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Coinbase’s Layer 2 System Base Gets a Marketplace Linked to Gas Revenue

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The runaway success of Base, the Coinbase-owned Ethereum overlay blockchain designed for faster, cheaper transactions, has prompted the creation of a market linked to the fluctuating cost of the total gas needed to power the network, allowing speculators to bet on recurring utility spikes on the layer 2 system.

Taking a cue from the way traders speculate and hedge in traditional energy markets, Alkimiya, a startup backed by Coinbase Ventures as well as firms like Dragonfly and Castle Island Ventures, enables users to go long or short on the cost of transactions being included in blocks, or “blockspace” – a representation of the storage and computational capacity of a blockchain.

“Paying for blockspace is like paying for other energy sources, such as cars paying for petrol or aeroplanes paying for jet fuel,” said Alkimiya founder Leo Zhang in an interview. “Traditional energy markets have developed that allow airlines to hedge against their jet fuel price, for example, and we think there should be a better price discovery mechanism for how people price and use this core energy resource, which is blockspace.”

Launched in August 2023, Base has outperformed its layer 2 rivals, generating over $14 million in the last month. Increased activity on Base means the cumulative gas paid to the network can fluctuate dramatically, from as low as 10 ETH to as high as 200 ETH in a single day.

Unlike many other blockchains, Base does not have a token and has no plans to issue one. Alkimiya’s smart contracts allow users to bet on how the cost of Base blockspace might fluctuate thanks to the introduction of AI agents, for instance, or on-chain events like the arrival of a particular memecoin, NFT or airdrop.

Under the hood, Alkimiya uses a very common decentralized finance (DeFi) architecture where an oracle tracks the gas being consumed by users on Base, and a system of smart contracts facilitate the accounting and logic, Zhang explained.

“A user can purchase this contract that tracks the total amount of gas paid to the Base roll up itself,” Zhang said. “And the reason this is doable is because it’s entirely transparent. There’s no centralized exchange where everything is in a black box.”

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Coinbase Outpaces S&P 500 With 43% June Rise as Stablecoin Narrative Grows: CNBC

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Shares of Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) rose 43% this month, making the firm the top performer in the S&P 500 since it joined the index at the end of last month.

June’s run is already the stock’s best since November and caps three straight monthly gains. Coinbase’s shares reached their highest level since their public debut.

COIN hit a $382 high this week before enduring a slight correction, ending the week at $353 and seeing a slight 0.7% drop in after-hours trading to $351.

The wider S&P 500 index rose roughly 5% in June as geopolitical tensions eased.

Washington’s progress on the GENIUS Act, Congress’s first rulebook for dollar-pegged stablecoins, helped shift investor focus from trading fees to stablecoin revenue.

The bill brightened the outlook for Circle, whose shares hit a record high and saw its market cap near that of Coinbase this week.

Coinbase keeps all yield on USDC balances held on its platform and nearly half of other USDC income, equal to about 99 percent of Circle’s revenue, giving shareholders indirect exposure at no added cost, CNBC reported Friday, citing analysts including Citizens’ head of financial technology research Devin Ryan.

Trading, however, remains subdued. Average daily volume on Coinbase has drifted lower since April.

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Robinhood Launches Micro Bitcoin, Solana and XRP Futures Contracts

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Robinhood (HOOD) has introduced micro futures on bitcoin (BTC), solana (SOL) and XRP in the United States., expanding its existing crypto futures offering for its nearly 26 million funded accounts.

Micro contracts need far less collateral than full-size futures, letting traders take directional positions while committing a smaller slice of capital.

The contracts offer traders more flexibility to bet on a cryptocurrency’s future price direction or hedge current positions given their smaller size.

The launch rounds out a futures suite that began with BTC and ETH in January. It also comes weeks after the firm closed its $200 million purchase of Bitstamp and finalized a $179 million deal for Canada’s WonderFi.

Robinhood’s data shows that crypto notional volumes have exploded upward over time, reaching $11.7 billion in May. The figure marks a 36% rise month-over-month, and a 65% growth year-over-year.

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Why is XRP Up Today? Trio of Catalysts Sees Token Outperform Wider Crypto Market

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XRP climbed 5.5% to $2.19 in the last 24 hours after a trio of catalysts converged to help the cryptocurrency outperform the wider cryptocurrency market.

One of the catalysts was launch of XRP micro futures on Robinhood. The contracts offer traders more flexibility to bet on the cryptocurrency’s future price direction or hedge current positions given their smaller size.

Regulatory fog also thinned. On Friday, Ripple withdrew its cross-appeal in its long-running U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit. The SEC sued Ripple back in 2020 over its XRP sales, alleging these violated securities laws. The SEC is expected to drop its own appeal, leaving last year’s ruling, ordering Ripple to pay a $125 million civil penalty to the SEC, intact. The move could lift a lid that had kept some investors on the sidelines.

On-chain data rounded out the bullish setup. The XRP Ledger logged over a 1.1 million active addresses over the past week according to crypto analyst Ali Martinez, who cited Glassnode data.

XRP’s rise saw it outperform the wider crypto market, with the broader CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index rising 1.7% in the last 24 hours.

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