Transaction URL: https://bithomp.com/explorer/F09BB86D533A1746DDD032EECE0A69F26946165AC6B0C851D5DCF76967D239E2
- Crunch
- Global
We can’t live in a world where somebody starts a company that’s a completely legal thing, and then they literally [] get sanctioned [] and embargoed by the United States government through a completely unaccountable [process] by the way. No due process. None of this is written down. There’s no rules. There’s no court, there’s no decision process. There’s no appeal. Who do you appeal to, right? [] Who do you go to to get your bank account back?
— Marc Andreessen, speaking to Joe Rogan, published on 11/26/2024
In yet another troubling manifestation of “Chokepoint 2.0,” a Wyoming company was summarily debanked in early November, 2024, by Mercury, a banking platform operated with Evolve…
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We’re three weeks out from Christmas.
As David pointed out in today’s Empire newsletter, we’re in an interesting spot, which leads WisdomTree’s Jason Guthrie to wonder if there’s enough momentum to last till the end of the year.
I personally don’t have a crystal ball, so that’s a little hard to work out as it stands. If you were on an early Thanksgiving break last week, then you may have missed the price levels to watch with bitcoin, but that’s about as far as we can go in trying to predict what’s next.
So instead, what about how we’re looking at this moment?
“The…
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When Covid rolled across the world — bringing about lockdowns and meme stocks — we all took the news of swans and dolphins reclaiming Venice canals as a positive sign.
Perhaps the whole ordeal had a silver lining. A moment for the natural world to stretch its wings and humans to reassess their consumption habits.
Sadly, it was fake news. There were no dolphins in Venice canals and global coal output has ramped up after the pandemic. The Earth never really made it any closer to returning to its original state.
Nearly five years later, crypto is currently on the lookout for its own fake…
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WisdomTree, an early issuer of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S., has submitted a filing for a spot XRP ETF, making it the fourth company to do so. Filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Dec. 2, the proposed WisdomTree XRP Fund seeks to provide investors direct exposure to XRP through shares listed on the Cboe BZX Exchange.
The ETF would use a cash-create model for issuing and redeeming shares, with the potential to transition to an in-kind model pending further regulatory approvals. Coinbase, a leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, is named as both the XRP custodian and prime execution agent. WisdomTree already relies on Coinbase for its spot Bitcoin ETF, which launched in January.
WisdomTree joins Bitwise, Canary Capital, and 21Shares in pursuing spot XRP ETFs. Bitwise was the first to file in October, followed by Canary Capital and 21Shares in November. These filings come as XRP has surged in market value, recently becoming the third-largest cryptocurrency globally. Approval of WisdomTree’s XRP ETF could further solidify the token’s standing in institutional markets.
Web3’s great long-standing battle with fragmentation—one of the leading causes behind the industry’s notoriously poor cross-chain UX—may finally be put to rest as a new era—the Abstraction Age—emerges.
We’re arriving at a stage where chain abstraction is no longer just a distant concept: it’s becoming a reality, paving the way for a truly connected Web3, making global interconnectivity more attainable than ever. At this breakthrough point, we’re also witnessing the surfacing of the first chain-abstracted consumer products—the most compelling of them being Particle Network’s recently released UniversalX.
This article will review chain abstraction, its…
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