Ethena Joins the Arena
Stablecoin protocol Ethena has joined the bidding war for the rights to issue Hyperliquid’s native USDH stablecoin.
In Ethena’s proposal, the team intends to utilize their existing USDtb product to fully back the stablecoin.
The team also plans to utilize up to 95% of USDH revenue to perform buybacks of Hyperliquid’s HYPE token or distribute the proceeds to Hyperliquid’s validators or Assistance Fund.
Furthermore, Ethena will cover the cost of Hyperliquid’s migration from USDC to USDH, and commit up to $75M in ecosystem incentives.
Instead of giving full control to Ethena, the proposal also highlighted that selected validators should be allowed to govern and monitor USDH as a security measure.
Ethena recently collaborated with Ethereum Layer-2 MegaETH to deploy its USDm stablecoin.
Since Ethena submitted its bid, the price of ENA has risen slightly by 3.8% from $0.78 to $0.81.
HYPE has also risen to a new all-time high of $55.41 earlier today.
Ronin Joins the Superchain
While one bidding war rages on, another has just concluded.
After receiving offers from Arbitrum, Polygon and zkSync, gaming ecosystem Ronin has announced its decision to build a new Layer-2 using Optimism’s infrastructure.
In its bid to attract Ronin, Optimism had offered up to 5M OP tokens, with 500K given in advance while the remainder will be unlocked as the network hits certain milestones.
Eigen Labs and Conduit will also provide support in the form of additional incentives, bringing the total Optimism bid to approximately $7M.
Since Ronin’s announcement, the price of its native RON token has increased by 8.3% from $0.48 to $0.52.
SEA You in October
NFT marketplace OpenSea has set aside a $1M commitment to set up their flagship NFT reserve, alongside a slew of other announcements.
In a recent article by OpenSea CMO Adam Hollander, the flagship reserve, known as the ‘Flagship Collection’, aims to acquire and increase awareness on new creations by emerging artists.
As part of the reserve, the team has acquired CryptoPunk #5273 as its first NFT for $282K earlier in August.
Future pieces will be chosen through a committee formed by OpenSea employees and external advisors.
Besides that, the platform will be focusing on its new OpenSea Mobile app and the final phase of rewards before the launch of its long-awaited SEA token.
From September 15, half of OpenSea’s fees will be used to fund a massive prize vault, which would be distributed to users through Treasure Chests.
While the team did not share any specific details about SEA, more information regarding the TGE is expected to be revealed by October.
The SEA token is currently trading at around $1.50 to $2 on Aevo pre-markets.
Upbit Levels Up
Korean crypto exchange Upbit has announced its plans to launch a new Ethereum-based Layer-2 called Giwa.
The Giwa Chain will be built on top of Optimism’s OP architecture, with the goal of enabling one-second block times for users.
As for its ecosystem, the chain will feature specialized applications for Korea’s financial sector, including the deployment of a local Won stablecoin.
Dunamu, the parent company behind Upbit, also plans to launch an accompanying web wallet for the network, known as the Giwa wallet.
Giwa is currently live on the Sepolia testnet, while a mainnet launch date has yet to be confirmed.
In Other News…
Metaplanet Locks In $1.45B. The Japanese Bitcoin treasury firm has finalized a share sale of which $1.39B is expected to go towards future Bitcoin purchases. Metaplanet is currently the world’s sixth largest Bitcoin treasury firm.
Germany Missed $5.6B Bitcoin Stash. Blockchain analytics firm Arkham said that they have detected an additional $5.6B in Bitcoin likely belonging to the piracy site, Movie2K. Germany previously confiscated $2.89B in Bitcoin from Movie2K in July 2024.
Linea Experiences Temporary Outage. Linea, the ETH L2 backed by Consensys was down for an hour ahead of its scheduled TGE on the same day. LINEA goes live with token claims opening on 10 September till 9 December.
From Whiskeys to Stories. The IP token has hit an ATH after Heritage Distilling (CASK), a Nasdaq listed distillery firm announced its pivot to become an IP treasury firm. IP is the native token of Story Protocol, an L1 focused on tokenizing intellectual properties.
Almonds On-chain. Farmway Technologies, a US firm specializing in tokenizing agriculture products has successfully completed a $100M deal with the Republic of Georgia to tokenize the country’s almond orchards. Georgia is among the world’s top 20 producers of almonds.
Are You Ready For a DOGE ETF? Dogecoin is set to enter the US ETF markets on Thursday with the Rex-Osprey DOGE ETF (DOJE). The launch would mark the first time an ETF is built around a memecoin. DOJE launches under the Investment Company Act of 1940, allowing it to circumvent certain regulatory hurdles.
Ant Digital Tokenizes $8.4B Energy Assets. Jack Ma-backed Ant Group’s enterprise arm, Ant Digital has reportedly tokenized over $8.4B in Chinese energy assets to its blockchain platform, AntChain. Adoption is still mostly institutional with AntChain having raised over $42M in funds so far.
Kazakhstan Eyes National Crypto Reserve. Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has proposed the creation of a State Fund of Digital Assets, in response to growing crypto adoption in the nation. Kazakhstan is also a popular destination for Bitcoin miners, though most mining activities remain unlicensed.
Eightco Shares Soar 3000% on Worldcoin Announcement. Eightco Holdings Inc. shares surged massively after it announced a successful $250M fund raise to buy Sam Altman’s crypto project, Worldcoin. Eightco will pivot to become a WLD crypto treasury firm while changing their ticker to ORBS.
Better Luck Next Time. Despite meeting the S&P500 criteria, Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury firm, Strategy was not included in last Friday’s revision of the US stock index. Despite this headwind, Strategy continues to purchase more Bitcoin adding a further $217M worth.
Sky Joins the USDH Bid. Crypto protocol Sky (formerly MakerDAO), the issuer of the DAI stablecoin, has joined the heated bidding war for the rights to be the issuer of Hyperliquid’s upcoming stablecoin, USDH.
SwissBorg Hacked for $41M. SwissBorg, a Switzerland-based crypto wealth management platform, was drained of $41M worth of SOL from its Earn program. SwissBorg reported that the attack was through a compromised API partner.