TLDR Crypto 2022-08-09

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Crypto traders are bullish about Ethereum in September, but leaning bearish for October. Prices for ETH options and futures are lower than spot prices heading into September. Traders are betting on ETH prices upwards of $2,200. The trend is reversed in October, indicating that traders intend to sell. Ethereum's options open interest is higher than Bitcoin's for the first time in history.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control has added Tornado Cash to its Specially Designated Nationals list. All US citizens are now prohibited from interacting with Tornado Cash or any addresses tied to the protocol. Tornado Cash has been used to launder funds from several major hacks. The hacks are considered serious national security risks as the laundered funds were likely used for weapons proliferation. Tornado Cash is a decentralized protocol so it may be impossible to shut down.

The Core wallet has added support for Ethereum, Avalanche Subnets, and all EVM-compatible chains. The wallet features instant swaps, secure bridging technology, and an easy on-ramp to crypto. It makes it easy to move assets, get the best yields, and find the best loans. Core's support for Avalanche Subnets eliminates the need for users to manually configure new networks and tokens as the Avalanche ecosystem grows.

OptiFi is a trading platform on Solana that allows investors to speculate on the future prices of BTC and ETH. It is the first decentralized options exchange on Solana powered by an automated market maker. The platform uses portfolio margining, which considers users' portfolios when calculating how much margin they have to post, to significantly cut collateral requirements. It currently only takes USDC as collateral. OptiFi is targeting $20 million in total value locked by the fourth quarter.

The Merge will make Ethereum 99.5% more energy-efficient and it will turn ETH into a structurally deflationary, ultra-sound asset. This Twitter thread presents several ways to take advantage of the Merge. The methods include investing in ETH, staking ETH, and investing in specific altcoins.

Centralized stablecoin issuers have full control over their tokens and they can blacklist addresses, freeze assets, and control decentralized assets heavily backed by them. A vast majority of decentralized solutions are backed by centralized stablecoins. This creates a need for a stablecoin that is completely decentralized, censorship-resistant, and truly resilient. This Twitter thread discusses an idea for creating a BTC or ETH-backed stablecoin using derivatives contracts.

Circle froze over 75,000 USDC worth of funds linked to 44 addresses sanctioned by the US. The addresses were associated with Tornado Cash, a decentralized application used to obfuscate the trail of cryptocurrency transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. All US persons and entities are prohibited from interacting with the service, with penalties for willful noncompliance including fines of up to $10 million and up to 30 years imprisonment. An estimated $437 million worth of assets is currently held in Tornado Cash's smart contract addresses.

zk-rollups allow for massively scalable blockchain transaction processing. This article introduces zk-rollups and zk-EVMs and discusses the differences between application-specific and general-purpose rollups and the current state of the zk-rollup ecosystem, It aims to help developers understand the next phase of Ethereum scaling.

This Twitter thread talks about the risks Maximum Extractable Value presents to Ethereum and what is being done to address them.

Seahorse is a framework for developing Solana programs in Python.

He also lost a variety of other crypto assets in the hack, including Otherside tokens and ApeCoin.

The company is consulting with a Singapore-based law firm on a timeline for a plan to preserve user assets and will issue an update on August 19.

This article discusses why market inefficiencies exist, why market microstructure matters, and why NFTs are not immune to arbitrage.

One of the founders of Tornado Cash seems to be facing repercussions from the sanctions placed on Tornado Cash despite not being individually named as a Specially Designated National.