The Protocol: Trump.fun and Crypto Memes

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PLUS - Ethereum's EVM Set for Pectra Revamp |

August 14, 2024

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Hi, Bradley Keoun here,

Memecoin trading is supposed to be lucrative, but also fun. In a strange way, this week's fee cuts at Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun has, for many traders, made it neither. For observers of the spectacle, however, It's entertaining enough to gawk at the memecoins surrounding former President Donald Trump. Read on.

PLUS:

Ethereum developers prep "EOF" revamp of ubiquitous EVM programming environmentIndia's WazirX ditches custodian, moves to multisig wallets after $230M exploitTop picks from the past week's Protocol Village column: Fedi, Manta Pacific, Cubist, Babylon, Aleph Zero, Arbitrum, Stacks $76 million of blockchain project fundraisings: Sahara AI, Essential, Parfin, Vessel Finance, BasedVC

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Network News

TRUMP.FUN – Former President Donald Trump's speech just a couple weeks ago at the Bitcoin Nashville conference now seems like a distant memory. Not only has he been overtaken by Vice President Kamala Harris as the frontrunner in this year's U.S. presidential election – at least in the eyes of punters on the prediction-betting site Polymarket – but his name and family members are now regularly getting dragged into conversations about memecoins. It started last week when one of his sons, Eric Trump, tweeted that he has "fallen in love with Crypto / DeFi. Stay tuned for a big announcement," as related by CoinDesk's Krisztian Sandor. Then on Thursday, a newly launched cryptocurrency on Solana (SOL) called Restore the Republic, or RTR, rumored to be the official token of Donald Trump, began trading, shooting to a $155 million market capitalization within hours after the launch. Eric Trump then warned users of "fake tokens" and said that the "only official Trump project has not been announced." RTR tumbled 95%. His brother, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted that while he loves "how much the crypto community is embracing Trump," traders should "beware of fake tokens claiming to be part of the Trump project." Then there was the former president's Spaces session on Monday with X owner Elon Musk, during which the pair notably didn't even mention Bitcoin or crypto. According to The Block, the omission sent prices tumbling for the tokens with names like MAGA Hat and Doland Tremp. The crypto news site Decrypt reported that some 10,000 tokens were launched during the Spaces on the memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, where the $2 issuance fee was completely eliminated earlier this week – making it that much easier and cheaper to launch a token. Based on one account posted on X, after Trump uttered the phrase "rough people" about five times in a row, there were at least 10 distinct memecoins launched with the name "ROUGH PEOPLE." Some memecoin traders complained that using Pump.fun was "not fun anymore" because there were "10,000 scams." But for at least one commenter, watching the action felt almost like a news feed: "I don’t even need to watch the space when there’s pump fun."

ELSEWHERE:

Crypto executives and investors are pursuing efforts to support Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, even without a direct indication of how she'll approach the sector. The fledgling "crypto4harris" effort is supposed to kick off Wednesday with an online forum at which prominent industry figures are expected to gather under the vice president's banner. Such initiatives don't yet have formal ties to the Harris campaign. Amid controversy over the recent Venezuelan presidential election, local users of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, experienced difficulty accessing the site, the company said in a post on X on Friday. "Like several company websites in different segments in Venezuela, including social media, Binance's pages have been facing access restrictions," the exchange posted. Tigran Gambaryan, the U.S. Binance employee held in Nigeria, is being "denied adequate access to his legal team and his health is deteriorating rapidly," his family said in an emailed statement to CoinDesk on Monday.

Ethereum Set For Overhaul of Crucial Programming Standard With 'EVM Object Format'

Artistically modified screenshot from code describing new EOF "containers" (Ipsilon/GitHub, modified by CoinDesk using PhotoMosh)

Ethereum developers are steering toward an upgrade that could bring the most fundamental changes in the network's programming environment since the original smart-contracts blockchain shook up the crypto industry when it launched nearly a decade ago.

The Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) known as EVM Object Format (EOF), which has been discussed extensively in developer circles this year because of some participants' concerns about possible security risks, is now set to be included in a major package of changes expected later this year or early next, known as the Pectra hard fork.

The EOF proposal is a series of smaller changes aiming to update the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), the programming environment that executes smart contracts on the blockchain, and arguably Ethereum’s secret sauce that made it different from Bitcoin and other early distributed networks when it launched in 2015.

Specifically, EOF would make smart contracts more developer friendly, especially for those building decentralized applications in Solidity or Vyper programming languages. The series of changes are incredibly delicate that can break existing smart contracts, so developers have added in a new version, allowing dapp builders to choose which version of the EVM to use when deploying their code.

“EOF will be the first major EVM related change in years,” said Parithosh Jayanthi, a core developer at the Ethereum Foundation, over a text message on Telegram to CoinDesk. “It sets the stage for future upgrades to the EVM and showcases the base layers intent to continue to improving the EVM.”

Click here for the full story by Margaux Nijkerk

Protocol Village

Top picks of the past week from our Protocol Village column, highlighting key blockchain tech upgrades and news.

Screenshot from OP_RETURN announcement verifier of Fedi's open-source pledge, written into a PDF file and then cryptographically hashed (CoinDesk/Fedi/announcement-verifier.replit.app)

Fedi, describing itself as a "community superapp" or a "frontend application" atop Fedimint, a protocol for community custody of bitcoin, launched on Aug. 6, according to a blog post. The project simultaneously revealed that on May 4 it included a cryptographic hash of a PDF memo from Fedi pledging to transition its software to fully open-source its software by January 2026. This blog post explains that the cryptographic hash can be verified by dropping the file into the verifier along with the transaction ID. Manta Pacific, the native layer 2 (L2) blockchain of Manta Network, said it's "the first L2 to adopt a Multiple Data Availability (MultiDA) framework." According to the team: "This MultiDA strategy will provide uninterrupted service and cost efficiency without impacting user experience or fees. By integrating with partners like Celestia, Nuffle Labs, EigenDA, 0G, Nubit, and Dill, Manta will enhance the security, resilience and uptime of its network. Manta has saved its users over $6 million since December 2023 with Celestia DA." Cubist, through its key management platform CubeSigner, introduced what it says is "the first and only key management solution for Babylon," a Bitcoin staking protocol. According to the team: "CubeSigner now supports complete and secure policy-protected workflows for Babylon deposits, early unbondings and withdrawals. Aleph Zero, a privacy-focused blockchain project, has launched an EVM-compatible layer-2 network using Arbitrum Orbit to boost transaction speeds and efficiency. Stacks Foundation, supporting the Bitcoin scaling-layer project Stacks, confirmed Aug. 28 as the new target date to start the activation sequence for its months-delayed "Nakamoto upgrade," which aims to bring significant improvements to both security and speed, with increased transaction throughput, "100% Bitcoin finality" and mitigation of Bitcoin miner extractable value (MEV).

Click here for the full Protocol Village list

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Money Center

Fundraisings

Blockchain platform Sahara AI raised $43 million to support its development of a decentralized service promoting sovereignty and provenance in artificial intelligence. The funding round was led by Pantera Capital, Binance Labs and Polychain Capital and included participation from Samsung, Matrix Partners, Foresight Ventures and others.Blockchain project Essential raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Archetype and with participation from several other high-profile investors. Essential's aim is to offer an "intent-centric, declarative approach." Parfin, a digital assets infrastructure company, said it raised an initial $10 million in a Series A investment round and that it expects to reach $16 million by the end of a second closing. The company will use the funds to expand its enterprise-grade blockchain, Rayls, hire more staff and fund its global expansion, with a focus on Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Vessel Finance, a zero-knowledge(ZK) powered decentralized exchange that says it's "evolving into a comprehensive layer-3 network for DeFi, has raised $10 million in a seed round," according to the team: "The round included key investments from Sequoia, Scroll, Avalanche Foundation, Algorand Foundation, IMO Ventures, Folius Ventures and @Incuba_Alpha. The funding is strategically planned for: building and optimizing ZK Infrastructures, expanding strategic collaborations and a reward program." BasedVC, describing itself as a "token-powered, decentralized proprietary investment platform," has raised $2 million in a seed round as official investment partners to Neo Tokyo, Kongz Capital and more.

Deals and Grants

WazirX Ends Custody Relationship With Liminal, Is Moving Funds to New Multisig Wallets MetaMask Starts Rollout of Blockchain-Based Debit Card Developed With Mastercard, Baanx TON Crypto Ecosystem Gets Its Own Venture Fund to Invest $40M in Consumer Apps Bitcoin Miner Marathon Digital Plans $250M Private Note Sale to Fund Bitcoin Buying Goldman Sachs Holds Over $400M in Bitcoin ETFs Crypto.com Secures Multiyear Sponsorship Deal With UEFA Champions League

Data and Tokens

Coinbase Promotes cbBTC, Wrapped Bitcoin Alternative for Base Blockchain As Restaking Takes Shape on Solana, Ethereum's Renzo Jumps in With 'ezSOL' Bitcoin Miner Capitulation and Record High Hashrate Point to Possible Price Bottom: CryptoQuant Franklin Templeton's Tokenized Money Market Fund Expands to Arbitrum XRP Bullish Options' Popularity Jump May Be Due to ETF Speculation, Observers Say Hamster Kombat Says It Skipped VC Fund Offers, Bashes 'Exit Liquidity' Behavior

Regulatory and Policy

Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations in Long-Running SEC Case Australia's Securities Regulator Sues ASX for Misleading Statements About Blockchain Project Dragonfly, Crypto.com Weigh in on CFTC's Proposed Prediction Market Rules Japan's Top Regulator Says Crypto-ETF Approvals Need 'Cautious Consideration:' Report SEC Subpoenas Three Crypto VCs in Sign Crackdown Gaining Pace (DLNews)

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