Bitcoiners
aren’t
usually
the
forgiving
type
–
especially
toward
perceived
apostates
who
ape
into
other
cryptocurrencies.
That’s
why
Republican
U.S.
presidential
nominee
Donald
Trump’s
visit
last
week
to
a
beloved
Bitcoin
bar
in
New
York
appeared
so
well
timed
–
to
repair
any
lost
credibility
after
he
and
his
family
started
promoting
a
decentralized-finance
project
that
appears
rooted
in
other
blockchain
ecosystems.
-
Democratic
U.S.
presidential
candidate
Kamala
Harris’s
policy
is
“N/A.” -
Telegram’s
turnabout. -
EXCLUSIVE:
Huddle01,
a
video-conferencing
blockchain
project
taking
on
Zoom,
aims
to
sell
as
much
as
$37
million
of
“media
nodes.”
This
article
is
featured
in
the
latest
issue
of
The
Protocol,
our
weekly
newsletter
exploring
the
tech
behind
crypto,
one
block
at
a
time.
Sign
up
here
to
get
it
in
your
inbox
every
Wednesday.
Network
news
:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/FXMJDLJAR5FSBLETL3MSZ356RQ.png)
Screenshot
of
the
Zaprite
invoice
used
by
Republican
U.S.
presidential
nominee
Donald
Trump
to
buy
burgers
and
Diet
Cokes
at
the
bar
PubKey
in
New
York
(PubKey/X)
LESSER
EVILISM
–
It
goes
without
saying
that
many
Bitcoin
purists
do
not
like
to
mingle
their
business,
politics
or
even
company
with
users
of
other
blockchains
or
cryptocurrencies.
Which
is
partly
why
the
Republican
U.S.
presidential
nominee
Donald
Trump
garnered
so
much
scorn
from
Bitcoiners
last
week
for
promoting
a
very-much-NOT-Bitcoin
decentralized-finance
project,
World
Liberty
Financial
–
complete
with
its
own
token,
and
a
pre-mined
allocation
to
insiders.
“Trump
launching
a
sh*tcoin
may
have
been
the
final
straw
to
lose
my
vote,”
tweeted
Bitcoin-friendly
author
Mitchell
Askew.
Responses
on
the
thread
ranged
from
total
agreement
to
what
one
might
call
lesser
evilism
–
the
rhetorical
contrast
of
one
bad
option
with
an
even
worse
option:
“True
but
it’s
that
or
WW3
with
commie
Kamala,”
wrote
@FrictionlessBTC.
The
DeFi
dalliance
threatened
to
undo
much
of
the
goodwill
Trump
built
up
at
the
Bitcoin
Nashville
conference
in
July,
when
he
tossed
out
a
series
of
red-meat
pledges,
including
commuting
the
rest
of
Silk
Road
creator
Ross
Ulbrecht’s
life
sentence
and
creating
a
“strategic
national
bitcoin
stockpile.”
Multiple
standing
ovations
ensued.
So
it
was
fortuitous
timing
for
Trump
that
his
campaign
scheduled
a
stop,
later
in
the
week,
at
the
Bitcoin-friendly
New
York
City
bar,
PubKey.
According
to
the
bar’s
official
X
account,
Trump
bought
50
smash
burgers
and
Diet
Cokes
for
people
in
attendance,
at
a
total
cost
of
$998.77
including
tax
and
tip,
and
then
paid
for
it
all
in
bitcoin.
Fox
News
posted
a
video
of
the
entire
scene,
leading
a
sharp-eyed
reporter
from
CryptoSlate
to
quickly
point
out
that
Trump’s
role
mainly
consisted
of
standing
by
at
the
counter
while
handlers
actually
performed
the
transaction,
passing
smartphones
back
and
forth
between
them.
Whatever.
The
bar
crowd
cheered.
“Crypto
burgers!”
Trump
said
as
he
handed
them
out.
A
voice
from
behind
the
camera
corrected
him,
“Bitcoin
burgers!”
As
much
as
it
was
a
second
chance
for
Trump
to
prove
his
Bitcoin
bona
fides,
the
choreographed
transaction
served
as
a
sort
of
benchmark
for
the
blockchain’s
evolution
as
a
viable
payments
option
for
a
retail-facing
business
in
the
U.S.
Will
Cole,
head
of
product
at
the
Bitcoin
payments
app
Zaprite
(who
happens
to
be
Bitcoin-friendly
U.S.
Senator
Cynthia
Lummis’s
son-in-law),
described
what
he
called
the
“Trump
stack:”
PubKey,
running
a
node
on
Bitcoin’s
Lightning
Network
on
Voltage
Cloud,
used
Zaprite
to
provide
an
invoice
for
the
purchase,
and
Trump
paid
using
a
Strike
wallet.
(Official
spokespeople
for
the
Trump
campaign
didn’t
respond
to
CoinDesk’s
email
asking
where
the
bitcoin
originated
from.)
Asked
whether
the
episode
might
have
helped
erase
any
lingering
disgust
among
Bitcoiners
over
the
World
Liberty
Financial
rollout,
PubKey
founder
Thomas
Pacchia
didn’t
exactly
dispute
the
premise
of
the
question:
“The
other
stuff
that
the
family
has
going
on
is
sort
of
outside
our
purview
and
scope,”
he
said
in
an
interview.
“Everybody
is
on
a
journey
toward
understanding
the
difference
between
Bitcoin
and
crypto.
I
like
to
meet
people
where
they
are.”
ELSEWHERE:
:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/J3YC7MERNFCIXFDW7HRR5MLMOA.jpg)
Caroline
Ellison
exits
a
Manhattan
courthouse
after
being
sentenced
to
two
years
in
prison
on
Sept.
24,
2024.
(Victor
Chen/CoinDesk)
-
Former
Alameda
Research
CEO
Caroline
Ellison
was
sentenced
to
two
years
in
prison
by
a
federal
judge
on
Tuesday.
The
judge
said
Ellison,
29,
who
will
also
have
to
forfeit
about
$11
billion,
could
serve
the
sentence
at
a
minimum-security
facility
near
Boston,
where
her
family
lives.
Ellison
was
a
key
witness
in
the
government’s
trial
against
her
former
boyfriend,
FTX
founder
Sam
Bankman-Fried,
who
was
convicted
on
seven
counts
of
fraud
and
conspiracy
before
being
sentenced
earlier
this
year
to
25
years
in
prison. -
Vice
President
and
Democratic
nominee
Kamala
Harris
made
her
first
remarks
on
crypto
on
Sunday
before
donors
in
New
York
City.
(Her
specific
choice
of
term
was
“digital
assets.”)
A
person
with
knowledge
of
the
talks
between
her
campaign
and
crypto
insiders
told
CoinDesk
that
the
discussions
about
digital-asset
policy
remain
high-level
and
aren’t
likely
to
produce
a
detailed
stance
before
the
election
in
early
November.
Stand
With
Crypto,
an
advocacy
group
whose
industry
partners
include
exchanges
Coinbase
and
Gemini
as
well
as
Filecoin
developer
Protocol
Labs,
issued
a
rating
of
“N/A”
on
Harris’s
crypto
policies,
for
“not
enough
information.” -
Telegram,
the
instant-messaging
app
popular
with
crypto-industry
pros,
made
significant
changes
to
its
terms
of
service,
chief
executive
officer
Pavel
Durov
said
in
a
post
on
the
app
on
Monday.
The
app’s
privacy
conditions
now
state
that
Telegram
will
now
share
a
user’s
IP
address
and
phone
number
with
judicial
authorities
in
cases
where
criminal
conduct
is
being
investigated. -
Crypto
exchange
BingX
has
been
hacked
for
a
“minor”
amount
of
assets
and
the
exchange
plans
to
compensate
users
for
any
loss,
the
firm’s
chief
product
officer
(CPO)
said
in
a
message
on
X.
On-chain
data
suggests
nearly
$43
million
was
stolen
from
the
exchange
in
multiple
tranches,
with
$13.25
million
ether,
$2.3
million
BNB,
$4.4
million
USDT,
among
other
being
drained. -
Former
Grammy-nominated
artist
and
entrepreneur
Iggy
Azalea
will
release
Motherland,
a
new
online
casino
that
uses
her
MOTHER
token,
in
November.
Azalea
unveiled
the
project
alongside
business
partner
Joe
McCann,
founder
of
crypto
investment
firm
Asymmetric,
and
manager
Reece
Pearson
at
her
Motherland
Rodeo
event,
at
Breakpoint
in
Singapore
last
Friday.
Huddle01,
Blockchain
Video
Conferencing
Project
That
Seeks
to
Outdo
Zoom,
Targets
$37M
Node
Sale
:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/BCJZOI7FHJB3HMJTIN6EJPHJJU.jpg)
Huddle01
CTO
Susmit
Lavania,
left,
and
CEO
Ayush
Ranjan,
on
a
Huddle
video
conference
call.
(Huddle01)
Huddle01,
a
blockchain
project
to
provide
decentralized
audio
and
video
conferencing
–
aiming
to
provide
lower
latency
virtual
meetings
than
Zoom
and
Google
Meet
–
plans
to
raise
as
much
as
$37
million
in
a
sale
of
network
nodes.
The
49,600
“media
nodes”
being
sold
offer
operators
a
way
to
contribute
excess
internet
bandwidth
the
communication
network,
in
exchange
for
token
rewards.
According
to
a
litepaper,
some
21%
of
the
project’s
HUDL
tokens
will
be
distributed
to
media
nodes.
“These
nodes
will
power
a
network
that
already
outperforms
the
incumbent
Web2
competitors
on
latency
where
there
is
a
large
cluster
of
nodes,
and
is
capable
of
improving
lags
across
the
globe,”
Huddle01
CEO
Ayush
Ranjan
said
in
the
release,
shared
exclusively
with
CoinDesk.
The
project
is
built
using
technology
borrowed
from
the
Ethereum
layer-2
network
Arbitrum.
A
test
network
will
launch
two
weeks
after
the
sale
completes,
according
to
the
press
release.
Huddle01
becomes
the
latest
in
a
growing
trend
of
blockchain
projects
conducting
node
sales
as
a
way
to
raise
funds
while
simultaneously
decentralizing
their
networks.
Money
Center
Fundraisings
:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/LQ5ZTV6OD5EBZJMUZQ43INVLZU.png)
Screengrab
from
Daylight
blog
post
with
examples
of
personalized
transaction
recommendations
(Daylight)
-
Daylight,
a
project
with
an
API
that
powers
personalized
transaction
recommendations
for
crypto
wallets
like
Coinbase
Wallet,
MetaMask,
Zerion
and
OKX
Wallet,
has
raised
$6
million
in
a
seed
round
led
by
Union
Square
Ventures
and
co-led
by
1kx.
Examples
of
recommended
transactions
(see
images,
above)
include
token
mints,
claims
and
quests.
According
to
a
blog
post:
“It’s
like
the
home
tabs
of
Netflix
or
Spotify,
but
with
things
to
do
onchain
instead
of
movies
or
music.”
Deals
and
grants
:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/RZC6OKPXDRBRVMFB7DPT7KQCJA.jpg)
Deus
X
CEO
Tim
Grant
(Deus
X)
Data
and
Tokens
*Regulatory
and
Policy
Protocol
Village
Top
picks
of
the
past
week
from
our
Protocol
Village
column,
highlighting
key
blockchain
tech
upgrades
and
news.
:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/54SRWME5DBGJNOZS7TGPRTZMP4.png)
Praxis
“Citizen
Map”
(Praxis)
-
Abra,
a
platform
for
digital
asset
services,
has
partnered
with
Praxis,
described
as
“the
first
network
state,”
to
collaborate
on
real
world
asset
tokenization,
as
well
as
DeFi
services
to
network
states,
including
those
created
on
the
Praxis
platform.
According
to
the
team:
“Praxis
and
Abra
intend
to
create
an
on-chain
database
of
real
estate,
businesses,
citizenship,
contracts,
marketplaces
and
other
on-chain
DeFi
(decentralized
financial)
services
that
interact
seamlessly
with
both
online
communities
and
physical
cities.”
Balaji
Srinivasan,
author
of
“The
Network
State,”
is
one
of
Praxis’s
backers. -
Frankendancer,
an
early
version
of
Jump
Crypto’s
highly
anticipated
Solana
validator
client
software,
Firedancer,
is
live
and
contributing
to
the
performance
of
the
Solana
blockchain,
Jump’s
Chief
Science
Officer
Kevin
Bowers
said
Friday.
Firedancer
itself
is
running
on
testnet,
Bowers
said,
indicating
it
has
achieved
minimum
viability
and
is
getting
close. -
Worldcoin,
the
blockchain
identity
network
known
for
its
iris-scanning
orbs
as
well
as
its
affiliation
with
OpenAI
founder
Sam
Altman,
introduced
Face
Auth,
a
new
security
measure
for
World
ID.
According
to
the
team:
“Face
Auth
is
a
private
1:1
face
comparison
that
ensures
only
the
person
who
verified
their
World
ID
at
an
orb
can
use
it.
It
provides
increased
security
for
your
World
ID
during
actions
like
online
purchases,
financial
transactions,
secure
sign-in
applications
and
much
more.” -
Aethir,
a
project
for
decentralized
GPU
cloud
computing,
and
Filecoin
Foundation
are
establishing
an
alliance
to
provide
clients
with
enterprise-grade
solutions
to
support
their
businesses
with
decentralized
infrastructure,
according
to
a
blog
post:
“As
part
of
our
collaboration
with
the
Filecoin
Foundation,
Aethir
will
explore
GPU
leasing
to
Filecoin’s
storage
providers,
thus
providing
Filecoin’s
infrastructure
network
with
a
reliable
and
secure
source
of
GPU
cloud
computing
supplies.
