Ethereum Foundation Cuts Staff, Rebrands R&D as ‘Protocol’

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🔧 Ethereum R&D gets a makeover

• 😬 Coinbase breach kept quiet for months

• 🚀 Circle pumps up its IPO plans

• 🏅 Tether drops gold on TON

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Ethereum Foundation Lays Off Staff Amid R&D Rebrand

The Ethereum Foundation on Monday announced a significant restructuring of its research and development division, now rebranded simply as Protocol.

As part of the overhaul, the foundation confirmed that it had laid off several staff members, without specifying names or the number of people it had given their marching orders.

Some of the areas the team hopes to address are prioritizing core protocol work in scaling the base layer and streamlining operations as it departs from a “messy” R&D process with what it describes as too many parallel projects.

The shakeup comes amid an ongoing debate within the Ethereum community over the foundation’s role and effectiveness. 

In February, former Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi became the foundation’s president as part of a leadership restructuring aimed at addressing those concerns.

“The changes we’re announcing today are a departure from our previous ways of working, but we feel these set us on a more responsive and effective path,” the foundation said.

Coinbase Delays Data Breach Disclosure: Report

Coinbase was reportedly aware as early as January of a significant data breach at an outsourcing company that handled customer support for the cryptocurrency exchange, according to a report by Reuters.

An employee from the India-based firm, TaskUs, was caught taking photos of customer data on her work computer using her personal phone. Multiple sources, including former TaskUs employees, reportedly confirmed that Coinbase had been notified immediately after the incident was discovered in the Indian city of Indore.

Coinbase disclosed the breach only last month in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and said in a blog post that it had refused to pay a $20 million ransom requested by cybercriminals in an extortion attempt.

More than 200 TaskUs employees were terminated in a mass layoff following the breach, which drew attention in Indian media.

Circle Scales up IPO Amid Strong Demand

USDC issuer Circle has significantly increased the size and price range of its upcoming initial public offering. 

It now plans to offer 32 million shares, up from the previous 24 million, at a price range of $27 to $28 per share.

The company’s targeted fully diluted valuation is $7.2 billion, also considerably higher than previous estimates of around $6 billion.

The IPO is expected to raise up to $896 million, with the company set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "CRCL” later this week. 

Wall Street heavyweights J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs will be underwriting the offering.

The firm’s 11th-hour IPO changes suggest that it is seeing strong investor interest ahead of its listing.

That’s despite some industry watchers taking aim at the firm over its declining gross margins and massive distributions paid out to Coinbase, which it disclosed in an S-1 filing earlier this year. 

Tether Launches Omnichain Gold Stablecoin on TON

Stablecoin giant Tether has partnered with the TON Foundation to debut an omnichain version of its gold-backed stablecoin, XAUt, on The Open Network (TON).

The new token, XAUt0, leverages LayerZero's omnichain fungible token standard, enabling direct transfers of the gold-backed asset across multiple blockchains without the need for wrapping or intermediary chains.

Each XAUt0 token represents one troy ounce of gold, certified by the London Bullion Market Association and physically stored by Tether. 

The launch is expected to enhance the appeal of the TON ecosystem, which recently suffered an outage due to a technical error in the processing of the masterchain dispatch queue.

It also comes amid a surge in gold prices, with spot gold trading near all-time highs and gold-backed digital assets seeing increased demand as inflation hedges.

• 🔄 Morph CEO Cecilia Hsueh has confirmed that she quietly stepped down in March and will now serve as an advisor, with former growth chief Colin Goltra assuming leadership amid previous internal power struggles and increased involvement by investor Forest Bai.

• 🕵️ Hackers exploited Nervos Network’s Force Bridge to steal more than $3 million in crypto, which was quickly laundered through Tornado Cash just days after developers announced that the protocol would shut down by November.

• 💼 Venture funding in crypto hit $594 million across 61 rounds in May, marking a seasonal slowdown as seed and strategic rounds dominated while overall M&A volume surged to $2.9 billion largely due to the Coinbase-Deribit deal.

• 🦊 Consensys has acquired Web3Auth to improve MetaMask’s usability and developer tools, integrating Web2-style login features and reducing reliance on seed phrases, addressing a key pain point for the 35% of users who never back up their wallets.

• 🤝 FalconX has acquired a majority stake in Monarq Asset Management’s parent company to expand into institutional crypto asset management, aiming to serve clients such as endowments and pension funds using Monarq’s multi-strategy trading models.

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