Story Protocol Launches Its IP-Focused Blockchain

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of an important tales in cryptocurrency tech improvement. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, CoinDesk’s Ethereum reporter, filling in for Ben Schiller.

In this challenge:

• Story Protocol launches to let folks register IP and receives a commission for it
• Ethereum builders launch new initiative to simplify cross-chain transactions
• Ethereum L1 monad joins forces with Orderly Network for DeFi enhance
• How a sitting president grew to become crypto’s most sought-after investor

Network News

STORY PROTOCOL GOES LIVE: Story Protocol launched its mental property-focused blockchain and related IP token final week. The blockchain is positioned because the “world’s intellectual property network,” offering customers with a solution to register their IP and observe how others use it. The aptly named “$IP” token, which Story introduced earlier this month, is used for transaction charges and affords customers a vote within the platform’s governance system. So far, the IP targeted blockchain appears to have had legs — not less than with buyers. PIP Labs, the chain’s main developer, raised $80 million in a Series B enterprise funding spherical led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), bringing the mission’s whole funding to $140 million. PIP has sought to place Story on the intersection of blockchain and synthetic intelligence, a means for folks to trace and receives a commission for knowledge used to coach AI fashions. The Story mainnet launch accompanies the primary unlock occasion for the just-announced IP token. “Story is unlocking 25% of the initial 1 billion $IP, with 58.4% devoted to the ecosystem and community, foundation, and initial incentives,” based on the mission. — Sam Kessler Read extra.

ETHEREUM DEVELOPERS RELEASE NEW OPEN INTENTS FRAMEWORK: A bunch of prime Ethereum builders and leaders launched Wednesday a brand new framework that might simplify and standardize cross-chain token transfers.

The initiative, known as the Open Intents Framework (OIF), was kickstarted by contributors from the Ethereum Foundation and is supported by 25 initiatives together with groups constructing layer-2s like Arbitrum, Optimism, ZKsync, and Scroll, based on a press launch shared with CoinDesk.The objective of the initiative is to carry “intents” to all corners of the Ethereum ecosystem, which is a technological characteristic that lets a blockchain consumer accomplish a selected objective by asking an middleman to satisfy that objective (like a commerce or transaction they wish to make.) There are some requirements on the market which can be already attempting to make cross-chain transactions simpler through the use of intents. ERC-7683, which was launched by the crew behind the decentralized alternate Uniswap and the Across protocol, is a type of requirements circulating the Ethereum house currently, and is meant to handle fragmentation and permit extra chains within the Ethereum ecosystem to interoperate. But the OIF crew claims that they are going to construct on that normal via their framework permitting intents to operate at scale. “By offering shared infrastructure and execution coordination, OIF makes intent-based transactions permissionless, efficient, and accessible for all projects,” the press launch mentioned. — Margaux Nijkerk Read extra.

MONAD AND ORDERLY JOIN FORCES: Monad, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) layer-1 blockchain about to launch its testnet, has joined forces with Orderly Network, a decentralized alternate (DEX) infrastructure supporting a spread of different chains, because the platforms unfold their nets huge in anticipation of a second decentralized finance (DeFi) summer time. The arrival of the Monad testnet on Wednesday will present merchants with a quick EVM-compatible constructing website and the potential for airdrops on the L1. Orderly’s band of 20 or so market makers contains Wintermute, Selini and Riverside, based on a press launch. Firms within the decentralized buying and selling trade, which incorporates main exchanges like Coinbase (COIN), are hoping for surge of DeFi exercise within the coming months because the crypto-friendly administration of President Donald Trump offers crypto a regulatory tailwind. The first DeFi summer time, in 2020, got here sizzling on the heels of Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts in response to the Covid outbreak. Orderly already affords customers a shared order e book throughout a number of blockchains, together with Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Base, Mantle and Near. — Ian Allison Read extra.

TRUMP – CRYPTO’S MOST INFLUENTIAL INVESTOR?: Crypto is not all that completely different from politics. According to Rushi Manche, the founding father of blockchain firm Movement, “Crypto is an attention game.”It’s becoming, then, that Donald Trump — the grasp of all issues consideration — is so at dwelling promoting memecoins. But it isn’t simply Trump’s internal circle that is managed to capitalize on his crypto ventures, which embrace the $TRUMP coin and World Liberty Financial. Once a vocal crypto skeptic, the president has change into the trade’s largest “key opinion leader” — or KOL, in blockchain trade parlance: a dealer whose portfolio is carefully watched by different buyers deciding what to purchase and promote. Trump’s foray into crypto has created a brand new go-to-market playbook for bold token peddlers like Manche — blockchain founders who notice pumping the value of a token could be so simple as elbowing right into a sitting president’s crypto portfolio. The president’s main automobile for blockchain trades is World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a decentralized finance (DeFi) enterprise he introduced along with his sons over the summer time. After accruing greater than $400 million by promoting a token, the corporate, which doesn’t but have a product, has constructed up a portfolio containing tens of millions of {dollars} within the belongings of different crypto initiatives. On Wednesday, it introduced it was launching an official “strategic reserve” of crypto investments. The trades have already raised critical issues about conflicts of curiosity, insider dealing, and the very nature of how affect is leveraged within the digital asset house. Trump’s political opponents are calling for investigations into his rising blockchain empire. But crypto founders like Manche see World Liberty’s crypto investments as one thing completely different: a once-in-a-generation advertising alternative. “You need to have a product roadmap that makes sense,” mentioned Manche. “But you also need to have a strategy for your token.” And what higher solution to enhance the value of your cryptocurrency than by publicly tying it to the chief of the free world? — Sam Kessler Read extra.

In Other News

• Libra Token’s Co-Creator Claimed He Paid Argentinian President Milei’s Sister: It was unclear if any cash was exchanged between Davis and Milei’s internal circle prematurely of Libra’s launch. Danny Nelson stories.
• Will Argentinian President Milei’s Crypto ‘Fiasco’ Be a Deathblow for Memecoin Craze?: The newest frenzy that began with U.S. President Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin launch and noticed merchants making and shedding tens of millions inside minutes, may need lastly come crashing down with the LIBRA token fiasco.
• Regulatory and coverage: EToro secures MiCA license from Cyprus to supply crypto providers throughout EEA.

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