TLDR Crypto 2024-05-15

A Dutch court convicted the Tornado Cash developer of laundering $1.2 billion of crypto, with a three-judge panel sentencing him to five years and four months in prison. Co-founder Roman Storm is facing similar charges in the United States, with a federal court trial scheduled for September.

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board, a state agency responsible for public retirement and trust funds, filed reports showing that it holds $163 million in Bitcoin ETFs. $99 million is held in BlackRock's iShares ETF, with $63 million in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. The Board also holds shares of Coinbase, Marathon Digital, Riot Platforms, MicroStrategy, and other crypto-related companies. Analysts expressed surprise at the rapid adoption of Bitcoin by a state pension fund.

Arweave has launched AO, a powerful new computer system that enables many processes to run at the same time, each operating independently. This advanced technology promises to transform how decentralized applications work, using Arweave's permanent storage to handle more complex tasks without the usual limits of blockchain technology.

Decentralized social graph Lens Protocol is creating a network for social spaces. It will leverage zkSync's tech stack to create a hybrid and modular system that will ultimately use a Validium, or off-chain data availability, for social transactions and a ZK rollup for financial activities. It plans to support private social activities, account abstraction, and near-instant finality.

This paper analyzes investment information provided by crypto influencers on Twitter. It explores a massive dataset of 180 creators, 36,000 tweets, and 1,600 assets from 2020-2022. Though the tweets are initially correlated with positive returns, this is followed by negative price action, making the tweets negligible in the long term.

Tech companies have created the entrenched platform economy, where they utilize network effects to obtain proprietary data. Blockchain enables the protocol economy, allowing for digital property rights, scarcity, and software-enforced ownership. Ethereum, as a general-purpose blockchain, lets protocols and infrastructure be built on top of its chain, with ETH acting as both a utility token and ownership in the network. It can be analyzed using traditional financial metrics by looking at its fees, profits, and margins, all of which have been increasing over the past twelve months.

This post articulates how Telegram is transforming from being strictly a social app to providing blockchain and payments for millions of users. Telegram currently has over 900 million active users and is integrating blockchain technology through its TON smart contract network to offer scalability and stablecoin payments via a built-in wallet.

Despite criticism about Ethereum's lack of narrative and supposed "liquidity fragmentation," Layer 1 and Layer 2 ecosystems continue to grow, onboarding more users and developers daily. Ethereum's growing user base and strong market position demonstrate its resilience and potential for long-term success, proving that fears about its decline are largely unfounded.

MtGox is anticipated to distribute 142,000 BTC, 143,000 BCH, and 69 billion yen to its creditors before the end of October 2024.

Avail is working on three separate components: a DA layer based on Ethereum's original danksharding roadmap, the Avail Nexus inter-rollup communication solution, and the Avail Fusion security layer.

Ethereum gas is under 5 gwei – the lowest daily average since February 2020.

The Morpho Association has deployed Morpho Blue, a DeFi lending protocol, and its periphery contracts on Base and is proposing to transfer ownership to the Morpho DAO for the official launch.