🐶 ET-arf! Arf! Arf!
Plus, 🌪️ Tornado’s whirlwind win, 🫣 CME’s beta balls-up, 👻 Ethereum’s ghost foundation, and more!
Morning, morning, morning! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.
In today’s edition:
🐶 Bitwise files for DOGE ETF
⚖️ Tornado Cash sanctions tossed
🌐 CME’s XRP, SOL futures flub
🔗 “Second” Ethereum foundation rumors rubbished
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What’s Poppin’?
By Tikta
Bitwise Files for Dogecoin ETF
Bitwise Asset Management has filed an application for a Dogecoin ETF through a Delaware trust, according to crypto media reports.
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan confirmed the filing on Wednesday evening.
The filing comes after the launch of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency website, featuring DOGE as its official logo.
Last week, ETF Store President Nate Geraci said he was “shocked that no issuer has filed for [a] Dogecoin ETF” given that it was the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
“Worst case, it’s a marketing expense for the issuer,” he said on X. “Best case, you get an extremely lenient SEC who approves it, along w/ Elon touting it.”
Tornado Cash Sanctions Lifted
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned sanctions imposed on crypto mixer Tornado Cash by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
The development is considered a major win for the crypto industry and proponents of a privacy-focused decentralized ecosystem.
The court determined that OFAC had acted outside its congressional authority when it sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022, and that the crypto mixer’s immutable smart contracts could not be considered "property" as they were not capable of being owned or controlled.
Tornado Cash’s native token, TORN, jumped more than 200% within hours of the announcement, from around $8.20 to over $25. At press time, the token was trading at around $15.70.
Despite the ruling, Tornado Cash’s founders are still facing charges of conspiracy to carry out money laundering. Roman Storm, one of its founders, said on X: “This prosecution represents a terrifying criminalization of privacy.”
CME Nixes Erroneous Offer of XRP, SOL Futures
There were likely some red faces at CME Group on Wednesday after a page went live on Beta.cmegroup, a staging website of the derivatives marketplace’s main website, saying that XRP and SOL futures contracts would start trading next month.
According to the page, which has since been taken down — but not before being shared by at least one X user — the contracts were to go live as soon as Feb. 10, pending regulatory approval.
The page said that all contracts would be settled in U.S. dollars and support multiple trading methods, including outright futures, basis trades at index close, and block trades.
“Honestly makes sense and largely to be expected if true IMO,” Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said of the CME beta webpage.
A CME spokesperson reportedly later told Fox Business that the beta version had been made public in error, and that no official decisions had yet been made about launching futures contracts for either token.
Lido Founder Says No ‘Second Foundation’ Exists Yet
Staking protocol Lido’s co-founder, Konstantin Lomashuk, recently downplayed rumors about a "second foundation" for Ethereum, clarifying that no such entity has yet been established.
The rumors stemmed from his sharing of an X post by an entity calling itself Second Foundation, which led some users to assume that he was associated with the new organisation.
“The tweet was just a tweet — no actual second foundation has been created yet,” Lomashuk said. “Ethereum is the ultimate world computer, and every Etherean can help it grow, evolve, and succeed.”
The idea of a second foundation has its roots in concerns about the Ethereum Foundation’s operations and decision-making processes.
Lomashuk had previously teased the idea of funding a second foundation, noting that creating competition between two groups would be an interesting idea to explore.
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Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍
🌐 Jump Trading sued ex-Firedancer engineer Liam Heeger for allegedly breaching non-compete agreements, claiming he secretly raised $3 million for rival Unto Labs, which Heeger denied, stating the startup focused on “something entirely new.”
👔 CFTC Acting Chair Caroline Pham appointed Harry Jung as Acting Chief of Staff to oversee crypto engagement, following leadership changes after her interim appointment by President Trump, with Jung bringing regulatory experience from Citigroup and Morgan Stanley.
⚠️ House Democrats flagged ethical concerns about President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures, citing potential conflicts of interest tied to his executive orders and projects such as World Liberty Financial and the TRUMP token.
🚨 Nasdaq’s official X account was hacked to promote a fake STONKS memecoin, leading to a brief $80 million market cap surge before the token crashed following the suspension of the fraudulent account.
The $$$ Corner…
🌉 SOON, an Ethereum layer 2 using the Solana virtual machine, garnered $22 million through an NFT sale ahead of its mainnet launch, highlighting its unique approach to Ethereum scaling.
🌾 Ethereum layer 2 Corn raised $8.3 million in a community funding round involving 675 investors and venture firms such as Polychain and GSR, aiming to integrate bitcoin as a gas token (BTCN) on its network for deeper DeFi adoption.
💼 Crypto wallet Keplr secured $5 million in seed funding at a $50 million valuation, led by early-stage venture fund 1confirmation, with plans to expand its ecosystem integrations beyond Cosmos and EVM-compatible chains.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down 3.4%, trading at $101,776
ETH is down 3.3%, trading at $3,211
BTC dominance: 55.21%
Crypto market cap: $3.66T
*All data as of today, 07:37 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
Recommended Reads
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Superstate: The Year of Tokenization: Key Trends and Insights from 2024
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