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Big Announcements from EthCC 🇧🇪

Big Announcements from EthCC 🇧🇪

🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week cw28

Vicktoria Klich & Quinn Wilhelm
July 12, 2024

GMGM welcome to 🎣w3.catch-of-the-week, the newsletter that tells you what we caught during the EthCC in Brussels 🇧🇪.

First the flood during Token 2049 in Dubai, now something similar in Brussels. However, no problem for Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin:

When @VitalikButerin makes an entry like this to a web3 event in a stormy Brussels rain ☔️ ⛈️, you know that there is no stopping @ethereum.
What a man 🫡
— Ayush Ranjan (@ranjan3118)
4:08 PM • Jul 9, 2024

Not only in Brussels was ETH on everyone's lips, but also because of the upcoming ETFs. There’s a lot of speculation about how the price will change once the ETFs start trading.

The facts are: A. The supply of ETH on exchanges is near all-time lows. B. More and more ETH is being staked.

The headlines around Bitcoin this week have centered on the sell-off of the German BKA. In case you haven't noticed, they're selling off confiscated Bitcoin on the open market 🫠.

Of the 50,000 Bitcoin, around 15,000 are still left as of 12.07.24.

They have now sold over $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. In response, someone sent a Bitcoin NFT to the BKA's wallet saying “Taxes are robbery GM”.

💸 What is MiniPay?
👩🏽‍⚖️ State of Crypto Regulation
🤓 The Journey of Ethereum
🥘 What is cooking in the TON Eco?
🗺️ The German Web3 Ecosystem Map

Opera bets on Web3

Opera is known for driving innovation on the web. So it should come as no surprise that Web3 is not passing them by.

At EthCC, they presented ✨MiniPay✨, a wallet within their browser. Minipay is a Stablecoin wallet that continues to expand in the African market.

The Use Case explained:

This wallet enables transactions in under 5 seconds and the transaction fees are less than 1 cent. The local currencies are automatically converted to the USD Stablecoin.

💡 In other words, you can send money back and forth securely, quickly and almost free of charge.

The wallet is built on the Celo blockchain. It was first launched in Nigeria in September. Since then, it has already generated 3 million users.

🤯 Based on 43 million crypto users across Africa, this means that they have already reached almost 15% of all crypto users in Africa in less than a year.

The focus is initially on the African market. As of this week, MiniPay is available in Kenya, Ghana and South Africa.

Demand for crypto in Africa has risen sharply since 2021. Over 40 million Africans currently own cryptocurrency.

Choose your favorite Stablecoin

Thanks to the cooperation with Mento Labs, the technical infrastructure is implemented. Mento Labs is the issuer of the cUSD stablecoin.

They have now integrated the support of USDC and USDT into MiniPay.

📣 Big news! MiniPay is getting an upgrade with revolutionary Pockets!
👉 Now supporting USDC and USDT
🔄 Drag & Swap between all three stablecoins with ease
We dig deeper into the new features in the comments below 👇
— minipay (@minipay)
2:19 PM • Jul 3, 2024

Bigger Picture

Stablecoins are one of the easiest way to bring new people into contact with blockchain. This is because it enables money to be sent much more cheaply and quickly than via a bank.

The number of monthly active wallets (wallets that have either received or sent a Stablecoin in the last 30 days) is currently over 30 million.

No wonder PayPal has launched its own stablecoin ($PYUSD) or Stripe, which has partnered with Circle (the issuer of $USDC).

The ECB (European Central Bank) is already testing blockchain-based payments. In the future, it is predicted that every bank will offer stablecoin payments.

State of Crypto Regulation

Bitcoin and Ethereum being recognized as commodities by the SEC is considered a major regulatory breakthrough. Nevertheless, the issue of regulation is still one of the biggest problems on Web3.

The topic was diligently discussed at the EthCC in Brussels by Joe Lubin (Founder of Consensys & Co-Founder of Ethereum) and Vitalik Buterin.

During the conference, Lubin expressed strong criticism towards U.S. regulators, stating that they "were asleep at the wheel" and allowed "opportunistic" actors the chance to influence crypto policy.

Lubin said the main problem was that US regulators didn't act for a long time. This allowed some people, like certain Senators and banking groups, to shape crypto rules in their favor. They pushed for using old laws to control new tech, which wasn't ideal for crypto companies.

Reunion of Lubin, Buterin & Wood

🔥 But now, things are looking better. With upcoming US elections, lawmakers are more open to new ideas. Lubin thinks there's been real progress and expects less trouble for crypto in the US going forward.

While we're on the subject of US elections, I brought you this:

ANNOUNCING: PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP TO SPEAK AT #BITCOIN2024
— The Bitcoin Conference (@TheBitcoinConf)
11:30 PM • Jul 10, 2024

State of Ethereum

Ethereum has evolved significantly since its inception in 2014.

Ethereum successfully shifted to proof-of-stake and adopted layer-2 solutions for better scalability and affordability. Zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups have greatly improved performance and reduced costs.

The biggest challenges?

Usability remains a major hurdle. There are also barriers to solo and pooled staking, and censorship risks within the network.

Future Vision 🔮

The goal is for most users to run light clients on mobile devices. Simplifying the protocol and enhancing Ethereum's base layer (as Vitalik likes to call it) while leveraging layer-2 networks are key priorities.

→ Light clients are simplified versions of Ethereum software that download only a small part of the blockchain. Those make it easier and faster to use Ethereum on smartphones.

TON connects to the EVM Ecosystem

The TON (The Open Network) ecosystem is booming and gaining more and more users. Now they want to push for the next wave of DeFi activity by connecting to Ethereum.

More TON stats

In my DeepDive, you can find out how Telegram plans to bring its 900 million users onchain. But to cut a long story short, it's mainly mini-apps that are currently driving user growth.

Mini-apps are games that can be played in a Telegram chat interface. The game developers usually incentivize play by offering players an associated airdrop.

Another mini game that everyone is talking about is Hamster Kombat. According to its own statements, this game has reached 239 million players.

However, there are far more apps than games, such as shopping apps. There are already more than 900 mini apps in total.

TON Applications Chain (TAC)

New week, new layer 2. So now the Ton developers are also working on a layer 2 solution. The whole thing is being implemented in collaboration with Polygon.

Now you might ask yourself: Why another L2? The idea is to link the Ethereum ecosystem with that of TON.

TAC CEO Pavel Altukhov said: "This collaboration enhances our ability to bridge the gap between TON and Ethereum ecosystems, delivering seamless decentralized app integration within Telegram and fueling unprecedented growth in user engagement."