ONE-AND-A-HALF TRILLION! 🤯

Plus, Record inflows 💥, Distress at Degen 😮‍💨, 💰 Kidnapped and ransomed, and more!

November 08, 2024

Happy Friday! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.

In today’s edition:

  • 👑 Bitcoin: Bigger than ever

  • ⛑️ Degen Chain: Solana to the rescue?

  • 💥 Bitcoin ETFs: Let the good times roll

  • 📈 cbBTC: Gaining momentum

  • 👮 Hostage drama

  • 📉 Dorsey disappoints

  • 🤑 Solana: Coining it

  • 🏛️ SEC chair: Up for grabs

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What’s Poppin’?

Bitcoin Reaches $1.5 Trillion Market Capitalization

Crypto markets continued their post-election surge on Thursday, with Bitcoin setting a new all-time high of $76,850 and reaching a market cap of $1.5 trillion for the first time. 

Fueled by Donald Trump’s election victory and a Federal Reserve interest rate cut, bitcoin’s latest rally signals strong investor enthusiasm for a more crypto-friendly administration. 

With Trump’s pro-crypto stance, including promises of a national bitcoin reserve, the sentiment across digital assets is undeniably bullish.

Alongside bitcoin’s record-setting performance, ETH and SOL have also seen impressive gains. ETH climbed to $2,920, reaching its highest price since August, while SOL crossed the $200 mark for the first time since April.

The broader market rally has extended to U.S. equities as well, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both reaching record highs. With Trump’s win and the Fed’s rate cut lowering borrowing costs, crypto and traditional markets alike are responding to a friendlier economic landscape. Optimism for favorable crypto policies under the new administration, including potential spot ETF approvals, is adding fuel to the ongoing rally across digital assets.

The Degen Chain community, currently operating as a layer 3 on Base, has been struggling with infrastructure issues after a problematic upgrade by Conduit, the tooling firm responsible for Degen’s rollup. This “bad upgrade,” as described by the Degen team, led to 54 hours of downtime and caused an estimated $160,000 in lost user funds. 

Conduit’s handling of the situation, including delays in transferring rollup keys back to Degen, has strained relations further, with the Degen team accusing Conduit of stalling their migration to another chain.

With accusations flying over access issues and a stalled migration, Solana leaders have spotted an opportunity. Solana co-founder Raj Gokal and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz have publicly invited Degen Chain users to join the Solana ecosystem, even promising a smoother experience. 

Even though the Solana community members were welcoming Degen’s memecoin culture, the Degen team has declined. “We may make $DEGEN bridgeable to Solana in the future, but for now, any $DEGEN token there isn’t from our original project—so stay sharp,” they wrote on X.

Bitcoin ETFs Hit Record $1.38B Inflows

U.S. Bitcoin ETFs saw a record $1.38 billion in net inflows Thursday, driven by Trump’s pro-crypto election victory and a Fed rate cut of 25 basis points. 

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) led with $1.1 billion, its largest single-day inflow. This surge reflects heightened institutional confidence as investors anticipate favorable crypto policies and lower borrowing costs.

Ethereum ETFs also gained traction, pulling in $79 million as ETH rallied on DeFi optimism. 

With cumulative inflows across all Bitcoin ETFs crossing $25 billion for the first time, it’s clear institutional interest in digital assets is heating up, setting a bullish tone for the months ahead.

Coinbase’s wrapped bitcoin (cbBTC) just crossed the $1 billion market cap mark this week and has now deployed on Solana, bringing another liquidity option for DeFi on the network.

Already, cbBTC’s success on Base has led to significant trading activity, and Solana’s developers are eager to leverage cbBTC’s potential for BTC-backed DeFi activity. 

It remains to be seen if it will be as successful as on Base.

WonderFi CEO Kidnapped and Released After Paying $1M Ransom: Report

WonderFi CEO Dean Skurka was kidnapped and released earlier this week after paying a C$1 million ($720,000) ransom, according to a report by CBC.

Skurka was reportedly forced into a vehicle in downtown Toronto during rush hour on Wednesday by individuals who demanded money from him. 

He paid their ransom demand electronically, and was later found unharmed in Centennial Park, near the city’s international airport. 

In an email to CBC on Thursday, Skurka said: “Client funds and data remain safe, and were not impacted by this incident.”

WonderFi is Canada-headquartered, publicly traded crypto firm that operates the trading platforms Bitbuy and Coinsquare. 

The company recently launched an innovation arm, WonderFi Labs, which has an initial focus on developing a layer 2 blockchain and a non-custodial wallet.

Block’s Revenue Falls Short as It Announces Closure of TBD

Shares of Jack Dorsey’s payments firm, Block Inc., dropped by as much as 15% on Thursday before paring losses to 3% following the release of an earnings report showing that it missed Q3 revenue estimates. 

The firm reported $5.98 billion in quarterly revenue, up 6.4% year over year, but falling short of an LSEG analysts’ estimate of $6.24 billion, with bitcoin revenue making up a much smaller proportion of overall revenue than it did last year.

Nevertheless, Block plans to continue investing in bitcoin mining and its self-custodial wallet, Bitkey, scaling back investment in its music streaming service, TIDAL, and winding down its DeFi infrastructure business, TBD, in order to do so.

TBD was launched just over two years ago with the goal of making cross-border payments more accessible. Its core product, tbDEX, is a liquidity protocol focused on bitcoin.

Last month, Block, represented by members of its Square and TBD teams, scooped an award for the best privacy and security design at a California Department of Motor Vehicles hackathon for building a working prototype for an instant age verification system. 

Solana Network Fees Hit Record $71M Monthly High

The Solana blockchain raked in its biggest-ever total of monthly fees in October, topping $70.7 million for the first time, according to data from DeFiLlama. 

Solana is known for low transaction fees and high processing speeds, making it one of the most cost-effective blockchain networks. October’s record fees might be more indicative of higher network activity rather than a sudden spike in average transaction costs.

A report by research and data firm Messari on Solana’s Q3 suggests that was the case, with the network seeing an uptick in DeFi activity during the quarter. Solana’s DeFi total value locked grew 26% quarter on quarter to $5.7 billion. 

The report found that Solana earned $109.5 million in transaction fees through Q3, up 276% from the $4.1 million a year ago. 

“Currently, 50% of Solana transaction fees are burned, while the other half are distributed to the block producer,” Messari analyst Matthew Nay wrote. “The burned tokens reduced Solana’s annualized quarterly inflation rate from 4.9% to 4.8% in Q2.”

Trump Team Tips Robinhood Executive for Possible SEC Chairmanship

Robinhood’s chief legal and compliance officer, Dan Gallagher, is in contention for the top job at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to a report by Reuters.

Gallagher, who served as a Republican SEC commissioner from 2011 to 2015, joined Robinhood’s board of directors in October 2019 and assumed the role of CLO at the retail brokerage in May 2020.

Gallagher is the “front-runner” to lead the securities regulator at this point as Trump transition team officials evaluate potential candidates, Reuters reported, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.

A big part of president-elect Trump’s popularity within the crypto community likely stems from his promise to “fire” current SEC Chair Gary Gensler as soon as he assumes office. However, as Unchained reported earlier this week, Trump may be able only to demote Gensler from his role. 

Robinhood was fined $70 million by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in 2021 for misleading customers and for outages that left them out of pocket. At the time it was the biggest fine ever levied by the securities industry’s self-regulator.

Earn bitcoin on Gemini here.

Trump has won, and the entire crypto market is on fire. What does this mean for investors, and will these gains last?

Donald Trump is headed back to the White House, and the crypto markets are surging in response.

This episode of Bits + Bips dives into what the election means for crypto, the potential crypto IPOs coming soon, why DeFi tokens are outperforming, and what changes in U.S. regulation could mean for investors. Ram Ahluwalia and Noelle Acheson join to explore this unprecedented moment in crypto and how inflation and policy changes may boost Bitcoin and the broader ecosystem.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍

  • 🌌 MakerDAO, now rebranded as Sky, reaffirmed its new identity, despite community pushback, with 80% of voting power controlled by just four entities backing Rune Christensen’s Endgame plan, which includes launching stablecoins and creating semi-independent subDAOs.

  • ⚡ Eclipse launched its SVM-based Ethereum layer 2 mainnet, aiming to merge Solana's high-speed transaction capabilities with Ethereum's ecosystem, while onboarding more than 60 dapps and introducing tETH, a unified restaking token.

  • 📊 The Ethereum Foundation disclosed $970 million in treasury assets, with $788.7 million held in ether.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • 🏙️ Detroit announced plans to become the largest U.S. city to accept cryptocurrency for taxes and fees by 2025, positioning itself alongside states such as Colorado and Louisiana in embracing blockchain technology for public services.

What Do You Meme?

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📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 1.8%, trading at $76,184

  • ETH is up 3.6%, trading at $2,920

  • BTC dominance: 55.92%

  • Crypto market cap: $2.7T

*All data as of today, 06:35 am ET. Source: CoinGecko

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