Quick Take

• SEC Chairman Gary Gensler resigns.

• Court strikes down the SEC’s Dealer Rule.

• The Graph introduces GRC-20.

• Celestia outlines its Lazybridging endgame.

Gary Gensler Steps Down From SEC

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler announced his resignation from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), effective January 20, 2025. Appointed in April 2021, Gensler gained a reputation for aggressively pursuing enforcement actions against crypto projects, including ConsenSys, Uniswap, Coinbase, and Kraken. Gensler faced criticism for inconsistent statements about what constitutes a security and for urging crypto projects to “come in and register” while providing little regulatory clarity on digital asset classifications. The resignation coincides with the inauguration of a new administration, signaling a shift toward more friendly crypto regulation.

Court Overturns SEC Dealer Rule

A U.S. court ruled against the SEC’s recently implemented Dealer Rule, striking it down and rendering it unenforceable. The lawsuit was brought by the Crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas and the Blockchain Association, two nonprofit organizations advocating for cryptocurrency policy. The plaintiffs argued that the rule unlawfully targeted entities operating in DeFi markets. The court found that the SEC exceeded its statutory authority under the Exchange Act, concluding that the rule’s definition of "dealer" improperly included activities that fall outside the traditional scope of securities dealing. Uniswap founder Hayden Adams said the decision was a big win for DeFi. 

The Graph Introduces GRC-20

The Graph, a blockchain indexing protocol, introduced GRC-20, a proposed data standard aimed at structuring, sharing, and connecting information across applications. By creating a common language for knowledge, GRC-20 seeks to enable verifiable, open, and composable applications. The framework is built around three key components: Spaces, Entities, and Types. Spaces organize knowledge into public, personal, or private groups. Entities represent concepts or objects as nodes, with relations connecting them. Types provide structure by defining the fields and attributes of entities. GRC-20 is currently in a draft phase and is open for public feedback.

Celestia Outlines Lazybridging Endgame

Celestia outlined its Lazybridging endgame, a proposed feature designed to deliver a seamless user experience for interacting across multiple rollups and blockchains. Lazybridging seeks to simplify interactions, making them as intuitive and straightforward as using a single chain. The feature leverages Celestia's single-slot finality and advancements in ZK proving to enable fast and efficient asset transfers across chains.

Other News

• Case for EIP-7732 in Fusaka

• MORPHO delegation is live

• Presentation: ETH is permissionless money

• L2Beat integrates UOPS metric

• Introducing too many bridges

• Renzo integrates Coinbase validators

• Charles Schwab gets into spot crypto market

• Solana ETF 19b-4 filings