Better Late Than Never 😅
Plus, ⚖️ Crypto-Caroline at the CFTC, 🔥 Trump-backed DeFi platform goes shopping, 🚨 Coinbase blames itself for Solana delays, and more!
Tuesday’s here! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.
In today’s edition:
🔗 Ethereum Foundation throws money at DeFi
⚖️ Trump picks Pham to babysit CFTC
💸 World Liberty Financial splashes out
⚡ SEC gets a crypto-friendly minder
🚨 Coinbase struggles with Solana surge
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What’s Poppin’?
By Veronica Irwin and Tikta
Ethereum Foundation to Fund New DeFi MultiSig Wallet With 50,000 ETH
The Ethereum Foundation has initiated an operation to send 50,000 ETH, worth roughly $162 billion, to a new multi-signature wallet, according to Hsiao-Wei Wang, a member of the foundation’s leadership team. The funds could take several days to reach the wallet, she said.
Wang also said the foundation intends to use the new wallet to participate in the DeFi ecosystem, and that it had already sent out a test transaction on decentralized lending platform Aave.
The wallet was set up via smart-contract wallet provider Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe) and will need three of five signatures to authorize a transaction.
The move comes after the foundation faced a backlash for selling crypto.
It has sold around $13.3 million worth of ETH since Jan 2, according to data from blockchain analytics platform Arkham.
Critics have also taken aim at the foundation for its apparent lack of support for DeFi applications.
Trump Picks Pham as Acting CFTC Chair
Commodity Futures Trading Commission member Caroline Pham has become the regulator’s acting chair.
President Donald Trump has not announced his choice for a permanent commission chair.
Sources close to the Trump transition team had previously told Unchained that CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger and A16z crypto Head of Policy Brian Quintenz were the two top contenders for the position. However, sentiment seemed to change over the weekend, when word spread that Pham might be chosen for the role.
A representative of Pham confirmed that she had been selected by Trump for the position before being elected by her colleagues.
Trump has 210 days to choose a permanent chair and have them confirmed by the Senate, according to the Federal Vacancies Act.
Trump-Backed World Liberty Financial Goes on Token Buying Spree
DeFi platform World Liberty Financial, which lists President Donald Trump as its “chief crypto advocate," and his sons as Web3 ambassadors, has been busy onchain.
The platform acquired $112 million of tokens on Monday, taking its total holdings to more than $343 million.
Most of the purchases were made in installments of either 4.7 million USDT or 470,000 USDC — seemingly a nod to Trump’s inauguration as 47th president of the U.S.
World Liberty Financial spent $47 million to acquire WBTC, $47 million on buying ETH and $4.7 million each on TRX, ENA, LINK, and AAVE.
Trump Appoints Crypto-Friendly Mark Uyeda as Acting SEC Chair
Newly sworn-in President Donald Trump has appointed Mark Uyeda as the acting chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
As acting chairman, Uyeda is expected to lead the SEC until Trump's nominee for its permanent chair, former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, is confirmed by the Senate.
Uyeda is widely regarded as being more crypto-friendly than his predecessor, Gary Gensler, who stepped down on Monday.
In October, Uyeda described the SEC’s approach to crypto as a “disaster,” pointing to the regulator’s lack of guidance on rules for crypto firms.
“We’ve implemented ‘policy through enforcement’ without offering guidance,” he told Fox Business. “As a result, courts have had to intervene, leading to inconsistent rulings.”
Solana Usage Pushed Our Infra Past Limits, Says Coinbase Exec
Coinbase users reported significant delays to Solana transactions on Jan. 20, but according to Coinbase Protocol Specialist Andrew Allen, the network isn’t to blame.
“Yeah, it’s on us to improve. Not Solana’s fault,” Allen said on X. “Solana usage has pushed our infra[structure] past its limits, and the team is well aware and actively working on it.”
One user reported that a Solana transaction was stuck in limbo for more than 15 hours.
At the time of writing Coinbase’s status page showed that the team was still investigating delayed sends and receives on Solana.
The increased network activity on Solana over the last three days was driven largely by billions of dollars of Trump-related memecoin trading.
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Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍
🐕 Elon Musk now leads the Department of Government Efficiency alone following Vivek Ramaswamy’s resignation to run for Ohio governor.
🇺🇸 Trump’s eponymous memecoin dropped 25% during his inauguration speech as the president avoided mentioning crypto, leading to broader market declines, with bitcoin dipping 5% to $103,000, and Trump’s token market cap now hovering at $8.2 billion.
🚨 Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ X account was locked following allegations of orchestrating three rug pulls involving Solana-based memecoins that collectively involved more than $158 million in trading volume, sparking speculation about potential hacking or deliberate misconduct.
🚦 Polymarket predicts a 95% chance of President Donald Trump pardoning Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht after Elon Musk hinted at clemency on X, despite no official announcement having yet been made.
🔗 Linea removed 516,960 sybil addresses from its upcoming airdrop after collaborating with Nansen to detect automated and coordinated wallet activities, ensuring its token distribution prioritizes legitimate recipients among the 780,243 remaining eligible wallets.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
📱 The Coinbase app surged to 21st in the U.S. App Store rankings, reflecting renewed interest in crypto ahead of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, while Moonshot, a memecoin launchpad, topped the finance category after the $TRUMP token launch.
🏦📈 Utah introduced a bill allowing up to 10% of public funds to be invested in digital assets, provided cryptocurrencies maintain a $500 billion market cap or meet strict stablecoin criteria, while also safeguarding self-custody rights and imposing stringent security protocols for private key storage.
The $$$ Corner…
🤖 Two Solana-based AI projects closed funding rounds, with Tapestry raising $5.75 million to develop onchain social graphs and Oh securing $4.5 million to create AI-powered spicy content platforms integrating decentralized revenue models.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down 2.3%, trading at $104,382
ETH is up 0.2%, trading at $3,304
BTC dominance: 55.34%
Crypto market cap: $3.74T
*All data as of today, 07:58 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
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