TLDR Crypto 2024-04-18

BlackRock recently released a video about its Bitcoin ETFs, calling Bitcoin “the most widely adopted digital asset in the world.” The asset management firm's US Head of Thematics and Alternative ETFs, Jay Jacobs, noted the cryptocurrency's immense status and promise in a video published this week.

Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and pro-crypto Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) released the Lummis-Gillibrand Payment Stablecoin Act to regulate the stablecoin industry. The act would require stablecoin issuers to hold one-to-one cash or cash-equivalent assets and prohibit unbacked algorithmic stablecoins. If an issuer experiences insolvency, there would be an FDIC conservatorship and resolution. There are some concerns that the bill is too strict with its definition of cash equivalents and that it could prohibit innovation with new stablecoin designs.

Kraken has launched a self-custodial wallet, allowing users to manage NFTs and tokens and conduct DeFi transactions across 8 blockchain networks. The Kraken team published the app's open-source code on GitHub for enhanced security through third-party review. The wallet is considered a hot wallet due to current iOS limitations. Kraken is committed to security and transparency.

Modularity breaks up blockchain functionality into three parts — data availability and consensus, settlement, and execution — each of which gets its own chain or environment. Prominent projects exist in each sector, along with interoperability to unite liquidity, with the goal of integrating together to make something greater than the sum of their parts. The commoditization of block space and execution will enable applications to operate at much larger scales with grander visions.

The Runes protocol, set to launch in April 2024, is a new fungible token standard on Bitcoin that aims to improve upon the shortcomings of its predecessor, BRC-20. By integrating with Bitcoin's existing UTXO model and utilizing OP_RETURN for data storage, Runes minimizes on-chain footprint and network congestion while offering a more user-friendly and accessible token creation process.

Faraway, a gaming studio, has acquired the Legends Of The Mara and HV-MTL brands from Yuga Labs. It plans to integrate them into Faraway gaming products while maintaining close ties to Yuga and Otherside. Spencer Tucker, Yuga's Chief Gaming Officer, will move to Faraway as Chief Product Officer to ensure a seamless transition.

Legendary cryptographer Wei Dai weighs in on the pros and cons of whether a base layer like Ethereum should offer privacy by default. On one hand, it is technically feasible for privacy to be implemented, and having it as the default option makes it much more normalized, especially for users from traditional finance. On the other hand, this would be incredibly complex to implement, remove some level of neutrality, and not align with the rollup-centric roadmap's idea of end users never interacting with the base chain. Dai leans towards a transparent base layer with L2s and apps leading the experimentation with privacy based on their goals.

Crypto adoption will shift from buying tokens to stake and trade to earning them through new user experiences like gaming.

Nansen explains how to use its onchain data to analyze tokens, using PENDLE as an example.

The game integrates tower defense and monster collection gameplay and is a collaboration between Gravity and Ronin's developer Sky Mavis.

Venom is a Threaded Virtual Machine (TVM) with features like account abstraction and dynamic sharding to improve transaction speed and reliability.