Here’s what happened in crypto today
Today, in crypto, a group of Ethereum leaders committed to a new scaling strategy. MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor posted a Bitcoin tracker for the 12th week in a row, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong will rethink the exchange’s asset listing process.
Ethereum leaders commit to based and native rollups
Ethereum layer 2 executives said they’re willing to make Ethereum more unified by implementing “based” and “native” rollups, which they say could improve security while making the network less fragmented.
On a Jan. 25 call with Ethereum founders and developers, Base lead Jesse Pollak said based rollups are “both a flexible and powerful tool that we’re going to be able to use for Base to make it more connected to Ethereum and increase the security guarantees that it provides.”
Ethereum layer 2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism and Base have made big money from fees by implementing high-speed, centralized sequencers — the order in which transactions are processed and added to a block on the blockchain.
Based rollups return this process to the base layer and improve the network’s decentralization because the block-building process would be carried out by all Ethereum validators as opposed to a single, centralized sequencer.
Optimism Foundation Director Ben Jones added that base rollups would improve the collaboration between Ethereum’s base layer and layer 2s.
“I want to just reemphasize we are here to support this, it is war time,” he said.
Saylor posts Bitcoin tracker for 12th consecutive week
MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor posted the Bitcoin tracker for the 12th consecutive week. The executive typically posts the chart on Sunday before acquiring more Bitcoin (BTC) the following day.
"Don't stop thinking about tomorrow," Saylor wrote to his 4 million followers on the X social media platform.
The company's most recent Bitcoin acquisition of 11,000 Bitcoin on Jan. 21 brought MicroStrategy's total holdings to 461,000 BTC, valued at approximately $48.4 billion.
According to SaylorTracker, MicroStrategy's Bitcoin investment has gained roughly 65% over time, and the company is currently sitting on unrealized capital gains of over $19 billion.
Brian Armstrong says Coinbase needs to ‘rethink’ its token listing process
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, has proposed rethinking the company’s asset listing process in response to the surge in token creation.
In a Jan. 24 X post, Armstrong noted the challenges posed by the exponential growth of new tokens.
“We need to rethink our listing process at Coinbase, given there are ~1 million tokens a week being created now, and growing,” Armstrong wrote. He said that manually evaluating each token is no longer feasible and called for regulators to adopt a more pragmatic approach.
“It needs to move from an allow list to a block list and utilize customer reviews and automated scans of onchain data to help customers sift through,” he added.
Coinbase’s current listing process involves a multi-step approach, including an initial review, due diligence, and regulatory compliance checks, as per its website.
Justin Sun, founder of Tron, took a jab at Coinbase’s listing policies, noting that Tron (TRX), one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, has been under review for seven years without being listed.
“This has nothing to do with TRX itself but rather reflects Coinbase's loss of the most basic fairness and industry judgment when it comes to new listings,” Sun said on X, responding to Armstrong’s tweet.