After nine months of deliberation, the developers behind Celo have chosen OP Stack as the infrastructure for the project’s migration to Ethereum. 



In a Monday forum post, cLabs, which is the software company behind Celo, said it would be putting the OP Stack migration up for a community vote. If successful, the layer-2 would be set to go to testnet in summer 2024. 



CLabs first said it would migrate to a layer-2 in July 2023.



Celo and Optimism’s native tokens were both up roughly 5% amid a mostly flat day in crypto markets, according to CoinGecko.



Read more: ‘Carbon-negative’ Celo to ‘return home’ to Ethereum as layer-2



Celo’s layer-1 went to mainnet on Earth Day 2020 with a focus on global financial inclusivity and environmental health. CLabs raised $30 million from a16z and Polychain in 2019 to develop the project. It closed another $20 million round in 2021.



The layer-1 was Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible, meaning Ethereum smart contracts could run on Celo. 



Celo implemented EIP-1559 slightly differently than Ethereum implemented the proposal, and the cost of staying compatible with Ethereum ended up being “quite great,” cLabs Chief Technology Officer Marek Olszewski said Monday on an X space. 



Celo’s GitHub shows users paid a base gas fee and tip for transactions like with Ethereum’s EIP-1559, but small modifications were made. For instance, base fees were paid to Celo’s community fund rather than being burned like on Ethereum.



“We’ve been really laser-focused on being extremely Ethereum aligned, having learned lessons before,” Olszewski added when discussing why Celo picked the OP Stack.



CLabs hopes that Celo’s layer-2 will aim to preserve certain features of the layer-1 like one-block finality, which helps transactions settle quickly and prevents chain rollbacks or re-orgs — even if Ethereum itself re-orgs. Some lesser-used features may disappear with the migration, Olszewski said.

What’s behind Celo’s pivot to Ethereum?

EigenLayer, the biggest proponent and implementer of restaking, is starting to get rid of its training wheels. After briefly removing caps on staking with liquid staking tokens (LST), total value locked soared from $2.1 billion to 11.5 billion in ETH used for “restaking.”



At its core, restaking is about increasing capital efficiency. 



ETH is a tremendously widespread and liquid asset, which makes it ideal for bootstrapping new proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols. The deal is simple: New networks get significant security from day one, while ETH stakers get to earn extra on the same assets they already hold.



Restaking is quickly achieving buzzword status, and it’s largely the cautiousness of the EigenLayer team that is, for now, keeping it relatively tame in terms of total value locked figures. As a relatively new staking mechanism, augmenting existing liquid staking protocols like Lido, Rocket Pool, Frax and others, it promises to unlock billions in additional value in the wider staking industry. But as with any new crypto primitive, there are voices of concern about how restaking might threaten the stability of Ethereum and crypto itself.



Some of these concerns are probably unfounded — for example, concerns about financial stability. Other risks, namely technical, are legitimate but vastly overblown. Critics argue that routing a majority of the ether staked into restaking protocols could lead to an unnecessary and risky stacking of these technical risks. But the truth is, there’s likely more risk in not embracing restaking.



How restaking increases the financial stability of Ethereum



Restaking offers a great way to finally unlock the potential of LSTs, which could increase the security of ETH. It’s important to remember that beyond the convenience, LSTs exist for an important structural reason that directly benefits Ethereum security. 



In a nutshell, staking yield on Ethereum competes with DeFi yields. Lending protocols and liquidity

The risks of restaking are extremely overrated

Bitcoin layer-2 solution Stacks initiated the rollout of its Nakamoto upgrade shortly after the halving last Friday. This significant development is designed to enhance transaction throughput and unlock Bitcoin finality for layer-2 transactions. 



The Nakamoto upgrade aims to enable faster block processing and ensure all settlements are finalized on the layer-1. This will allow Bitcoin to remain secure while being programmable, similar to Ethereum and Solana Virtual Machines. 



Muneeb Ali, the co-founder of Stacks, told Blockworks that the Nakamoto upgrade and the general growth of Bitcoin layer-2 infrastructure may revive interest in the Bitcoin blockchain itself.



Read more: Bitcoin’s block reward slashed by 50% following 2024 halving



“Users are finally separating BTC the asset from Bitcoin as the rails,” Ali said. “BTC is the only digital asset that has proved itself as a hedge or store of value. This has created nearly $1 [trillion] in capital just sitting there. I believe the significant advancements made by [layer-2s], like Stacks’ Nakamoto upgrade, are a large contributor to this resurgence.”




🧵1/12 @Stacks 2.5 Activation ThreadThe first step with the most awaited $STX Nakamoto upgrade is happening on #Bitcoin block 840360. Here's a MEGA thread on what you need to know.☝️ pic.twitter.com/d0AHD3DaqS— Louise | CEO @Ryder (@louiseivanvp) April 22, 2024




According to the Stacks team, the Nakamoto upgrade rollout will continue over the next month, improving block times from the current 10-30 minutes to around five seconds. Ali notes that these improvements will enable Bitcoin layer-2s to support the growing DeFi applications that are being built.



“I think the market is awakening to the fact that Bitcoin can be the base layer for our industry. Bitcoin is the apex crypto asset, and [layer-2s] are enabling an economic flywheel around BTC through apps and smart contracts,” he said.



Read more: Q&A: What will the Bitcoin

Stacks Nakamoto upgrade unfolds a new era for the Bitcoin L2

After memecoin mania cycles were speed-run on Solana and Base, this weekend was Bitcoin’s turn, and a new network milestone came along with it.



For the first time ever, bitcoin miners in a single 24-hour period earned more in fees than in block rewards. On Saturday — just after the halving and the launch of token minting protocol Runes — miners raked in $80.74 million in fees and $26.28 million in bitcoin. 



That has never happened before, according to Token Terminal data. The day after also came close, with fees making up nearly 80% of all miner revenue.



Prior to this weekend, the closest fees that had come to flipping the block reward was during the peak bull market in December 2017: $21.1 million to $27.3 million. It also almost happened on Monday, May 8, 2023, with fees making up 42.6% of the total miner revenue for the day. 



Runes, a new protocol for minting memecoins from Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor, was released at the same block height as last Friday’s halving. Not for any technical reason — just it made for a neat countdown. 



A slew of Rune mints immediately came online, and average transaction fees hit an all-time high of nearly $130, per BitInfoCharts, more than double the previous record from the last bull market.



About 53,000 Runes-related transactions were recorded in the first two hours, roughly one-third more than the overall network’s usual numbers across February and March.



Read more: Bitcoin Runes look to spice up the halving party



Runes made up more than half of all Bitcoin activity on Saturday and Sunday, which explains why fees went berserk. People were willing to splurge to use the chain, as long as it meant minting the first Runes to hit the network. 



Now, Runes are down to about 30% of Bitcoin transactions and fees have fallen to about $11 for high priority. 



The pink columns, representing daily fees paid, are practically off the chart (Source)



Did Satoshi want memecoins on Bitcoin? Who

Bitcoin memecoins pushed fees higher than block rewards for first time

Bitcoin miner Hut 8’s diversified revenue streams could give it an edge over competitors in the long term, according to analysts at Benchmark.



The research firm started covering the stock on Monday, three days after the Bitcoin halving — when per-block rewards dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. 



Mark Palmer, a senior equity research analyst at Benchmark, gave Hut 8 a buy rating and a price target of $12 — roughly 50% higher than the level it trades at today.



The stock was trading up 5% at $8.49 midday Monday — down 36% year to date but up 16% in the last five days.  



Read more: How the Bitcoin halving could impact ailing mining stocks



Hut 8 has a 2025 enterprise value-to-revenue multiple of 2.6 — compared to the average 3.1 multiple of its competitors, according to Benchmark data. The research included the multiples of Marathon Digital, Riot Blockchain, CleanSpark, Bitfarms, Cipher Mining, Iris Energy, Hive Digital Technologies and TeraWulf when assessing the peer average.     



The figures are based on consensus 2025 revenue estimates, and the enterprise values include the companies’ net debt balances.



“We expect Hut 8 to close the valuation gap with listed peers that are further along in boosting their self-mining capacity as it executes on the build-out of its platform,” Palmer told Blockworks. 



Investors are particularly focused on self-mining right now given expectations that the price of bitcoin will rally aggressively following the latest halving, he noted. 



Hut 8’s self-mining deployed hash rate stood at 5.4 exahash per second (EH/s), well behind some of the space’s largest players in that category. The leader in that category, Marathon Digital, had 27.8 EH/s of installed hash rate at that time. 



“At the same time, we believe the diversity of Hut 8’s platform will benefit it over the long-term, as its revenue streams outside of self-mining position it to weather severe downturns in bitcoin’s price

Hut 8’s business diversity to give it an edge after the halving: Benchmark  

Hot ball of memecoin money



After memecoin mania cycles were speed-run on Solana and Base, this weekend was Bitcoin’s turn.



Runes, a new protocol for minting memecoins from Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor, was released at the same block height as last Friday’s halving. Not for any technical reason — just it made for a neat countdown. 



A slew of Rune mints immediately came online, and average transaction fees hit an all-time high of nearly $130, more than double the previous record from the last bull market.



Nearly 53,000 Runes-related transactions were recorded in the first two hours, about one-third more than the overall network’s usual numbers across February and March.



Read more: Bitcoin Runes look to spice up the halving party



Runes made up more than half of all Bitcoin activity on Saturday and Sunday, which explains why fees went berserk. People were willing to splurge to use the chain, as long as it meant minting the first Runes to hit the network. 



Now, Runes are down to about 30% of Bitcoin transactions and fees have fallen to $10.60 for high priority. SatScreener, a portal tracking the implied market caps of Runes (over $1.7 billion), has listed more than 7,000 different memecoins, most of them practically worthless, including: 




ALL-YOUR-TICKERS-SUCK



WADDLE-WADDLE-PENGU



BITCOIN-NETWORK-CONGESTION



IDK-HOW-TO-SELL-THIS




This is why Bitcoin’s fee problem is back: memecoins with amusing names. 



Runes are fungible memecoins that exist entirely on-chain. With Ordinals, special data (images, sounds, videos, text, browser-compilable code and so on) is written to individual satoshis (sats), imbuing them with non-BTC properties to make them unique and non-fungible. 



Those sats become Ordinals, which can then be traded on NFT marketplaces alongside other unique digital collectibles on Ethereum, Solana and other blockchains. 



Read more: Solana breaks $200 as memecoin and airdrop interest continue



Pseudonymous

Empire Newsletter: Bitcoin’s turn for memecoin mania

Though demand for US spot bitcoin ETFs has slowed down, the category snapped a five-day outflow streak on the day of the bitcoin halving. 



The 11-fund segment collectively brought in $60 million of assets during Friday’s trading hours, according to Farside Investors data. 



The bitcoin halving — when per-block rewards paid to miners dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC — occurred at about 8 pm ET that night.   



US bitcoin funds had seen $319 million of net outflows over a five-day span prior to Friday. 



Read more: Bitcoin ETF segment sees record-tying fifth straight day of outflows



Overall, US spot bitcoin ETFs endured net outflows for the second straight week, amounting to $204 million from April 15 to April 19. 



The driver of last week’s outflows was the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC), which hemorrhaged $458 million. 



BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) were unable to fully offset those GBTC asset losses — tallying net inflows last week of $165 million and $94 million, respectively.  



Grayscale revealed a planned fee of 0.15% for its Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) — substantially lower than GBTC’s fee of 1.5%. GBTC intends to seed the spin-off fund, and a portion of the bitcoin holdings would be allocated to the new proposed fund.



Trading volumes for crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) more broadly dipped to $18 billion last week, according to CoinShares head of research James Butterfill.



These volumes represent 28% of total bitcoin volumes, he added in a Monday report — a significant drop from 55% a month ago.



“The data suggests appetite from ETP/ETF investors continues to wane, likely off the back of expectations that the Fed is likely to keep interest rates at these high levels for longer than expected,” Butterfill wrote. 



BlackRock ended the week with an active daily net inflow streak of 69 days. 



Read more: BlackRock extends bitcoin ETF

Bitcoin ETF snapshot: GBTC drives second straight week of outflows

As NFTs boomed and Meta went all-in on the metaverse in 2021, a bevy of legacy firms started working on Web3-adjacent or metaverse projects. As interest in NFTs and the metaverse stagnated, many of these brands quietly shuttered their Web3 initiatives, with project leads either leaving or pivoting roles. Starbucks Odyssey was the latest such casualty.



Adidas, however, appears to be keeping one foot in the metaverse. 



Move to earn app STEPN announced a “long-term collaboration” with the global sports brand this week. The partnership so far comprises the launch of 1000 generative Solana-based NFTs of Adidas sneakers. 



Read more: Web3 Watch: Starbucks shutters its ‘Odyssey’ NFT program



STEPN users must have a sneaker NFT to use the movement app, which pays out rewards in GMT and GST tokens for users’ movement.



The Adidas NFTs went on sale this week for 10,000 GMT apiece, worth roughly $2400 at current prices. 



“We are ready to step into the future with @Stepnofficial,” ALTS by Adidas wrote on X.



Also this month, the Web3 online survival game show Crypto The Game let users bid on Adidas-branded tracksuits in an immunity challenge.



Adidas’ global head of Web3 strategy is Evgeniy Medvedev, who previously worked in business development at NFT company Rarible.



Justin Sun drops a Hans Zimmer track amid SEC chase



The prodigious film score composer Hans Zimmer’s catalog includes The Lion King, Dune, Interstellar and now the layer-1 blockchain TRON. 



The three-minute “song for the Web3 generation” is “a groundbreaking collaboration between legendary composer Hans Zimmer and blockchain visionary [Justin Sun],” according to a YouTube video uploaded by TRON. 



Sun founded TRON in 2017 but stepped down from the CEO role in 2021. He has since fallen into legal trouble. This week, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed documents claiming jurisdiction over Sun as it pursues “fraud and other securities law

Web3 Watch: Someone at Adidas likes crypto culture

It was something of an eye of the storm week for crypto funding, as the dust settled on two layer-1 megadeals last week and all of crypto braced for the fourth Bitcoin halving.



The week was nevertheless a standout one for deals in real-world assets, which refers to projects tokenizing off-chain goods like real estate or US Treasurys. 



Centrifuge raised $15 million for a generalist real-world asset platform. The round was co-led by ParaFi Capital and Greenfield, and follows on $7 million in strategic capital Centrifuge raised throughout 2022. 



Read more: Tokenized real-world assets are more than a Web3 Robinhood



Centrifuge facilitates pools of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), including assets like loans, credit and real estate. These pools are designed specifically to manage RWA liquidity pools, which are assets locked in a smart contract that help facilitate a liquid market. These pools consist of assets locked in a smart contract to support a liquid market for these RWAs.



Centrifuge tokenizes assets by creating NFTs that embed links to detailed off-chain data. This method leverages blockchain technology to ensure transparency and accessibility while securing sensitive data off-chain, as outlined in the project's documentation.



Centrifuge has also explored launching RWA liquidity pools on a variety of other chains, including Arbitrum and Base. 



Read more: Centrifuge to meet demand for real-world assets with liquidity pools



Centrifuge says $285 million worth in assets are held in its liquidity pools, a figure that increased quickly after sitting around $80 million at the end of 2022. 



With the funding, “[w]e'll continue to grow the team, invest in product development and support the broader tokenization ecosystem education and growth,” Centrifuge co-founder Lucas Vogelsang told Blockworks.



Also this week, tokenized real estate platform Homium raised a $10 million Series A to put home equity loans on the Avalanche blockchain. The

Funding Wrap: Centrifuge raises $15M as investors bet on RWAs

Nana Murugesan, who previously served as the vice president of business development, international and listings at Coinbase, has moved on to become the president of Matter Labs.Matter Labs is the software company developing the layer-2 zkSync, an Ethereum layer-2 focused on zero-knowledge proofs. 



Murugesan becomes Matter Labs’ first president. Alex Gluchowski, who also founded the company, is CEO. Murugesan will be responsible for “business, marketing, communications, finance, legal and policy, people and operations functions, expanding our team and ramping up operations,” Matter Labs said while announcing the hire. 



Read more: zkSync welcomes AI data warehouse as latest addition to hyperchain



“I'm thrilled to join the Matter Labs team to power mainstream blockchain adoption, enabling practical apps with developers & bringing in the next billion users with @zkSync,” Murugesan wrote on X. 



While Coinbase will have to replace an executive, the departure is not a sudden one. Murugesan announced that he would be leaving Coinbase in November of last year.



Ex-Coinbase employees run some of crypto’s most notable firms. Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam co-founded crypto venture fund Paradigm. Early Coinbase hires Olaf Carlson-Wee and Dan Romero went on to start Polychain and Farcaster, respectively.



Former Disney gaming exec co-founds Web3 game publisher



UAE-based Galactic Group is launching a Web3 game publishing arm named Galactic Entertainment, the company said in a press release. 



Mark Meyers, the company’s co-founder and chief publishing officer, rose to become the head of Disney’s gaming studios in the late aughts, leaving the company in 2012 to found an Internet of Things startup.



In a press release, Meyers extolled Web3 games’ ability to let players earn “in-game goods that they actually own.”



Read more: Immutable and Polygon Labs launch Inevitable Games Fund with hopes of raising $100M



The company, Galactic

Crypto Hiring: Coinbase exec departs for zkSync development company

Fiat currencies are evaluated on a variety of factors from usability and integrity to interest rates and demand; ultimately, bitcoin should be assessed on a wider set of criteria.



The price of bitcoin has long been a media obsession.



Every industry milestone appears defined solely by the price of bitcoin the following day: “Bitcoin price falls 15% following launch of ETFs,” crowed the Financial Times, following the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s bitcoin ETF approval in January. 



This is slightly unfair. 



Between July and November last year, the euro fell 7% against the US dollar, and no one questioned the validity of the former as a means of exchange. This is because the euro — even at a 7% depreciated value — remains a useful means of payment; it is universally accepted and requires no training, knowledge or equipment to use.



This is not (yet) the case with bitcoin, but considering “price” as its only measure of value is the same as valuing traditional currencies (only) according to the current exchange rate. 



The latter certainly contains valuable information about the opportunity cost of holding other currencies, as well as the monetary and fiscal policies associated with the currency in question. However, there are plenty of other indicators that can define a currency’s value, including interest rates and prevailing inflation. It all depends on one’s perspective.  



For instance, if you are a validator, Bitcoin’s value is tied up in gas fees — the commission independent validators receive for maintaining the integrity of the network.  Last year’s gas fees for bitcoin reached a historical high of $40, reflecting unprecedented demand and transaction volumes. 



Read more from our opinion section: If you still think bitcoin is scarce, you’re suffering from fiat brain



For corporations considering using bitcoin as a medium of exchange, the idea of value is associated with the levels of security associated

Don’t let bitcoin be defined by its price

Shortly after 8 pm ET, the network underwent its fourth mining subsidy halving, with per-block rewards falling from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. 



The 840,000th block was a notable affair unto itself. It boasted 37.626 BTC in fees — a cool $2.4 million for ViaBTC, the Chinese mining pool that scored the winning block. 



According to the block explorer Mempool.space, someone paid roughly nearly $430,000 in fees in an apparent effort to get their transaction in the 840,000th block — a rather expensive way to become part of history, we’d reckon. 



Read more: Bitcoin’s block reward slashed by 50% following 2024 halving



As expected, Crypto Twitter, the social hub of the ecosystem, saw its share of celebratory posts. 



BBQ dinners, livestream chats and countless screenshots of block explorers and countdown timers peppered our streams post-halving. At the bitcoin bar PubKey in New York City, party-goers busted out the tuxedo ties.



Read more: Bitcoin hovers around $63,600 following the halving




Which one of these things is not like the other…? pic.twitter.com/96VtMLmmlY— PUBKEY (@PubKey_NYC) April 19, 2024




We have to say: Kudos to those who opted the phrase “Bitcoin halfing,” which is somehow more eyebrow-raising than the (justifiably) oft-maligned “Bitcoin halvening.” 



Our toes were tapping here at Blockworks thanks to Jonathan Mann, otherwise known as Song A Day Man, who rang in the halving with a new song. 




someone has to write a song to celebrate the halving and it may as well be me. pic.twitter.com/qAw47CZoxR— 16 years of song a day (@songadaymann) April 19, 2024




The memes started rolling in quickly, too.  




crypto bros in the club tn: yeah so it depends on the time zone you’re in, but for some people the Bitcoin halving actually happened on 4/20 which is so sick pic.twitter.com/0SUsd5gssV— Jacquelyn Melinek (@jacqmelinek) April 20, 2024




The analysts were right, at least so far, the halving certainly seems to