Author: Coindesk

2024 has been a year of significant progress for the crypto industry, as bitcoin adoption has reached new heights and regulatory clarity has emerged. In this wrap-up, we will take a closer look at the key events and trends that have shaped the crypto space. Read the full article here

Gensler’s departure press release on Thursday referenced the agency’s clashes with crypto, noting, “Court after court agreed with the Commission’s actions to protect investors and rejected all arguments that the SEC cannot enforce the law when securities are being offered — whatever their form.” Read the full article here

“A big problem with Ethereum right now is that for a block to be considered finalized, it generally takes 12 to 19 minutes,” Farmer said. “If you’re moving funds between like Arbitrum and Polygon: until that transaction has been withdrawn from Arbitrum and deposited to Polygon, Polygon can’t safely credit those funds to a user until that transaction has been finalized on the L1. So that just leads to a bad user-experience, whereas if you have 12-second finality, that becomes a better user experience.” Read the full article here

Not all crypto projects have clear value, however. Memecoins, digital tokens whose value is driven by internet attention rather than tangible use, are divisive — even within crypto circles. For example, dogecoin, a favorite of Elon Musk, has a market value exceeding 94% of companies in the S&P 500, despite lacking a product or business model. Recently, Chris Dixon, at Andreessen Horowitz, even criticized memecoins’ as undermining understanding of the sector’s utility. If one was looking for a reason to argue crypto is a scam, you could find it in pockets of the memecoin world. Read the full article here

Gary Gensler is stepping down. And no one in crypto is going to miss the SEC chair. Under his tenure, the lead U.S. securities regulator led a wide-ranging campaign against digital assets companies that was both damaging and frequently unfair. Meanwhile, Gensler offered no clarity to crypto companies wanting to do business the right way. At times, it seemed that Gary, along with his ally, Senator Elizabeth Warren, simply wanted to let crypto die on the vine — such was their obvious distaste for the industry and its arguments. Read the full article here

“In the last full fiscal year, according to the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General, 18 percent of the SEC’s tips, complaints, and referrals were crypto-related, despite the crypto markets comprising less than 1 percent of the U.S. capital markets,” the press release said. “Court after court agreed with the Commission’s actions to protect investors and rejected all arguments that the SEC cannot enforce the law when securities are being offered — whatever their form.” Read the full article here

With bitcoin (BTC) continuing to post record highs and now nearing the $100,000 level, profit-taking is on the rise — $4 billion of realized profit in each of the last two days, according to Glassnode — but for every seller, there’s a buyer, so a closer look at the data might be warranted. Read the full article here

Jito’s governance token JTO was created in the image of most every cryptoasset tied to a DAO: holders vote on proposals, and the more tokens they have, the more power they wield in the DAO. Like most governance tokens, JTO captured no direct economic upside. Read the full article here

Decentralized AI presents a promising alternative to open and closed-sourced AI by leveraging blockchain technology and crypto-based incentives. In decentralized AI systems, no single entity controls the network; instead, ownership, access, and rewards are distributed among participants. This approach addresses the funding and coordination issues that plague open-source AI by introducing token economies that provide ongoing financial incentives to contributors. For example, decentralized networks like NEAR, Bittensor, Allora, Sentient, and Sahara aim to reward participants with native tokens for their contributions to training and improving AI models, creating a sustainable economic model that could enable developers to fund ongoing development.…

“By bringing together the power and connectivity of Mastercard’s MTN with Kinexys Digital Payments, we are unlocking greater speed and settlement capabilities for the entire value chain. We are excited about this integration and the new use cases it will bring to life, leveraging the strengths and innovations of both organizations,” said Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president, Blockchain and Digital Assets at Mastercard in a statement. Read the full article here