Polymarket has accumulated nearly $1 billion in bets on the United States 2024 presidential election winner.

Data from the platform currently ranks Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democratic presidential candidate, with a 50% chance of winning, backed by $135 million in wagers. Meanwhile, Republican candidate Donald Trump holds a close 49% chance, with bets totaling nearly $150 million.

Crypto’s role in the election has boosted activity on Polymarket, with both candidates showing interest in the sector. Harris’s team has indicated a shift from the current administration’s anti-crypto stance, while Trump has gained favor for his pro-crypto ventures.

With the election approaching, Polymarket has seen a surge in activity. Data from Dune Analytics shows over 40,000 traders are placing bets, driving up the platform’s volume by nearly tenfold compared to a year ago.

Challenges ahead

However, the decentralized platform must figure out how to sustain its volumes after the US presidential elections, according to a report from the Crypto.com exchange.

In a Sept. 16 thread on X, the exchange noted that the decentralized marketplace would face new competition as the sector matures, pointing out that the development of Solana-based BET poses significant challenges to its dominance.

Crypto.com emphasized the issue of liquidity in prediction markets, stating that BET by Drift introduces fresh competition. The report highlighted that BET benefits from existing liquidity on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), not just from prediction market competitors.

Due to this, the exchange noted that Polymarket has to grow its liquidity in sports or significant crypto events because “players with existing liquidity and horizontal expansion capabilities (e.g., DEXs) could be a serious contender in the [prediction] space.”

BET was launched in August on Solana as a competitor to the Polygon-based protocol. Since then, the platform has enjoyed considerable adoption, drawing around $25 million in total bets on the US elections.

Away from the BET’s threat, the platform also has to navigate a regulatory regime that might threaten its operations. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has proposed a ban on “event contracts” and is recently battling a lawsuit to ensure that Kalshi, a US-based prediction market platform, does not offer election-related betting.

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Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has criticized the Ethereum layer-2 network ZKsync because it still operates like a multisig system despite claims of community-led governance.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Yakovenko argued that the same “honest majority” assumptions apply to ZKsync because its system’s legal or technical control could easily fall under the jurisdiction of a court, compromising its decentralization.

According to him:

“Enough of the token holders to create a quorum and enough of the ‘professional security council’ could be within reach of a rando US bankruptcy judge that could order all of them take all the bridged assets under control of a bankruptcy trust.”

His comments were in response to Alex Gluchowski, co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs, the team behind ZKsync. Gluchowski had claimed the network’s new decentralized governance system was not a multisig setup and making “a critical step towards Stage 2.”

Stage 2 refers to a transition from partial to full decentralization. In this stage, trust is placed entirely in the blockchain’s code and algorithms, ensuring the system is open, secure, and resistant to manipulation.

Notably, no Ethereum layer-2 network is entirely in Stage 2 of its decentralization development.

Decentralized governance

On Sept. 12, Gluchowski announced that ZKsync’s governance system had gone live.

The system introduces a three-body structure, which includes the ZK token assembly—a group of token holders who delegate their voting power to delegates. These delegates can submit and vote on protocol, token, and governance upgrade proposals.

According to the team:

“This is perhaps the most important facet of the system: token holders and their Delegates can initiate ordinary upgrades to the ZKsync protocol directly onchain, instead of relying on a single multisig.”

Meanwhile, Delegates will also have legal protection through the ZKsync Association, an ownerless non-profit that addresses personal liability concerns.

The second part of the governance structure is the ZKsync Security Council, which consists of engineers, auditors, and security professionals. The Council has the power to review and actively approve protocol upgrades, freeze the protocol, and submit necessary time-sensitive upgrades.

However, their power is constrained as they cannot submit and approve upgrades unilaterally.

Lastly, the ZKsync Guardians ensure governance proposals align with the principles of the ZK Credo. They hold veto power and serve as a check on the other governance bodies.

The three governance entities—the Token Assembly, Security Council, and Guardians—collaborate to review and execute proposals, such as ZKsync Improvements, Token Programs, and Governance Advisory changes. The Token Assembly can submit proposals, which the Guardians can veto if needed, and the Security Council must approve protocol upgrades.

Essentially, this structure prevents individuals or groups from having unilateral control over proposals and upgrades.

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Solana-launched IP/NFT project Claynosaurz has announced it’s partnering with Gameloft, which will be making a mobile casual RPG based on the clay dinosaurs. 

Created by animators Danial Cabral and Nicholas Cabana in 2021, the dino characters later minted as a 10,000-strong Claynosaurz NFT collection on Solana in 2022. 

This partnership marks the team’s entry into the game industry.

There’s no mention whether it will be a blockchain game, but a couple of quotes from the Claynosaurz team suggest there may be some sort of integration.

“We’re not loudly onboarding people into web3; it will happen naturally through a game that’s playable, accessible, and beautifully crafted,” said head of product Jacques Letesson. 

“We’re thrilled that they (Gameloft) have chosen to champion Claynosaurz as their partner in this groundbreaking mobile adventure, setting the stage for a bold, player-driven future in gaming,” commented Cabana in an interview with Decrypt.

As for French mobile game publisher Gameloft, it’s not made any blockchain games before.

“Partnering with Claynosaurz represents an exciting moment for Gameloft, combining our gaming expertise with a brand that has rapidly built an engaged and passionate community,” said Gameloft chief sales officer Guilherme Lachaut.

“We are thrilled to bring these beloved Claynosaurz to life in a mobile game that will captivate and engage players worldwide.”

Stay up-to-date via the Claynosaurz website and X channel.

A wallet linked to the bankrupt FTX exchange recently unstaked 177,693 SOL tokens, valued at $23.75 million, from Solana, according to on-chain data.

Typically, tokens are sent to exchanges to be sold after unstaking. However, as of press time, FTX has yet to move its unstaked Solana holdings.

Nevertheless, the transaction raised concerns that FTX might plan to sell more Solana tokens, as it had done earlier. Earlier this year, the FTX estate auctioned portions of its Solana assets to institutional investors like Pantera Capital and Galaxy Trading.

Meanwhile, a key detail in this recent transaction is that the unstaked 177,693 SOL represents only a fraction of the wallet’s holdings. Solscan data shows that the FTX-associated wallet still holds 7.1 million SOL, valued at around $953 million.

Market observers noted that such large SOL tokens could significantly impact the asset price if unstaked and sold.

Despite these speculations, Solana continues to perform well. SOL gained 2.5% over the past 24 hours, trading at $135.26 at the time of writing.

This price performance could be linked to the broader crypto market recovery, with Bitcoin climbing to $58,000, while other major digital assets like Ethereum, BNB, and others also registered gains.

Alameda Transfers WLD and AAVE

In a related development, FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research, shifted some of its crypto holdings to centralized exchanges Binance and Coinbase.

According to Arkham Intelligence data, Alameda moved 143,800 Worldcoin (WLD), worth approximately $200,000, to Binance and 373 AAVE, valued at $55,300, to Coinbase within the last eight hours.

These transactions are part of the firm’s ongoing asset liquidation efforts amid its bankruptcy proceedings. 

Meanwhile, the defunct company wallet still holds about $220 million in digital assets, primarily in BitDAO (BIT), Worldcoin, and Stargate Finance, with a combined value of $130 million.

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Digital asset investment products saw significant outflows totaling $726 million, matching the highest outflow recorded earlier this year in March, according to CoinShares‘ latest report.

James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, attributed this negative sentiment to stronger-than-expected macroeconomic data from the previous week. This increased the likelihood of a 25-basis point interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve.

He added:

“Daily outflows slowed later in the week as employment data fell short of expectations, leaving market opinions on a potential 50bp rate cut highly divided. The markets are now awaiting Tuesday’s Consumer Price Index (CP|) inflation report, with a 50bp cut more likely if inflation comes in below expectations.”

US, Bitcoin lead outflows

Bitcoin led the outflows, losing $643 million, bringing its monthly outflows to $645 million. Short BTC funds, however, saw minor inflows of $3.9 million.

Meanwhile, US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw an eight-day outflow streak, causing net outflows of $721 million in the country. Fidelity’s FBTC fund was responsible for most of this, with $405 million in outflows last week.

It was followed by Grayscale’s GBTC, which saw $280 million in outflows. Bitwise ETFs completed the top three for last week with losses of around $60 million.

Canada also recorded outflows of $28 million. In contrast, Europe had more positive sentiment, with Germany and Switzerland seeing inflows of $16.3 million and $3.2 million, respectively.

Altcoins suffer contrasting fates.

Ethereum-based investment products recorded $98 million in net outflows last week.

This was primarily due to Grayscale’s converted ETHE fund, which lost $111 million during the period. This meant the minimal inflows into other spot Ethereum ETF products could not offset the significant outflows, further fuelling suggestions that there was no demand for these investment products.

However, Solana-based investment products secured $6.2 million in net inflows, the largest among digital asset products.

Other digital assets like Cardano saw outflows of around $800,000 despite completing the first phase of its highly anticipated Chang Hard Fork. In comparison, Litecoin and XRP products saw cumulative inflows of $1.7 million.

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In the latest episode of the Blockchain Gaming World podcast, editor-in-chief Jon Jordan talks to Justin Gary, who’s the CEO of Stoneblade Entertainment.

A long-term player and designer of card games, Gary is the co-creator alongside Magic The Gathering‘s Richard Garfield of TCG SolForge – now advanced into SolForged Fusion.

Primarily, Gary explains why this hybrid deck builder is using assets on Solana, how its NFTs are generated, and what makes SolForge Fusion a refreshing addition to the TCG genre.

BlockchainGamer: Can you tell us more about yourself and give us some background to SolForge?

Gary: I’ve been working on the original version of SolForge for 13 years. Prior to that, I got into the gaming world as a Magic the Gathering US National Champion. I was the youngest champion, aged 17. I paid my way through college playing Magic, and traveling around the world. It transformed my life.

Eventually, after an ill-advised stint at law school, I dropped out and moved across the country to become a game designer. I started working on games for Marvel, DC, World of Warcraft, and a whole variety of really great brands before starting my own company. 

I launched a building game called Ascension, which was a big hit. It’s available on mobile and PC, and even a VR version, believe it or not.

Because of that game I got an opportunity to go to a developer conference in 2011, where Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic the Gathering, was giving a talk. At the end of the talk there was a Q&A and somebody asked him, “what’s your favourite game right now?”, and he said my game Ascension, and I literally jump up in the back of the room like a kid.

After that we talked for about three hours and we were in sync on exactly the game we wanted to make, which was the original version of SolForge. It’s one of the first digital TCGs that was designed to be native before Magic Arena or Hearthstone or anything like that. 

And now we’ve been able to reimagine that game and the new version of SolForge Fusion, which is what we’re calling the world’s first hybrid deck game. It exists on tabletop, in web2, and now in web3. 

TCG is a much loved genre that appeals strongly to a certain group of people. They don’t necessarily go enormously wide. Why does that appeal to you? 

I think there’s something magical about TCGs. I’ll also point out there are some subtle differences between like Ascension, which is a deck-builder without tradable collectible cards, and SolForge Fusion, which is a hybrid game where you are collecting the cards. But they’re not the same cards that everybody has, your deck is unique. 

In a sense, what I’ve tried to do with SolForge Fusion is recreate the magic that I felt from my early days of playing Magic when I would open up a pack of cards and I would see cards I’d never seen before. Nowadays that magic is gone, like every spoiler is out before the sets are released. But with SolForge Fusion that’s not possible because every single pack you open is unique to you. And you have to make the strategies with what you have. 

That experience is what drew me to TCGs in the first place and what Richard and I have tried to reimagine and bring into the modern era.

What is algorithmically generated decks and how is the uniqueness created?

Imagine if in a normal TCG, you have a typical set of 300 cards. What you do is you take those sets of cards, say it’s a 60 or 30 card deck, and build the deck you want.

With an algorithmically generated game like SolForge Fusion, we build the deck of cards for you and we algorithmically create those cards. So in our very first set alone, we already had more cards than Magic had in 30 years and we’ve had three card releases. We have what we like to say more deck permutations than there are atoms in the universe, so you will never have the same deck twice. 

The way you customize your deck is unlike a traditional TCG where you take a set and pick the cards used most often. You’re just gonna copy what other people did. In SolForge Fusion you’re gonna use any of the two decks we give you, shuffle them together and you’re ready to go. So you still get to customize, but the difference is you can’t copy. 

We use technology that didn’t even exist a decade ago to be able to create these unique concepts and unique cards. It’s the fun of collectible games without all the work of having to build a custom deck or look up the exact thing online. You just find the ones you have, shuffle, smash them together and you’re good to go.

That means there’s much more possibilities because you need some broad skills, but there’s an element of surprise in your deck, and certainly in your opponent’s deck.

Yeah, and it’s really fun to play. All the cool technology, algorithmic generation, and web3 aside, the basic gameplay itself is just a really fun, simple experience. 

You draw a hand and five cards. You and your opponent alternate playing cards. Creatures get played in five lanes. At the end of the turn, creatures attack whatever’s across from them. They’ll either kill each other or do damage to the opponent. Pretty standard stuff for a TCG.

What’s interesting is that whenever you play a card, that card levels up. The levelled-up version goes into your discard pile, then every three turns you shuffle your deck. When you play cards in this game, there’s no mana or cost to the cards. They’re all balanced and they evolve through play. 

And you actually discover your game, your own deck, even just playing your own deck over and over again. You’ll learn a lot because which card you choose to play early will choose which cards are available to you later.

An important part for us is that at the heart, SolForge Fusion is a great game. All of the bells and whistles and web3, why does that stuff exist? It has to serve the gameplay experience.

When I started playing Hearthstone, I found it was a bit interesting, but suddenly I got overwhelmed. There’s so many cards and I’m getting bashed all the time. Does this make it easier for me as a newbie or not really?

Yeah, that’s the idea. On one level, you don’t have to look at the whole set of cards and figure out which ones to build. You just pick any two decks that seem appealing to you, shuffle them and play. Now, is this game still gonna be skill testing? Are you still gonna get stomped if you’re not good? Yeah, you are.

But we also do a couple of things to make the game more fun for people like you who maybe want to dabble and have a good time but don’t necessarily want to go swimming with the sharks right away. 

We created an algorithmically generated campaign mode inside the game so you can take your decks and battle against bosses, gain XP and level up your deck, get custom upgrades and powers and have this deep experience that’s very evolved, without worrying about getting beaten. 

In addition, every player gets what we call Phantom Decks, which are new decks that refresh every month. So you get the experience of playing and trying out new strategies. We’re working on what we’re calling Phantom Deck queues, where you’ll be able to just paddle against people, so everybody’s trying out new decks all the time. It’s constantly refreshing. 

We’ve tried to build a wide tent to appeal to people who want to just have a cool solo experience, and the people who are super competitive. We also do storyline events both online and at events and conventions where you will influence the lore. 

We have our writers writing custom stories that gets permanently connected to the NFT of your deck. So your deck has the lore status to it, and you can evolve and be a part of our world. Some people think that’s the coolest thing ever, while others don’t care about that at all. 

Now you talk about NFTs, were they always there from the start or something that came in later? 

So I’ve been interested in blockchain technology for quite a while now, at least since 2017/18. I actually designed a web3 game called Block Brawlers just for fun. The ability to create systems that allow communities to come together, collaborate and share resources in ways that are fair and don’t require a middleman and having trust in a centralized authority, I think that is the future. 

So there was definitely talk of blockchain and using NFTs from the beginning, but it was not a definitive. It comes down to what serves the players best. I started researching what it would take if we wanted to provide all the services that we’re doing now through Solana. Having that infrastructure and having all that done, would have cost me as a developer way more than using the technology that already exists on blockchain. 

As a developer, there was a clear question of what can I build? How can I offer more to my players? Then as a player, I was thinking, what would I want? And I would want to have complete ownership of my game. And over the long-term, not only do I want to allow people to trade their decks, but I want to be able to transfer more and more ownership to the community. 

SolForge Fusion has not really been promoted as a crypto game or blockchain game. Some people would have been interested in it just as a web2 game. Did you get any feedback on your instigation of web3?

Some feedback is a polite way to put it. There’s a lot of ill-will and distrust of blockchain in the gaming community, and to be blunt, it’s well-deserved. Rug pulls and people who would make a lot of promises and start selling a token and not have a game at all, right? And then there were those that had a game, but they would just shoehorn in NFTs just trying to get cash out of the players.

You need to have something that actually demonstrates real value to the players, so when we announced that we were doing web3 and NFTs, we got a lot of hatred. My strategy from the beginning was to be very upfront. I’ve been in this industry for a long time, and built a reputation. I’m not about to destroy it for some quick buck. 

I was doing AMAs, I was active in our Discord, I was posting articles about it etc, and I think I was able to allay a lot of the fears. Like it’s bad for the environment. I’m like, nope, Solana is very good for the environment. It doesn’t make any sense. 

We educate them about security and how you opt in and opt out. We made it so web3 is entirely opt in for players. If you don’t want to turn your decks into NFTs, you do not have to. And you never have to scan your decks into your online account, you don’t have to play a digital game, you can play it as a tabletop.

Also, with the way we’re doing our tokens and deck collections, we’re just airdropping the token to everybody. Not just to our players, but to people in the Solana community, to players of other games like Axie Infinity and Parallel and a variety of places. We’re just giving the token away so you get a chance to try the game for free. 

When it comes to the NFTs, we thought about exactly the way we built the physical game. So if I have a physical deck of SolForge Fusion, I scan it into my account, it’s locked in my account, and I can play it in tournaments or whatever. If I want to trade it, I can unlock it from my account, I hand you the physical deck, you scan it into your account and it’s yours. 

We did the exact same thing for the NFTs. You can take your digital deck and use the token to mint it into an NFT. You can unlock it from your account, give it to somebody else who locks it into their account, and now it’s their deck. 

A lot of games have used NFTs and blockchain in a way that makes no sense whatsoever, but this makes perfect sense. 

What have you thought about the financial value? One of the big problems is someone selling an NFT for $1,000 and it goes down to $10. That’s an immediate pinch point for the audience. 

First of all, this is the kind of thing that is not in my hands and I don’t want it to be in my hands. Players choose what they want to value, just like they did with Magic cards. 

A couple of things that have happened that I think are really interesting, because every deck is unique, it can be a little harder to evaluate than a traditional TCG. And so what we’ve done is the individual cards have rarity scores, and we give you a deck rarity score to help people evaluate the decks. But we’re not telling you about the power level or how you should value it. 

In fact, what’s been really cool is even before the web 3 element launched, a fan ranked the decks’ power level based on how they perceived it in their own scoring system. So you can log in with your account and plug in your collection and they’ll score your collection for you.

Then of course we have our tournaments, if your deck succeeds in a tournament, it gains rankings, or go from bronze to silver to gold to platinum. 

So we give you the tools to evaluate decks however you want. Maybe you just want a deck with a bunch of zombies in it because you love zombies, then that’s valuable to you. It’s about the players being able to make those decisions. All we want to do is give them the freedom and information. 

So the cards are not NFTs, it’s the deck that’s tradable, but would all the cards be unique?

No, so many cards will get repeated. Because we algorithmically generate the cards, there’s around 50,000 unique possible cards you could get. But the common ones will show up all the time. If every card was a one-of-a-kind all the time, it would just be too hard to process.

Whereas a super rare card like a Scorchman Dragon, you hope to get it, and it could show up in your deck, but you have to evaluate it in the context of the deck. You can’t just evaluate it as its own card. It might pair really well with another deck that has a card that lets you level up a card for free, so you can level up the egg part and not have to play it, and that way get yourself faster to the dragon part. There’ll be different combos and strategies you can do based on how the decks all pair together.

You’ve currently got a PC version on Steam. How are you dealing with Steam not officially allowing NFT enabled games? 

Yeah, we’re live on PC and Mac now, and plan to move to mobile next year. We’ve been very attentive to what the rules and regulations are and we’re abiding by those rules. So in the Steam game itself, you can’t sell or buy NFTs or the tokens or anything like that. 

On our website, you can connect the NFTs to your account and then we give you the digital version in the game. If you take your digital deck in the game, you can mint it to an NFT on the website.

NFTs are a long-term core part of the game, but would it have been much easier if you had just done it as a tabletop web2 game? Because you’ve not raised money off the back of selling NFTs or tokens or anything like that.

Well, we’re recording this in an interesting window, right before the launch of the token. So we’re going to learn very soon whether or not I’m right or wrong about where this value is going to be. I think that there’s a community of people that will be very passionate about this kind of game, that we’ll see returns from it in the growth of our player base. I could be totally wrong. 

If I wanted to do something easy, I would have just made another basic tabletop game. We advanced algorithmic printing technology. We are the only game that does this kind of one-to-one correlation between your physical collection and your digital collection and then bringing it all to web3. 

The original version of SolForge wasn’t easy to make for mobile TCG. This is the first hybrid TCG that lives on all those things, that’s not easy to make. I like to push the boundaries of what technology allows us to do to make great games and build great communities. 

That’s the heart of what I’m passionate about. 

Finally, in terms of your roadmap, you’ve got a token going live, you’ve got the NFTs going live, you mentioned tournaments too. What’s the plan towards the end of the year in terms of features and community?

We’ll be running tournaments both in the app as well as through our Discord with token prizes and a bunch of cool exclusives. We have an in-person event coming to PAX Unplugged, which will be in Philadelphia in early December. We have storyline events and a bunch of cool celebrations there. 

We also have new content coming. These kinds of collectible games live and die on content, so we just released our last set, called The Last Winter. In June, we have new card releases coming. 

More features are launching for the game itself, including a mobile version. We’re gonna allow the ability for you to print cards on demand, so your digital assets can be turned into physical assets.

We’re also working on leaderboards and more advanced encounters that can happen in the campaign mode. 

Find out more at the SolForge Fusion website.

Ethereum now has its own native platform — Ethervista — where people can create and launch memecoins in the same vein as Solana-based memecoin deployer Pump.fun.

Ethervista is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that introduces a novel approach to liquidity management and token launches on the Ethereum network. One of its key features is the 5-day liquidity lock for creators, which helps prevent rug pulls that often occur within the first four days of a project’s launch on platforms like Pump.fun.

Ethervista said it aims to promote a project’s long-term success by rewarding creators with liquidity and protocol fees that grow as trading volume increases. This model benefits both users and creators, making long-term commitments more profitable than quick sell-offs or liquidity withdrawals.

VISTA surge

Over the past 24 hours, Ethervista has gained significant traction within the community. The platform has consumed over 150 ETH in gas fees, and its first token, VISTA, has seen a rapid rise in value.

VISTA is a deflationary token with a capped supply of 1 million. Ethervista said the token features an automatic buyback and burning mechanism, which reduces the overall supply and potentially increases the token’s value. The project has already burned over 2.17% of its total supply.

Blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence noted that one trader turned $5,000 into $670,000 within 48 hours by trading VISTA. The firm reported:

“Trader 0x430 bought into Ethervista’s launch, spending $5,000 to secure over 5% of the supply. He spread his VISTA holdings across seven wallets and, after two days, realized over $670,000 in profit in ETH. That’s more than a 130x return.”

Pump.fun milestone

The launch of the Ethereum-based platform coincides with Pump.fun’s revenue reaching $100 million in just over seven months, making it the fastest-growing protocol by revenue in the crypto ecosystem.

The success comes as the competitive landscape intensifies, with new rivals like SunPump on the TRON network attempting to capture market share.

Recently, traders have been drawn to the Justin Sun-backed SunPump, largely due to its aggressive promotional efforts. The TRON founder revealed on Sept. 3 that the project would implement a 100% on-chain buyback and burn process.

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Crypto investment products faced significant outflows last week, totaling $305 million, as negative sentiment spread across various providers and regions, according to CoinShares‘ latest weekly report.

James Butterfill, CoinShares’ head of research, attributed these outflows to stronger-than-expected US economic data. He noted that this data “diminished the likelihood of a 50-basis point interest rate cut.”

He further added:

“We continue to expect the asset class to become increasingly sensitive to interest rate expectations as the FED gets closer to a pivot.”

Bitcoin, US bore the brunt of outflows

Bitcoin experienced most of these outflows, with asset managers like Grayscale, ProShares, and 21Shares all reporting net losses last week. The top crypto saw $319 million in outflows, while the United States saw a slightly lesser total outflow of $318 million.

In contrast, short Bitcoin investment products saw their most significant inflows since March, attracting $4.4 million for the second consecutive week.

Ethereum also faced outflows, losing $5.7 million, while trading volumes remained stagnant at just 15% of those seen during the US ETF launch week.

Galaxy Digital previously highlighted that Ethereum ETFs were trading significantly lower volumes than Bitcoin ETFs, falling well below ETH/BTC centralized exchange volume and market cap ratios. This disparity is partly due to prime trading desks not yet offering margin on Ethereum ETFs.

It stated:

“The ratio of Ethereum ETF volume to Bitcoin ETF volume in the first 25 days has continued to decline.”

Solana and Blockchain Equities buck the trend

Despite the overall negative market, Solana attracted $7.6 million in inflows, defying the broader trend. Blockchain equities also saw positive momentum, with $11 million flowing into products focused on Bitcoin miners.

This investment surge in miners comes as they find new ways to leverage their BTC mining equipment by supplying computational power to artificial intelligence (AI) companies.

VanEck projects that if Bitcoin miners allocate 20% of their energy capacity to AI computation by 2027, they could increase their average yearly profits to nearly $14 billion.

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Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin has crossed the $16 trillion mark in total cumulative volume.

While this number falls short of traditional financial powerhouses like Visa, which processed over $12 trillion in payments just last year, it highlights the remarkable growth of stablecoins. Despite their relatively short existence, stablecoins have quickly established themselves as key players in the global financial market.

Stablecoins play an essential role in the crypto ecosystem. They facilitate the smooth transfer of funds, support seamless trading between tokens, and enable payments, especially for cross-border transactions.

Launched in 2018, USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, with $34.6 billion currently in circulation. Circle has strategically positioned USDC as a more regulatory-compliant stablecoin, differentiating it from competitors like USDT.

This approach has contributed to USDC’s dominance in transactions this year, surpassing Tether’s USDT despite having a smaller circulating supply. According to Artemis, USDC now accounts for roughly 50% of the total stablecoin transaction volume.

Solana fuelling USDC’s growth

USDC’s transaction volume is primarily driven by the Solana blockchain, which holds more than three-quarters of the stablecoin market share. Data from DeFiLlama indicates that USDC makes up about 65% of Solana’s $3.98 billion stablecoin supply.

A stablecoin dashboard created by Visa Inc., in collaboration with Allium Labs, shows that USDC’s transaction volume on Solana has soared to approximately $8.29 trillion since the beginning of last year. Its nearest rival, USDT on TRON, saw a volume of $7 trillion during the same timeframe.

This growth isn’t surprising, given Solana’s popularity for its speed and lower transaction costs, which have attracted interest from traditional financial players like PayPal.

The recent surge in memecoin trading and DeFi activities on Solana has further propelled its rise. Over the past few months, the market has even seen instances when trading activity on Solana surpassed Ethereum’s.

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Crypto exchanges Binance and Bybit have hinted at launching a new Solana-related product, sparking speculation that they may enter the Solana liquid staking market.

On Aug. 13, Binance’s official X account posted a cryptic “BNSOL” message followed by “coming soon” in a subsequent comment.

Shortly after, Bybit announced the introduction of a new product, “bbSol,” on its platform, stating:

“We are welcoming a new to the family #bbSOL.”

Although neither exchange provided specific details about the product, the crypto community quickly speculated that these posts indicate a move into Solana’s liquid staking sector, potentially through a partnership with the Solana-based liquid staking protocol Sanctum.

Neither Binance nor Bybit has responded to CryptoSlate’s request for comment as of press time.

Liquid staking

Unlike traditional staking, liquid staking allows users to earn additional yield while maintaining liquidity through a derivative token for DeFi activities. According to DefiLlama data, protocols in this sector collectively manage over $42 billion in crypto, with Ethereum-focused Lido leading the market.

However, interest in Solana liquid staking has recently surged, driven by the growing DeFi activities on the Solana blockchain.

Data from Dune Analytics shows that more than $4 billion of SOL tokens are currently staked via liquid staking platforms. However, this accounts for only about 7% of the total market cap of staked Solana tokens, which stood at $62 billion at the time of writing.

This gap suggests significant growth potential in Solana’s liquid staking market. If Binance and Bybit launch SOL-based liquid staking products, it could further accelerate the sector’s expansion and drive retail access to the market.

Notably, Tom Wan, an analyst at 21Shares, previously noted that the sector’s growth could have a broader impact on Solana’s DeFi ecosystem. He stated:

“The boom in LSTs can definitely fuel the DeFi growth on Solana!”

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Solana-based prediction market BET has hit a new milestone of $20 million in its daily volume, according to Dune Analytics data.

However, a deeper look reveals a downward trend in BET’s trade count over the past three days, raising questions about how the $20 million volume was achieved.

Despite this, the milestone is noteworthy as BET launched less than two weeks ago. This suggests that BET successfully engages Solana users interested in blockchain-based prediction markets.

Notably, BET users have wagered more than $23 million across four political bets. Over $20 million of this is on Kamala Harris winning the popular vote in the upcoming election, while around $2.3 million is on Donald Trump winning the 2024 Presidential Election.

Prediction markets

Decentralized prediction markets like Polymarkets have grown in popularity over the past year, especially with the upcoming US elections. These platforms allow users to pool insights on future events, often offering less biased predictions due to the financial stakes involved.

For context, Polymarket has seen unprecedented growth, reaching its highest trading volumes and user participation for consecutive months.

However, the rise of these platforms has sparked debate about their role in public discourse. Some praise them as valuable social tools, while others argue they resemble gambling.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has praised prediction markets like Polymarket for their potential as “social epistemic tools,” arguing they provide a unique way for the public to engage in collective forecasting.

Critics, however, believe Polymarket’s election-related markets mirror traditional gambling more than unbiased forecasting, raising concerns that participants may use these platforms primarily for arbitrage opportunities between prediction markets and mainstream betting platforms.

Moreover, the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and lawmakers, including crypto cynic Senator Elizabeth Warren, have raised concerns about the impact of these bets on public interest and called for their restrictions.

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The Solana Optimistic Network (SOON) has raised an undisclosed amount in a co-builder funding round that drew contributions from key industry figures, according to an Aug. 27 statement shared with CryptoSlate.

Notable participants in the round include Solana leaders Lily Liu and Anatoly’ Toly’ Yakovenko, Coinbase Ventures’ Principal Jonathan King, and Celestia Labs co-founder Mustafa Al-Bassam. Other contributors are Amrit Kumar, co-founder of AltLayer, Prabal Banerjee, co-founder of Avail, and Robinson Burkey, co-founder of Wormhole Foundation.

SOON

The funding will primarily advance the development of SOON Stack, aiming to create the most efficient and high-performance rollup for Layer 1 settlements, which utilizes the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) as the execution layer.

The funds will support SOON’s flagship products, including SOON Stack and SOON Mainnet. SOON Stack is a modular framework that combines SVM and OP Stack to enable the deployment of SVM Layer 2 on Layer 1s like Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Cosmos.

SOON Mainnet is a general-purpose SVM Layer 2 solution that settles on the Ethereum blockchain, deployed using SOON Stack. Once launched, SOON aims to increase Ethereum’s transaction capacity by 650,000 transactions per second (TPS) using the SVM.

Additionally, SOON plans to integrate a data availability layer, enhancing interoperability with CelestiaDA, EigenDA, and Avail.

This funding is expected to position SOON as the highest throughput rollup stack with low fees, offering scalability and efficiency for decentralized applications (dApps) across all Layer 1 blockchains.

SOON’s CEO Joanna Zeng stated that the platform will combine Solana’s powerful SVM engine with Layer 1 user bases. She added that this approach could establish SVM as the standard for every Layer 1 ecosystem, attracting developers.

Zeng added:

“With SOON, we aim to be the most efficient rollup, reducing costs and boosting performance by 100 times in every ecosystem, compared to the highest-performing EVM, while maintaining a culture that welcomes non-Solana blue chips.”

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