Coindesk

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:Movement Labs rolls out dev mainnetCardano hard forks to decentralized governanceSSV DAO unveils SSC 2.0Musk pushes blockchain in governmentNetwork NewsMOVEMENT LABS ROLLS OUT DEVNET: Blockchain firm Movement Labs has deployed a developer mainnet to advance its goal of bringing Facebook (META)'s Move Virtual Machine (MoveVM) to Ethereum. The developer mainnet's launch will begin the deployment of Movement's core infrastructure and allow selected partners to start implementing decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, according to an emailed announcement on Tuesday. The release follows the initial mainnet launch of Movement in December and precedes the planned public mainnet beta...

Are we witnessing the dawn of PolicyFi?In an earlier article on why memecoins matter, I argued that memecoins are ushering in a new era of civic engagement by forming speculative markets in which citizens are able to trade coins tied to government policies. I suggested that holder distributions and market caps in those markets would signal popular support for underlying policies to lawmakers, who would then take them into account when crafting public policy, fostering a new form of political dialogue between citizen and state.I called this dynamic PolicyFi and presented it as a constructive use of memecoins.With the Trump administration coming into office and the President-Elect and First Lady launching memecoins, it is a good time to ask if...

Regulation by enforcement is beginning to crumble, with a court recently ruling that the SEC’s refusal to issue a crypto rule was unlawful. A new crypto-friendly administration stands ready to create crypto clarity through new appointments at the SEC and the CFTC.New acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham has proposed an uncommon approach, namely the regulatory sandbox.A regulatory sandbox is a waiver of regulations but in a supervised environment. Projects can test innovative ideas outside rigid regulatory frameworks. Federal digital asset sandboxes may come sooner than you think, but current state sandbox models fall short in the digital assets context, with extremely limited scopes and durations.We propose a “Sustainable Sandbox” and develop Pham’s idea, along with similar proposals from SEC Commissioner...

As expected, the U.S. Federal Reserve has kept its benchmark fed funds range rate steady at 4.25%-4.50%, the first pause since the central bank began easing policy last September.The accompanying policy statement noted that the unemployment rate had stabilized at a "low level" and inflation remained "somewhat elevated."Under pressure for most of this week, the price of bitcoin (BTC) dipped to $101,800 shortly following the news.Since the Fed's first September rate cut, the fed funds rate has been slashed by 100 basis points. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield, however, has gone in the opposite direction, rising to 4.6% fro 3.6% — a divergence between short-term and long-term rates that rarely has been seen.That divergence as well as a series of...

Canary Capital didn’t even exist when the spot bitcoin or even the spot ethe rexchange-traded funds launched last year.But the company quickly made a name for itself in the business.Founded only last October, Canary Capital has quickly pushed out several applications for crypto ETFs, including ones for Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Litecoin (LTC) and Hedera (HBAR), with the latter two being the first ETF applications of their kind.From the outside, it seemed as though the firm had it all planned out perfectly.“We really had no idea that we would be getting back into the ETF game,“ said Steve McClurg, founder and CEO of Canary Capital.His name might sound familiar to some. McClurg co-founded and served as chief investment officer at...