WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter - Apr 27

Welcome back to this week's edition of our WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter!

Bitcoin since halving

The release of Runes brought the highest fees ever seen on the Bitcoin network. One single block included 40 BTC of fines! Since the launch, Runes has generated over $135 million worth of fees. The average fee per transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain has hovered around $40 (funnily enough, at the same time ETH fees have significantly dropped), and 45% of overall Bitcoin activity was thanks to Runes. The price of BTC itself has remained relatively stagnant despite this increased activity, moving between $63k and $67k all week. A lot of miners are quitting after the halving because of the reduced chance of making a profit, but PayPal doesn’t seem to mind as it’s investing in green energy sources for miners, clearly believing that the network will remain active.

Learn more here.

ConsenSys sues SEC

ConsenSys, a leading web3 and blockchain software company and the creators of Metamask, has filed a lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The lawsuit hopes to declare ETH as NOT a security, and to help protect developers from how people use their code. An ongoing example of the latter is the developers of Tornado Cash, a privacy protocol and mixing service that criminals use; the devs are in legal proceedings for the actions the criminals using their software took.

Learn more here and here.

CZ might face jailtime

The founder of Binance, commonly known as CZ, has been in the US facing charges of money laundering, and note that he allowed users to exchange on the platform who were sanctioned by the US (focusing on AML/KYC rules). The thing is, neither CZ nor the exchange were American so American sanctions don’t really apply to them. I guess we’ll see how it plays out, but the sentence could be up to three years. CZ’s lawyers note that others who had been charged with the same or similar charges didn’t receive jail time, and even so, the amount is almost twice the federal sentencing guidelines.

Learn more here.

Restaking profit overtakes Liquid Staking

If you aren’t sure what liquid staking is, make sure to check out our latest video. Major liquid staking platforms have lost 23% of their total value locked (TVL) since March’s all-time high, holding around $48 billion. The TVL in all of liquid staking platforms is $10.3 billion; meanwhile, the TVL in EigenLayer’s restaking protocols is already over $15 billion.

Learn more here.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something!

- Theodore