• 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

• The EF introduces an internship program.

• ENS Labs introduces Namechain.

• Virgil Griffith release update.

• RISC Zero introduces Kailua.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced its first formal internship program, set to begin in summer 2025. Aspiring Ethereum developers and researchers can apply until December 9, 2024, for a chance to work on projects ranging from protocol security, account abstraction, scaling research, and client development, over 12 weeks. Unlike the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF), the internship program is tailored for individuals with a general skill set seeking to deepen their knowledge of Ethereum, rather than requiring advanced protocol expertise. Mentoring teams include the Protocol Security Research Team, Robust Incentives Group, Portal Network Team, Geth, and the EEST Project.

At last week’s frENSday conference, ENS Labs unveiled Namechain, a zkEVM-based Layer 2 solution designed to enhance cost efficiency, performance, and the developer experience for ENS. Namechain will integrate with an existing EVM-compatible ZK Stack chain and is expected to launch on mainnet in 2025. Namechain is a key component of ENSv2, a comprehensive five-phase strategy to upgrade the protocol's architecture. The overhaul will migrate primary .eth domains to Layer 2, introduce new core ENS contracts for both Layer 1 and Layer 2, deploy ENS core infrastructure on Layer 2, and synchronize the new contracts with the legacy system. While domain registrations and renewals will move to Layer 2, name resolution will remain anchored on Ethereum’s Layer 1.

ENS General Counsel Alexander Urbelis provided an update on Virgil Griffith’s situation and anticipated release. In addition to his role at ENS, Urbelis is part of the legal team representing Griffith, an Ethereum developer arrested in 2019 and sentenced to 63 months for delivering Ethereum-related presentations in North Korea. In July 2024, Griffith's sentence was reduced by 10 months. While this brought him closer to release, complications arose when he selected Baltimore as his halfway house. Griffith will be released by April 2025 at the latest, when his full sentence is scheduled to conclude, though his legal team continues to work toward a sooner release.

RISC Zero introduced Kailua, a hybrid rollup solution that merges the cost-efficiency and high throughput of Optimistic Rollups with the fast finality of ZK Rollups. Kailua enables chains to achieve configurable settlement times of under an hour. It introduces an innovative proposer/challenger model powered by the OP Stack’s Kona suite and a dispute resolution protocol using RISC Zero proofs.

• On blob markets and base fees

• Hasu’s proposal to grow Lido staking

• Péter Szilágyi takes a sabbatical

• Espresso preconfs live on Gelato

• ETHPrague announced for May 2025

• Tally governance staking era

• Starknet data efficient

• Apply to be a Swell delegate

• $1b USDT issued