The Protocol: Bitcoin Gets Political as U.S. Government Ponders Airdrops

Last
week’s
Bitcoin
Nashville
conference
dominated
crypto
news
headlines
–
largely
due
to
former
U.S.
President
Donald
Trump’s
campaign
speech
(and
lots
of
promises)
as
well
as
Senator
Cynthia
Lummis’s
call
for
a
national
“Bitcoin
Strategic
Reserve.”
(We’ve
got
the

draft
legislation.)

We
wandered
around
the
event
for
four
days
while
scrambling
to
cover
all
the
news,
and
took
lots
of
photos.
Bitcoin
LARP,
anyone?

In
this
issue:

U.S.
Senator
Cynthia
Lummis,
a
Wyoming
Republican,
with
a
copy
of
her
bitcoin
reserve
bill
at
the
Bitcoin
Nashville
conference
on
Saturday,
July
27.
(Danny
Nelson/CoinDesk)

Fun
fact:
The
draft
bill
offers
a
provision
for
how
the
U.S.
government
would
handle
any
airdropped
tokens.

Taking
things
from
a
high
level,
the

Wall
Street
Journal
Editorial
Board
concluded
that
“if
cryptocurrencies
really
are
a
libertarian
vehicle
to
invest
free
from
political
vagaries,
then
they
should
trade
on
their
own
without
government
help.”

The
entire
debate
took
a
sharp
turn
once
reports
emerged
that
U.S.
authorities
had
just

moved
about
$2
billion
worth
of
the
government’s
bitcoin
associated
with
the
Silk
Road
website
seizures.
U.S.
officials
wouldn’t
really
explain
the
move,
and
cautioned
against
reading
too
much
into
it,
but
theories
quickly
emerged
on
social
media
that
the
Biden
administration
and
its
allies
were

rushing
to
“dump”
the
government’s
stash
before
the
Trump
administration
ever
gets
control.

Lightning
protocol
engineer
Lisa
Neigut
leading
an
instructional
game
called
“Bitcoin
LARP”
at
last
week’s
Bitcoin
Nashville
conference
(Bradley
Keoun)

Top
picks
of
the
past
week
from


our
Protocol
Village

column,
highlighting
key
blockchain
tech
upgrades
and
news.

The
Irys
project
will
feature
both
permanent
data
storage
as
well
as
“term
data
ledgers”
(Irys)

1.
Irys,
describing
itself
as
a

provenance
layer
for
data
storage,
announced
it
will
transition
to
a
new
layer-1
network
with
the
launch
of
a
“programmatic
datachain
that
combines
data
storage
and
execution.”
According
to
the
team:
“Through
IrysVM,
which
is
fully
EVM-compatible,
developers
can
leverage
efficient
and
cost-effective
real-time
data
manipulation.
This
approach
simplifies
development
processes,
enhances
scalability
and
ensures
stable
and
predictable
pricing
for
transactions
and
data
storage.
Ecosystem
partners
building
on
Irys’
Layer
1
include
Berachain,
Eclipse,
Injective
Labs,
Livepeer,
Linea,
IoTeX,

Gateway.fm,
Lit
Protocol,
NodeKit,
Olas,
Snapchain,
BeraLand
and
YEET.”
Founded
in
2021,
Irys
began
its
journey
as
Bundlr,
a
scaling
solution
for
permanent
data
storage
on

Arweave.

2.
Router
Protocol,
a
project
built
using
Cosmos
blockchain
technology,
said
Tuesday
that
it
launched
the

main
network
of
a
new
blockchain
designed
for
“chain
abstraction”
–

a
concept
embraced
by
many
protocols
with
the
aim
of
making
the
user
experience
of
blockchains
more
seamless.
To
make
the
new
Router
Chain
more
seamless
in
cross-chain
interactions,
it
will
focus
on
reducing
“the
development
barriers
and
streamlining
the
development
of
dApps
that
can
seamlessly
interact
with
multiple
blockchains
and
aggregate
liquidity
from
any
chain,”
according
to
a
press
release
shared
with
CoinDesk.

3.
Blackbird
Labs,
the
restaurant
loyalty
platform
founded
by
Resy
and
Eater
co-founder
Ben
Leventhal,
announced
the

launch
of
Blackbird
Pay,
a
system
that
will
allow
participating
restaurants
to
accept
payment
in
cryptocurrency.
The
new
payments
platform
expands
on
Blackbird’s
mission
by
allowing
consumers
to
pay
for
their
meals
using
the
$FLY
cryptocurrency.
The
tokens
can
be
earned
as
loyalty
points
for
dining
at
participating
restaurants
or
purchased
in
the
Blackbird
app
using
Coinbase’s
popular

USDC
stablecoin.

4.
The
developers
of

Theoriq,
described
as
an
“AI
agent
base
layer,”
published
its

official
project
whitepaper,
introducing
the
key
aspects
of
its
network
and
outlining
its
benefits
for
the
development
of
advanced
AI
agent
collectives.
According
to
the
team:
“Using
a
decentralized
model,
Theoriq
will
leverage
smart
contracts
to
ensure
transparency
and
accountability
while
also
maintaining
flexibility
to
ensure
its
network
will
continue
to
adapt
as
AI
continues
to
advance
in
complexity.”

5.
Dash,
a

payments-focused
cryptocurrency
project,
is
launching
the
Evolution
upgrade
on
July
29,
described
as
“its
most
major
upgrade”
to
date,
with
a
new
sidechain.
According
to
the
team,
the
project
aims
“to
enable
indexed
decentralized
storage
and
decentralized
applications.”

According
to
a
blog
post,
the
sidechain
“is
run
by
EvoNodes,
which
also
secures
the
legacy
Dash
chain.
It
uses
the
account-based
model
(single
addresses
have
balances),
as
opposed
to
the
UTXO
model
(multiple
addresses
hold
coins,
or
UTXOs)
of
the
Core
chain.
It
uses
a
heavily-modified
derivative
of
Tendermint
(Cosmos)
consensus
called
Tenderdash.
The
main
differences
between
Tenderdash
and
Tendermint
are
that
Dash’s
version
has
same-block
execution,
meaning
you
don’t
have
to
wait
for
the
next
block
after
writing
new
data
in
order
to
query
it.”

Fundraisings

Hyperbolic
CEO
Jasper
Zhang
and
co-founder
Yuchen
Jin
(Hyperbolic)

Data
and
Tokens

Regulatory
and
Policy

The
benchmark

CoinDesk
20
index
of
blue-chip
digital
assets
returned
3.3%
during
the
month,
through
July
30,
roughly
matching
July
returns
for
gold,
but
slightly
outperforming
the
Standard
&
Poor’s
500
Index
of
U.S.
stocks.

MTD
returns
through
July
30.
(Tracy
Stephens/CoinDesk
Indices)

XRP,
the
token
used
in
the
Ripple
Labs-developed
XRP
Ledger,
dominated
among
the
month’s
big
gainers,
soaring
32%,
followed
by
Solana’s
SOL
at
20%.
Bitcoin
was
the
only
other
cryptocurrency
in
the
green,
with
a
3.8%
month-to-date
rise.

MTD
returns
through
July
30.
(Tracy
Stephens/CoinDesk
Indices)