• SEC Chairman Gary Gensler resigns.

• Court strikes down the SEC’s Dealer Rule.

• The Graph introduces GRC-20.

• Celestia outlines its Lazybridging endgame.

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.

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, 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 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.

• 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

• Coinbase Wallet supports USDC rewards.

• Trump team considers a crypto policy role.

Coinbase Wallet, Coinbase's non-custodial wallet, now offers USDC rewards with an APY of up to 4.7%. Users can earn rewards by holding USDC in their Coinbase Wallet and activating the feature on the USDC asset page. Rewards are available for USDC held on Base, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Polygon, and Optimism. Reward payouts are made monthly to a user’s wallet on Base. The feature is available to most users globally, with support for U.S. users being rolled out this week. Coinbase Wallet also offers zero-fee USDC transfers on Base. USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market cap and the largest natively minted asset on Base.

President-Elect Donald Trump's team is evaluating the creation of a dedicated White House role for cryptocurrency policy, according to Bloomberg. If established, the role would be the first position of its kind, with responsibilities spanning crypto regulation. The role would also act as a bridge between Congress, the White House, and federal agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Trump has supported the crypto industry, pledging to dismiss SEC Chair Gary Gensler as part of his campaign promises. This week, he reportedly met with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, and crypto lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén is under consideration for the role of SEC Chair.

• Geth v1.14.12 release

• Superlane to support SuperERC20

• New Farcaster onboarding flow

• Protocol Guild plans a new logo design

• Ethereum the real dope song

• 60k tokens launched on pump.fun today

• Bitcoin protection strategy ETF

• Bitcoin hits $94,800 ATH

• Coinbase plans to suspend WBTC trading.

• Zerion launches an XP program.

• MetaMask releases extension v12.6.

• ethOS introduces an App Store.

Coinbase announced it will suspend trading for WBTC, the largest wrapped Bitcoin ERC-20 token on Ethereum, on its centralized exchange. Trading will cease on December 19, 2024, at approximately 12 PM ET. Coinbase has also transitioned WBTC order books to limit-only mode. The Wrapped BTC team expressed regret over the decision. Notably, in September, Coinbase introduced its own wrapped Bitcoin token, cbBTC, an ERC-20 asset backed 1:1 by Bitcoin held by Coinbase. Initially launched on Base and Ethereum, cbBTC has since expanded to Arbitrum. cbBTC currently has a market cap of $1.4 billion, compared to WBTC’s $13 billion.

Zerion, the portfolio tracker and wallet provider behind ZERO Network, introduced an XP program allowing over 10 million wallets to claim XP points based on wallet activity. Eligible criteria include metrics like gas spend and ownership of an Onchain DNA NFT. Additional XP can be earned for executing swaps, TVL held on ZERO Network, Gas Back rewards, and completing featured quests. Users can also migrate their Zerion Onchain DNA to ZERO Network. Onchain DNA serves as a spam filter, effectively distinguishing transactions made by real users from bots. Users on Zerion's mobile app and browser extension wallet can execute gas-free transactions on ZERO Network. Disclosure: ETH Daily is a participant in Zerion’s featured quests.

MetaMask, the leading Ethereum wallet with over 30 million monthly active users, launched MetaMask Extension v12.6, introducing two major features: Gas Station and Chain Permissions. Gas Station allows users to swap tokens without requiring native ETH for gas fees, as the fees are automatically included in the swap quote. Chain Permissions simplify multichain interactions by enabling users to sign transactions on any permitted network without manually approving network switches. Permissions are granted during the initial connection to a dapp and can be managed at any time. The new release also improves RPC URL management.

Ethereum-native mobile operating system provider ethOS announced plans for a native App Store coming to its dGEN1 hardware device in Spring 2025. The app store will feature a native wallet experience and zero in-app transaction fees for applications. dGEN1 is a dedicated device with a separate screen for displaying transaction notifications and metadata, a web3 browser, a system-level wallet, and native ENS support.

• Noble raises $15 million

• Caldera introduces Policy Engine

• Brazil’s central bank uses Chainlink

• Introducing ABC: Gigagas Rollup Stack

• Trump considers Teresa Goody Guillén for SEC