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Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s Opinion and Features editor.In this issue:Ethereum’s Wall Street cheerleaderAvalanche cuts fees by 75%Arbitrum integrates BitcoinUBS tests ZKSync for goldThis article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.Network newsETHEREUM’S WALL STREET GUY: Ethereum is facing an identity crisis. Its native token, ether (ETH), is underperforming against competitors, and longtime builders are beginning to question whether the chain's technology is falling behind – and if its community is losing focus. The Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit that stewards Ethereum's development,...

Strategy (MSTR) reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $3.03 per share, compared to income of $0.50 per share a year earlier.The loss incurred as the company took an impairment charge on its 471,107 token bitcoin (BTC) holdings.It's been an extremely eventful week for Strategy prior to the earnings, including an upsizing in the company's preferred stock offering and a name change just hours ago.The firm recently ended a long string of bitcoin purchases and currently holds 471,107 tokens worth roughly $45 billion.The Financial Stability Accounting Board (FASB) last year implemented a new fair value accounting rule for corporates holding digital assets. Use of the rule was voluntary through the end of 2024, but will be required beginning in the first...

Decentralized crypto trading engine Raydium is making a bid for Solana's multibillion dollar perpetuals market – and gaining traction fast.Raydium's weeks-old foray into offering these hyper-popular derivatives contracts – they allow crypto traders to speculate on price swings without holding the actual token – is already racking up $100 million in daily trading volume.It's now Solana's third most popular venue for trading perps, behind Jupiter and Drift, this ecosystem's trading heavyweights. The growth comes despite Raydium perps' nascency; its builders haven't poured marketing capital on promoting a trading tool that's yet to officially launch."Raydium brand still packs a punch," said InfraRAY, a core contributor to the project.The push caps Raydium's ascendence to the top of Solana's decentralized crypto trading landscape....

The world's largest asset management firm with more than $10 trillion in AUM, Blackrock (BLK) plans on listing a bitcoin exchange traded product (ETP) in Europe, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.The fund would be based in Switzerland and BlackRock could start marketing it as soon as this month, according to the report.This would be the giant asset manager's first crypto-linked ETP outside of America. Blackrock's U.S.-based iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) has been a wild success, accumulating nearly $60 billion in assets in just more than one year since opening for business.BlackRock's move would be the latest in a string of investment firms looking to dive further into providing crypto-backed securities in Europe. Kraken recently secured a license that will enable it...

As U.S. senators prepared to gather for a hearing about U.S. debanking of crypto clients, the interim chief of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said his agency is overhauling its digital assets supervision and revealed more correspondence on Wednesday in which FDIC officials steered banks away from cryptocurrency business.Travis Hill, the acting FDIC chairman tapped by President Donald Trump, has thrown open more of the agency's past documents and said the U.S. banking regulator will be reconsidering its previous crypto guidance that deliberately kept banks an arm's length away from what had been seen as the unregulated volatility of crypto. The past letters between the FDIC and bank have been the focus of a court Freedom of Information Act battle...