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Celo Migration To Layer-2 Network Is Done, Bringing In New Era For The Blockchain

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The Celo blockchain’s long-awaited plan of becoming an Ethereum layer-2 chain has been completed, ending an almost two-year process, the main organizations behind the network said Wednesday.

The transition ends a long journey beginning back in July 2023 for the layer-1 blockchain that included a community vote in July 2024 and a fierce competition, won by Optimism, among layer-2 networks out to convince the Celo ecosystem to build with their technology.

The improved network — like other layer 2s — offers faster and cheaper transactions on top of Ethereum’s mainnet. The blockchain is powered by Optimism’s OP Stack, a customizable framework that lets developers build layer-2 networks based off of Optimism’s technology.

“You know, whenever people ask us, we always recommend the OP stack, because the team there has been so helpful and so supportive,” said Marek Olszewski, the CEO at cLabs, the main developer firm supporting the Celo blockchain.

A blueprint for other layer 1s

According to Rene Reisberg, the CEO of the Celo Foundation, the migration is the first of its kind in the Ethereum ecosystem, and will probably be used as a blueprint for other EVM-compatible blockchains that are looking to become a layer-2 network.

“This path of not just spinning up a new chain, but actually maintaining that history, and having everyone be on the new chain, while it’s a lot more work, is great from a Celo perspective. It’s becoming this kind of great case study for Ethereum,” Rene Reinsberg, the president at the Celo Foundation, said in an interview.

“Even just based on outreach I’ve been getting from other L1 founders that are like, ‘hey, so what does it actually feel like on the inside of going through this transition, and how much work is it, and how you’re thinking about it?’ And so it definitely feels like there’s increased interest now,” Reinsberg added.

Despite Ethereum’s leaders experiencing backlash from the community because of the clunky experience of operating between the plethora of layer-2 blockchains, the lagging price of ether (ETH) relative to other cryptocurrencies and the blockchain losing mindshare and new talent to competitors like Solana, Reinsberg said other layer 1s similar to Celo are watching the transition and also considering moving into the layer-2 ecosystem.

“As some of these short-term storms come down and sentiment starts to shift, I think you’ll start seeing a series of layer 1s that will likely be more public about that,” Reisberg said. “But we’re definitely already seeing these early conversations happening.”

Celo’s new home

According to the team, Celo end users won’t notice much of a difference in their setups, and will still be able to access key features like SocialConnect, a protocol that connects users’ phone numbers or X handles to their Celo wallet addresses to make payments. Nevertheless, there are protocol-level changes.

“Validator responsibilities have evolved from operating the consensus protocol to temporarily running community RPC nodes, with validator rewards now distributed via smart contract execution rather than at epoch blocks,” the team said in a press release. “Additionally, transaction sequencing — previously determined by validators running the consensus protocol — will initially be handled by a centralized sequencer, with a roadmap in place for transitioning to decentralized sequencing in the future.”

Read more: Celo Community Ratifies Plan to Use Optimism’s OP Stack for New Layer-2 Chain

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Canary Capital Files for Tron ETF With Staking Capabilities

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Canary Capital is looking to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the price of Tron’s native token, TRX, according to a filing.

The hedge fund submitted a Form S-1 for the Canary Staked TRX ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. As the name suggests, the fund — if approved — would stake portions of its holdings.

This would be done through third-party providers, with BitGo acting as custodian for the assets. The fund would track TRX’s spot price using CoinDesk Indices calculations.

A proposed ticker as well as the management fee for the product have not been shared yet.

Issuers had initially filed applications for spot ethereum (ETH) ETFs with the staking feature included but removed them in an amended filing later in order to receive approval from the SEC on their proposals.

While the SEC under former Chair Gary Gensler was strictly against staking, issuers have grown more hopeful that they will be able to add the feature to their spot ether funds, among others, with the appointment of crypto-friendly Chair Paul Atkins.

A decision on a February request from Grayscale to allow staking in the Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE) and the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF (ETH) was postponed by the regulator just a few days ago.

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Feds Mistakenly Order Estonian HashFlare Fraudsters to Self-Deport Ahead of Sentencing

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Just four months ahead of their criminal sentencing for operating a $577 million cryptocurrency mining Ponzi scheme, the two Estonian founders of HashFlare were seemingly mistakenly ordered to self-deport by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — an instruction that directly contradicted a court order for the men to remain in Washington state until they are sentenced in August.

In a joint letter to the court last week, lawyers for Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin told District Judge Robert Lasnik of the Western District of Washington that both men had received “disturbing communications” from DHS ordering them to leave the country immediately.

“It is time for you to leave the United States,” an email to Potapenko and Turogin dated April 11 read. “DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”

The email, included with the letter filed last week, threatened both men with “criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties and any other lawful options available to the federal government” if they stayed in the country. It resembles emails that undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have received over the past few days.

Ironically, Potapenko and Turogin are not in the U.S. of their own volition — they were extradited from their native Estonia at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice in 2022 on an 18-count indictment tied to their HashFlare scheme. Though they initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, in February they both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets. They have both been in the Seattle area on bond since last July.

“Although there is nothing Ivan and Sergei would want more than to immediately go home, they understood that they are also under Court order to remain in King County,” wrote Mark Bini, a partner at Reed Smith LLP and lead counsel for Potenko, wrote in the pair’s joint letter to the court. Bini did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

In his letter, Bini said DHS’s emails had caused both Potapenko and Turogin «significant anxiety.”

“We and our clients have all seen recent news. Immigration authorities make mistakes, and individuals who should not be in custody end up in custody, sometimes even deported to places where they should not be deported,” Bini wrote.

Six days after Bini’s letter to the judge, the DOJ filed its own letter with the court saying that prosecutors had coordinated with DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division and secured a year-long deferral to the self-deportation order.

“This should provide ample time for the sentencing to take place,” the prosecution’s letter said.

DHS did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

Potapenko and Turogin are slated to be sentenced on August 14 in Seattle. Their lawyers have said that they will request to be sentenced to time served, meaning no additional time in prison, and to be sent home to Estonia “immediately.”

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CoinDesk Weekly Recap: EigenLayer, Kraken, Coinbase, AWS

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Following last week’s tariff-caused drama, this was a relatively quiet week in crypto. Bitcoin remained stable around $84k. The CoinDesk 20, which tracks about 80% of the market, was up about 4% in the last seven days — i.e. nothing historic.

Still, plenty happened. On Tuesday, much of crypto went offline because of a tech issue at AWS, showing how the decentralized economy isn’t always that decentralized. Shaurya Malwa reported the news early. Bitcoin and other major cryptos slipped on bad news for Nvidia, Omkar Godbole reported.

Mantra, a project focused on real world assets, lost 90% of its value. Explanations varied (the company said it was due to “force liquidations” exchanges).

Meanwhile, EigenLayer, a restaking leader, rolled out a “slashing” feature meant to address security concerns (Sam Kessler reported). OKX, a major exchange, announced plans to set up in California following a $500 million settlement with the SEC over claims it operated previously in the U.S. without a money transmitter license. Cheyenne Ligon had that story.

In less good news, Kraken laid off “hundreds” of staff ahead of an expected IPO. And Coinbase became embroiled in a “front running controversy” linked to a curiously named token on its Base L2. Privacy advocates reacted with alarm to rumors that Binance was about to delist Zcash following a long decline in the value of privacy coins.

In D.C. news, Jesse Hamilton reported on a new wave of crypto lobbyists flooding the capital. Some asked if there are now too many trade groups and whether they really all could be effective.

Friends With Benefits, a buzzy social club for creative technologists, launched a new program to build Web3 products for music, film, publishing and other fun activities. (I wrote that one.)

Of course, there was plenty happening in the economy and markets (Trump’s disgust for Fed chair Powell fed into the unease). But, in crypto, it was pretty much business as usual. Fortunes won, fortunes lost, fortunes deferred.

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