Progress, Profits, Controversies, and Comebacks: What a Week

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Duration: 2 weeks (30th October - 13th November)

GM! 

Whaaaat a banger week it has been. On one hand, Trump reclaimed his presidency, while on the other, Bitcoin and co. started rallying and clinching new highs. Candles on charts came to life and it seemed like green was directly being injected into our veins. 

But before I get into the commentary of the bits you probably know about already, let me quickly run you through other stuff that’s been happening in the background that you might have missed. 

Coinbase brings Bitcoin to Solana

Coinbase has rolled out cbBTC on the Solana network. You can now swap in and out of this Bitcoin-backed token by sending it between the exchange and Solana wallets. Ease of entry and exit, check! 

Devs have "much higher hopes" for Coinbase's cbBTC and feel that it will be a hit. 

Potential ripple effect: The risk surface is expected to be reduced by half. This could end up triggering a rise in usage, which will ultimately result in the surge of BTC liquidity on-chain.

But without getting hopes too high, it should be noted that other wrapped variants like Threshold’s tBTC and 21.co’s 21BTC have not really been faring well on Solana. 

So, only if Coinbase successfully establishes cbBTC as Solana’s go-to Bitcoin substitute, will the tables turn in its favor. 

The listing fee drama

Coinbase was also in the news this week owing to the ‘listing fee’ controversy. Justin Sun alleges that Coinbase asked for $330 million in total fees to list Tron. Specifically, the exchange asked for 500 million TRX tokens [valued at around $80 million] and a $250 million Bitcoin deposit to be held in Coinbase Custody.

Fantom founder Andre Cronje also claimed that the exchange charged amounts ranging in the $30 million to $300 million bracket. Cronje responded to Armstrong’s post, “Binance charged us $0. Coinbase has asked us for; $300 million, $50 million, $30 million, and more recently $60 million.”

Armstrong, obviously, claims otherwise.

Ether dear, when will you feel better? 

All eyes are gonna be on Ethereum this week, thanks to Devcon. However, price-wise, it has not been able to match the pace of the top-gainers. Leave aside match the pace, it has not yet been able to breach the psychological $3k mark. 

Nevertheless, from a fundamental point of view, developers seem to be quite excited about the upcoming Pectra upgrade. A day back, they launched a new, temporary testnet called Mekong.  

Code changes will be tested here before they are deployed on other public testnets, and ultimately the mainnet. It won’t affect other already existing Ethereum networks. It’s just a playground for developers to try and test out stuff. Indeed, a pre-Devcon treat for all the ETH fans out there. 

Kraken’s big fat grant

Remember Ink — Kraken’s upcoming L2 network that’s being built using Optimism's OP Stack? Well, these guys just didn't follow Base’s footsteps blindly. They received a hefty grant and ultimately decided to deploy their network here. 

The team was bestowed with 25 million OP tokens, worth around $34.5 million when the news was unveiled. The deal was sealed earlier this year. At the time, the stash was roughly worth $100 million. 

Ink’s deal isn’t under the wraps. The number of tokens it received is “similar” to other deals that are part of the Superchain ecosystem. Base, for instance, unveiled last year that it will receive up to 2.75% of the OP token supply over six years.

At the moment, the total supply of OP tokens is hovering around 4.3 billion, making Base eligible to receive up to 118 million OP tokens. 

Third-wheeling no more: Ethereum devs pull back from EigenLayer

In May this year, Ethereum developers  Dankrad Feist and Justin Drake became advisors at  EigenLayer. This week both of them announced that they have stepped away from their Eigen Foundation position.

Rather than taking on roles in other projects, Drake said he should have instead focused his time and effort on developing Ethereum’s L1 network — especially its consensus layer. Meanwhile, Feist said that there is “a lot of important work to do” with respect to Ethereum — that includes the effective implementation of Danksharding and other key updates.

PNUT outrage 

This week actually started with a squirrel called PNUT grabbing the limelight. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation seized and euthanized the squirrel recently. Stalwarts like Elon Musk raised their voice against this, calling the government a “mindless and heartless killing machine.”

Multiple PNUT–related tokens were launched on Solana that managed to rake in millions of dollars worth of liquidity. 

Bottom line, this incident did not bode well with the masses and they ended up voting against the oppressive government and have now put Trump in charge of the throne. 

It’s comeback time, again  

Trump made one hell of a comeback this time. He’s the oldest person to assume office in the US, the first Republican to rake in the popular vote in over 20 years, the first US President facing criminal cases, and the first US President who’s been impeached twice and re-elected to the highest office in the country. 

The list seems endless, but the crypto community cares only about one thing: They’ve gotten a pro-crypto President and are waiting for regulatory clarity to start materializing. 

And oh, more importantly, he’s gonna fire Gary Gensler. Wanna know the potential contenders who could take over the reins? Check this out. 

Bottom line

It feels nice seeing $75k-$76k flash all over. Profits are swelling up. Progress is being made. The Q4 magic that we all collectively manifested is now playing out. Sit back and wait for higher highs to be scripted. 

Nevertheless, I’ve just landed in Bangkok. It’s a bright and sunny day here. Gonna head out to celebrate the ATHs, make sure you have a blast too. You deserve it all, we deserve it all. 

Until next time,

Sayonaaraaaa!