The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
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Solana Validators Gain on Trump Coins |
Solana's validators experienced a record influx of over 100,000 SOL, worth nearly $25.8 million, in fees and tips due to intense trading activity of the TRUMP and MELANIA tokens.
The peak occurred on Jan. 20, with validators receiving over 87,000 SOL, driven largely by the TRUMP token's rally, before MELANIA attracted bets. The surge in activity led to 24.7 million transaction bundles to ensure success. Of the 4.5 million daily active users on Solana, 1.5 million were unique tippers, showcasing interest in token sniping on platforms like Meteora and Orca.
Bundles on Solana refer to collections of transactions that are grouped together and sent to validators for processing. Tippers are users or bots who include additional fees (or tips) in their transactions to incentivize validators to prioritize their transactions in the block.
The trading activity briefly raised passive income for stakers to 7.14% annually, while inflation rates fell below 5%. TRUMP was trading at $42 on Wednesday morning, up 25% in the past 24 hours, while MELANIA registered slight losses trading at $4. |
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Crypto Is Trump's Biggest Coin Crypto |
Among the most vocal critics of TRUMP, the controversial and wildly popular memecoin launched by Donald Trump on the eve of his 2025 inauguration, are the very crypto enthusiasts he may have hoped to court. The TRUMP coin, launched on Jan. 17, saw a dramatic price surge, climbing from $7 to an all-time high of $75 within 24 hours before settling at $38. Two days after TRUMP’s debut, MELANIA, a coin endorsed by First Lady Melania Trump, entered the market. Unlike its predecessor, MELANIA has struggled, starting around $7 and plummeting below $4 after a briefly peaking at $14. While both tokens' volatile trajectories appear to have minted some overnight millionaires, they have also drawn sharp criticism from industry insiders. The potential for conflicts of interest has been a focal point of the backlash, with critics — including members of the U.S. congress — raising concerns that the token could enable individuals to curry favor with the president. Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House communications director turned crypto advocate, voiced his apprehensions on X (formerly Twitter): “The most perilous aspect of Trump coin for the nation is what follows. Now, anyone globally can effectively deposit money into the bank account of the President of the United States with just a few clicks. Every favor—be it geopolitical, corporate, or personal—is now openly for sale.” The decision to launch a memecoin has also sparked broader criticism within the crypto industry. While memecoins have become a prominent use-case for blockchain technology, many developers argue they reinforce a get-rich-quick perception that undermines the sector’s credibility. Gabor Gurbacs, founder of digital asset firm Pointsville, posted on X: “Trump needs to dismiss his crypto advisors, from top to bottom.” Nic Carter, a general partner at a crypto investment firm and a vocal Trump supporter, was similarly scathing: “It’s absolutely preposterous that he would do this," he told Politico. “They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the memecoin launch.” Specific concerns have been raised about the coin’s distribution. 80% of TRUMP tokens are concentrated in a small number of blockchain addresses controlled by CNC Digital, the firm that launched the coin. Such concentration is a hallmark of potential "pump-and-dump" schemes, where insiders inflate a token’s value before selling off their holdings, leaving other investors with losses. There's no evidence that Trump's team plans to "dump" its tokens. Nicolas Vaiman, CEO of blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps, noted to CoinDesk that the distribution of TRUMP tokens at least matched what was outlined on its official website. Additionally, the insider-held tokens align with prior distributions of Trump’s NFT trading cards, which were also managed by CNC Digital, meaning the tokens may be reserved for the president's NFT holders. The same transparency does not apply to MELANIA, however. About 89% of MELANIA tokens are controlled by insiders, according to Bubblemaps. The on-chain supply does not match an official distribution breakdown on the token's website, which earmarked 35% of tokens for "public distribution" and "community." Vaiman said the First Lady’s memecoin has cast a shadow over the original TRUMP coin: “TRUMP could have been a statement from President Trump saying, ‘I endorse crypto,’” Vaiman said. “Melania launching her tokens feels like they just want to make as much money as they can on this, and then forget about it. It gives this a different flavor.” This is not the first time the crypto community has questioned Trump’s forays into the industry. In August, Trump and his sons launched World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a platform that promised to develop a lending product. The project drew backlash for pre-selling tokens before delivering any tangible value, and critics were quick to point out the involvement of a former dating coach and memecoin promoter on the WLFI team, as well as the allocation of a percentage of presale proceeds directly to a Trump-controlled company. The conflict-of-interest potential was also immediately apparent. Tron blockchain-founder Justin Sun recently became WLFI’s largest investor, making a $30 million purchase of the project's tokens. In an X post on Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. announced that World Liberty Financial would acquire some of Tron’s TRX tokens for its treasury. |
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Cardone Condones Bitcoin-Real Estate |
Grant Cardone is the founder and CEO of Cardone Capital, a firm that manages about $5 billion in real estate. And he just introduced a new fund that invests property-generated cash flow into bitcoin (BTC). “Nobody else has ever done this to scale. Nobody's ever done this particular model,” Cardone told CoinDesk in an interview. “And the response from our investors is phenomenal.” “There’s a buddy of mine who’s known me for 15 years. He's never invested a penny with me. He's also never bought any bitcoin. He told me bitcoin was too risky, and the real estate was too slow. When I showed him the fund, he put $15 million in the deal,” Cardone said.
How does it work? For his pilot project, Cardone bought an apartment complex on the Space Coast in Melbourne, Florida, for $72 million, and ploughed an extra $15 million in bitcoin into the fund, for a total of $88 million. The cash flow generated by the property will be dollar-cost averaged into bitcoin every month for the next four years — or at least until the fund’s asset ratio, currently at 85% real estate and 15% bitcoin, shifts to 70% real estate and 30% bitcoin.
If the top cryptocurrency, now trading for $104,000, reaches the $158,000 mark within a year, the entire fund will grow by 25% in value. If it reaches $251,000 in two years, that number shoots up to 61%. Cardone’s projections assume that bitcoin will hit $1 million per coin within the next five years, and keep going up after that. And his ambition is to roll out 10 other such projects before June, for a grand total investment of $1 billion. If bitcoin rises according to Cardone’s projections, Cardone Capital may end up with a bitcoin reserve potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars solely off the back of its real estate cash flow. Cardone has been buying real estate for 30 years, and he’s famous for it, with over 4.8 million followers on Instagram, 2.7 million on YouTube, and 1.1 million on X. Cardone Capital manages 15,000 units — 6,000 of which belong to Cardone himself, and 9,000 of which have been crowdfunded across 18,400 investors, accredited or not. The firm distributes $80 million a year in dividends, and its last six deals were all paid in cash. “We don’t take institutional money,” Cardone said. “No sovereign funds, no Wall Street.”
“I am definitely a risk-taker, but I'm a real estate guy, so compared to the degenerates in the blockchain industry, I am so conservative, it's unbelievable,” Cardone said. Despite studying bitcoin for seven years, he did not see a way to combine real estate and bitcoin until MicroStrategy (MSTR) co-founder Michael Saylor suggested the model to him. “This is really a version of what he’s doing at MicroStrategy,” Cardone said.
One of the advantages of the real estate-bitcoin fund is that it allows the firm to raise capital much faster. Not only are investors piling into the initiative, but Cardone plans on issuing corporate bonds to get some long-term, cheap money, and somewhat replicate Saylor’s convertible note formula. |
Coinbase Appeals on Securities Question |
Coinbase has petitioned a U.S. appeals court to rule on whether or not the crypto trading activity on its platform should be subject to securities laws. In a Tuesday court filing, lawyers for Coinbase urged the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to hear its case, arguing that it “presents the single best opportunity to decide the fundamental legal question of how to treat the secondary trading of digital assets.” “This case cries out for the Court’s immediate attention,” lawyers for Coinbase wrote in their petition. “Whether secondary-market trading of digital assets falls within the federal securities laws is a question of immense importance to the crypto industry, consumers, financial institutions, and lower courts in need of guidance. This case presents an ideal vehicle to address that question and provide clear rules for this multi-trillion-dollar industry.” Coinbase argued that crypto trading on its platform should not actually trigger federal securities laws because secondary crypto transactions don’t meet all the prongs of the Howey test, the long-standing legal framework used to decide what qualifies as an “investment contract.” Because buyers and sellers on Coinbase’s platform are matched in a blind bid-ask system and are therefore anonymous to each other, there can be no common enterprise between them, the filing said. The exchange’s petition comes two weeks after the Southern District of New York (SDNY) issued a rare stay in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) case against Coinbase, allowing Coinbase time to appeal to a higher court for clarity. The SEC sued Coinbase in June 2023 for allegedly acting as an unregistered securities exchange, broker and clearing agency. When Coinbase attempted to get the suit dismissed, the district court judge overseeing the case denied its motion, finding that the SEC had made a “plausible” argument that the exchange was violating federal securities laws. On Jan. 7, however, the judge punted the question to a higher court, writing “conflicting decisions on important legal issues necessitate the Second Circuit’s guidance.” The SEC’s case against Coinbase will be put on pause while the exchange seeks answers from the Second Circuit. The same day Coinbase’s petition was filed, the SEC – now under the leadership of Republican Acting Chair Mark Uyeda – announced the formation of a crypto task force spearheaded by crypto-friendly Commissioner Hester Peirce. The move signals a shift away from the agency’s “regulation by enforcement” approach to crypto under former Chairman Gary Gensler. “To date, the SEC has relied primarily on enforcement actions to regulate crypto retroactively and reactively, often adopting untested legal interpretations along the way,” the SEC said in a statement. “Clarity regarding who must register and practical solutions for those seeking to register, have been elusive. The result has been confusion about what is legal, which creates an environment hostile to innovation and conducive to fraud. The SEC can do better." |
The Takeaway: Free the Internet-of-Money |
By Blake Benthall, the former operator of Silk Road 2.0. (The image above is from Ross Ulbricht's trial in 2015). The release of Ross Ulbricht and the lifting of sanctions on Tornado Cash mark pivotal moments for the crypto community. It’s more than symbolic. It’s an opportunity to clearly rebrand the U.S. as a safe place to build the internet of money.
Ross’ freedom comes after over a decade of imprisonment — a journey defined by relentless advocacy, legal battles, and unwavering support from the crypto community. His release matters deeply to me because over a decade ago I launched Silk Road 2.0, his site’s successor. His double life sentence without parole wasn’t just about the Silk Road, though. It symbolized the U.S. government’s resistance to the blockchain industry and to the idea of a financial system controlled by individuals instead of big banks.
The U.S. dollar is the world reserve currency; and, cryptocurrency has given the world democratized access to this reserve via stablecoins. Satoshi Nakamoto announced Bitcoin as a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system,” and the Silk Road was the first to actually execute that vision. Silk Road opened the door to cryptocurrency and introduced Silicon Valley (and many other groups) to bitcoin. It spawned companies like Coinbase, projects like Ethereum, and paved the way for stablecoins, which are not yet private.
Still, there is no legitimate marketplace for buying and selling things with bitcoin. Our industry’s reputation is that we’re highly speculative and scam-filled. We can’t forget that Satoshi created bitcoin for payments, not speculation.
The U.S. cannot miss out on the internet-of-money. During previous administrations, global developers have become nervous to even attend conferences hosted here. This has consequences for the U.S. crypto industry. Ross’ release is a clear signal that the U.S. is no longer a scary place to innovate in cryptocurrency. His experience underscores the need for proportionate justice and serves as a reminder of the human cost of overreach in regulating innovation.
His release is an opportunity for reflection — to celebrate his freedom while remaining clear-eyed about the past. Ultimately, his harsh sentence stymied bitcoin innovation for all of us. We must ensure his case becomes a catalyst for constructive change rather than a footnote in a history of missed opportunities, a series of memecoins, or a divisive narrative that further erodes trust.
Similarly, the case of Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm — who is still in legal jeopardy — clearly shows the dangers of criminalizing innovation. Tornado Cash offers a critical function (a “mixer”) in enabling private Ethereum transactions — an essential component of conducting business competitively.
It’s important to create privacy technologies, but we also need to understand the line between legal and illegal use cases. Yes, launch the Silk Road, but don’t allow the sale of drugs on it. Launch Tornado Cash, but don’t encourage money laundering on it. The chilling effect that both cases have had on developers like me cannot be overstated. Privacy innovators in the U.S. and abroad are now second-guessing their work, fearing legal repercussions for creating tools that protect privacy.
And what do you do when you launch something decentralized that takes on a life of its own? The sanctions on Tornado Cash were deemed unlawful by the Fifth Circuit Court, yet the Department of Justice dismissed the ruling as irrelevant. Tornado Cash’s developers were allegedly aware of its misuse for money laundering but did not act decisively to address it. On a decentralized platform, should its initial developers be responsible for users’ activity? There is a clear need for America to define a “Section 230” for developers of decentralized software to not be criminally liable for what their users do on their platforms. (“Section 230” refers to a law freeing social media platforms from responsibility for content published on their networks.)
As entrepreneur-politician Vivek Ramaswamy said, “You can’t go after the developers of code. What you actually need to do is go after individual bad actors who are breaking the laws that already exist.”
To move forward as an industry, we need to separate the tools from the misuse of those tools. Privacy technologies like Tornado Cash, Monero, and Zcash are unfairly stigmatized due to their potential use for illicit activities. But they hold transformative potential for legitimate use cases, from safeguarding personal financial data to enabling secure business transactions.
Full op-ed here. |
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