Oh my GADA 😱

Plus, 🎮 Coinbase critics rally again, 💰 Sky Protocol’s stablecoin coup, and more!

Author

Juan Aranovich
February 11, 2025

Hi! In today’s edition:

  • 🏛️ Cardano joins the ETF race

  • 🔥 New gaming token lands on Base

  • ⚡ Sky’s stablecoin success

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By Tikta

Grayscale Files for Spot Cardano ETF

Grayscale Investments has officially lodged a 19b-4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a spot Cardano exchange-traded fund, a move that many in the crypto community had not expected.

The filing was made through NYSE Arca, a subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker GADA. If approved, it would be the first U.S. spot ETF that provides direct exposure to Cardano's native token, ADA.

This filing is the 60th crypto ETF submission of the year and comes amid growing institutional interest in the asset class. 

Bloomberg ETF analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas have significantly upped the odds of approval for several crypto ETFs following a change of leadership at the SEC. They give XRP ETFs a 65% chance of approval, Solana ETFs a 70% chance, and Dogecoin ETFs odds as high as 75%.

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Coinbase Lists B3 Token as ‘Experimental Asset’ on Base

Crypto exchange Coinbase is once again the subject of criticism over its plans to list a relatively illiquid token — this time over a plan to list its B3 token on its layer 2 network, Base. 

B3 is an open gaming ecosystem built on Base and operating as a layer 3 network that offers faster and cheaper transactions. 

“Do not send this asset over other networks or your funds may be lost,” Coinbase said on X, adding that the token would have an “experimental” label attached to it.

Coinbase defines experimental tokens as those that carry more risk because of their relative newness to the platform and lack of liquidity. 

Some industry watchers have poured cold water on Coinbase’s plans to list B3, with one pointing to the fact that 97% of B3’s supply appears to be concentrated in four wallets.

Sky Protocol’s USDS Flips DAI in Total Supply

Sky Protocol, the DeFi protocol that rebranded from MakerDAO last year, has seen the supply of its revamped stablecoin, USDS, surpass that of its original stablecoin, DAI.

“It happened,” Sky wrote on X in a post showing that USDS now accounts for 50.72% of the $8.4 billion cumulative supply of USDS and DAI. 

Users can convert DAI to USDS at a 1:1 ratio, and both stablecoins share the same reserve mechanism, which includes crypto assets, real-world assets, and other stablecoins. 

However, one crucial difference between the two is that USDS can be frozen, meaning that Sky has the ability to halt transfers from certain wallets, although the function has yet to be activated. 

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  • 🏛️ Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters on Monday introduced a draft bill to regulate stablecoins, requiring issuers to hold 1:1 reserves and be overseen by federal and state regulators, as Republicans push their own competing proposal.

  • 🛑 Binance and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requested a 60-day pause in a legal case in which the exchange stands accused of running unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearing agencies for securities, citing the SEC’s new crypto task force, which aims to establish clearer regulations under pro-crypto leadership following the departure of its former chair, Gary Gensler.

  • 🔎 Blockchain analysts accused Coinbase’s Base network of funneling all layer 2 sequencer fees to Coinbase, raising concerns about transparency. Base said funds were being secured and audited off-chain.

  • ⚖️ Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev’s lawyer argued that Tornado’s decentralized nature constituted sufficient grounds to overturn his money-laundering conviction, citing European Union privacy laws and a recent U.S. court ruling that rejected sanctions against the protocol’s smart contracts.

  • 📈 DeFi protocol Pendle plans to expand to Solana, Hyperliquid, and Ton, targeting perpetual funding rates to offer fixed-yield trading while also launching know your customer-compliant products for institutional investors.

  • 💰 Michael Saylor announced on Monday that his rebranded company, Strategy, had added 7,633 bitcoin for $742 million, bringing its total holdings to 478,740 BTC, as it moves forward with a $42 billion capital plan to acquire more bitcoin.

  • 📉 Binance’s bitcoin reserves fell by $355 million in January even as customer balances surged by $4.4 billion, reducing its BTC collateralization ratio from 108% to 100%, although the exchange still holds $160 billion of assets.

  • 🎮 Japanese game studio Gumi announced a $6.6 million bitcoin purchase on Monday, aiming to generate revenue through staking on Babylon while expanding its Web3 and node operation businesses.

  • 🏛️ North Carolina lawmakers proposed a bill to allow the state to invest in bitcoin exchange-traded products, limiting crypto investments to 10% of a state fund’s holdings in an asset class with a $750 billion market cap, aligning with President Donald Trump’s push for a national bitcoin reserve.

  • 🔐 Ethereum security firm Drosera raised $3.25 million, led by Greenfield Capital, to expand its smart contract “Trap” technology that detects and neutralizes blockchain threats.

  • 🆔 Digital identity startup Holonym acquired Gitcoin Passport in a cash-and-token deal, rebranding it as Human Passport while integrating zero-knowledge proofs to enhance privacy for its 2 million users verifying online identities.

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