Coindesk

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Margaux Nijkerk, CoinDesk’s Tech & Protocols reporter.In this issue:Eclipse Launches $ES Airdrop, Distributing 15% of Token SupplyRisc Zero’s 'Boundless' Incentivized Testnet Goes LiveBitcoin Devs Float Proposal to Freeze Quantum-Vulnerable Addresses — Even Satoshi Nakamoto’sAethir and Credible Introduce First DePIN-Powered Credit CardUnknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the `components.types` optionNetwork NewsECLIPSE TOKEN GENERATION EVENT: Eclipse, the layer-2 that combines technology from the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, shared that it has gone live with an airdorp of its $ES token. The team behind the network shared that the initial distribution will occur over the next 30 days, and a total of...

NEAR Protocol exhibited pronounced bullish momentum over the past 24 hours, ascending from $2.60 to $2.68.NEAR is now up by 8% over the past few days having surged by 45% since Jun 17. The move reflects optimism across the wider altcoin ecosystem, with data points suggesting sustained upside. A broader artificial intelligence (AI) token rally has propelled the sector's aggregate market capitalization to $33.64 billion. Fund manager Bitwise also published on post on X about how the Near Protocol would use "billions of AI agents" to manage capital and execute trades, adding fuel to Wednesday's rally.Technical Indicators Highlight Trading PatternsOverall trading range reached $0.16 representing 5.89% of the trading range during the 24-hour period under examination.High-volume surge of 5.81 million...

Let’s be honest.Last month, I released a white paper explaining that conservative investors should allocate 10% to crypto, moderate clients should invest 25% and aggressive investors should place 40% of their portfolios into crypto.Bitcoin has outperformed every other asset class for 12 of the past 15 years, and it’s highly likely that it will continue to do so for years to come. Institutions are investing like never before. Congress and the administration now fully support crypto, and we’re beginning to get the regulatory clarity we’ve wanted.The SEC and FINRA’s prohibitions that blocked brokerage firms from trading or custodying crypto have been rescinded. The OCC and the Fed have revoked similar prohibitions against banks, and the Department of Labor has rescinded...

Bitcoin triumphantly formed a series of fresh record highs last week, eventually topping out just shy of $124,000 as profit taking emerged. The rise has paved the way for what many are describing as the latest "altcoin season," which involves crypto tokens other than bitcoin making often exponential moves to the upside. The recent bitcoin bull market has just been that: a bitcoin bull market with altcoins taking the back seat as institutions rallied around spot bitcoin ETFs and BTC-based treasuries.But there has been a change in behavior this week. Several altcoins have posted gains of between 50% and 80% as capital begins to flow from the world's dominant crypto to more speculative bets.Ether had a good week on the...

Everyone's rushing into stablecoins, but the numbers look... the same.In Q2, it felt like you couldn’t go a day without a major stablecoin announcement. JPMorgan launched its USD Deposit Token on Base. Coinbase debuted its stablecoin payment stack following the Shopify partnership. Anchorage Digital acquired USDM issuer Mountain Protocol. Ubyx raised $10 million for stablecoin clearing infrastructure. Bitcoin-based Plasma filled its $1 billion deposit cap in 30 minutes. All within weeks of each other.But despite all this activity, stablecoins remain a brutally concentrated, “winner takes most” market. Of the roughly $250 billion in circulating stablecoin supply, Tether claims $158 billion (2.5x Circle's $62 billion), while USDC dwarfs the third-largest dollar-pegged asset, USDe ($5.3 billion), by 11x.While yield-bearing stablecoins and tokenized...