This past week proved to be eventful in the cryptocurrency space, characterized by significant product launches, heated discussions regarding Ethereum, progress on stablecoin legislation, and high-profile Congressional hearings on ‘debanking’.
David Sacks, recognized as the Crypto and AI Czar, hosted a notable press conference alongside Senate leadership. During this event, Senator Hagerty from Tennessee introduced a new stablecoin bill. This proposal seeks to establish an oversight framework for stablecoin issuance and builds upon a previous bill that successfully passed the House last year but was stalled in the Senate. With Republicans now in control, the bill has a greater chance of making it through this time. CoinDesk’s Jesse Hamilton provided an insightful report on this development.
Additionally, the Senate held hearings addressing the coordinated policy of institutions like the FDIC, which have been denying financial services to crypto companies during the Biden administration—a practice commonly referred to as debanking. Nathan McCauley, the CEO of Anchorage Digital, an established institutional custodian, testified at the hearings and shared his perspective on CoinDesk. Joe Lubin, founder of Consensys, recounted how his company has faced debanking issues on two occasions, as reported by Ian Allison.
In terms of innovations, Ondo Finance unveiled a new tokenization blockchain poised to attract institutional interest in Real-World Assets (RWAs). Journalists Kris Sandor and Helene Braun covered this launch. World Liberty Financial, backed by former President Trump, promptly acquired $470,000 worth of ONDO tokens, thereby solidifying its position in the platform’s governance.
Moreover, Berachain made headlines with the launch of its mainnet and a substantial airdrop of 79 million tokens. Shaurya Malwa provided details on the event, highlighting that BERA’s market cap reached over $800 million shortly after launch. Additionally, this week saw significant developments from Michael Saylor, whose company MicroStrategy rebranded to simply ‘Strategy’ while maintaining its aggressive bitcoin purchasing strategy. Notably, it was reported that BlackRock now owns 5% of the company.
In contrast to these optimistic narratives, news surrounding Ethereum has been less favorable, continuing a trend seen over the past few months. According to JPMorgan, Ethereum has struggled due to intense competition from networks like Solana and a lack of a compelling narrative to rival that of bitcoin. The Pectra upgrade is underway, and Ethereum’s supporters remain optimistic, with notable endorsements surfacing from influential figures.
While bitcoin is often heralded as ‘digital gold’, actual gold prices are also influencing cryptocurrency trends. Francisco Rodrigues pointed out that the recent surge in gold has led to a favorable performance for gold-backed cryptocurrencies, with tokens like PAXG and XAUT outperforming even bitcoin.
Lastly, an important development regarding internet privacy arose as Alexey Pertsev, a developer of Tornado Cash, an Ethereum mixer, was released from jail pending appeal, following a 64-month sentence. As we conclude this week, the landscape of cryptocurrency continues to evolve rapidly, and we look forward to what lies ahead.
