💨 A Fart-Powered Rebound?

Plus, 🪙 Gensler changes his tune, 💵 A billion-dollar stablecoin play, 🤑 Maple’s boost for SYRUP stakers, and more!

January 15, 2025

Welcome to Wednesday! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.

In today’s edition:

  • 🪙 FARTCOIN turns up the gas

  • 🏛️ Gensler’s securities sidestep

  • 🔆 Massive move puts Ethena in the spotlight

  • 💰 Maple mulls rewards for stakers

  • 🎉 Trumpers hold a crypto bash

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What’s Poppin’?

By Sage D. Young and Tikta

Price gains in the artificial intelligence memecoin FARTCOIN on Tuesday had crypto traders scenting a market recovery.

After a steep plunge in memecoin prices on Monday, the FARTCOIN token jumped 13.8% in the following 24-hour period.

It was a sweet-smelling turnaround, since the price gains pushed the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency — created a few months ago as a joke inspired by an AI chatbot — back over $1 billion.

Another popular memecoin, dogecoin, gained 10% and was changing hands for around 35 cents to 36 cents, the token’s highest price in seven days.

Bitcoin, ethereum, XRP, and solana each rose by at least 5%.

Playful dog face, black white and brown, with nose close to the camera lens, focus on face, closeup, with black and white tiled floor background

SEC ’Never Said’ Bitcoin and Ether are Securities: Gary Gensler

Gary Gensler, the outgoing chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, says the regulator has never described bitcoin and ether as securities.

“I said that we, the SEC, have never said they're securities,” Gensler said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

Gensler’s stance on ether, specifically, hasn’t always been clear. In a 2023 hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, he struggled to give lawmakers a straight answer when pressed on the question.

According to Fox Business, filings from the SEC’s lawsuit against Consensys seem to imply that Gensler and the SEC believed that ether was an unregistered security for at least a year.

Sky’s Spark Protocol to Allocate $1.1B to Ethena’s USDe

Spark, a lending subDAO of Sky — formerly MakerDAO — on Tuesday approved the integration of Ethena's USDe and sUSDe tokens into its Spark Liquidity Layer.

With a planned direct allocation of up to $1.1 billion in the short term, the integration will allow Spark to receive Ethena rewards directly without going through lending markets.

Until recently, the Spark Liquidity Layer balance sheet included only two stablecoins: Circle’s USDC and Sky’s sUSDS.

Ethena's USDe stablecoin currently has a market cap of more than $5.79 billion, making it the fourth-largest in the space.

“Ethena wouldn't be where it is today without the early support of Sky Ecosystem and Spark from the very early days,” Ethena founder Guy Young wrote on X.

Maple Finance Considers Token Buybacks

Decentralized lending protocol Maple Finance proposed a token buyback initiative to enhance benefits for stakers of its native token, SYRUP.

In a proposal floated on Maple’s governance forum, the team called for using 20% of protocol revenue to fund token buybacks from decentralized exchanges and over-the-counter trading desks.

The rewards from repurchased tokens would be distributed to SYRUP stakers via smart contracts, while the remaining 80% of inflation would remain in the DAO treasury to fund strategic initiatives.

Maple said it has been earning around $5 million in annualized revenues from its onchain lending service.

Token holders will begin voting on whether to implement the proposal on Jan. 20.

100 us dollar bill

Trump’s Digital Asset Czar to Host VIP Reception at ‘Crypto Ball’

An inaugural “crypto ball” is set to take place on Jan. 17 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington D.C.

The black-tie event celebrating the inauguration of incoming president Donald Trump, who is not expected to be in attendance, will feature a VIP reception hosted by David Sacks, the incoming White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar, and Trump super PAC MAGA Inc., according to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett.

It is being presented by lobbyists BTC Inc. and Stand With Crypto, and is backed by big names in the digital asset space including Coinbase, MicroStrategy, and Galaxy Digital.

General admission is priced at $2,500 a head, while VIP access is on offer for $100,000, according to Terret. A package of four tickets that includes a single ticket for a dinner with Trump at a later date costs $1 million.

The ball marks a turning point in the historically prickly relationship between the cryptocurrency industry and Washington.

President Donald Trump

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  • 🤝 Crypto derivatives exchange Deribit confirmed receiving strategic investment inquiries, with valuation estimates reaching $4 billion-$5 billion, while dismissing rumors of an outright sale amid heightened crypto M&A activity.

  • 💾 A British judge ruled against a request by a man who mistakenly threw out a hard drive with private keys to 8,000 bitcoin worth $760 million to excavate the landfill he says it’s in, ruling that the town of Newport, where the landfill is located, now owns the drive.

  • 🇺🇸 The TON blockchain, linked to Telegram, announced plans to target U.S. growth under incoming president Donald Trump, citing a crypto-friendly environment and having grown its ecosystem to 1.2 million daily transactions and 1,400 dApps.

  • 🤖 Investment firm Franklin Templeton on Tuesday highlighted the potential of AI agents in blockchains as tokens such as AI16z and Virtuals Protocol surged, with AI16z gaining 18% in 24 hours and trading at $1.30 amid increased market interest.

  • 🏦 Rep. Tom Emmer was on Tuesday appointed vice chair of the House Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence, signaling intensified efforts to shape U.S. crypto legislation and maintain the country’s leadership in digital innovation under the incoming Trump administration.

  • 🛠️ Huione, the alleged operator of the largest known illicit online marketplace, with $24 billion in transactions linked to its controversial platforms, launched censorship-resistant stablecoin USDH and ecosystem tools to protect its finances from asset seizures and make it harder for law enforcement and regulators to rein in its activities.

  • 💵 Trump-backed World Liberty Financial moved more than $60 million of ETH across wallets, citing “routine treasury management” and dismissing speculation about token sales.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • 🇰🇷 South Korea is drafting a new crypto law for 2025, aiming to enhance exchange transparency, stablecoin regulation, and investor protections, as part of its comprehensive framework expansion.

What Do You Meme?

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 1%, trading at $97,077

  • ETH is up 0.7%, trading at $3,209

  • BTC dominance: 54.52%

  • Crypto market cap: $3.51T

*All data as of today, 07:45 am ET. Source: CoinGecko

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  3. X user @0xNairolf on what is DeFAI

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