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Bitcoin returned to $59,000 in the European morning, a gain of around 0.7% in the last 24 hours. The broader digital asset market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index, added just under 0.65%. Traders are looking to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday, when officials are expected to announce their first interest-rate cut in four years. The 30-Day Fed Funds futures prices show traders see a 65% probability of a 50 basis-point cut to the 4.7%-5% range. As recently as Monday, the probability was sitting around 50% and a month ago it was only 25%.

BlackRock's bitcoin ETF (IBIT) registered its first inflows for three weeks on Monday, netting gains of $15.8 million, according to data from SoSoValue. Across the board, U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows of $12.9 million, with a handful of funds' small gains offset by $20.75 million flowing out of Grayscale's GBTC. IBIT is largest of the 12 funds, with assets worth $20.92 billion, but flows have been close to zero since Aug. 26. The three-week period also coincided with BTC falling from over $64,000 to below $55,000. While IBIT's Monday gains were fairly minor, they may still be a positive sign for BTC bulls seeing the sector's largest ETF returning to positive flows.

World Liberty Financial crypto project, which has been promoted by Donald Trump, will launch a governance token, WLFI, team members said during a Spaces stream on X. WLFI will be non-transferable and won't provide any economic rights, the team said. They said they only want token buyers who are seeking to be participants in governance, not those after an economic return. Some 63% of the token will be sold to the public, with 17% reserved for user rewards and 20% going to the team. As of now, the token will be sold only to accredited investors under what is known as a Regulation D exemption from the SEC. Regulation D exemptions allow companies to raise capital without registering securities with the SEC, primarily by offering securities to accredited investors.

Chart of the Day

The chart illustrates the decline in the ETH/BTC price ratio, now at its lowest level since April 2021.

It demonstrates the preference investors have toward bitcoin over ether, exemplified by the significant inflows enjoyed by BTC ETFs compared to the outflows experienced by their ETH counterparts.

Some traders say this shift indicates a broader market favoring bitcoin's perceived stability over ether's riskier, high-yield potential.

- Jamie Crawley

Trending Posts

DYdX to Debut Perpetual Futures on Prediction Markets as DEX Seeks to Raise Profile

UK Finance, Member Banks See Benefits During Experimental Phase of a Tokenization, CBDC Platform

Another Bitcoin Miner Adopts MicroStrategy's Playbook of Buying BTC in Open Market

Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange dYdX plans to list perpetual futures on prediction markets, d'Haussy told CoinDesk in an interview.

The prediction market could offer DeFi a unique opportunity to regain attention, d'Haussy added.

Perpetuals-focused decentralized cryptocurrency exchange dYdX will soon enter the prediction markets sector, allowing users to place leveraged bets on the outcome of binary events, as it looks to divert attention from centralized trading venues.

"DYdX will launch perpetual futures on prediction markets," dYdX Foundation CEO Charles d'Haussy said in an interview, explaining that decentralized finance (DeFi) needs to offer something special to differentiate itself from centralized venues.

"The prediction market could offer DeFi a unique opportunity to regain attention," d'Haussy said, adding that the DEX is also looking at foreign currency and indexes markets.

Prediction markets allow investors to place bets on the outcome of specific events, ranging from sports, financial asset prices, political events and even the weather, using financial incentives. Perpetuals are futures-like derivatives contracts without an expiry date, allowing market participants to hold positions as long as they see fit.

Augur, launched in 2018 on Ethereum, was perhaps the first to enter the crypto-based prediction market. However, it failed to gain traction due to a lack of liquidity and high fees on the Ethereum blockchain. Today, PolyMarket is the leader in on-chain prediction markets. August trading volume on the platform exceeded $450 million. DYdX's trading volume was $21.2 billion, according to DefiLlama

DYdX's impending foray into prediction markets is a part of the dYdX Unlimited upgrade, which is expected later this year. The program, touted as the dYdX blockhain's most significant to date, will introduce features like a permissionless listing of markets and a master liquidity pool called MegaVault.

The platform's users can propose to list any market on the dYdX chain. The protocol actively maintains price and market parameters," Haussy said, explaining permissionless listing. The community is currently experimenting with an FX trading pair tied to the Turkish lira (TRY).

Users who debut new markets will need to deposit a governance-determined amount of stablecoin USDC into the MegaVault, which will then quote orders on that market, facilitating instant liquidity.

The vault will source liquidity from users, who will get a share of the vault's profits plus a share of the protocol's revenue determined by governance. More importantly, users only need to deposit USDC into the vault, and the vault will decide where to provide liquidity. In esssence, it's a passive income strategy, d'Haussy explained.

Bhutan, a Himalayan nation with fewer than 1 million people, has accumulated over $780 million in bitcoin, representing nearly a third of its GDP, through mining operations run by state-owned Druk Holdings.

The mining operations are linked to Bitdeer, which has been expanding mining facilities in the country and aiming for a 600 megawatt capacity by 2025.

Bhutan's investment in digital assets is part of a broader strategy by Druk Holdings to diversify revenue streams, with recent wallet activity showing both deposits and withdrawals, including significant transactions with exchanges like Kraken.

A picturesque landlocked nation between India and China has amassed bitcoin {{BTC}} holdings worth over $780 million in the past few years, nearly one-third of its gross domestic product (GDP) and the fourth-largest state-owned stash, according to on-chain analytics tool Arkham.

Bhutan, nestled in the Himalayas, considers its fewer than 900,000 citizens’ happiness a better measure of the country's well-being than money. It is the second nation after El Salvador to officially hold BTC, in this case as part of the state-owned Druk Holdings fund.

"Bhutan has constructed Bitcoin mining facilities in multiple locations, with the largest being on the site of the now-defunct Education City project," Arkham said in an X post. "Unlike most governments, Bhutan’s BTC does not come from law enforcement asset seizures, but from Bitcoin mining operations, which have ramped up dramatically since early 2023."

Bhutan is the 4th largest government with Bitcoin holdings on our platform, with over $750M in BTC.Unlike most governments, Bhutan’s BTC does not come from law enforcement asset seizures, but from Bitcoin mining operations, which have ramped up dramatically since early 2023. pic.twitter.com/5bCRk9ajti

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) September 16, 2024

These mines are likely related to mining giant Bitdeer (BTDR). In 2023, the Singapore-based company said it would work with the Bhutan government to establish cryptocurrency mining operations in Southeast Asia and raised over $500 million for the venture. Shortly afterward, Bitdeer said it had built a 100 megawatt (MW) facility in the first phase of the company's project.

In April 2024, Bitdeer said it was working on expanding Bhutan's mining capacity to 600MW in 2025.

Bhutan, which is smaller than Switzerland, has little economic diversification and nascent private sector development. It relies on hydropower, tourism and agriculture for revenue. Gross domestic product, the value of all finished goods and services made in the country, was just under $3 billion in 2022, about half that of the Maldives.

But Druk is pushing into various sectors to expand the country’s coffers. Its site shows “digital assets” as one of the primary focus areas in a technology-driven investment strategy, including hydropower projects and metaverses.

The Druk wallets tracked by Arkham show brisk deposit and withdrawal activity in the past few weeks. It has received up to 2 BTC from Foundry, another miner, and other unidentified Bitcoin addresses several times over the past week.

It has periodically sent bitcoin to other addresses and sometimes to crypto exchanges: A transaction from early July shows a tranche of over $25 million worth of BTC was sent to crypto exchange Kraken, where it was likely sold.

Bitcoin remains stable around $58,480 with slight movements in other cryptocurrencies like XRP, SUI, and FTM.

The market anticipates the Federal Reserve's potential interest rate cut on September 18, which is expected to influence risk assets positively, with a 67% probability of a 50 bps rate cut.

Former President Donald Trump's associated project, World Liberty Financial, announced the launch of a governance token exclusively for U.S. accredited investors.

Bitcoin {{BTC}} and broader crypto markets have changed little in the past 24 hours as traders await a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday, where officials are expected to announce their first rate cuts in four years.

Bitcoin is trading below $58,500 at $58,480 and is relatively flat. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a measure of the largest digital assets, is up slightly, trading above 1,800.

Daily inflows into the bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) came in at $12.9 million, with most going to BlackRock’s IBIT.

The Fed is widely expected to announce an interest rate cut on Sept. 18, kicking off the so-called easing cycle, which has historically supported risk assets, including bitcoin.

As of Asian morning hours Tuesday, the 30-Day Fed Funds futures prices show traders see a 67% probability of big 50 bps rate cut to the 4.7%-5% range. This is a bump from Monday’s 50% implied probability and a large jump from the 25% probability from a month ago.

On Polymarket, traders are giving a 57% chance of a 50+ bps decrease and a 41% chance of a 25 bps decrease.

Elsewhere, the market remains fairly flat. Notable movers include XRP up 3.5%, SUI up 2.5%, and Fantom’s FTM, up 10.5% on continued positive market sentiment from its upcoming re-brand to Sonic.

Trump’s World Liberty Financial to launch WLFI token

On a livestream spanning over two hours, the team behind World Liberty Financial, a project endorsed by former President Donald Trump and his family, confirmed that it was launching a governance token – but only for accredited U.S. investors.

The team emphasized that the token is for governance participation, not economic gain, and did not share a specific launch date during their X Spaces stream.

During the livestream Trump did not mention the token itself or give an endorsement, but rather shared his general views on crypto policy, most of which was a repeat of what he shared during prior public appearances such as at the recent Bitcoin Conference in Nashville.

Figure Markets launches exchange with real estate-backed yield

Crypto exchange Figure Markets is launching on the sidelines of Token2049 in Singapore. Figure, which was founded by SoFi co-founder Mike Cagney, has a unique way of generating yield for those that keep their crypto on the exchange.

Figure says it will be able to offer returns of up to 8% for non-USD and stablecoin balances by leveraging a fund backed by real-world assets, such as home equity loans, according to a release.

Traders on the exchange deposit funds into Figure Markets, which are pooled and lent to Figure Technologies to issue secured home equity loans, a release explains. Borrowers pay interest on these loans, creating a spread that covers costs and provides returns to investors, who benefit from dual recourse protections, daily liquidity, and interest payments that accrue based on the length of their investment.

While Real World Assets (RWAs) are a growing part of crypto, there are very few applications in the industry that attempt to derive yield from them to finance their operations.

In 2023, before the launch of Figure, Cagney withdrew the company’s bid for a U.S. federal bank charter after regulatory scrutiny, opting to focus on partnerships with established banks instead.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project the Trump family has endorsed, will be launching a governance token.

The token will be non-transferable offered only to accredited investors under an SEC Regulation D exemption as the team cited regulatory uncertainty in the U.S.

Team members behind the World Liberty Financial (WLFI) crypto project, which has been promoted by President Donald Trump and his sons, confirmed during an X Spaces live audio stream that they will launch a governance token.

WLFI will be non-transferable and won't provide any economic rights, the team said on the stream. They said they only want token buyers who are seeking to be participants in governance, not those after an economic return.

Some 63% of the token will be sold to the public, with 17% reserved for user rewards and 20% going to the team. CoinDesk reported some details of the project last week, citing a draft white paper.

As of now, the token will be sold only to accredited investors under what is known as a Regulation D exemption from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Regulation D exemptions allow companies to raise capital without registering securities with the SEC, primarily by offering securities to accredited investors or in small, private offerings.

“Our goal is to build projects that are easy and simple to use and where you don’t need to phone a friend to get a walkthrough,” Zak Folkman, one of the project’s founders, said during the stream.

The team didn’t share a launch date for the token during the nearly two-and-a-half-hour stream, which brought in over 100,000 listeners.

Polymarket betting

A Polymarket contract asking if Trump will launch a coin before the election peaked at over 80% for the Yes side during the live stream, but sank to as low as 22% as the stream ended.

Earlier in the discussion, various members of the Trump family joined the discussion to share their views on crypto.

Donald Trump Jr. talked about how he sees DeFi as, “what our founding fathers intended for the country,” as it brings back fairness to the financial system.

“Venture Capitalists are flipping sides over crypto,” he said, noting endorsements from the likes of David Sacks and Elon Musk.

Eric Trump said on the session that DeFi needed to be easier to use for regular people, noting the extreme difficulties he encountered when "looping Ethereum on Aave," a decentralized lending platform.

While former President Donald Trump joined the X Spaces session for the first 40 minutes, he didn’t discuss the project and instead shared his views on crypto public policy developments.

"Crypto's one of those things we have to do, whether we like it or not," Trump said.

Another Polymarket contract asking users to bet on what Trump would say during the stream had markets for “Solana”, “Memecoin”, “Milady” and “Doge” but the former president failed to mention any of these. He did, however, say “Crypto” over five times and “NFT” once.

U.K. Finance alongside 11 of its members completed the experimental phase of a tokenization and CBDC platform.

The program identified improvements in economic value and enhanced functionality.

Trade association U.K. Finance said it completed the experimental phase of a tokenization and central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform and is looking to work with regulators and other public bodies on developing payment networks based on the technology.

Involving 11 member banks, including Barclays, Citi UK, HSBC and Natwest, as well as professional service firms, the program concluded that such a platform would help deliver economic value and could enable new functionality such as programmable payments.

The Regulated Liability Network is a financial market infrastructure “that can deliver new capabilities for payments and settlement, including tokenization and programmability,” U.K. Finance said in a statement.

An increasing number of platforms and institutions are exploring tokenization, the process of bringing real-world assets including securities like stocks on-chain. Last year, U.K. regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it supported industry leaders' report on the implementation of fund tokenization. The newly elected Labour government set out a policy aim for the country to become a securities tokenization hub earlier this year in the run up to the general election.

“Working in partnership, we have demonstrated how this platform supports developments in money and payments aligned to common public and private sector objectives, while also providing clear and long-term customer and industry benefits,” Peter Left, co-chair of the RLN Project, said in the statement.

The core of the platform comprised a multi-issuer tokenization platform that facilitated the issuance of tokenized commercial bank deposits plus simulated a wholesale CBDC – a digital token issued by a central bank for institutions, not retail users. It also included an application program interface (API) layer that enabled interoperability across all forms of money and existing ledgers.

“The legal and regulatory framework of the U.K. is sufficiently flexible to support the implementation of a ‘platform for innovation’, subject to further implementation and regulatory engagement,” the organization said.

Read more: Bank of England to Carry Out CBDC, Digital Ledger Experiments

Cathedra Bitcoin will pivot away from Bitcoin mining to providing general data center services and buying Bitcoin on the open market instead, the company said.

Cathedra cited unpredictable profit margins as a cause for the shift.

It was Michael Saylor whose MicroStrategy championed large corporations buying bitcoin {{BTC}} on the open market. Then, surprisingly, one of the biggest bitcoin mining firms, Marathon Digital (MARA), adopted the same strategy. And now another miner is following the same path.

Cathedra Bitcoin (CBIT), a firm that started as a miner, said it's changing its business model to develop data centers and will use profits from that business to buy bitcoin instead of mining it. "The last three years have demonstrated to us that bitcoin mining is not a reliable way to grow shareholders’ bitcoin per share," the company said in a statement, noting that the firm's primary goal is to accumulate bitcoin for the shareholders.

Read more: Bitcoin Mining Is So Rough a Miner Adopted Michael Saylor's Successful BTC Strategy

During the 2021 bull run, mining was seen as a better way to accumulate bitcoin at a discounted price than the open market due to high-profit margins and relatively low hurdle to start the business. That all changed after the recent crypto winter, approval of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to be traded in the U.S. and the halving – which cut the rewards in half, making mining even more competitive.

The miners are now struggling to stay afloat and accumulate bitcoin at a discounted price, while other public companies, such as MicroStrategy's (MSTR), are getting rewarded by investors for buying bitcoin in the open market.

"Indeed, nine of the 10 largest (by market capitalization) publicly listed bitcoin mining companies hold less bitcoin per share today than they did three years ago. And as a bitcoin miner ourselves, Cathedra has not fared better by this metric. Meanwhile, other listed companies have adopted an explicit policy of increasing bitcoin per share, most notably MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), and have been rewarded by equity markets," Cathedra wrote.

The company said it will now pivot to developing and operating data centers, which have more predictable cash flows. The firm will then use the profits generated from that business to buy bitcoin in the open market. In fact, it recently merged with Kungsleden, a developer and operator of alternative high-density compute infrastructure, to achieve this goal.

Additionally, the company will use other options such as debt, equity and bitcoin-linked derivatives to generate funds to buy more bitcoin. Currently, Cathedra holds 43 bitcoin on its balance sheet.

While the company said it's not entirely ditching the mining business and will continue to retain bitcoin mined from its existing operations, it's not hard to see why it pivoted to such a business model. Most recently, bitcoin miner Core Scientific (CORZ) and data center firm Applied Digital (APLD) shares surged after they announced diversifying into high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) hosting business.

Meanwhile, stock prices of other miners that haven't committed fully to HCP or AI computing business keep getting pressured as the network hashrate, or a measure of competitiveness, continues to rise to all-time highs, while profitability falls.

JPMorgan recently said the hashprice, a measure of miner's daily profitability, has fallen 2% this month, and is more than 50% below pre-halving levels. Meanwhile, Jefferies said bitcoin mining was notably less profitable in August than in July, and September is shaping up to be another difficult month due to rising hashrate.

"By repositioning the company away from the bitcoin mining business, toward one with more predictable cash flows and which generates attractive returns on capital – developing and operating data centers – we believe our recent merger with Kungsleden will enable Cathedra to generate meaningful growth in bitcoin per share over time," Cathedra said in the statement.

MicroStrategy proposed to issue $700 million of convertible senior notes, with $500 million to be used to redeem a previous tranche of notes.

The remainder of the money could be used to buy additional bitcoin.

Nasdaq-listed bitcoin development firm MicroStrategy (MSTR) announced Monday that it intends to offer $700 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2028.

The company plans to use the proceeds of the offering to redeem $500 million worth of senior secured notes with 6.125% annual yield maturing in 2028, the press release said. It will use the rest of the proceeds to purchase more bitcoin {{BTC}} and for general corporate uses.

The firm also plans to grant to the initial purchasers of the notes an option to buy up to an additional $105 million aggregate principal amount of notes within a 13-day period starting on the issuance date of the first notes. The company said it may redeem for cash all or a portion of the notes on or after December 20, 2027, subject to certain conditions.

The company, led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, started purchasing bitcoin in 2020, adopting it as a reserve asset for its treasury. Since then, it has become the largest corporate buyer of bitcoin, accumulating 244,800 BTC, worth roughly $14.2 billion at current prices. Only days ago, MicroStrategy disclosed the purchase of an additional $1.1 billion worth of bitcoin, leaving it with $900 million available under a previous offering.

Recently, other public companies such as Semler Scientific and Japanese investment adviser Metaplanet have followed MicroStrategy's footprints to issue debt to accumulate bitcoin.

MSTR shares slid 4.9% during regular trading today alongside a sizable decline in the price of bitcoin. Shares are down another 1.6% in after hours trading. They remain higher by about 300% on a year-over-year basis.

With little over a month and a half to go till the U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump's schedule is packed – rallies, debates, stump speeches, crisscrossing the country to campaign in battleground states. Over the weekend, at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, he became the target of what the FBI described as an attempted assassination.

Despite all that, the former president and Republican nominee has carved out some time later on Monday to unveil a new crypto company: World Liberty Financial.

At 8 p.m. on X (formerly Twitter), Trump is scheduled to livestream specifics of the blockchain app that he and his sons have been teasing for months in the leadup to November's presidential election.

Join me live from Mar-A-Lago at 8:00PM Eastern, tonight on X Spaces. Set a reminder and be sure to tune in! https://t.co/MXTu3hxVFP

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2024

The project has already sparked controversy. Hackers recently compromised X accounts belonging to members of the Trump family, promoting fake links to the crypto company. While the real app has yet to be officially launched, leaked details of the project's leadership team – and its ties to another recently hacked crypto app – have sparked concern among some of the former president's supporters in the crypto world.

Earlier this month, CoinDesk obtained a confidential draft for the project outlining plans for an app meant to make decentralized finance (DeFi) accessible to the masses. Decentralized finance refers to blockchain-based tools that allow users to directly trade, borrow, lend and invest assets without traditional middlemen.

After deriding bitcoin as "based on thin air" in 2019, Trump has explicitly embraced the technology and amped up his pro-crypto rhetoric in recent months, especially with the blockchain industry emerging as one of the election cycle's biggest corporate fundraisers. His speech at the Bitcoin Nashville conference in July outlining favorable crypto policies was met with repeated standing ovations and cheers from the thousands of attendees.

The white paper obtained by CoinDesk advertises World Liberty Financial as a way of "putting the power of finance back in the hands of the people," as an answer to the "rigged" financial system.

Who is involved

World Liberty Financial's team includes a mix of Trump family members (18-year-old Barron is listed as chief "DeFi Visionary"), traditional financial figures and blockchain industry leaders. The elder Trump's title with the project would be "chief crypto advocate," according to the white paper.

The pair spearheading the project – Zak Folkman and Chase Herro – are not well-known in the crypto world.

CoinDesk previously reported that the duo was responsible for Dough Finance, a DeFi product that failed to gain traction and was hacked for $2 million over the summer.

The pitch outlined in World Liberty Financial's white paper closely resembles that of Dough. Both platforms are modeled as user-friendly interfaces for accessing Aave, a popular Ethereum-based lending market, and some of the early code for the Trump-backed crypto app appears to have been lifted directly from Herro and Folkman's older project.

Outside of crypto, Folkman and Herro are the founders of Subify, a censorship-free subscription platform similar to OnlyFans that is best known for its association with the influencer Logan Paul.

Folkman, who registered the LLC for World Liberty Financial, used to deliver seminars advising men on how to pick up women. According to a Bloomberg report published last week, Herro has promoted himself as the "dirtbag of the internet" and has promoted failed cryptocurrencies, colon cleanses and get-rich-quick classes.

Read more: World Liberty Financial: Inside the Trump Crypto Project Linked to $2M DeFi Hack and Former Pick-Up Artist

A Trump crypto token

Crypto projects frequently release governance tokens to "decentralize" their products and sidestep arduous securities regulations. World Liberty has not officially unveiled its plans for a cryptocurrency, but the white paper reviewed by CoinDesk suggested that the project will eventually sell a governance token called WLFI.

According to the document, the Ethereum-based WLFI token will be non-transferable, meaning it won't be possible to trade on the blockchain, but holders will be able to use it to vote on changes to World Liberty's development roadmap.

An unusually large 70% of WLFI tokens have apparently been reserved for World Liberty's team and developers. The rest will be sold to the public, with the proceeds from that sale also reserved for World Liberty insiders.

While crypto projects generally reserve a portion of tokens to compensate founders, investors and developers, these groups rarely receive more than 20% or 30% of the total supply. WLFI's allocation to insiders is much larger than peer projects, and token presales are relatively uncommon altogether in today's crypto industry because they tend to face legal and practical hurdles.

The transfer restrictions may be designed to make WLFI look less like a stock in the eyes of regulators since they will make the asset difficult to buy and sell like other speculative cryptocurrencies. However, traders frequently sell IOUs for blockchain assets via legal agreements and handshake deals, and WLFI holders could ostensibly vote to make the asset directly transferable on blockchains in the future.

Read more: In Trump-Backed Crypto Project, Insiders Are Poised for Unusually Big Token Payouts

Community response

Trump has fashioned himself as cryptocurrency's sole champion in this year'spresidential race, and his crypto venture uses anti-establishment rhetoric that could resonate with single-issue crypto voters and MAGA populists alike. (Neither Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, nor his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, mentioned crypto at last week's televised debate.)

While it is unclear how closely World Liberty Financial will ultimately resemble its white paper, some of Trump's backers within the crypto industry are worried that the whole plan could backfire.

"Is there something that we, as crypto twitter, can collectively do to stop the launch of world liberty coin," Nic Carter, a prominent crypto industry figure and Trump supporter, asked on X (formerly Twitter) after CoinDesk published its initial report on World Liberty Financial's white paper.

is there something that we, as crypto twitter, can collectively do to stop the launch of world liberty coin? i think it genuinely damages trump's electoral prospects, especially if it gets hacked (it'll be the juiciest DeFi target ever and it's forked from a protocol that itself…

— nic carter (@nic__carter) September 4, 2024

Though the Trump family appears deeply involved in World Liberty Financial and Donald Trump will be officially unveiling it on Monday evening, the project's white paper claims notes that the platform has no political affiliation, stating: "World Liberty Financial is not owned, managed, operated, or sold by Donald J. Trump, the Trump Organization, or any of their respective family members, affiliates, or principals."

It adds: "However, they may own $WLFI and receive compensation from World Liberty Financial and its developers. World Liberty Financial and $WLFI are not political and have no affiliation with any political campaign."

Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who is currently serving a four-month prison sentence, will be a free man by the end of the month.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, Zhao – also known as inmate 88087-510 –

will be released from custody on Sept. 29, 118 days after reporting to a low-security prison, Lompoc II, on California’s central coast. He spent three months in Lompoc II before being moved to a halfway house in San Pedro, California in late August.

Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison in April, five months after he pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to set up an adequate know-your-customer (KYC) program at Binance. As part of his guilty plea, Zhao also agreed to pay a $50 million fine and step down as CEO of the crypto exchange.

After Zhao stepped down, Richard Teng – a former regulator in both Abu Dhabi and Singapore – was appointed CEO of Binance. In addition to the charges against Zhao, Binance was also criminally charged with violating U.S. sanctions and money transmitting laws and agreed to pay $4.3 million to settle the allegations.

Read more: New Binance CEO Sees No Need for IPO As He Plots 100-Year Strategy for the Crypto Exchange

At an estimated net worth of $25.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires’ Index, Zhao is believed to be the richest person to ever go to prison in the U.S.

More than 40 financial firms will join central bank group the Bank for International Settlements to explore how tokenization can enhance wholesale cross-border payments in Project Agorá.

The group will look into combining wholesale central bank money with tokenized commercial bank deposits, the BIS announced.

More than 40 financial firms will join the Bank for International Settlements – often referred to as the central bank for central banks – to explore how tokenization can be used in wholesale cross-border payments through its Project Agorá, the BIS said on Monday.

The financial firms were selected by the BIS following a public call for participation in May. Project Agorá will now begin the design phase of the project.

Tokenization is the digitization of real world assets. Several countries have been exploring how best to maximize this nascent technology.

The BIS launched Project Agorá in April, bringing together seven monetary authorities from the U.K., Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, the U.S. and Europe.

It builds on the BIS's unified ledger concept and "will investigate how tokenized commercial bank deposits can be seamlessly integrated with tokenized wholesale central bank money in a public-private programmable core financial platform," the BIS said on its website.

"This major public-private partnership will seek to overcome several structural inefficiencies in how payments happen today, especially across borders," the BIS said.

The challenges for cross-border payments that the BIS wants to overcome include different legal, regulatory and technical requirements as well as various operating hours.

There is currently $11 billion worth of value locked up within the EigenLayer project. By TVL (total value locked) it’s below only the liquid staking platform Lido (which is so popular that Ethereum devs warn about its centralization risk) at $23bn TVL, and Aave, the well-established crypto lending and borrowing marketplace, which has $11.3bn TVL. The EigenLayer project has raised $600m in funding from investors such as Coinbase Ventures and a16z.

EigenLayer and restaking have therefore been hot topics on conference stages and are a key ecosystem narrative for 2024. However, while EigenLayer is an understandable fit for more risk-accepting retail investors, it doesn’t currently fully meet institutional needs. EigenLayer is therefore going to have to decide whether it’s building for the mass retail market or whether it needs to pay attention to the needs of institutional players coming into the space.

So why is EigenLayer, as currently built, unsuitable for institutions?

Firstly, the majority of institutions hold their assets with a qualified custodian or trusted institutionally-focused wallet provider. However the primary delegation flow for restaking with EigenLayer is via their user interface and requires a connection to DeFi wallets such as Metamask, Trust or Rainbow. Institutions therefore require their custodian or wallet provider to build the necessary integrations into the Eigenlayer ecosystem in such a way that their institution’s staking provider of choice, such as Twinstake, can also be integrated in the flow. However to date, most institutionally focussed custodians have limited EigenLayer integrations, therefore blocking access into the ecosystem.

The next crucial consideration for an institution is who they are restaking to – the Operator in EigenLayer parlance.

Institutional players will likely choose Operators that offer legally-enforceable performance guarantees, as seen with their preference to use staking providers over permissionless staking protocols. They will expect protections such as slashing risk insurance (the process of penalizing a validator for misbehavior); at present, no external providers currently offer this at the institutional level.

Another notable consideration and choice for institutions is deciding who should select the AVS (Actively Validated Services). These are services such as zero-knowledge provers, data availability layers and oracles. The Operator runs software and hardware in order to generate rewards for their delegators. However, should the Operator or their delegator choose the AVS support list?

The current model fits a retail client base whereby no individual delegator meets the minimum active delegation amount (currently 32ETH) and so the decision “power” lies with the Operator. They select the AVS based on their requirements and any delegators restaking with them simply subscribe to this.

However, institutions will be restaking well above a single Operator’s minimum amount, and could therefore have their own dedicated Operator. In this case, there needs to be a consensus on who is responsible for AVS selection and who will take on the reputation or legal risk of poor AVS selection.

A further institutional consideration is around rewards. Although the rewards distribution mechanism was recently launched, the majority of AVSs on EigenLayer still operate through the point-based system. Whilst this may avoid the challenging legal and regulatory position of token launches, it requires institutions to navigate an untested environment of points accrual and interpret tax laws that don’t currently account for conversions from points to blockchain-based token systems.

In line with this, the current model for AVSs allows for the rewards to be paid out in the AVS’s own token (as well as ETH and EIGEN). It’s likely that the majority of AVSs will have their own token however if this can’t be received into custody by the preferred institutional custodians then this could severely limit institutional options for AVS selection. Furthermore, institutions may have concerns about the stability and longevity of potential rewards when comparing the high restaked amount and what the total useful security budget for the current 16 AVSs may be.

Over the last few months there has been a steady decline in TVL, however still at almost $11 billion, one could question whether such an amount is required now or in the medium term for the projects using EigenLayer for their security budget. In line with this, many are new projects which are still looking to secure product market fit and sufficient level of use. The risk is that many of these AVSs aren’t able to find this and therefore don’t have sufficiently liquid and stable token prices. This could result in institutions holding rewards of illiquid assets, and the commission paid to Operators therefore outweighing the potential rewards that institutions can generate.

The overarching blocker to the institutional adoption of EigenLayer right now is the most simple of all – smart contract risk. This is the hardest to solve as no amount of audits can give certainty against a hack or code mishap, and one of the strongest proof points of safety is simply time.

Therefore while institutions are showing strong interest in the restaking narrative, realistically many are still getting comfortable with DEXs and anything beyond vanilla on-chain activity. It is therefore my view that institutions will continue to sit on the sidelines until the above aspects are resolved and until retail investors have tested the waters, which in my view still feels a little cold.

Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.

This week in prediction markets:

Second assassination attempt not boosting Trump’s odds as election betting nears $1 billion on Polymarket

Oral arguments set for Thursday in CFTC appeal of the case it lost to Kalshi.

Are you ready for 20X leveraged election betting?

What will Trump say tonight?

Donald Trump survived an apparent second assassination attempt over the weekend.

The U.S. Secret Service found a man hiding in the bushes with an assault rifle at Trump's golf course in Florida while the former president was playing. While the gunman, identified as Ryan Wesley Routh of Hawaii, didn’t fire a shot, the very notion of a second assassination attempt during the presidential campaign created headlines like this one from The Economist: “Another attempt on Donald Trump’s life will shake up the election” (though it was later changed to “Another attempt to kill Trump raises fears of political violence").

Maybe editors at the magazine took a look at crypto-based prediction market platform, Polymarket, where election trading is about to hit $1 billion, because bettors are brushing off this incident as a non-issue.

Trump’s odds actually went down in the hours after the incident, and as of midmorning Monday in New York, he was trailing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by 49-50.

To be fair to the Economist, the first assassination attempt, when a shot was fired and grazed Trump's ear, boosted his odds significantly – though that was when he was still running against the senescent incumbent, Joe Biden.

The probabilities are based on how much traders are willing to pay for shares that pay out money if the predictions come true and become worthless if they don't. Bets on Polymarket are programmed into a smart contract on the Polygon blockchain and paid out in USDC, a dollar-linked token. Under a regulatory settlement, the platform blocks U.S. users, although crafty American traders have used VPNs to get around the geofencing.

Eye on swing states

As with any U.S. presidential election, a lot is riding on the swing states.

Polymarket bettors are fairly convinced that neither candidate will win all of them: one contract asking if Harris will win all six only gives a 24% chance of that happening, while another asking if Trump will do the same is at 17%.

For the individual state contracts, currently Republicans lead in Arizona with a 61% chance, Georgia at 59%, North Carolina at 57%, and Pennsylvania at 51%. In Nevada, the race is tied 50-50, while Democrats lead in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Polymarket continues to cast the race as closer than what professional pollsters are calling. Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin model from Sept. 11 gives Trump a strong chance to win the all-important electoral college at 61%, which, if won, dictates the rest of the election. (Silver is an advisor to Polymarket.)

While all this is happening, U.S.-regulated prediction market Kalshi has frozen its long-sought election markets pending a court decision in an appeal brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A Kalshi contract on which party will win the House in November had volume of $20,000, while another about which party will win the Senate had volume of $45,000.

The freeze looks set to last at least three more days. Oral arguments in the appeal are scheduled for Thursday, according to a Monday court filing.

Another CFTC-regulated exchange, Interactive Brokers' ForecastEx, has said it will soon list election markets. Unlike Polymarket, ForecastEx and Kalshi settle bets in fiat.

20X leverage incoming

LogX, a perpetual futures crypto trading protocol, said it raised $4 million to expand into leveraged prediction markets.

The noncustodial "DEX-like" market, which is building what it called a DeFi superapp to onboard the next generation of retail users, said on its website that it will offer up to 20X leverage on contracts on outcomes such as whether Trump or Harris will win the election.

This platform’s approach to prediction markets is similar to D8X, which launched leveraged prediction market trading in July, insofar that it relies on an oracle from Polymarket to scrape pricing data and put it into LogX for traders. However, D8X maxes out at 2X leverage.

Akshit Bordia, LogX’s Founder, explained in an interview that once the pricing data is on the platform, his protocol's market makers will take opposite positions on Polymarket to generate liquidity.

Right now, Bordia says the maximum bet for Trump or Harris election contracts is $100,000.

“What we're seeing now is the next iteration of prediction markets," Bordia said in an interview with CoinDesk. “Many of these have grown significantly, gaining mass media attention. That's why it's become so exciting and much bigger than it was in the previous cycle."

What’s the plan for after the election? Sports and crypto price betting.

Hashed Emergent, Cumberland, DWF Ventures, and Orderly Network CEO Ryan Lee participated in the round.

Sorry, Milady

Trump has been called the first crypto president by his fans, but he hasn’t mentioned bitcoin or other digital assets in his recent public appearances, such as an X space with Elon Musk or the recent presidential debate.

This is likely to change when he takes to Rug Radio late Monday to launch World Liberty Financial, making him the first president to both endorse a specific crypto project and launch a business on the campaign trail.

Bettors on Polymarket are putting their money on Trump saying "crypto" at least five times, giving it a 66% chance of happening and a 34% chance of him saying "bitcoin" that many times.

Unfortunately for those holding Milady NFTs – a collection of characters with bizarrely shaped heads and large, expressive anime-style eyes – there’s only a 3% chance the Republican presidential candidate will name-drop them during the broadcast.

The Bitcoin network hashrate is now back to pre-halving levels, the report said.

The bank noted that U.S.-listed miners' share of the network hashrate increased for the fifth straight month to a new record.

The fall in the hashprice, coupled with seasonal trends, could limit hashrate growth in the near term, JPMorgan said.

Bitcoin {{BTC}} mining stocks fell in the first half of September as the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency remained below $60,000, and the network's hashrate rose, JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report on Monday.

The hashrate has risen 4% month-to-date and is now back to pre-halving levels, the report noted. Hashrate refers to the total combined computational power used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain and is a proxy for competition in the mining industry.

The hashprice, a measure of miner's daily profitability, has fallen 2% this month, and is more than 50% below pre-halving levels, the bank noted, and this decline, when "coupled with seasonal curtailment, could slow near-term hashrate growth."

"U.S.-listed miners' share of the network hashrate increased for the fifth consecutive month to 26.7%, the highest level on record," analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote.

The total market cap of the fourteen U.S.-listed bitcoin miners the bank tracks fell 3% from the end of August to just under $20 billion. Hut 8 (HUT) was the outperformer, with an 11% gain, and CleanSpark (CLSK) underperformed, declining 12%.

The group of publicly listed U.S. miners "currently trade just under two times their proportional share of the four-year block reward opportunity, versus an average of 1.6 times since January 2022," the report added.

Rival Wall Street Bank Jefferies cautioned that the bitcoin miners could be faced with another difficult month in September, in a research report published last week.

Read more: Bitcoin Mining Was Significantly Less Profitable in August, Jefferies Says

Crypto venture giant Multicoin led a $10 million fundraise for the builders of Pipe, a proposed "content delivery network" (CDN) that uses tokens to incentivize people hosting internet infrastructure.

The startup building Pipe Network, Permissionless Labs, is focusing on one of the unseen but ubiquitous pieces of the modern internet. Many websites cannot afford to let their content lag as it zips long distances from hosting server to end-user. So they rely on networks of relay servers that can be called upon by the end-users to which they're geographically close.

A handful of powerful internet companies like Cloudflare and Akamai run the CDNs that proliferate the modern internet and keep it moving fast. Their systems work just fine. But Permissionless Labs thinks crypto incentives can prompt regular people to lend their own computing power into a competitive alternative.

Enter the decentralized virtual infrastructure network (or DeVIN), crypto's head-scratching evolution to the previous craze, decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). Think: Helium used tokens to prompt people to set up wifi routers in random places. The same basic tokenomics principles apply to Pipe's DeVIN setup.

In its conception people can rapidly scale up CDN nodes in the places they're needed most by lending their existing computing power, CEO David Rhodus told CoinDesk. Their computers will then help end-users access cached content that might have otherwise been difficult to quickly deliver because of the distance between them and the servers that content lives on.

The project will rely on the Solana blockchain, according to a press release. It is planning to launch a testnet at the Breakpoint conference in Singapore.

El Salvador President Bukele expects to submit a 2025 government budget with no planned deficit.

The 2024 budget had a $338 million deficit and the gap when Bukele became president in 2019 was $1.2 billion.

In August, the International Monetary Fund announced that it had different discussions with Salvadoran authorities and “progress has been made in the negotiations toward a Fund-supported program.”

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, said he will submit a 2025 deficit-free budget to the Legislative Assembly.

“I announce that this September 30 we will present before the Legislative Assembly for the first time in decades the first fully financed budget, without the need to take a single cent of debt for current spending," said Bukele on Sunday, during the commemoration of the 203 years of El Salvador’s independence. "El Salvador will no longer spend more than it produces annually," he continued. "We will not even lend money to pay the interest on the debts that we inherited, we will even pay that from our own production."

"A more robust economy and a truly independent country will be seen, not only because it has more freedom and security but because it will be financially independent, fiscally independent," he added. "The new generations will inherit an economically prosperous country.”

El Salvador’s Finance Minister, Jerson Posada, detailed that it will be “the first time in decades that the country will have a budget that will not issue a single cent of debt, neither local nor foreign”, Diario El Salvador reported.

Bukele has an overwhelming majority in the Legislative Assembly, with 57 of the 60 total seats among legislators from his party, Nuevas Ideas (54), and allies (3).

The 2024 budget gap was $338 million on total spending of $9.1B, according to an official document published by the Assembly. The budget deficit when Bukele took office, in 2019, was $1.2 billion.

El Salvador is unable to print money to fund expenditures because in 2001 it imposed the U.S. dollar as legal tender. The country famously added bitcoin as legal tender in 2021.

Although there are no official documents on El Salvador's bitcoin purchases, the website NayibTracker — which put together a portfolio based on Bukele’s announcements — shows that the Central American country currently holds 5,874 bitcoins at a total value of $331.4 million, which represents an unrealized gain of 32.6% or $43 million.

Bukele last month acknowledged that “Bitcoin hasn't had the widespread adoption we hoped for ... it could have worked better, and there is still time to make some improvements, but it hasn’t resulted in anything negative.”

In August, the International Monetary Fund announced that it had different discussions with Salvadoran authorities and “progress has been made in the negotiations toward a Fund-supported program, focused on policies to strengthen public finances, boost bank reserve buffers, improve governance and transparency, and mitigate the risks from Bitcoin”.

Protocol builders face a fragmented landscape when it comes to sorting out the mechanics of token management, BitGo says.

Protocols like Worldcoin, LayerZero, SUI and ZetaChain are among the first customers of the service.

Cryptocurrency custody firm BitGo is offering foundations and organizations a simplified way to manage the lifecycle of digital assets they issue, with protocols like Worldcoin, LayerZero, Sui and ZetaChain among the first customers of the service.

Bitgo says it’s filling a gap in a fragmented market, with a one-stop, regulated and insured custody platform for seamless digital asset vesting, unlocking and on-chain activities. The custodial token management service uses the regulated confines of BitGo Trust, the firm’s qualified custodian offering.

The Web3 world has evolved far beyond straightforward digital asset transactions on a blockchain into a programmable economy where, with just a few lines of code, new protocols can be concocted, tokenomics invented and tokens minted.

This leads to a situation where protocol builders are primarily focused on refining technical details around tokenomics, validator steps and so on, while looking to grow adoption and justify the value proposition they gave to their venture-capital backers, said Thomas Chen, head of sales at BitGo. Leaving the nuts and bolts of token management until last can end up like a “slow moving train wreck,” Chen said.

“When it comes to managing their tokens, these firms encounter a fragmented landscape,” Chen said in an interview. “It’s a mix of non-custodial wallets, web-only solutions, with the need to use a smart contract for distribution. So if I'm the head of operations for some new token protocol, I've got to strike up at least two different relationships, manage two to three different integration points, all the while trying to have a successful mainnet launch. It’s a tactical nightmare.”

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 1823.1, down 3.7% (-70.0) since last Friday's close.

One of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: XRP (+0.6%) and BTC (-2.1%).

Laggards: MATIC (-10.3%) and APT (-8.6%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

The announcement of Binance listing First Neiro on Ethereum (NEIRO) for spot trading triggered a massive 700% price surge, catapulting its market cap from $15 million to $146 million in a day, with trading volumes skyrocketing from $8 million to over $220 million.

Binance's decision to list two different NEIRO tokens, one for futures and another for spot trading, each with distinct contract addresses, has led to community backlash and confusion over which token represents the "true" NEIRO.

NEIRO, inspired by Neiro, a Shiba Inu related to the Dogecoin mascot Kabosu, has spawned multiple tokens across blockchains. Despite the community's enthusiasm, Kabosumama, Neiro's owner, has explicitly distanced herself from endorsing any NEIRO tokens.

A Binance spot listing of a token related to dogecoin {{DOGE}} has fueled a 700% rally in its prices, one of the biggest jumps on a listing in recent months.

Binance said early Monday it would offer First Neiro on Ethereum (NEIRO), and two other tokens, as part of its spot offering to users later in the day. The influential exchange already offers Neiro tokens as a futures product - and a subsequent spot listing is an industry practice.

The twist, however, is that the two NEIRO tokens have different contract addresses and are maintained by different teams.

“This Futures listing is for 'First Neiro On Ethereum' (NEIRO) with the contract address here for verification: 0x812ba41e071c7b7fa4ebcfb62df5f45f6fa853ee,” Binance said in an announcement.

“This is a different token from the NEIROETH Futures listing dated 2024-09-06 (a different token contract address for verification here: 0xee2a03aa6dacf51c18679c516ad5283d8e7c2637),” it said.

Community reactions to Binance’s X post were widely critical of the decision.

“You’re listing two different Neiro on spot and futures?” wrote @0x_degengod. “How are you gonna list the 15M Neiro when you already have the 130M on futures,” exclaimed @cozypront.

@binance double check $NEIROYou have @NeiroOnEthereum Listed on Futures, then you announced a 15m mc #Neiro listing on Spot Something is fishy...

— iEmil (@GemBrowser) September 16, 2024

NEIRO tokens jumped over 700% instantly after the Binance announcement, before paring gains, zooming from a market capitalization of $146 million from Sunday’s $15 million. Trading volumes jumped from $8 million in a 24-hour-period over Saturday to Sunday, to over $220 million in the past 24 hours.

Binance data shows that the existing futures of the NEIROETH token has bagged nearly $1 billion in trading volumes in the past 24 hours. Its prices are down 40% since early Asian trading hours Monday, with most losses coming after Binance decided to list the First Neiro on Ethereum token (listed under only “NEIRO”) on its platform.

What is Neiro?

Neiro is a Shiba Inu pup owned by the same person whose pet dog Kabosu inspired the popular dogecoin memecoin. Kabosu passed away in May at the age of 17, leaving a legacy that includes a statue and a memecoin worth $18 billion.

In late May Kabosumama, the X account of Kabosu's human owner, adopted a ten-year-old Shiba Inu dog named Neiro and called her a “new family member.”

That birthed hundreds of NEIRO memecoins on Ethereum, Solana and other blockchains at the time. Eventually, two NEIROs - one on Ethereum and one on Solana - attracted enough trading volumes and market interest to form an active holders community. Both communities still consider their NEIRO is be the actual, original one.

Kabosumama, on her part, has distanced herself from all NEIRO tokens and said in May that she does not endorse any such tokens.

The crypto industry's least favorite U.S. lawmaker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has a Republican opponent in the November election, John Deaton, who carries heavy digital asset credentials.

Lawyer Deaton says if he can get enough name recognition in the state, the people there are unhappy enough with Warren's performance to give him a shot.

Defeating U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a national hero in progressive circles, seems a stretch for a relatively little-known Republican in the liberal bastion of Massachusetts. But candidate John Deaton, known among crypto fans for his legal advocacy, says it can be done by leveraging the concerns of people in that state.

Deaton, who Warren has already attacked as a tool of crypto billionaires, said the second-term senator isn't as popular at home as elsewhere and that Massachusetts' cost of living and immigration problems are worrying voters. From his end, he said the race will come down to whether his campaign can raise enough money to compete, whether he can get his message out and how hard he works between now and the November vote.

Warren won in her last race six years ago by a colossal 24 percentage points. Her approval rating, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB polling earlier this year, has coasted at a steady 54%, with a 4.4% margin of error. That poll in May showed respondents favored Warren in a head-to-head matchup with Deaton at 47% to 24%, though that was before he won the Republican primary with almost two thirds of the vote.

"This race is winnable," Deaton said in an interview with CoinDesk. "I believe that we're going to be pleasantly surprised at how competitive this race is going to be."

Despite the headlines he's drawn for his pro-bono efforts to weigh in with the courts on such crypto disputes as Ripple's existential fight with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or Coinbase Inc.'s similar battle, Deaton is more known as a lawyer representing people harmed by asbestos. He served as a Marine and wrote a book in 2023, "Food Stamp Warrior." Because of his interest in crypto over the years, he said, about 80% of his net worth is in bitcoin.

While Warren has focused on Deaton's connections to the digital assets industry, he responds by asking why she's so focused on crypto when there are much more pressing issues.

"I've been calling Sen. Warren the crypto candidate," he said. "Why did the senior senator from Massachusetts wake up one day and say, 'You know what, I'm going to announce my reelection for a third term, and I'm going to focus on building an anti crypto army'?"

He says he's not a supporter of former President Donald Trump, putting him in a minority among Republican candidates nationwide. And when asked about advocacy of crypto on the presidential campaign trail, Deaton said that people should be cautious of pandering during elections.

"President Trump certainly has said things that the industry loves to hear, that America is going to be the crypto capital of the world," Deaton said. "I'm not saying that he doesn't mean it. I'm just saying that we all need to focus on, I believe, voting for who the best candidate is in each race."

Deaton calls himself a common-sense centrist. He flags inflation, opioid addiction and immigration's drain on his state's resources as issues worthy of attention.

"Doesn't matter to me who the president is," he said. "If it's good for Massachesetts and America, I'm all in."

So far, high-profile Warren is absolutely dominant in the money race. She's amassed $19 million in this race, according to the latest Federal Election Commission data. Deaton hadn't yet cleared $2 million, and $1 million of that was from his own pocket. His only advantage to date is the outside money making independent advertising buys – about $1.3 million worth at last count, paid for by prominent crypto interests.

That was from a political action committee, the Commonwealth Unity Fund, whose very existence suggests there may be a crypto industry disagreement on what to do about Deaton's campaign. The Deaton-devoted super PAC is backed by crypto names including Ripple Labs, the Winklevoss brothers (Tyler and Cameron) and Phil Potter, a former Bitfinex and Tether executive. All of them had a role in standing up and funding the industry's major campaign-finance effort, the Fairshake PAC and its affiliates. But Fairshake hasn't weighed in for Deaton.

Fairshake spent $10 million just to defeat a Senate candidate in California the organizers thought would behave like Warren in the Senate, and the affiliated PACs have spent millions more against congressional candidates endorsed by her. But so far, Fairshake has remained on the sidelines in the actual race to oppose Warren directly. Spokesman Josh Vlasto declined to comment on that.

"I need to raise as much money as I can to get the name recognition up," Deaton said. "The crypto world might know John Deaton in Massachusetts … but the regular population doesn't."

If Deaton does get elected to the Senate, he has a fantasy involving crypto industry adversary Gary Gensler, the SEC chair: "Before Gary Gensler resigns or leaves, that I get to cross-examine him," he said. "I can assure you that'll be fun."