Memecoin Protocol Raises $5.5 Million: This VC Calls It Ethereum’s Ordinals Moment – ​​DL News

general manager, Tim Here.

Here’s what caught my attention about DeFi recently:

• What are Heroglyphs and how do they help Ethereum?
• Why the DoJ Just Shut Down Cryptocurrency Mixer Samourai Wallet.
• Lessons learned from Renzo’s $56 million ezETH depeg.

$5.5 million heroglyph ad

DeFi users are spending big on Heroglyphs, a buzzy new project that aims to align cryptocurrency trading and Ethereum decentralization.

The Heroglyph protocol will give Ethereum users who run their own validators – or individual stakers – the ability to exclusively mint a special new type of token.

The idea is that these unique tokens will become the new way for speculators to create memecoins.

If successful, demand for Heroglyphs should incentivize more solo staking, making the Ethereum network more decentralized. The centralization of Ethereum validators is a ever-present concern among its users and developers.

According to Mechanism Capital co-founder Andrew Kang, Heroglyphs could be Ethereum’s “Ordinals moment”. Ordinal tokens exploded on the Bitcoin network last year and are collectively valued beyond $2.1 billion.

So far, the Heroglyph Protocol has released a White paper explaining how the protocol works. He also pitched a website which allows users to mint different NFTs of varying cost.

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What these NFTs will do is not yet known. But that didn’t stop speculators from spending almost $5.5 million on them since they started minting on April 26th.

Samourai Wallet founders arrested

The news shook all of DeFi: authorities arrested two co-founders of Samourai Wallet amid charges from the US Department of Justice, including conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Samourai Wallet, a Bitcoin wallet combined with a cryptocurrency mixer, has a long history of not only facilitating private transactions, but also actively accommodating those who violate US sanctions.

“Welcome new users of the Russian oligarch Samourai Wallet,” the project’s X account posted last June.

In the past, the United States has come down hard on those it accuses of aiding nations it has sanctioned. Just ask Virgil Griffithan Ethereum developer sentenced to more than five years in prison for advising North Korea on how to use cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, which the nation state uses to evade sanctions.

However, chasing cryptocurrency mixers like Samourai Wallet is not a good way to prevent illegal transactions, said Mikko Ohtamaa, security researcher and CEO of trading protocol DeFi Trading Strategy DL News.

“The most effective place to stop money laundering is centralized on- and off-ramps,” he said, referring to centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.

Renzo depeg’s ezETH

Loop deposits of Renzo’s ezETH restaging token just lost $56 million after the announcement of the protocol’s REZ token triggered a cascade of liquidations.

Investors were left disappointed after Renzo revealed that ezETH holders will receive 5% of the total REZ supply, compared to 2.5% for Binance launchpool participants.

This discrepancy has caused frustration among ezETH users, who believe that their four-month commitment to holding ezETH deserves a greater reward than that offered to those who participate in Binance’s seven-day launchpool.

The incident also highlights the problems of launching liquid or restake tokens without giving users the option to redeem them for the backing Ether.

This is not the first time that ezETH loopers have been hit in recent weeks. On April 11, an unexpected code change went live on the Blast-based Pac Finance protocol $26 million value of liquidations.

Data of the week: Heroglyph breakdown

Looking for the latest updates on Heroglyphs? Check out the breakdown of which NFTs are minted with the Daedalus’s Dune dashboard.

There are nearly 20,000 unique wallets that contain heroglyphs. (@daedalus_angels)

This week in DeFi governance

VOTE: Arbitrum DAO decides the recipients of its long-term incentive pilot program

VOTE: HAI will distribute its first round of community awards

VOTE: Aave will be holding a Cantina security contest ahead of its v3.1 update

Mail of the week

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin explains Binius: a way to make crypto-proof systems binary.

What we are looking at…

Retaking protocol EigenLayer has just announced its EIGEN token, along with an airdrop for early depositors.

Do you have a tip on DeFi? Please contact tim@dlnews.com.

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