Ethereum Drama 👀
Plus, In with the new 🎉, Bitcoin’s new ATH 📈, and thanks, Bruno Mars? 🎶
Wicked Wednesday! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.
In today’s edition:
⌛ Ethereum rejig: Long time coming
💹 Boros: Hedging volatility
📈 Crypto’s record rally
💡 Hester Peirce: Time for a reality check
🎶 Aptos: Who’s paying the piper?
🔥 Starknet staking
📊 SOL outshines ETH
💸 PayPal USD’s cross-chain action
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What’s Poppin’?
by Juan Aranovich
Ethereum’s Beam Chain Draws Fire
Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake rolled out the Beam Chain, a redesign of the network’s consensus layer, but not everyone’s thrilled about the five-year timeline.
The complaints? It was too slow, and some are calling it little more than a code cleanup.
But here’s the thing: Ethereum isn’t a scrappy startup — it’s a $400 billion ecosystem with the bulk of crypto’s total value locked. It can’t afford downtime or risky changes.
Sure, it’s not sexy to play it safe, but this isn’t about speed — it’s about not crashing the ship.
A New Way to Trade Funding Rates
For a long while now, many projects have just been copy-pasting Uniswap or launching yet another “innovative” layer 1 that’s really just a rebrand. But Pendle’s announcement of Boros, a platform for leveraged yield tokenization, seems to be something genuinely new.
Boros aims to tokenize funding rates, which Pendle describes as a largely ignored market despite being critical to the $150-$200 billion daily crypto perps trading industry. By letting traders speculate on funding rate fluctuations or hedge positions at scale, Boros adds a layer of flexibility that doesn’t currently exist.
For example, Ethena’s USDe holders could hedge their exposure and lock in fixed returns. That’s a practical upgrade for anyone navigating crypto’s notoriously wild volatility.
Earlier this year, Pendle’s explosive TVL growth was driven by airdrop hunters farming points, a strategy that skyrocketed TVL to $6.7 billion by June. But as those markets expired, the TVL predictably cratered.
The team hinted on Unchained that they had plans to move past the airdrop-driven hype. Boros looks like that next iteration. Whether it can match the success of their earlier boom is another question, but at least this time, they’re bringing something fresh to the table.
Trump Bump: 8 New ATHs in Crypto
Following news of a pro-crypto president-elect and Congress, the market wasted no time setting new records—eight new ones that we could find.
Bitcoin topped $90,000, MicroStrategy’s stock hit its highest price ever, and protocols such as Solana, Base, and Aptos broke into all-time high territory.
Nothing’s actually changed yet — this is just optimism doing its thing.
But hey, when the possibility of regulatory clarity is on the table, that’s enough to get everyone rushing back into the game.
The SEC’s Big Question Mark
Trump’s crypto promises might have the industry hyped, but Securities and Exchange Commissioner Hester Peirce calls for a reality check: What happens when regulators are finally asked to write the rules?
According to her, the SEC isn’t ready, and drafting good crypto policy isn’t as simple as firing Gary Gensler. Peirce’s caution feels like she’s trying to slow down the parade — not because she’s anti-crypto, but because she doesn’t want overpromising to lead to underdelivering.
Fair point, but it’s definitely not what the market wants to hear right now.
APT Surges: Did Bruno Mars Call the Tune?
Aptos hit a major milestone this week: $1 billion in total value locked. That alone is big news, but what’s hilarious is that part of APT’s rise seems tied to a pop song.
Bruno Mars and Rosé (yes, from Blackpink) dropped a track named “APT,” and suddenly, crypto Twitter’s convinced it’s subliminal marketing genius.
Coincidence or not, APT is riding the wave. Only in crypto does stuff like this happen, and honestly, it’s so funny to watch.
What’s Poppin’?
by Tikta
Bitcoin’s Rally to New Record Pushes 95% of Supply Into Profit
Bitcoin has rallied an impressive 27% over the past week, briefly hitting a new record of just over $90,000 on crypto exchange Coinbase on Tuesday.
The OG crypto’s upward trajectory has now pushed 95% of its supply into profit, according to data from onchain analytics firm Glassnode.
“Historically, these euphoric phases have persisted for around 22 days before a correction occurs, pushing more than 5% of the supply below the original acquisition price,” Glassnode wrote.
The scale of monthly profit taking was in the $30 billion to $50 billion range, which Glassnode said was substantial, although still below historical peaks.
Based on Binance order book data and options market positioning examined by CoinDesk, bitcoin might face some resistance at the $90,000 mark.
At the time of writing, it was changing hands for $86,729 with a daily trading volume of $121 billion.
Starknet to Launch Staking Feature This Month
Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution Starknet is gearing up to launch staking for its STRK token on Nov. 26.
“After extensive testing on Sepolia, we are now ready to introduce the first phase of STRK staking on Starknet Mainnet,” the Starknet team said in a Nov. 12 announcement on X.
Users will need to stake a minimum of 20,000 STRK tokens to become validators, or delegate their STRK to validators without running their own nodes, if the validator allows delegation.
Validators will be expected to run full nodes and may handle additional responsibilities as the protocol evolves.
Both validators and delegators will be subject to a 21-day lockup period before they can withdraw their funds.
Starknet operates as a validity rollup, processing transactions off-chain and then submitting cryptographic proofs to the Ethereum mainnet.
Solana Outpaces Ethereum Across Most Metrics: Syncracy Capital
Solana is mispriced at its current valuation relative to Ethereum, according to crypto hedge fund Syncracy Capital.
The firm’s latest public thesis suggests that Solana outpaces Ethereum across most metrics, most notably in real economic value (REV) and total application revenue (TAR).
Solana’s REV was 111% of Ethereum’s in October, and its TAR was 109% of Ethereum’s.
REV is a measure of demand for blockspace based on fees paid to validators. TAR measures demand for blockchain applications as it represents fees paid to protocols.
Last month was also the first time that Solana-based applications generated more fees than Ethereum.
“At present, Solana trades at just 33% of Ethereum’s valuation despite rivaling or even surpassing Ethereum across nearly every key fundamental indicator — a gap that makes increasingly less sense with each passing day,” Syncracy Capital said.
PayPal USD Integrates LayerZero for Ethereum-Solana Transfers
PayPal USD (PYUSD), a US dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by payments giant PayPal, has started using interoperability protocol LayerZero to enable transfers between the Ethereum and Solana blockchains.
In a Nov. 12 press release, LayerZero said PYUSD had integrated its Omnichain Fungible Token Standard infrastructure to make those cross-chain transfers fast, secure, and cost-effective.
Importantly, the integration will enable users who self-custody their tokens to transfer assets between chains without relying on centralized platforms such as Venmo or PayPal.
Earn bitcoin on Gemini here.
Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍
🌍 The Digital Chamber is urging US lawmakers to accelerate stablecoin regulation, warning that global competitors such as China are advancing their stablecoin strategies to challenge the greenback’s dominance.
💸 US prosecutors filed to seize $17.9 million in crypto tied to alleged bribes Sam Bankman-Fried directed to Chinese officials in 2021 to unfreeze $1 billion in assets, showcasing ongoing efforts to recover misused funds from the FTX debacle.
🐕 Donald Trump announced Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as leaders of the new "DOGE" government efficiency department, and Dogecoin’s market cap skyrocketed to $60 billion amid speculation about their roles in slashing federal spending.
🚨 South Korean police arrested 215 individuals linked to a $232 million crypto scam in which victims were conned into buying worthless tokens with promises of 20x returns, often resulting in life-altering losses for middle-aged and elderly investors.
🇮🇹 Italy scaled back plans for a steep crypto tax hike from 42% to 28%, reflecting political compromises needed to balance revenue needs with fostering a supportive environment for crypto investors and industry stakeholders.
🛠️ ZERO Network, an Ethereum layer 2, launched fee-free transactions for Zerion Wallet users, leveraging zkSync's scaling solutions to eliminate the complexity of gas fees for onchain activities.
🪙 A $27 million mistake left a crypto developer pleading for community help after misdirecting Renzo tokens.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
🚀 Coinbase launched COIN50, a new index tracking its top 50 digital assets, offering traders exposure to market trends through perpetual futures with leverage as crypto markets hit record highs.
The $$$ Corner…
🔍 Notabene raised $14.5 million in series B funding, aiming to expand its role as a "crypto SWIFT" by helping firms meet stricter anti-money laundering requirements ahead of Europe's upcoming crypto regulations.
🎮 BetHog, a Solana-based crypto casino set up by FanDuel’s founders, debuted with $6 million in funding and unique player-vs.-player games that integrate live streamer interactions, targeting a fresh wave of Web3 gamblers.
🤖 Web3 startup Eidon AI secured $3.5 million to develop a blockchain-powered AI network where users can contribute data and computation, with a vision of decentralizing the value creation in AI training.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up 2%, trading at $87,838
ETH is down 2%, trading at $3,172
BTC dominance: 57.16%
Crypto market cap: $3.04T
*All data as of today, 08:00 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
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