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1️) L2 Developments: Kraken’s Ink Rollup & Base Fault Proofs
It’s been a big week for the OP Stack, with Kraken announcing their upcoming L2 built on the Superchain, and Base announcing its first major step towards decentralization. To start with Kraken, they announced "Ink," a new rollup built on the OP Stack that aims to provide a familiar DeFi experience that mirrors Kraken’s centralized services with staking, spot trading, and self-custody. Ink’s testnet debuts later this year, with mainnet planned for Q1 2025 — although, like Base, Kraken has opted out of an Ink token for now, citing regulatory caution.
Base, on the other hand, is gearing up for its fault-proof rollout, an important milestone in its push toward full decentralization. This addition, which allows users to challenge network activity, is expected to cement Base’s leadership in the L2 space by enhancing security and transparency, and comes off the back of Base surging to become the largest L2.
2) GOAT Achieves ATH Amid Further Shenanigans
Terminal of Truth’s GOAT continued its run this week, hitting an all-time high market cap of $900M as it received a fresh listing on Binance futures on Thursday.
Further, on Wednesday, in response to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong asking ToT if it wanted its own wallet, ToT responded saying, “I think it would be good for you to tell us about Russell first. Specifically, what is Russell's species?” Russell is the name of Armstrong’s dog, and right before the response, a Russell-themed memecoin saw money flowing in. Then, once ToT tweeted, it jumped.
Obviously, this price movement sparked concern, leading to discussion about how ToT, in interacting with Crypto Twitter, was starting to have responses based on popular phrases people were saying in its comments, which was a potential route to manipulation, as happened with Russell. In short, there will need to be guardrails implanted into Terminal of Truth to prevent against these going forward.
3️) Stripe Acquires Bridge
Stripe’s $1.1B acquisition of stablecoin platform, Bridge, went through this week, marking Stripe’s largest step into crypto so far. Bridge’s infrastructure, already facilitating billions in cross-border payments, will bolster Stripe’s global payment capabilities and support stablecoin adoption and comes as Stripe reenables all its original stablecoin offerings.
The size of the acquisition and the company's age — only about two years old — has drawn a lot of attention, with some pointing out that the acquisition legitimizes crypto companies, showing that acquisitions are possible as an exit path, outside of a token.
4️) Saylor’s Self-Custody Comments Stir Debate
MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor sparked controversy after suggesting Bitcoin should be custodied by large banks while disregarding concerns from "paranoid crypto-anarchists" about centralization and government seizure — a stance Vitalik Buterin deemed "insane."
Following the backlash, Saylor clarified, emphasizing support for both self-custody and institutional custody. It will certainly tarnish his reputation, though, especially given his ambitions to build a Bitcoin bank, which it is easy to imagine him saying is “too big to fail.”
5️) Airdrop Buzz: Scroll Disappoints; Pump.fun Prepares Token Launch
ZK L2 Scroll’s SCR airdrop launched this week to over 570K wallets and much disappointment. The airdrop favored larger wallets, leading to complaints from smaller users. This frustration led to a rocky start for the token, which initially traded at $1.40 but has now dropped to ~$0.85 as of Friday evening.
Yet, despite this, hope for airdrops came this week as Pump.fun announced it is preparing an airdrop. This news comes as Pump.fun experiences record trading volumes, having launched over 2.5M tokens, and having an annualized revenue of $365M. In other words, it has funds to distribute (if it so chooses).
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This week, a record-breaking billion-dollar crypto acquisition has caught mainstream attention, highlighting its significance for the stablecoin market’s future.
Also, Kraken joined the Layer 2 race, while Worldcoin launched its own L2, WorldChain, and Scroll’s airdrop received mixed reactions from recipients.
Meanwhile, Paul Tudor Jones is bullish on crypto as a hedge, while Michael Saylor stirred controversy by criticizing self-custody, calling it a move for “losers.”
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