Transform financial services through DeFi & Tokenization at Meridian 2024. Stellar Development Foundation’s annual conference will take place in London, UK, from October 15 to 17. Learn More.

Gevulot is the universal proving infrastructure for ZK. Try ZkCloud with free usage, plus extended grant opportunities for premier customers, until 'Q1 2025.

DOOM, now actually onchain! Show off your skills, verify your gameplays and enshrine your name on immutable leaderboards. RIVES is an onchain fantasy console built with Cartesi Rollups. Join the DOOM Olympics mainnet launch: 7 days, 7 disciplines and a $15,000 prize pool.

The Chopping Block: SVM vs. EVM, VC Investment in Solana and Memecoins’ Future

SVM vs. EVM, VC Cash Influx, & Network Extensions.

Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week, the squad is joined by special guest Mert Mumtaz, co-founder of Helius. In this episode, the crew dives into the growing rivalry between SVM and EVM, the surge of VC investments in the Solana ecosystem, and the fierce debate over rollups. They also explore the rise and fall of memecoins, Solana’s infrastructure evolution, and the future of high-performance blockchains.

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

Earn bitcoin on Gemini here.

What’s Poppin’?

by Jason Brett and Sage D. Young

Bank of New York Mellon Identified as First Bank to Receive SEC Exemption From SAB 121

During a public hearing Monday in Wyoming, BNY was named as the bank that received an exemption from the SEC’s onerous rules for custodying digital assets.

Firedancer Efforts Bring Solana a Step Closer to Leap in Processing Power, Says Jump Trading’s Science Chief

Avoiding computer science “magical thinking” is the key to unlocking capacity already available in the current Solana ecosystem, Jump Trading's Kevin Bowers told the network’s Breakpoint conference in Singapore.

Stoner-Originated Proof-of-Liquidity Network Berachain Scores a Hit at Token2049

If this year’s Token2049 crypto conference had a spirit animal, it was arguably Berachain, which showed off its fun and freewheeling culture in Singapore this week.

DeFi Protocol Sky, Formerly MakerDAO, To Launch on Solana Blockchain

Sky founder Rune Christensen told the Solana Breakpoint conference that Sky’s stablecoin, governance token, and tokenized savings yield will launch on Solana through interoperability protocol Wormhole.

Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍

• 🏛️ Terraform Labs received approval from a U.S. bankruptcy judge to begin winding down its operations, with plans to pay up to $442.2 million to stakeholders as part of its closure.

• 🚫 A U.S. judge dismissed Consensys' lawsuit against the SEC over Ethereum, citing the lack of "final" actions by the regulatory agency to warrant a legal review.

• 🛠️ Ethereum developers confirmed that the Pectra upgrade will be split into two phases, reducing complexity and maintaining the planned release date of early 2025 for the first part.

• 🗳️ The CFTC urged an appeals court to block election betting on Kalshi's prediction market, arguing it undermines election integrity, while Kalshi defended its contracts and compliance with regulations.

• 💻 German authorities shut down 47 crypto exchanges allegedly involved in illegal activities such as money laundering, citing failure to meet KYC requirements.

• 🔒 Two men were arrested for allegedly stealing $230 million in bitcoin from a creditor of bankrupt crypto lender Genesis through a social engineering scheme, using a crypto mixer to hide the funds.

• ⚖️ DeFi lender Sky, formerly known as MakerDAO, decided to offboard wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) as collateral after a community vote, effecting $200 million in loans tied to the token.

• 🦺 Banana Gun's Telegram bot was taken offline as the team investigates reports of compromised user wallets, with preliminary findings pointing to a front-end vulnerability.

The $$$ Corner…

• 🔐 CertiK's new venture arm, CertiK Ventures, announced a $45 million investment plan which will invest in startups and fund two in-house security products, Token Scan and Wallet Scan, aimed at protecting users from malicious tokens and wallet codes.

• 💰 Drift, a Solana-based DeFi platform, closed a $25 million Series B funding round and will use the funds to develop a "superapp" for decentralized trading, including tools for spot and derivatives markets.

What Do You Meme?

📈 Your Market Update 📉

• BTC is up 1.3%, trading at $63,403

• ETH is up 4.4%, trading at $2,540

• BTC dominance: 54.34%

• Crypto market cap: $2.3T

*All data as of today, 07:40 am ET. Source: CoinGecko

Recommended Reads

1. Blockworks: SEC settlements are becoming the cost of doing crypto business

2. CoinDesk: Does SBF’s Appeal Stand a Chance of Succeeding?

3. The Block: Block subsidy dominates bitcoin miner revenue as fee income dwindles amid halving impact

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