The Protocol: Ethereum Turns Ten

20 hours ago

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's play wrap-up of the astir important stories successful cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Margaux Nijkerk, CoinDesk’s Tech & Protocols reporter.

In this issue:

Ethereum At 10: Where Next For The World Computer?
Linea to Burn ETH With Every Transaction successful Bold L2 Upgrade
Solana Players Unveil ‘Internet Capital Markets’ Roadmap
Square Begins Rollout of Bitcoin Payments for Sellers, Targets Full Availability by 2026

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10 YEARS OF ETHEREUM: When Ethereum launched connected July 30, 2015, it acceptable retired to beryllium much than conscionable different cryptocurrency. It aimed to grow the boundaries of blockchain exertion itself. While Bitcoin became integer gold, Ethereum pursued a much expansive vision: to beryllium a decentralized “World Computer”—programmable, extensible, and open-ended. A decennary later, Ethereum has transformed finance, civilization and software. Along the way, it has faced existential crises, volatile markets and fierce interior debates. Now, it stands connected the cusp of a caller era—one that whitethorn spot it afloat embraced by accepted finance. Ethereum has seen an uptick successful the past 2 months arsenic the task hits the 10 twelvemonth milestone, with the terms of ether (ETH) rebounding to scope $3,800 successful July, aft it languishing astir $1,500 arsenic recnetly arsenic April. Over the past fewer months, the ecosystem has seen a caller question of usage cases including tokenization and stablecoin growth, and the web also benefited from the inclination of companies holding ETH successful their treasuries, not conscionable for semipermanent value, but to gain yield. On the anniversary, starring players from Ethereum's ecosystem measurement successful connected the past 10 years. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

LINEA’S COMPREHENSIVE PROTOCOL CHANGES: Linea, an Ethereum layer-2 web incubated by Consensys, has unveiled a broad suite of upgrades designed to embed the web deeper into the furniture 1’s economical and ideological fabric. Linea’s updated roadworthy map, expected to rotation retired successful October 2025, introduces ETH-native staking connected bridged assets, a protocol-level ETH pain mechanism, and the allocation of 85% of its token proviso to ecosystem development. This determination comes arsenic momentum successful the Ethereum ecosystem is building, acknowledgment to the increasing organization interest. The Linea squad wrote successful a property merchandise shared with CoinDesk that their updates volition “position Ethereum to conscionable the needs of blase superior arsenic TradFi begins to onboard to DeFi, and reenforce Linea arsenic a large location of aboriginal innovations successful on-chain superior markets, staking, and infrastructure.” The squad claims that of the updates, Linea volition go the archetypal furniture 2 to pain ETH astatine the protocol level and perpetrate 20% of nett transaction fees toward reducing Ethereum supply. The remaining 80% of fees volition beryllium utilized to pain LINEA tokens, which are capped successful supply, embedding deflationary unit straight into web activity. “Linea Mainnet volition pain ETH with each transaction, usage the LINEA token to enactment users, builders, and nationalist goods, and instrumentality worth to Ethereum’s basal layer, each portion increasing semipermanent worth successful the LINEA token-based economy,” said Declan Fox, Head of Linea, successful the property release. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

SOLANA PLAYERS UNVEIL ‘INTERNET CAPITAL MARKETS’ ROADMAP: Solana’s ecosystem is coalescing astir an updated imaginativeness its architects telephone “Internet Capital Markets”—a decentralized, high-performance instauration for the adjacent procreation of on-chain fiscal applications. While the web has agelong focused connected boosting bandwidth and slashing latency, its latest roadmap dives heavy into marketplace microstructure, arguing that the adjacent leap guardant lies successful giving applications granular power implicit transaction execution. The roadmap, which was coauthored from leaders of the Solana Foundation, Anza, Jito Labs, DoubleZero, Drift and Multicoin Capital, centers connected Application-Controlled Execution (ACE), which volition springiness astute contracts millisecond-level authorization implicit transaction sequencing. “In our conversations with teams crossed the ecosystem, marketplace microstructure is the azygous astir important occupation successful Solana today,” the authors wrote. The caller roadmap, published by Anza, a halfway contributor to the Solana blockchain, outlines six captious tradeoff dimensions: privateness vs. transparency, speedbumps vs. unfettered trading, inclusion vs. finality vs. latency, colocation vs. geographic decentralization, makers-first vs. takers-first priorities and flexible vs. opinionated architecture. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

SQUARE BEGINS ROLLOUT OF BTC PAYMENTS FOR SELLERS: Jack Dorsey's Square (XYZ) has begun the rollout of bitcoin payments for merchants connected its network. Square began onboarding the archetypal sellers, enabling them to judge Lightning Network-powered BTC payments from customers, Owen Jennings, enforcement serviceman astatine Square's genitor institution Block (XYZ), posted connected X past week. Payments are settled successful real-near clip utilizing Bitcoin layer-2 Lightning, with Square processing the speech into fiat. Square plans to marque the work disposable to each merchants utilizing its income level by adjacent year. The institution piloted the strategy astatine the Bitcoin 2025 league successful Las Vegas successful May, allowing attendees to marque purchases successful BTC by scanning a barcode. — Jamie Crawley Read more.

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In Other News

Strategy (MSTR), the largest firm proprietor of bitcoin said it has acquired astir $2.4 cardinal worthy of BTC utilizing the funds from its caller preferred banal (STRC) issuance. The steadfast sold astir $2.5 cardinal worthy of STRC, besides dubbed "stretch," to investors, importantly much than the primitively planned $500 million. STRC, which aims to present a regular dividend to investors initially acceptable astatine a 9% rate, volition commencement trading connected Wednesday connected Nasdaq. With the proceeds, the institution purchased 21,021 BTC astatine an mean terms of $117,256, according to a property release. That brings Strategy's bitcoin holdings to 628,791 BTC, worthy astir $74 cardinal astatine existent prices. — Krisztian Sandor Read more.
SharpLink Gaming (SBET), the Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury steadfast helmed by Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin, unveiled that its ether (ETH) holdings accrued to 438,190 tokens, worthy astir $1.68 cardinal astatine existent prices. The institution bought 77,209 ether (ETH), oregon $297 million, done the week ending connected July 27. It has besides raised $279 cardinal by selling shares, tapping at-the-market equity facility. The Minneapolis-based steadfast has pursued an assertive treasury strategy since its precocious May pivot, raising funds to accumulate the second-largest cryptocurrency and staking the tokens successful speech for rewards. The steadfast said it has earned 722 ETH since then. — Kristzian Sandor Read more.

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Regulatory and Policy

The integer assets industry's astir reliable U.S. Senate ally, Cynthia Lummis, has introduced her latest crypto bill, which would guarantee owe borrowers could usage their cryptocurrency holdings to assistance unafraid their loans. Last month, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte directed government-backed owe giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to travel up with proposals detailing however they tin see crypto holdings to underpin a mortgage. Lummis' measure would "permit the holdings of a borrower successful a integer asset, evidenced and maintained pursuant to a qualified custodial arrangement, to beryllium included successful the reserves of a borrower without conversion of the integer plus to United States dollars" — fundamentally codifying what Pulte is already seeking. "This authorities embraces an innovative way to wealth-building, keeping successful caput the increasing fig of young Americans who person integer assets," Lummis said successful a statement, suggesting those assets mightiness assistance span the spread to different unobtainable location ownership. — Jesse Hamilton Read more.
Roman Storm, the Tornado Cash developer lasting proceedings successful Manhattan connected charges that the privateness instrumentality helium created helped hackers and different cyber criminals launder much than $1 cardinal successful transgression proceeds, won't instrumentality the stand, his lawyers told the court. Storm told District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) that helium was alert that helium had the close to attest successful his ain defence but chose not to. After Storm made his decision, his defence team, led by Keri Axel and Brian Klein of Waymaker LLP, rested their lawsuit connected Tuesday afternoon. — Cheyenne Ligon Read more.

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