Ethereum's Split Decision

1️⃣ Ethereum's Pectra Upgrade Split

On Thursday, Ethereum developers announced their decision to split the upcoming Pectra upgrade into two phases to minimize risks and ensure a smooth rollout. The first phase will introduce eight Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), such as EIP-7702, focused on enhancing the wallet user experience, while the second will target more complex updates, like adding PeerDAS for data availability, which will further reduce costs and improve scalability for L2s. This decision aims to reduce potential bugs and security issues, with developers targeting early 2025 for deployment.

Unpacking Pectra: Ethereum’s Next Upgrade on Bankless

ETH’s next hard fork is a bigger deal than you think.

BanklessWilliam M. Peaster

2️⃣ Breakpoint's Solana Developments

Solana Breakpoint kicked off Friday in Singapore with big updates like Franklin Templeton's upcoming mutual fund on Solana, an early version of Jump's Firedancer validator client on mainnet, and multiple announcements from Jupiter Exchange, such as their acquisition of trading terminal Coinhall and blockchain explorer SolanaFM. Meanwhile, we also got to take an early peek at Seeker, the next Solana Mobile smartphone, and got eyes on a series of payment and wallet updates from Phantom, Fuse Wallet, and Shopify, which will allow people to sell goods on Twitter via Blinks. 

Solana Unveils New Crypto Phone Seeker with 140K Presales on Bankless

Solana unveils new crypto smartphone Seeker with 140K presales. Features include Seed Vault Wallet, updated dApp Store, and exclusive rewards.

BanklessDavid C

3️⃣ BTC Charges Ahead With Alts

Bitcoin gained 5% this week, briefly surpassing $64K on Friday before inching back to $62-63K, while Ethereum and Solana netted 6% and 8% gains respectively. The U.S. Federal Reserve’s somewhat unexpected 50bps rate cuts, followed by strong employment data, and Bank of Japan’s Thursday decision to hold rates have traders shifting increasingly risk on, with many leading alts like Sui, Celestia, and Bittensor netting strong double-digit gains over the past seven days. 

4️⃣ Trump’s WLFI Project Draws Skepticism

Donald Trump revealed more details about World Liberty Financial (WLFI) during a Twitter space hosted by Rug Radio’s Farokh. Though the former President touted the importance of crypto, his lack of policy specifics raised eyebrows. WLFI, a “high-yield” project built on Aave, will feature a non-transferable governance token, with 63% available in an ICO-style sale for accredited investors. Despite insider concerns over token distribution, Trump’s crypto enthusiasm has rallied parts of the community, with prominent figures like Sandy Peng, co-founder of ZK L2 Scroll, and Luke Pearson, GP at Polychain Capital, joining on as advisors. However, the project faces skepticism about furthering bipartisan divides and drawing negative attention to DeFi if something goes wrong.

What We Know about Trump’s World Liberty Financial (WLFI) on Bankless

Trump’s X interview on the new DeFi platform left most questions unanswered.

BanklessJack Inabinet

5️⃣ SEC Faces Scrutiny

It was a busy week for the SEC. Their recent settlement with a company over a restaurant membership NFTs left even the SEC's own commissioners wondering, "How is this protecting consumers?" sparking internal dissent from commissioners Peirce and Uyeda. Meanwhile, GOP congressional leaders grilled SEC Chair Gary Gensler over the agency’s handling of airdrops, demanding clarification on how they differ from traditional rewards programs and damning the agency’s regulation as “Politicized.” All this negative press did not stop them from leveling charges against defunct DeFi protocol, Rari Capital, though these were resolved without fines.