Scenius Sync (Issue #102)

8 Ethereum ETFs Approved, FIT21 Crypto Bill Passes US House, Trump Pledges to Free Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht, & RIP Kabosu

Scenius: The intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. The communal form of the concept of genius.

Welcome to The Scenius Sync.

Our mission with this concise publication is twofold:

1. Share the essential stories driving the crypto industry and markets.

2. Highlight innovative applications and mainstream adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.

If you find this newsletter valuable, please subscribe and share The Scenius Sync with your network 💪

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Essential News 🗞

1. FIT21 crypto bill passes US House: Here’s what could happen next

   • A bill clarifying the United States securities and commodities regulator’s roles in policing crypto is headed to an unknown future as it makes its way to the Senate before going to President Joe Biden’s desk. SEC Chair Gary Gensler publicly opposed FIT21 on May 22, saying it creates “new regulatory gaps” and risks capital markets stability. Its success in the House of Representatives is seen by many as an early win for crypto. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong described the bill’s passage — along with getting 71 Democrats onside — as “a total victory” and a win for “clear crypto rules.”

   • Coverage from Barron’s here: The House Passed a Crypto Bill That’s Crucial for the Industry. Its Future Is Murky.

2. Trump Pledges to Free Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht If Re-Elected

   • “If you vote for me, on Day 1, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served,” Trump said during his Saturday night remarks at the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, D.C. “He’s already served 11 years, we’re gonna get him home.” Hours before those remarks, Trump took to social media to praise the crypto industry, writing on Truth Social:

     “I am very positive and open minded to cryptocurrency companies, and all things related to this new and burgeoning industry. Our country must be the leader in the field. There is no second place,” Trump wrote, adding that President Joe Biden “wants [the cryptocurrency industry] to die a slow and painful death. That will never happen with me!”

3. Kabosu, Dog Who Inspired Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, Is No More

   • Popular dog Kabosu, the face of dogecoin and several other meme tokens, died early Friday, her owner wrote in a blog post. She was over 17 years old.

     “We will be holding a farewell party for Kabo-chan on Sunday, May 26th . It will be held at Flower Kaori in Kotsu no Mori, Narita City, from 1pm to 4pm,” the blog reads. Kabosu’s viral meme picture inspired the creation of dogecoin in 2013, initially starting off as a joke currency. DOGE’s success later birthed a whole cohort of dog-themed tokens such as shiba inu and floki, which have since cumulatively become one of the industry’s biggest sectors.

4. Roman Storm's defense alleges prosecutorial overreach in Tornado Cash developer's final pretrial motions

   • Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm’s defense has filed a series of final pretrial motions to dismiss the charges and contest the evidence the government has marshaled against the mixing protocol developer.  One motion alleges the government’s indictment amounts to “prosecutorial overreach” while another calls the seizure of cryptocurrency from Storm’s home a “wholesale assault on the Fourth Amendment.” 

5. Coinbase reopens XRP trading in New York

   • On May 23, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, announced that customers in the state of New York could once again trade XRP on the crypto exchange after a nine-month hiatus. Many centralized exchanges, including Coinbase, Bittrex and Binance.US, delisted XRP after the SEC accused Ripple Labs of selling unregistered securities. These same exchanges reversed course and relisted the digital asset after Judge Analisa Torres ruled in 2023 that secondary sales of XRP did not constitute securities sales.

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Innovation & Adoption 💡📈

1. SEC approves 8 Ethereum ETFs including BlackRock and Fidelity

   • The SEC has approved eight spot Ethereum ETFs in an omnibus order. This comes just four months after the agency approved spot Bitcoin ETFs for the first time. The SEC approved 19b-4 forms for the ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, Bitwise, VanEck, Ark, Invesco Galaxy and Franklin Templeton.

   • Ether price nears $4,000 as market awaits Ethereum ETFs going live

2. Global Bitcoin ETFs surpass 1 million BTC under management

   • According to Bold.report data, all Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) collectively hold over one million Bitcoin, a milestone first achieved on March 12. These ETFs are distributed across several countries, including the US, Sweden, Hong Kong, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil, and Australia. US-based ETFs lead the pack, with Grayscale GBTC holding roughly 292,000 BTC, followed by BlackRock IBIT with approximately 280,000 BTC, and Fidelity FBTC at 162,000 BTC. These three giants together hold approximately 734,000 BTC.

3. Ethereum targets Q1 2025 for Pectra upgrade rollout, following Dencun

   • Ethereum core developers target to release the Pectra upgrade by the first quarter of 2025. The upgrade includes the Ethereum Virtual Machine Object Format (EOF), which features 11 improvement proposals aimed at enhancing the EVM code. Pectra will integrate EIP-7251, known as “increase max effective balance,” allowing validators to stake up to 2,048 ETH, a substantial increase from the current 32 ETH limit. The existing account abstraction proposal, EIP-3074, will be replaced by EIP-7702, a new proposal from Vitalik Buterin.

4. Bitcoin Is Coming to Ethereum Stalwart MetaMask

   • MetaMask is a giant in the Ethereum ecosystem, the most-used wallet on that blockchain. It's poised to cross one of the biggest tribal divides in cryptocurrencies, with plans to add support for Bitcoin, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The exact timeline is unclear, but one person said access could arrive in MetaMask within the next month. Another person said the exact Bitcoin functionality is not yet set in stone, but features could initially be limited and expanded over time.

5. Solana’s Phantom Wallet Becomes the #1 Finance App on Google Play

   • Phantom Wallet, designed for Solana, has become the top finance app on Google Play in the U.S., surpassing CashApp and PayPal, with 770,000 downloads in April 2024. Phantom offers a user-friendly interface, robust security with hardware wallet support, and an integrated decentralized exchange, contributing to its rapid adoption and popularity. Reflecting Solana’s mainstream appeal, Phantom’s success is linked to Solana’s rising Total Value Locked (TVL) of $4.74 billion and SOL’s price surge to $166.33, marking a 752% increase over the past year.