This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.

It all starts with Ethereum. The L1 is too slow. Every node needs to redundantly re-execute transactions in a block to ensure validity, which limits scalability.

By 2020, the Ethereum community coalesced around rollups as the scaling solution. Vitalik’s 2021 landmark blog post on rollups explains how optimistic and zk rollups can scale Ethereum.

Zk rollups are technologically superior for scaling but the tech was still too expensive to use and far behind (more later). 

So optimistic rollups broke into the market first. Optimistic rollups assume all transactions are valid until someone…

Read more on Blockworks

This is a segment from the Supply Shock newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe. 

Bitcoin doesn’t have an official mascot. 

Still, for at least a few years, Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto was the closest thing Bitcoin had to a spirit animal — an unassuming everyman who became symbolic of Bitcoin’s power to change the world from humble beginnings.

Newsweek started it on March 6, 2014 with “The Face Behind Bitcoin,” in which journalist Leah McGrath Goodman detailed a months-long investigation into potential candidates. But the article hinged on a misunderstanding.

Earlier attempts considered the Nakamoto name a pseudonym. Goodman instead searched for…

Read more on Blockworks

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.

To end the first week of March, let’s look back at venture capital activity in February, shall we?

Perhaps we can sum it up to a shorter month, but overall venture capital funding in February was down slightly from January, though the number of companies raising was up marginally. 

Last month, $1.11 billion was raised by 137 companies, though we saw $1.57 billion go to 132 companies to kick the year off, per TIE Terminal data. 

DeFi paved the way last month, with 20 companies raising around $175 million. Perhaps that’s a sign of a trend of where money’s going, because DeFi also led…

Read more on Blockworks

Transaction URL: https://whale-alert.io/transaction/solana/4gCJfP2KietDE1x7XQWphwL3mUS7TDRLYD3DDWWFDv4xBwgpanFVzvbukMTW9f7PLMbKDNcriTRJ15L3BvuZvw7G

Transaction URL: https://bithomp.com/explorer/BF3BA9E92FDED17FE1434B69E48593F84F1AD8025E8485DB43BA40F02DAB4C2B

Transaction URL: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x5b635890984a007c7f9059bb4d5b414c8e093ce497724b1b2a605d9cdba675ed

Transaction URL: https://whale-alert.io/transaction/solana/4ARwpNk37nWZJj5se4jtU6yqibD4ybqzpTmfsSRnPuMGX5BUW7s5SyYo8qW17tjp64mRFfqSwSyFtMqdbjETuQ7M

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that establishes two things: a bitcoin strategic reserve and a digital asset stockpile. 

The bitcoin reserve is expected to be made up of BTC previously seized by the US government — roughly 198,000 BTC. Notably, crypto czar David Sacks said that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will be working on “budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers.” 

Which, yes, is something but arguably still a pretty vague…

Read more on Blockworks