🚦Inscriptions Show No Signs Of Slowing Down

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TLDR Inscriptions accounted for the lion's share of activity on top EVM-compatible chains over the past week. Inscription tokens drove more than 92% of transactions on Avalanche and more than 50% on Arbitrum and ZkSync Era.

SO WHAT Inscriptions have taken off across EVM networks despite being pioneered as a method for creating NFTs and fungible tokens on Bitcoin despite the chain's lack of smart contract functionality. However, with inscriptions offering limited utility and driving up transaction fees and many networks, the coding technique has become a contentious issue within the web3 community.

READ MORE: Inscriptions Dominate Volume On EVM Chains

TLDR INJS, a new marketplace for inscriptions on the Injective blockchain, urged users to cease minting tokens just minutes after launching. The announcement came after inscription fees surged far higher than anticipated.

SO WHAT While inscriptions have helped to drive up activity on many Layer 1 networks, inscription tokens have also wreaked havoc on networks in the form of skyrocketing fees and heavy network congestion. INJS said it will refund early users and restore functionality as soon as possible.

Read More: INJS Halts Inscriptions Mint on Injective Blockchain Minutes After it Started

TLDR Senator Elizabeth Warren, an outspoken crypto critic, has taken aim at web3 supporters pooling resources to support pro-crypto lobbying efforts. Warren claimed the efforts seek to undermine regulators' ability to clamp down on crypto-based terrorist financing.

SO WHAT Warren's letter comes as the senator rallying support for an anti-crypto bill while claiming digital assets are an essential source of funding for Hamas. Warren's crusade comes in spite of on-chain analytics firms concluding there is zero evidence showing that cryptocurrencies comprise a significant source of funding for Hamas.

Read More: Senator Elizabeth Warren Questions Crypto Lobby in Letter to CoinCenter, Blockchain Association and Coinbase

TLDR SEI, the native token of the SEI blockchain, is outperforming the broader markets with a 60% rally in two days. The token has rallied to new all-time highs with a $379M market cap.

SO WHAT SEI is the latest token to benefit from investors rotating money into high throughput Layer 1 networks working on parallelized transaction execution. The bullish momentum follows similar price surges enjoyed by Solana and Sui, both of which offer parallelized execution.

Read More: SEI Surges To All-time High As ‘Parallelized’ Layer 1s Rally

TLDR Frame, a forthcoming Layer 1 blockchain focussed on NFTs, announced it will distribute a native token to wallets that actively traded non-funible tokens on Ethereum in the past two years. Frame also concluded a fundraising round led by Electric Capital.

SO WHAT The news comes as many new projects are finding success by airdropping a native token to existing web3 communities, including Celestia, Pyth, and Rainbow Wallet. Frame hopes to attract NFT traders and creators by enforcing creator royalties.

Read More: Frame Announces Funding Round and Airdrop for NFT Community

TLDR The core team maintaining EthereumPoW, a Proof of Work Ethereum fork that emerged following The Merge, announced that it will dissolve and usher the project towards community-driven decentralized governance. The move comes after the core team unsuccessfully sought to raise $200,000 to cover operational expenses, with the team's wallet balance sitting at less than $30 as of early December.

SO WHAT EthereumPoW has struggled heavily since inception, with mining hashrate, token price, and DeFi TVL crumbling throughout 2023. The core team's disbanding comes despite the project enjoying a minor comeback over the past month, with its hashrate and token price jumping 40% and 60% in 30 days respectively.

Read More: EthereumPoW Core Team To Disband and Usher Decentralized Governance

TLDR Ondo Finance is turning its attention to Solana, with the project launching tokens backed by U.S.-treasury bills on the network. The move comes as Solana has roared back to contention, with Solana-based decentralized exchange volume briefly overtaking that of Ethereum on Dec. 15.

SO WHAT Ondo aims to become an early leader in Solana's real-world asset sector. Just $12.8M worth of treasuries have been tokenized on Solana, compared to more than $400M on Ethereum.

Read More: Ondo Brings Treasury-backed Tokens To Solana

TLDR Tokenholders for Frax Finance, a leading stablecoin protocol, voted in favor of deploying $20M worth of collateral assets into U.S. Treasuries via Centrifuge Prime — a DAO-focussed real-world asset platform.

SO WHAT Frax is the latest web3 project seeking exposure to tokenized treasuries as a vehicle to generate yield on protocol assets. With U.S. benchmark interest rates at their highest level in 22 years, tokenized treasuries offer a compelling option for protocols seeking stable yields without moving assets off-chain.

Read More: Frax Votes To Move $20M Of Stablecoin Collateral Into Treasury Bills

• Spark Protocol's TVL doubled in November
• OKX app users urged to download upgrade patching vulnerability
• Stellar paves way for upgrade introducing "Soroban" smart contracts

• China pledges to boost NFT, decentralized application development despite crypto trading ban (The Block)
• Global Securities Regulator IOSCO Issues DeFi Policy Recommendations (CoinDesk)
• Trump NFT collection takes hit after Colorado ballot removal (CryptoSlate)