps. Base emerged as a leader in multi-use accounts, while platforms like Blocklords, OpenSocial, and SuperChamps demonstrate the growing utility of smart accounts, with significant contributions from bundlers like Coinbase and Alchemy and widespread adoption of paymaster-enabled gas fee management.
Elliptic curve bilinear pairings allow for advanced cryptography by mapping points from two elliptic curves to a scalar value while preserving specific mathematical properties. This article explains how the pairings are constructed, with a particular focus on the curves using interesting optimization techniques, like BLS12-381 and BN254. While traditionally considered complex “moon math,” the outcome is efficient signature aggregation, multi-party key exchanges, and zk-SNARK polynomial commitments.
Ethereum's 10th year is set to be monumental, with ETH predicted to reach $15k, ETF inflows exceeding $50 billion, and staked ETH ETFs gaining approval.
Key assets like $SOL ($300) and $MNT ($1.5) will hit new highs, while emerging players like Ethena's $USDe will reach an $8B market cap.
In the past year, DeSci, AI, and TEEs have been the fastest-growing narratives in terms of dominating conversation on X.
Every major crypto innovation has seen a step-function exponential increase in utility that catalyzes innovation, followed by a lull period, then another step-function moment, as seen in blockchains, smart contracts, and now with AI.
Bullish, CoinDesk's parent company, has fired three senior editorial leaders including Editor-in-Chief Kevin Reynolds following controversy over a retracted article about Justin Sun. Sun's team demanded the article's removal, which led CoinDesk staff to send a letter to executives challenging the company's increasing control over editorial decisions. To further complicate matters, Sun's cryptocurrency Tron is a major sponsor of CoinDesk's upcoming Consensus conference.
Bitcoin's social sentiment has dropped to its lowest point in 2024, signaling potential for a recovery above $100K, as historical patterns would suggest an end to the current correction. Analysts remain optimistic about Bitcoin's trajectory, predicting a strong recovery by 2025, potentially reaching $160K amid improving macroeconomic conditions.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has launched Giggle Academy, a free AI-enabled education platform that uses gamification and blockchain to make education addictive and fun. It is targeted at underserved populations globally and focuses on practical, job-ready skills rather than traditional academic lessons. It uses Soulbound tokens for verifiable credentials and a gamified learning system to target the 781 million illiterate adults and 500 million children without access to schooling.
The proposed EigenLayer upgrade, “Slashing,” introduces critical features like Unique Stake Allocation and Operator Sets to improve security, accountability, and innovation in the ecosystem. This will enable AVS' to enforce cryptoeconomic commitments and incentivize performance. The upgrade is currently live on the Holesky testnet, with a mainnet launch expected in Q1 2025.
Base's decision to subsidize gas costs in USDC highlights a debate about ETH's long term value proposition and challenges the notion that L2 adoption inherently benefits ETH. While L2s successfully extend Ethereum's utility as a settlement layer, Base's USDC subsidies exemplify how L2s might actually abstract away ETH's “internet-native money” and store of value propositions. Ethereum's success in exporting execution to L2s, while technically beneficial, could undermine its monetary premium if users primarily interact with stablecoins, making its deflationary mechanics and fee capture more important.
The AI agent ecosystem exploded in 2024, starting with Truth Terminal's viral success and Virtuals pioneering agent tokenization, which lead to early innovations in entertainment, finance, and infrastructure agents. Notable developments include specialized frameworks like AgentKit and AgentTank, while platforms focused on real-world utility through DeFi integration, trading automation, and chain abstraction. The market has shown particular interest in projects developing proprietary frameworks and infrastructure, with successful teams combining unique fine-tuned models with no-code tools for broader adoption.
The open-source “real-world AI hedge fund” repo gaining attention on Twitter allegedly relies on overly simplistic logic and GPT-4 prompts to decide and execute on trades. It does not have core elements of quant finance like robust signal generation, predictive modeling, and feedback loops for machine learning. True AI-driven trading involves building large, well-curated datasets, selecting meaningful targets, and training models to uncover nonlinear relationships between signals and price movements, as shown by more structured projects like the “Stock Market Analysis + Prediction Using LSTM” notebook on Kaggle.
In Ethereum, validators should be incentivized to run a node to earn rewards from the proof of stake consensus mechanism. However, due to the prevalence of liquid staking tokens like Lido, and restaking protocols offering additional yield on staked ETH, incentives for validators are misaligned and heavily favor the end user. Solo stakers are driven out of the market by larger LST providers, and there needs to be some change allowing for small stakers to have stronger incentives to promote decentralization.
Moonwell's presence among the top 10 revenue-generating platforms on Base is notable given that lending typically generates less profit compared to trading activities on DEXes.
In volatile markets, focus on having 5-10 high-conviction ideas, avoid buying too early, eliminate leverage, and prepare for prolonged selloffs before market stability returns.
This post discusses an alleged open-source AI hedge fund powered by LangChain.
Hailey Welch released a statement acknowledging the severity of the situation and expressing a commitment to cooperating with legal teams to address the issue, uncover the truth, and support those affected.
Sponsored
ORA [5] introduces Kumo [6], the world's first tokenized open-source video model leveraging Diffusion Transformers. Created by top AI researchers with 20,000+ citations collectively, Kumo revolutionizes generative video with chain-agnostic infrastructure and decentralized ownership.
A federal judge has denied BiT Global's request for a temporary restraining order against Coinbase's planning delisting of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), allowing the exchange to proceed. The ruling comes after BiT Global, which has ties to Justin Sun and recently partnered with former wBTC custodian BitGo, sued Coinbase for alleged unfair competition and reputational damage related to the launch of Coinbase's competing cbBTC token. Coinbase, which maintains it has discretion over its listings and represents less than 1% of wBTC trading activity, has suggested it may seek sanctions against BiT Global and its law firm for filing what it considers a spurious lawsuit.
Bitcoin miners like MARA and Hut 8 have been aggressively acquiring Bitcoin to strengthen their reserves, with MARA purchasing 15,574 BTC for $1.53B and Hut 8 adding 990 BTC for $100M, positioning themselves among the largest corporate Bitcoin holders. This trend reflects a broader shift as companies, like MicroStrategy and Riot Platforms, increasingly view Bitcoin as a reserve asset, using it to support growth initiatives and long-term financial strategies.
Privy has launched server wallets, providing developers direct API access to its wallet infrastructure for scalable, secure, and programmable money movement. These server-side wallets, designed for enterprise-grade security and consumer-grade performance, enable backend-controlled transaction execution, policy enforcement, and wallet management across EVM chains, Solana, and Bitcoin.
BONKbot has launched "stealth DCA," a new feature that keeps dollar-cost averaging (DCA) orders hidden off-chain to avoid countertraders. With customizable settings and instant execution, users can stack multiple DCAs on the same token and manage orders with ease.
Ethereum's L1 scaling roadmap outlines a plan to increase the network's gas limit 100x within five years, with an immediate increase to 36 megagas per block expected soon. Key technical improvements include the implementation of ZK provers for EVM execution, delayed state root calculations, and multi-dimensional EIP-1559 for resource pricing optimization. The roadmap also includes complementary upgrades like history expiry (EIP-7639), enshrined PBS (EIP-7732), and potential slot time reductions, all while maintaining Ethereum's commitment to decentralization by ensuring anyone can still verify the network without relying on third parties.
There were numerous exciting agent launches this week, including AgentTank launching a framework for giving agents full computer use, with an example of an agent ordering toilet paper, and Hyperbolic creating an agent with access to GPU compute. Notable platform developments include Orbit's chain abstraction layer for DeFi interactions and Thale's integration with Story protocol to allow agents to monetize IP. Rei Network's Unit 00 agent is gaining traction for its quantitative analysis capabilities and ability to track data across multiple sources.
StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson argues that while quantum computing represents a significant threat to current cryptographic systems, blockchain has a clear path to quantum resistance through zero-knowledge proofs. Unlike traditional cryptographic methods, certain ZK proofs are inherently quantum-resistant due to their reliance on hash functions rather than finding specific values in large mathematical spaces. The tech powering Starknet already incorporates these proofs, though additional implementation work remains to make the entire system quantum-resistant.
The co-founder of Aptos Labs, Mo Shaikh, is stepping down to pursue new ventures, with confidence in its continued growth and leadership in blockchain innovation. Aptos has become a robust ecosystem supported by major builders, partners, and investors, raising $400M to drive the convergence of Web3 and Web2. Shaikh will step into a strategic advisor role.
After the legal battle between BiT Global and Coinbase over the delisting of WBTC, World Liberty Fi, the DeFi protocol backed by the Trump family, swapped $10 million cbBTC to WBTC.
Usual, the seventh-largest stablecoin issuer, has partnered with M^0 to launch UsualM, a customizable extension of M^0's Treasury-backed stablecoin platform.
The team behind the HAWK memecoin is being sued by twelve investors for alleged securities law violations, claiming the token acted as an unregistered security.
Onchain lending on Base is increasing rapidly, with aggregate active loans in the ecosystem now exceeding $750 million.
European Parliament member Sarah Knafo has called for the EU to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve while opposing the European Central Bank's digital euro initiative, characterizing the CBDC project as having "totalitarian temptations." Knafo criticized Europe's predominantly regulatory and taxation-focused approach to cryptocurrencies, contrasting it with more crypto-friendly developments in other jurisdictions like El Salvador and potential shifts in US policy. The ECB continues to develop its digital euro project despite these criticisms and privacy concerns, with a final decision on implementation expected by October 2025.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stated that the central bank is prohibited from owning Bitcoin and is not seeking legislative changes to alter this restriction. This clarification comes amid President-elect Donald Trump's proposal to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, a plan that has garnered support from figures like Senator Cynthia Lummis, who introduced a bill directing the U.S. Treasury to acquire one million Bitcoins over five years.
Synthetix has launched multi-collateral perpetual futures on Base, Coinbase's Layer 2 network, allowing users to trade with tokens like cbBTC and cbETH as collateral. This marks part of a broader revamp, including the debut of its own perpetuals trading app and organizational restructuring to streamline operations.
Months ahead of schedule, Kraken has launched its L2 built on Optimism Superchain technology. Kraken's testnet was a resounding success with millions of transactions, pressuring the company to release while interest was high. The L2 launched with various infrastructure and app partners.
Eternal AI has released a plan to integrate AI into Base's smart contracts through its AI Kernel to transform traditional rule-based contracts into dynamic systems. The proposed architecture includes a decentralized network of GPU nodes operating under a novel Proof-of-Compute consensus mechanism. Potential applications include intelligent crypto wallets, autonomous oracles, and adaptive DAOs.
Coinbase expects the crypto market to see transformative growth in 2025, building on institutional adoption through ETFs that have already attracted over $30.7 billion in inflows. The expansion of stablecoins, which saw 48% growth in 2024, a more friendly regulatory environment, and the potential Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, promise to make 2025 a watershed year. Major technological innovations, including Layer 2 scaling, RWA tokenization, and wallet abstraction are helping to make crypto ready for mass adoption.
AI agents are shaking up the crypto world by trading, analyzing trends, and even launching tokens like pros. This guide dives into what AI agents are and why they're a game-changer for crypto and walks readers through building one using the Eliza toolkit - no advanced coding required.
Stablecoins are set for explosive growth in 2025 as regulatory clarity, mass adoption, and the rise of localized currency-backed options reshape the market. Key drivers include the EU's MiCA framework, growing financial institution involvement, and an expanding role for non-dollar stablecoins.
Thought leader Tarun Chitra shares his thoughts on where genuine value in DeSci lies, acknowledging that a lot of the space is filled with scams. Projects like ResearchHub are reducing the issues with the academic industry and aligning incentives for quality research, and Stadium Science is leveraging decentralized mechanism design via prediction markets to encourage advancements. Chitra bashes projects like Pump Science for raising money and not providing outcomes.
Avara's Lens has secured $31 million in funding to develop its SocialFi-focused Layer 2 blockchain, set to launch on Ethereum in early 2025.
South Korean lawmaker Kim Nam-kuk faces a proposed six-month prison sentence for allegedly concealing cryptocurrency holdings worth millions, which he failed to report as required by law.
El Salvador has agreed to make Bitcoin acceptance voluntary, scale back its Chivo wallet initiative, and limit public sector involvement in Bitcoin projects as part of a $1.4 billion loan deal with the IMF.
Deutsche Bank is building an Ethereum l2 using ZKsync as part of Project Dama 2.
The Senate Banking Committee has canceled the session to consider SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw's renomination, significantly reducing the likelihood of her confirmation before Republicans take control of the chamber in January 2025. Crenshaw, whose current term expires in June 2025, faces opposition from crypto interest groups who claim she is more anti-crypto than Chair Gary Gensler. She can continue serving for 18 months after her term expires.
The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned two Chinese nationals and a UAE-based front company, Green Alpine Trading, for laundering crypto on behalf of North Korea. North Korea reportedly earns ~50% of its foreign currency through such activities, which include money laundering, fraudulent IT work, and crypto thefts.