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Ethereum’s New Cheerleader on Wall Street: A Q&A With Vivek Raman

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Ethereum is facing an identity crisis. Its native token, ether (ETH), is underperforming against competitors, and longtime builders are beginning to question whether the chain’s technology is falling behind—and if its community is losing focus.

The Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit that stewards Ethereum’s development, has been blamed for many of the network’s struggles. Co-founder Vitalik Buterin is spearheading a massive leadership shake-up at the organization, but his central influence over the process has sparked its own controversy.

Meanwhile, rival ecosystems like Solana are capitalizing on the uncertainty, attracting top talent and outpacing ETH in the market.

Amid this turbulence, a new project, Etherealize, is aiming to bring ETH to Wall Street. Founded by former banker Vivek Raman, Etherealize seeks to bridge the gap between traditional finance and Ethereum, positioning ETH as a serious asset class.

Raman, who spent a decade in banking before discovering crypto, believes his traditional finance background gives him a unique perspective. He has spent the past four years laying the groundwork for Etherealize, choosing to launch in January—a time of heightened market optimism driven by expectations of a crypto-friendly White House, even as Ethereum grapples with internal disputes and price stagnation.

In a recent interview with CoinDesk, Raman discussed his vision for ETH and the broader crypto landscape, including:

• His journey into Ethereum and the founding of Etherealize.

• How Etherealize is marketing ETH to Wall Street.

• The Ethereum Foundation’s role and banks’ views on layer-2 rollups.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

You’ve had all this experience in traditional finance, and you call yourself a newcomer to the Ethereum world. Walk me through how you got into crypto, what was that moment?

Raman: I was a trader at four banks, trading the most archaic, esoteric products—high-yield bonds, distressed bonds, leveraged loans and credit default swaps and stuff. These are all the backbone of the economy, but I saw how inefficient they are.

When you watch the movie Wall Street, and you see everything traded on the phone, you’re like, “Oh, maybe the system’s upgraded,” But it hasn’t. It still trades like that.

I saw that for 10 years. I lived it. And I’m very lucky because I built a really good network, I have all these amazing mentors, all these people that ran banks and ran desks.

But after 10 years, the technological pace of Wall Street was not evolving at all, and I was like, «Let me find something else.»

Right when I left Wall Street, I went to Austin, Texas, and I serendipitously met some of the Ethereum core developers on the research and development team. They were working on the Merge, and they taught me about Ethereum.

While I was on Wall Street, it was very anti-crypto because of the regulators. The «adoption moment» wasn’t even close for the 10 years I was there. But when I found Ethereum, I realized that this was the answer for Wall Street.

There are different components to Etherealize, right? Where does the «marketing» part come in?

Raman: So it’s three interrelated things.

The first thing is that everyone uses Ethereum; Ethereum is the most-adopted smart contract platform. Bitcoiners just talk about bitcoins—probably because there’s not much utility, so all you can do is talk about it.

It’s almost like with Ethereum, there’s so much utility that no one actually talks about the ETH asset. But the asset is very important to the ecosystem; for better or worse, people use the asset as a proxy for ecosystem health. Part of the reason why I think Solana has so much of the limelight isn’t because it’s necessarily the best technology; it’s because the token went up a lot.

So the first thing is to talk about ether as an asset — as a portfolio diversifier, as something that’s complementary to bitcoin — and to provide that content, research and marketing to ETF issuers, to the broader public and to institutions.

The second is that Ethereum is obviously a utility platform. It’s this new financial internet; they call it «the operating system for the financial economy.» So we teach about Ethereum as a platform and what you can do with it: You can tokenize assets. You can build layer-2 ecosystems, where banks can actually have their own networksand can customize them to bring their customers on-chain. 

And then, third, we actually try to give a call to action. The call to action is to tokenize assets on Ethereum or build a layer 2 on Ethereum, and we’re building a product suite to actually facilitate Wall Street trading on the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum is experiencing an identity crisis. Its price is lagging far behind other cryptocurrencies, the Ethereum Foundation is undergoing a shake-up, and crypto community members are voicing their disagreements about Vitalik Buterin’s central role in the ecosystem. Etherealize is coming to fruition at a moment when the ecosystem probably needs a marketing or advocacy arm. Is Wall Street the savior for Ethereum?

Raman: I don’t think it’s a silver bullet. The Ethereum Foundation shouldn’t have to do everything, and Vitalik shouldn’t have to do everything. Research and development — and the high-level, cutting-edge strategy and roadmap to future-proof Ethereum for the next 100 years — that’s Vitalik’s job.

Whose role is it to talk about these ecosystems? It’s the application layer. It’s institutions like Etherealize.

The problem is that once the Overton window shifted from regulatory attacks to regulatory acceptance, the other layer-1 ecosystems, which have very centralized and centrally planned companies behind them, picked up mind share and marketing market share. But ultimately, the best of the best is Vitalik — the best of the best is the EF researchers.

I spent years developing this business plan, figuring out when the right time to strike was. I got a sign-off from Vitalik and the EF—they gave us a small grant to get us started last August. But I did a lot of due diligence. I surveyed many institutions and asked if this was the moment. And it was.

You’ve discussed the role of the Ethereum Foundation (EF). Some believe the foundation is in charge of running the ecosystem. How do you divide the roles between the EF and Etherealize?

Raman: The EF has great marketing people — there’s just a lot to do.

We have this whole ecosystem of layer-2s that need coordination. One of the people in the Ethereum Foundation’s leadership always says, “Ethereum doesn’t have one business development arm, it has thousands of business development arms,» which are all the apps, the layer 2s, etc.

We’re here to act as a conduit to all the different apps and layer twos. And we have access to people who actually want to use Ethereum: the Wall Street players and institutions.

We go back and forth [with the EF] all the time. We have the best relationship with them, but we are arm’s length from them. I view all this as a very positive sum.

You bring up layer-2 networks. How does Wall Street view them? We know that Deutsche Bank is launching a layer-2 on ZKsync, and UBS has also expressed interest in using layer-2 technology. But what’s their view from what you’ve seen?

Raman: I think it’s going to be very ironic when people look back at criticisms for layer twos as being value extractive and dilutive. I think Wall Street views the layer twos as an opportunity.

One of many reasons I think Ethereum will win over other layer-1s is because it doubled down on the layer-2 roadmap and realized that the whole world doesn’t belong on one uniform chain.

There are different companies, different countries and different states. Everyone has their own culture. You can’t stuff it all in one place with one set of rules.

Wall Street views this as an opportunity. Where’s the place where you can make the most money deploying assets and applications? It’s on layer 2. At the app layer, you can control your level of customization and privacy. On layer 2, you can have know-your-customer (KYC) features. All that stuff is going to be extremely critical.

Why has Wall Street been holding back — was it really purely just the regulatory clarity aspect, which has changed now that there’s a new administration in Washington?

Raman: I think regulatory clarity is the right answer, but maybe it’s a little too simplistic.

I think the real issue is that there was no economic incentive for Wall Street institutions to actually use blockchains. Many of them viewed blockchains as competing or threatening. There was no way to make money using blockchains, especially with an oppressive regulatory regime.

With the shift in regulations and the expansion of technology like layer-2s, Wall Street can now make a lot of money using blockchains—specifically on Ethereum, by building layer-2s and running assets on them. They can make a lot of money now, and so they’re all rushing in. It’s because they smell opportunity.

Read more: Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Goes on Offense Amid Major Leadership Shake-up

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Bitcoin Network Hashrate Declined in June as Miners Reacted to Recent Heatwave: JPMorgan

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The Bitcoin (BTC) network monthly average hashrate fell about 3% in June, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report Tuesday.

The hashrate refers to the total combined computational power used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain, and is a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty. It is measured in exahashes per second (EH/s).

«Our sense is the decline was driven by seasonal weather-related curtailment in the U.S., and note that Cipher, IREN and Riot alone operate >80 EH/s in Texas,» analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote.

Bitcoin mining profitability continues to improve. The bank’s analysts estimated that miners earned an average of $55,300 per EH/s in daily block reward revenue last month, a 7% increase from April.

Daily block reward gross profit rose 13% month-on-month to the highest level since January, the analysts noted.

The total market cap of the 13 U.S.-listed bitcoin miners the bank follows rose 23%, or around $5.3 billion, from the previous month, the report said.

Operators with high-performance computing (HPC) exposure outperformed pure-play miners due to speculation of a deal between Core Scientific (CORZ) and CoreWeave (CRWV).

IREN (IREN) outperformed the group with a 67% gain, while Bitfarms (BITF) was the worst performer with a 19% decline, the report added.

Read more: U.S.-Listed Bitcoin Miners’ Share of Network Hashrate Hit Record High in June: JPMorgan

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Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Posts Record Monthly Close, but Euro Steals the Show

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By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin (BTC) ended June above $107,000 at a record monthly close. Still, the largest crypto’s 2.5% monthly gain failed to match the euro’s advance against the dollar, the most liquid FX pair in the world.

The eurozone currency rose nearly 4% against the greenback last month, hitting its highest since September 2021. That prompted some traders to switch to euro-pegged stablecoins, resulting in a notable increase in their market values.

The euro’s momentum highlights the continued broad-based decline in the U.S. currency, which means financial conditions will likely remain easy, even though the weakness hasn’t done much to lift a directionless BTC.

The prolonged range play has been widely attributed to selling by wallets with a history of holdings coins for over a year. The profit-taking continued on Monday, with on-chain realized gains hitting the $2.4 billion mark.

BTC was recently trading 0.6% lower over 24 hours at $106,500. Other tokens, including XRP, DOGE, SOL and ETH, followed suit, while BCH, ALGO, and PAXG stood out.

Some analysts called for patience in the wake of continued institutional adoption. On Monday, Germany’s savings bank network said it will enable crypto trading for clients within a year. Strategy disclosed another major BTC purchase last week, acquiring $531 million worth of BTC.

«While short-term momentum has faded, medium-term signals remain bullish, especially with corporate treasuries accelerating their accumulation pace. We slightly reduced exposure to protect capital but remain constructive — especially on altcoins with room to catch up,» Valentin Fournier, lead research analyst at BRN.

That said, the third quarter has historically been bitcoin’s weakest. Moreover, liquidity tends to be weaker as well due to summer holidays, which raises the likelihood of exaggerated price moves. Remember the yen-led crash in BTC from $70,000 to $50,000 in late July to early August last year? This calls for caution even as analysts maintain the long-term constructive outlook.

In other news, American Bitcoin, a crypto firm backed by Eric Trump, raised $220 million to buy bitcoin and mining equipment. An FTX creditor posted on X that claims under $50,000 received 120% payouts in February and May 2025.

Bloomberg ETF analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunas said that there’s a 95% chance the U.S. SEC will approve spot ETFs for LTC and XRP this year.

In traditional markets, analysts awaited the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech later Tuesday and Friday’s nonfarm payrolls. Stay alert!

What to Watch

  • Crypto
    • July 2: Shares of the REX-Osprey Solana Staking ETF (tSSK) are expected to begin trading on the Cboe BZX Exchange, making this the first U.S.-listed ETF to combine SOL price exposure with on-chain staking rewards.
  • Macro
    • Day 2 of 3: ECB Forum on Central Banking (Sintra, Portugal)
    • July 1, 9 a.m.: S&P Global releases June Brazil data on manufacturing and services activity.
      • Manufacturing PMI Prev. 49.4
    • July 1, 9:30 a.m.: “High Level Policy Panel” discussion chaired by Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell at the ECB Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal. Livestream link.
    • July 1, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (final) June U.S. data on manufacturing and services activity.
      • Manufacturing PMI Est. 52 vs. Prev. 52
    • July 1, 10 a.m.: The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) releases June U.S. services sector data.
      • Manufacturing PMI Est. Est. 48.8 vs. Prev. 48.5
    • July 1, 10 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases April U.S. labor market data (i.e. the JOLTS report).
      • Job Openings Est. 7.3M vs. Prev. 7.391M
      • Job Quits Prev. 3.194M
    • July 2, 9:30 a.m.: S&P Global releases June Canada data on manufacturing and services activity.
      • Manufacturing PMI Prev. 46.1
    • July 3, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases June employment data.
      • Non Farm Payrolls Est. 110K vs. Prev. 139K
      • Unemployment Rate Est. 4.3% vs. Prev. 4.2%
      • Government Payrolls Prev. -1K
      • Manufacturing Payrolls Est. -6K vs. Prev. -8K
    • July 3, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended June 28.
      • Initial Jobless Claims Est. 240K vs. Prev. 236K
      • Continuing Jobless Claims Est. 1960K vs. Prev. 1974K
    • July 3, 9 a.m.: S&P Global releases June Brazil data on manufacturing and services activity.
      • Composite PMI Prev. 49.1
      • Services PMI Prev. 49.6
    • July 3, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (final) June U.S. data on manufacturing and services activity.
      • Composite PMI Est. 52.8 vs. Prev. 53
      • Services PMI Est. 53.1 vs. Prev. 53.7
    • July 3, 10 a.m.: The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) releases June U.S. services sector data.
      • Services PMI Est. 50.5 vs. Prev. 49.9
  • Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
    • None in the near future.

Token Events

  • Governance votes & calls
    • GnosisDAO is voting on renewing its partnership with Nethermind for Gnosis Chain maintenance and development, proposing 750,000 DAI funding for the first year from June, with 4% annual increases. Voting ends July 2.
    • Radiant DAO is voting on potentially compensating users whose wallets were drained via unlimited token approvals in the October 2024 hack. If passed, a follow-up plan would outline stablecoin conversions, claim contracts on Arbitrum, and phased repayments. Voting ends July 2.
    • Arbitrum DAO is voting on lowering the constitutional quorum threshold from 5% to 4.5% of votable tokens. This aims to match decreased voter participation and help well-supported proposals pass more easily, without affecting non-constitutional proposals, which remain at a 3% quorum. Voting ends July 4.
    • Polkadot Community is voting on launching a non-custodial Polkadot branded payment card to “to bridge the gap between digital assets in the Polkadot ecosystem and everyday spending.” Voting ends July 9.
  • Unlocks
    • July 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 1.3% of its circulating supply worth $122.75 million.
    • July 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.67% of its circulating supply worth $10.59 million.
    • July 11: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.31% of its circulating supply worth $10.65 million.
    • July 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.76% of its circulating supply worth $52.7 million.
    • July 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 3.79% of its circulating supply worth $14.42 million.
    • July 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1% of its circulating supply worth $15.73 million.
    • July 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.87% of its circulating supply worth $30.33 million.
  • Token Launches
    • July 4: Biswap (BSW), Stella (ALPHA), Komodo (KMD), LeverFi (LEVER), and LTO Network (LTO) to be delisted from Binance.

Conferences

The CoinDesk Policy & Regulation conference (formerly known as State of Crypto) is a one-day boutique event held in Washington on Sept. 10 that allows general counsels, compliance officers and regulatory executives to meet with public officials responsible for crypto legislation and regulatory oversight. Space is limited. Use code CDB10 for 10% off your registration through July 17.

Token Talk

By Francisco Rodrigues

  • While all eyes were on the introduction of Robinhood’s tokenized stocks and on Kraken and Bybit’s xStocks debut, a layer-2 network built to streamline DeFi quietly launched its mainnet yesterday.
  • Katana’s mainnet went live after it saw pre-deposits near $250 million, according to DeFiLlama data. The blockchain is backed by GSR and Polygon Labs.
  • The non-profit Katana Foundation says the chain attacks three chronic pain points: thin liquidity, erratic yields and capital flight. It does so by folding yield generation into the base layer.
  • When users bridge USDC, ETH, WBTC, AUSD or USDT, Katana’s VaultBridge pushes those funds into lending pools such as those on Morpho and Sushi, then sends the earnings back to depositors and app builders.
  • A separate mechanism called chain-owned liquidity captures transaction fees to bankroll the network over time.
  • Katana is distributing its native token, KAT, through liquidity mining. KAT is non-transferable for now, but the team expects an exchange listing by next year. Holders will be able to lock tokens for vKAT and share in staking rewards.

Derivatives Positioning

  • Perpetual funding rates for most tokens major tokens, including BTC and ETH, held marginally positive. XRP led with near 10% rates while XLM and ADA showed bias for shorts with sub-zero readings.
  • On the CME, BTC and ETH futures basis remained locked in the annualized 7% to 10% range.
  • On Deribit, risk reversals out to August-end expiry showed a bias for protective puts, with subsequent tenors showing a mild bias for calls. In ETH’s case, bearishness in the short-term tenors was more pronounced.
  • Block flows over the OTC desk Paradigm showed demand for the September expiry BTC $180K call option.

Market Movements

  • BTC is down 0.91% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $106,629.81 (24hrs: -0.96%)
  • ETH is down 1.81% at $2,458.53 (24hrs: +0.15%)
  • CoinDesk 20 is down 2.37% at 3,010.77 (24hrs: -0.17%)
  • Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 7 bps at 2.96%
  • BTC funding rate is at 0.0048% (5.3042% annualized) on Binance

CoinDesk 20 members’ performance

  • DXY is down 0.47% at 96.42
  • Gold futures are up 1.49% at $3,357.10
  • Silver futures are up 1.81% at $36.50
  • Nikkei 225 closed down 1.24% at 39,986.33
  • Hang Seng closed down 0.87% at 24,072.28
  • FTSE is down 0.17% at 8,745.89
  • Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.30% at 5,287.47
  • DJIA closed on Monday up 0.63% at 44,094.77
  • S&P 500 closed up 0.52% at 6,204.95
  • Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.47% at 20,369.73
  • S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.62% at 26,857.11
  • S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.41% at 2,694.58
  • U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 2.9 bps at 4.197%
  • E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.26% at 6,237.50
  • E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.33% at 22,817.75
  • E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.13% at 44,331.00

Bitcoin Stats

  • BTC Dominance: 65.34% (0.19%)
  • Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02307 (-0.6%)
  • Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 869 EH/s
  • Hashprice (spot): $57.97
  • Total Fees: 4.22 BTC / $455,433
  • CME Futures Open Interest: 147,470 BTC
  • BTC priced in gold: 32.2 oz
  • BTC vs gold market cap: 9.12%

Technical Analysis

BTC's daily chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

  • BTC fell 1% Monday, narrowly missing the bull flag breakout. The decline produced a bearish outside day candle, with a price range wider than the preceding day’s candle.
  • Bearish outside day candles appearing after notable price gains, as in BTC’s case, signal renewed bearish trends.

Crypto Equities

  • Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $404.23 (+5.3%), -1.64% at $397.59 in pre-market
  • Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $350.49 (-0.83%), -1.53% at $345.12
  • Circle (CRCL): closed at $181.29 (+0.48%), +1.98% at $184.88
  • Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $21.90 (+9.66%), +3.47% at $22.66
  • MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $15.68 (+4.32%), -1.85% at $15.39
  • Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.3 (+7.11%), -1.59% at $11.12
  • Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $17.07 (+2.52%), -1.52% at $16.81
  • CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.03 (+3.37%), -1.81% at $10.83
  • CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $22.74 (+4.74%)
  • Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $38.74 (+0.62%), +0.15% at $38.80
  • Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $28.83 (-3.42%), +1.14% at $29.16

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

  • Daily net flows: $102.1 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $48.95 billion
  • Total BTC holdings ~1.25 million

Spot ETH ETFs

  • Daily net flows: $31.8 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $4.23 billion
  • Total ETH holdings ~4.1 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Top 20 digital assets’ prices and volumes

Chart of the Day

Stablecoin transaction volume in USD. (Artemis)

  • The dollar value of the total stablecoin transactions crossed above the $4 trillion mark in June, the most since January, according to data source Artemis.
  • The data shows that while BTC’s price didn’t do much in the month, adoption of stablecoin continued unabated.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether

Last week was good for Bitcoin, but equities crushed it.Robinhood is launching its own L2 chain and you’re not bullish enough! You can’t make this up:Anyone who campaigned on the PROMISE of REDUCING SPENDINGTrump says Elon Musk would go broke and return to South Africa without US government subsidies for his businesses

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The Blockchain Group Raises $13M to Advance Bitcoin Treasury Vision

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The Blockchain Group (ALTBG), listed on Euronext Growth Paris has secured roughly 11 million euros ($13 million) in fresh funding as it doubles down on becoming Europe’s first bitcoin (BTC) treasury company.

This strategic move underscores the firm’s commitment to growing its bitcoin holdings relative to its share count, aiming to deliver long-term value to investors through exposure to digital assets.

Part of the fundraising included $1.18 million capital increase at 5.251 euro per share, completed under an “ATM-type” agreement with asset manager TOBAM.

In parallel, the company’s wholly owned Luxembourg subsidiary issued 10 million euros ($11.8 million) in convertible bonds, priced at 5.174 euro per share, reflecting a 30 percent premium over the June 27 closing price. TOBAM subscribed for 5 million euros while bitcoin pioneer Adam Back invested around 5 million euros.

The Blockchain Group currently hold 1,794 BTC, while the share price is up 1% on Tuesday.

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