WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter - Oct 19

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

SUI Token sales not from Foundation

The Sui Foundation has refuted claims that insiders sold $400 million worth of tokens, calling the accusations "false." The foundation clarified that insiders are subject to lockups, preventing them from selling the tokens in question. The controversy started after X user Lightcrypto claimed that insiders were selling tokens from the ICO, but Sui firmly denies this. Instead, Sui suggested it was more likely an "infrastructure partner" from the ICO who was selling their tokens after their own lockup period ended.

Learn more here.

Vitalik suggests Ethereum changes

To be an Ethereum staker, you need 32 ETH. That’s a lot of capital up front, which makes it really hard for solo stakers to participate; they need to delegate their smaller capital to larger staking pools, which is fine but it means smaller rewards. The other big hurdle to mass adoption of Ethereum is the slower speed and higher fees; that’s largely because of how many validators need to sign off on transactions before they are finalized. To solve these problems and make Ethereum more accessible, Vitalik suggested in a recent blog post to lower the staking minimum to 1 ETH and changing to single-slot finality for faster transaction speeds. He identifies a few ways to achieve this, but the Ethereum community will have to decide whether to make these changes or not, and how.

Learn more here.

TON goes cross-chain

The TON blockchain has partnered with Axelar’s permissionless Mobius Development Stack (MDS) to introduce its first cross-chain interoperability infrastructure. Using this, TON dApps will be able to connect to 68 other blockchains, including Ethereum, Cosmos and Polkadot. One key feature is interchain token transfers, removing the need for bridges, which are a major security concern in the crypto ecosystem. What this will look like for the end user isn’t clear yet, but in theory (and for the best adoption) the user won’t need to know they are using multiple blockchains—it’ll just work.

Learn more here.

Fantom to become Sonic Labs

The Fantom blockchain is rebranding to Sonic Labs. Their litepaper was published on Oct 14 and describes the networks’ tech upgrades including a possible 900 million transactions per day, which is far out of current need but if it’s true that could be great for adoption. The FTM token will migrate to $S, a retroactive airdrop for active users and Opera users, and the ongoing bounty program that ends Nov. 4.

Learn more here.

Betting market predictions diverge

With the US federal election coming up, betters are making predictions about the outcome across various betting platforms. Polymarket, one of the largest that’s made a lot of news (even non-crypto news!) lately, has Trump firmly in the lead. This is despite other markets and traditional surveys showing a much tighter race. It’s come out that there are a handful of whales who are moving the market, with over 41 million shares between them that equal almost $26 million of total betting power. So, be careful what you read online folks, and know that when money is involved, it only takes a few rich people to make a big difference.

Learn more here.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something!

- Theodore