The Ethereum Foundation team announced another milestone on the road to the Shanghai upgrade, with the Shapella fork on the Zhejiang testnet moving into the final pre-launch sequence, according to a blog post on Feb 10. The Shapella transition includes "many features," and "most importantly to stakers and the consensus-layer, is the enabling of withdrawals," notes the post, adding that: "Full withdrawals will be available for exited validators, whereas partial withdrawals will be available for active validator balances in excess of 32 ETH." As per the announcement, validators to participate in withdrawals must have a 0x01 execution-layer withdrawal credential. "If …

Reactions were predictable depending on where you stand on crypto in general. Crypto advocates railed against regulators who are slowly asphyxiating this burgeoning industry, while skeptics celebrated crypto’s impending demise. The advocates have it right. Antagonistic regulators will force crypto into friendlier jurisdictions, which will reap the economic benefits. The skeptics have it right, too. This event, and much of those from last year, is killing crypto. Their apparent glee is misplaced, though. This is a good thing. Emboldened by the slew of blow-ups of crypto businesses in 2022, the SEC and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission have begun to …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is ramping up pressure on the crypto sector. On Feb. 9, the SEC reached a $30 million settlement with Kraken over the centralized staking program offered to its users. The news of the crackdown sent Bitcoin (BTC) price to a 3-week low as investors became fearful of the regulatory enforcement. On the news, Ether's (ETH) price also corrected, cementing the token’s worst-performing day of 2023. While the overall crypto market was down after the SEC announcement, bright spots arose with decentralized liquid staking tokens Lido (LDO) and Rocketpool (RPL) and Frax (FXS) …

United States Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler issued a warning to crypto companies to “come in and follow the law” after the agency announced a settlement with crypto exchange Kraken. Appearing on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ on Feb. 10, Gensler said crypto exchanges should register with the SEC in order to be compliant with regulations in the United States, claiming that many within the industry were “choosing” not to do so. According to the SEC chair, the business models of many crypto projects were “rife with conflict,” claiming they needed to “disentangle” bundled products. "If this field has any …

Ethereum's native token, Ether (ETH), saw its worst daily performance of the year as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stopped Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange, from offering crypto staking services. On Feb. 9, Kraken agreed to pay $30 million to settle the SEC's allegation that it broke securities rules by offering crypto staking services to U.S. retail investors. The news pushed down the prices of many proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain project tokens, in particular. Ethereum, which switched to a staking-based protocol in September 2022, also suffered as a result. On Feb. 9, ETH's price plunged nearly 6.5% to around $1,525, …

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioner Hester Pierce has publicly rebuked her own agency over the shut down of Kraken's crypto staking program in the United States. The commissioner blasted her regulator in a Feb. 9 statement called "Kraken Down," noting that regulation by enforcement “is not an efficient or fair way of regulating” in an emerging industry, stating: Today, the SEC shut down Kraken’s staking program and counted it as a win for investors. I disagree and therefore dissent. Peirce's statement also slammed the regulator for shutting down a “program that has served people well." “Using enforcement …

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has reached an agreement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to stop offering staking services or programs. In a Feb. 9 announcement, the SEC said it had charged Kraken with “failing to register the offer and sale of their crypto asset staking-as-a-service program,” which the commission claims qualified as securities under its purview. The crypto firm has agreed to cease operations of its staking program as well as pay $30 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties. “Kraken not only offered investors outsized returns untethered to any economic realities, but also retained the right …

The CEO and co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, believes that banning retail crypto staking in the United States would be a ‘terrible’ move by the country's regulators. Armstrong made the comments in a Feb. 9 Twitter thread which has already been viewed over 2.2 million times, after noting they've heard “rumors” that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “would like to get rid of crypto staking” for retail customers. “I hope that's not the case as I believe it would be a terrible path for the U.S. if that was allowed to happen.” Armstrong did not share where …

ConsenSys issued a statement Feb. 7 in support of the appeal of the of Jarrett v. United States case concerning the taxation of staking rewards. The case originated in a dispute over a refund of about $4,000 that Joshua and Jessica Jarrett claimed on XTZ tokens they validated in 2019. The Jarretts claimed their staking rewards should be treated as property and taxable only on upon their sale. After the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ignored their refund claim, the Jarretts filed suit. They issued the refund in 2022, but the Jarretts refused it, preferring to pursue their legal case. …

Liquid staking protocol Lido is set to roll out staking reward withdrawals and improved staking architecture with the announcement of the upcoming Lido V2 upgrade. Two major focal points of the planned upgrade include Lido’s introduction of its new Staking Router and the enabling of withdrawals for Ethereum (ETH) stakers. The Staking Router introduces a modular architectural design allowing the development of on-ramps for new node operators, including solo stakers, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and distributed validator technology clusters. The latter is a protocol that allows validator duties to be shared across multiple nodes. The Staking Router is envisaged to …

The popularity of liquid staking derivatives (LSDs) has increased significantly in recent months resulting in a surge in cash flow in DeFi. LSDs are a relatively new type of token that enables stakers to augment potential returns by unlocking liquidity for their staked cryptocurrency, such as ETH. LSDs have been exploding in popularity across the Ethereum ecosystem and have the potential to become equally as widespread among other Layer-1 networks, such as Polygon and Avalanche. LSDs are already playing a significant role in DeFi, making up over 20% of the entire TVL across liquid staking protocols. The dominance of Lido …

In September 2022, Interchain Foundation, the team behind Cosmos’ development , introduced the Cosmos ATOM 2.0 whitepaper. The document proposed significant changes to Cosmos’s design, including a tokenomics upgrade to fund the Cosmos ecosystem development and reduce ATOM inflation. While the whitepaper launch acted as a bullish catalyst for ATOM price, the community vote to pass the proposal eventually failed, primarily because of its enormity. Some community members wanted to take a measured approach to each development feature listed in the whitepaper, starting with Interchain Security in Q1 2023. Interchain Security will enhance the value accrual position of ATOM as …