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Bitcoin's price has surged past the $100,000 mark for the first time in its history, fueled by institutional demand, corporate accumulation and heightened expectations of crypto-friendly policies under Donald Trump's presidency.Now ahead about 130% year-to-date, bitcoin's market capitalization has risen to just shy of $2 trillion only 15 years after coming into existence. For reference, Nvidia and Apple sport market caps of about $3.5 trillion, Microsoft $3 trillion, and Google and Amazon $2.2 trillion. The market capitalization of all the gold in the world is roughly $17.7 trillion.At the forefront of this rally was the early-2024 launch of spot-based bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) by asset management giants including BlackRock and Fidelity. These products have been a resounding success, securing assets...

Viral personality Haliey Welch has released her official token on the Solana blockchain, the latest in a long line of celebrity tokens floated on the network.Welch went viral earlier this year after using a "hawk tuah" onomatopoeia to describe a sexual act. "Hawk Tuah" quickly became a phase used for memes across social platforms — making Welch an overnight sensation from a minimum wage worker who didn’t even have an Instagram account.As often happens with memes, "hawk tuah" has found its way to the blockchain. Welch’s HAWK token went live on Solana-based exchanges at 22:00 UTC on Wednesday in partnership with overHere, a token launchpad.Minutes after HAWK began trading, its market cap soared to $490 million.Welch previously distributed free tokens...

Ethereum developer Justin Drake said his comprehensive proposal to overhaul the second-largest blockchain's consensus layer isn't about catching up with a rival, it's about sticking around for the long haul.Drake unveiled the proposal, known as the Beam Chain, at Ethereum's biennial Devcon gathering in Bangkok last month, at a time when the network's native token ETH is lagging behind its counterparts at other major layer-1 blockchains.The Ethereum network enjoyed wide adoption over the last few years, making it more expensive and slower to use. In response, a cohort of layer-1s, known as “Ethereum killers,” emerged in 2020 to compete with Ethereum on transaction speeds, and Solana has been seen as the leader of the pack.Recently, activity on Solana has exploded,...

For the last decade, financial institutions have defaulted to closed, private blockchains for digital assets over open, permissionless systems. Many, if not most of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions have invested in, and tested out digital assets on private, permissioned blockchain networks. None of them have achieved traction with customers, businesses or institutional investors.A key argument that financial institutions have made for prioritizing these efforts over putting assets on public blockchains is that regulators and regulations strongly prefer, and in some cases, specifically require permissioned blockchains. I believe that time is coming to an end.The “default” regulatory perspective is going to evolve much more over the coming years. Though it might be hard to see now, I believe...

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Marc Hochstein, CoinDesk's deputy editor-in-chief for features, opinion and standards.In this issue:Bitcoin gets a DEX, thanks to the Nomic bridgeUnion Labs gets $12M to build more bridgesBase's Jesse Pollak looks back on BALDJustin Drake discusses Ethereum's Beam Chain plan … and SolanaNetwork NewsSTRENGTH FOR ETH: The Ethereum blockchain's transaction revenue has increased substantially since Donald Trump's U.S. election victory, Steno Research said in a Monday report. "This outcome is crucial for all on-chain activity," wrote analyst Mads Eberhardt. The surge has led to higher staking rewards and more ether (ETH) being burned via transaction fees, the report said. "This combination strengthens Ethereum's tokenomics,"...