🪙 Sucking Up ETH

Plus, 💰 BTC reserve for Alabama?, 📂 SBF political donation clawback, 📊 Real-time fee adjustments in Balancer, and more!

December 12, 2024

I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.

In today’s edition:

  • 🪙 ETF heavyweights buy $500M of ETH in 48 hours

  • 📊 State auditor pushes BTC reserve for Alabama

  • 💵 $14.5M of SBF-led political donations recovered

  • 🤝 New "100% Boosted Pools" maximize yields

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What’s Poppin’?

By Tikta

BlackRock, Fidelity Ether ETFs Buy $500M of ETH in 2 Days

BlackRock and Fidelity’s spot ether exchange-traded funds purchased half a billion dollars worth of ether during the 48 hours up to around 3:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 11, according to data from blockchain analysis platform Arkham.

The funds made the bulk of their purchases through crypto exchange Coinbase and its institutional platform, Coinbase Prime.

On Dec. 10 BlackRock’s ETHA brought in $372.4 million in trading volume and Fidelity’s FETH drew $103.7 million. (Data for Dec. 11 was not yet available.)

At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $3,800, having gained 6.3% over the previous 24 hours.

a close up of a computer chip with a symbol on it

Alabama State Auditor Proposes Bitcoin Strategic Reserve

Alabama State Auditor and Republican former lawmaker Andrew Sorrell told conservative news website 1819 News that “the debate over whether crypto will succeed has ended,” calling for the state to add bitcoin as a strategic reserve to diversify a portion of its holdings into the $3 trillion crypto asset class.

Doing so would position Alabama as a crypto-friendly state, Sorell said, which would attract more business and investment.

He proposed modeling Alabama's bitcoin reserve after the federal American Strategic Bitcoin Reserve that president-elect Donald Trump vowed to create earlier this year.

“The idea is for a bitcoin reserve … not to flip it for a quick profit,” Sorell said. “It is highly likely bitcoin will one day reach $1 million per coin.”

a golden bitcoin sitting on top of a black table

FTX Recovers $14M From SBF-Led Political Donations

FTX's bankruptcy estate has successfully recovered around $14.5 million through settlements related to political donations.

In a Dec. 10 court filing, FTX said it had recovered funds including $6 million from House Majority PAC and $3 million from Senate Majority PAC. Other organizations, such as Forward Action Fund, Mind the Gap, and People for the American Way, contributed more than $1 million each.

FTX's bankruptcy proceedings have involved multiple lawsuits targeting political entities that received donations.

In total, FTX is pursuing the return of $38 million in political contributions made before its collapse, alleging that the funds were improperly sourced from customer deposits.

FTX’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, reportedly donated more than $40 million to both Democratic and Republican candidates during the 2022 election cycle.

Balancer-Aave Partnership Introduces 100% Boosted Pools

Ethereum automated market maker Balancer has launched a V3 upgrade in partnership with lending protocol Aave, with features aimed at enhancing liquidity management in decentralized finance.

The upgrade introduces a “100% Boosted Pools” feature that allows liquidity providers to participate in passive liquidity solutions while also accessing external yield markets.

The pools maintain liquidity for swaps and enable users to maximize their yields with minimal effort.

Balancer V3 also introduces custom pool types that allow projects to create tailored liquidity solutions.

Its hooks framework enables dynamic liquidity management, allowing for real-time fee adjustments and optimized yield strategies.

Aave Labs founder Stani Kulechov said that the collaboration combines the strengths of both platforms to empower users with enhanced capital efficiency and simplified yield generation, according to a press release.

Unlock zero trading fees, up to 5.1% APY on USDC, boosted staking rewards and more with Coinbase One. 

Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍

  • 💸📊 World Liberty Financial, a DeFi project backed by the Trump family, swapped $5 million in stablecoins for ETH, bringing its ether holdings to $50 million.

  • 🚫🗳️ Fewer than 1% of Microsoft’s shareholders supported a proposal to allocate 1% of the company’s assets to bitcoin.

  • ❌ U.S. senators postponed voting on the renomination of SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw after crypto industry pushback, citing her concerns about fraud and manipulation involving spot Bitcoin products.

  • 📉🐹 Hamster Kombat's player base shrank by another 18 million in the past month, leaving just 23 million active users, a sharp fall from its peak of 300 million in August that was accompanied by a 97% drop in token trading volume to $52 million.

  • ⚡ Marinade Finance proposed a governance measure to curb malicious validators and democratize MEV on Solana, aiming to balance transaction optimization with decentralization while addressing rising concerns over sandwich attacks.

Today in Crypto Adoption...

  • ₿ Vancouver's city council approved exploring bitcoin integration into municipal finance, including accepting taxes and holding reserves in BTC, and a feasibility report is due by Q1 next year.

The $$$ Corner…

  • 💰🛠️ Commonware raised $9 million, co-led by Haun Ventures and Dragonfly, to develop modular blockchain tools allowing developers to customize their networks without relying on outdated frameworks.

What Do You Meme?

Image

📈 Your Market Update 📉

  • BTC is up 2.7%, trading at $100,810

  • ETH is up 5.7%, trading at $3,936

  • BTC dominance: 52.3%

  • Crypto market cap: $3.81T

*All data as of today, 07:53 am ET. Source: CoinGecko

Recommended Reads

  1. Blockworks Research on how Ethena’s sUSDe is being utilized

  2. Ryan Rasmussen, head of research at Bitwise: 10 crypto predictions for 2025

  3. Guy Itzhaki, CEO of Ethereum L2 Fhenix on post-quantum cryptography

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