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The Protocol: Vana Introduces Token Standard for Data-Backed Assets

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Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Ben Schiller.

In this issue:

Vana launches token standard

Hashgraph to debut private blockchain

ASICs will look more like servers

An interview with Gensyn’s Ben Fielding

This article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.

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VANA’S DATA-BACKED TOKEN STANDARD: Crypto enthusiasts might have heard of the ERC-20 token standard, which provides guidelines to ensure that tokens created on the Ethereum smart contract blockchain are compatible and can interact with other tokens and applications within the network. A similar standard for data-backed tokens, called VRC-20, has now emerged. Vana, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain that helps users monetize personal data by bundling it into DataDAOs for AI model training, introduced the new standard early this week to boost trust and transparency in the market for data-backed digital assets. The VRC-20 standard design includes specific criteria such as fixed supply, governance, and liquidity rules while ensuring real data access by tying tokens to actual data utility. Additionally, it promotes continuous liquidity through rewards that ensure market stability. «This isn’t speculation. This is real financialization of data,» Vana noted on X. Vana launched its mainnet in December, with VANA as its native cryptocurrency. Since then, the network has onboarded over 12 million data points through multiple DataDAOs, reflecting strong demand for user-owned data. DataDAOs or data liquidity pools are decentralized marketplaces that bring data on-chain as transferable digital tokens. DLPs are where data is contributed, tokenized and made ready for use in applications such as AI model training. — Omkar Godbole Read more.

HASHGRAPH LINES UP Q3 PRIVATE CHAIN: Hashgraph, the blockchain development firm focusing on the Hedera (HBAR) network, is building a private, permissioned blockchain for enterprises in highly regulated industries with plans to debut in the third quarter of 2025. HashSphere, built with Hedera’s technology, aims to bridge private and public distributed ledgers, ensuring compliance with regulations while maintaining interoperability, the company said Monday. Hashgraph is looking to provide services to asset managers, banks and payment providers seeking secure, low-cost cross-border transactions with stablecoins.While public blockchains offer security and transparency, enterprises in industries like finance and payments often face compliance challenges, particularly with know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements. HashSphere addresses this by restricting access to verified participants, enabling firms to develop tokenized assets, AI-powered services and other blockchain-based products while meeting regulatory standards. The network also integrates Hedera’s existing tools, including the Token Service for managing digital assets and the Consensus Service for recording transactions with trusted timestamps. The platform is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to deploy decentralized applications using Solidity and other EVM languages. — Kris Sandor Read more.

ASICS TO BE MORE LIKE SERVERS: In the beginning, there were only CPUs, then GPUs, for bitcoin mining. Then came the mighty ASIC in 2013, and with it, the “shoebox” form factor that has become emblematic of the bitcoin mining industry. What comes next? ASIC manufacturers are increasingly betting on a hydro-cooled server rack design to become a substantial portion of bitcoin mining fleets, leaning into the “direct-to-chip” cooling for further efficiency gains. Last September, Bitmain announced its model U3S21EXPH developed in a partnership with Hut 8. Its U3 design means that one unit takes up three spaces in a traditional server rack. MicroBT soon followed with its M63 Hydro series, as did Bitdeer’s Sealminer A2 Hydro unit. Following suit, Auradine released its server rack model, the AH3880, this March. Its U2 design, which occupies two server slots, is a bit smaller, but it packs more hashrate per unit of space at 600 TH/s (or 300 TH/s per slot) versus Bitmain’s 860 TH/s (286.66 TH/s per slot). The benefit of a server rack ASIC lies in standardization. Bitcoin miners are increasingly marching in step with the traditional datacenter industry, and that industry could see 40% adoption of direct liquid-to-chip cooling by 2026, according to data center developer Cyrus One. If miners adopt this design, then theoretically, they can optimize their supply chains by converging on server designs that are becoming best practice in the big-boy data center sector. — Colin Harper, Blockspace Read more.

GENSYN CEO BEN FIELDING: Ten years ago, when he was still a young AI researcher beginning his PhD track, Ben Fielding explored how “swarms” of AI — clusters of many different models — could talk to each other and learn from each other, which might improve the collective whole. There was just one problem: He was handcuffed by the realities of that noisy machine beneath his desk. And he knew he was outgunned by Google and other Big Tech. Compute constraints would always be an issue, he realized. The solution? Decentralized AI. Fielding co-founded Gensyn (along with Harry Grieve) in 2020, or years before Decentralized AI became fashionable. The project was initially known for building decentralized compute, but the vision is actually something wider: “The network for machine intelligence.” They’re building solutions up and down the tech stack. And now, a decade after Fielding’s noisy desk annoyed his lab-mates, the early tools of Gensyn are out in the wild. Gensyn recently released its “RL Swarms” protocol (a descendant of Fielding’s PhD work) and just launched its Testnet — which brings blockchain into the fold. Fielding talked with Jeff Wilser about AI Swarms, how blockchain snaps into the puzzle, and shares why all innovators — not just tech giants — “should have the right to build machine learning technologies.” — Jeff Wilser Read more.

In Other News

Web3 lacks a dedicated memory layer, making its current architecture inefficient and difficult to scale. Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) offers a solution by enhancing data propagation and storage efficiency in decentralized systems. Implementing RLNC can address Web3’s scalability challenges by optimizing memory and data access without compromising decentralization, says Muriel Médard, co-founder of Optimum. Read her op-ed here.

Ripple, an enterprise-focused blockchain service closely tied to the XRP Ledger (XRP), said on Wednesday it has integrated its stablecoin to the company’s cross-border payments system to boost adoption for Ripple USD (RLUSD). Select Ripple Payments customers including cross-border payment providers BKK Forex and iSend are already using the stablecoin to improve their treasury operations, the company said. Ripple plans to further expand the token’s availability of its token to payments customers. RLUSD reached a $244 million market capitalization, growing 87% over the past month. — Kris Sandor reports.

Regulatory and Policy

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped or paused over a dozen ongoing cases (and lost one) since U.S. President Donald Trump retook office just over two months ago and appointed Commissioner Mark Uyeda as acting chair. Here is a rundown of what’s left on the SEC’s enforcement docket. — Nik De reports.

Calendar

April 8-10: Paris Blockchain Week

April 30-May 1: Token 2049, Dubai

May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto

May 20-22: Avalanche Summit, London

May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas

June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes

Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore

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Strategy Adds Additional $1.42B of Bitcoin With Latest Purchase

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Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this piece owns shares of Strategy (MSTR)

Strategy (MSTR) added another 15,355 BTC to its balance sheet over the past week, spending about $1.42 billion on the purchase, or an average price of $92,737 per bitcoin, according to a filing published on Monday.

The company’s bitcoin holdings have now risen to 553,555 BTC worth more than $52 billion at bitcoin’s current price just north of $95,000. The average purchase price for MSTR’s total stack is $64,459 each.

This latest acquisition was funded through proceeds from the company’s two at-the-market stock offerings, the filing noted. Between April 21 and April 27, Strategy sold over $4 million worth of its Class A common stock and more than 435,000 shares of its preferred stock series, STRK.
According to the 8-K filing, only $128.7 million of the common stock ATM program remains, representing just 0.6% of the initial $21 billion that began in October 2024.

Shares of MSTR are up 1.5% in pre-market trading alongside a modest rise in the price of bitcoin since Friday afternoon.

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Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Price Returns to Positive for the Year

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By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin (BTC) was little changed Monday, adding less than 1% amid renewed trade tensions and concerns of geopolitical instability that spread into the Indian subcontinent, where India and Pakistan are exchanging small-arms fire.

The cryptocurrency rose 0.75% in the past 24 hours, turning positive for the year and decoupling from traditional risk assets as investors questioned the durability of the U.S.’s role as the global financial anchor. The broader market, measured through the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, rose 2.2%.

Stock-index futures in the U.S. are pointing to a slight drop and gold fell over 1% with investors likely taking profit from the precious metal’s 25% year-to-date rally. Equities endured a sell-off after China denied talks with the U.S. to reach a tariff deal.

“Bitcoin has acted less like a liquid levered version of levered US equity beta and more like the non-sovereign issued store of value that it is,” Greg Cipolaro, the global head of research at NYDIG, wrote in a note.

While the cryptocurrency’s longer-term correlation to U.S. equities remains high, the short-term price action points to a market starting to treat BTC less like a tech stock proxy and more like a non-sovereign safe haven, according to NYDIG’s report.

Options and futures data suggest bitcoin’s rally, which saw it rise 9% last week, is still in its early stages. Funding rates for offshore perpetual swaps only recently turned positive, and call overwriting remains more popular than aggressive bullish positioning.

Bitcoin’s appeal as a politically neutral asset appears to be growing. The note shows that since President Donald Trump’s April 2 «Liberation Day,» bitcoin has outperformed U.S. Treasuries, the Swiss franc and gold.

The broader backdrop remains volatile. Measures of equity (VIX), bond (MOVE), and currency (CVIX) volatility have jumped in recent weeks. While they are expected to recede slightly, the outlook is for them to remain elevated for the foreseeable future, the note said.

Despite bitcoin’s growing appeal, macro and geopolitical events remain “the primary drivers of flow,” according to Jake O., an OTC trader at Wintermute who flagged in an email that bitcoin call calendar spreads targeting $110,000 in June remain “the preferred structure for those reaching for topside.»

This week investors will see an inflow of major corporate earnings reports, as well as the latest consumer income and expenditure report and April’s nonfarm payrolls on Friday. The data could provide further insights into a potential earlier-than-expected interest-rate cut, which Trump has been calling for. Stay alert!

What to Watch

  • Crypto:
    • April 28: Enjin Relaychain increases active validator slots to 25 from 15 to enhance decentralization.
    • April 29, 1:05 a.m.: The Lorentz hard fork network upgrade gets activated on BNB Chain’s BSC. The upgrade reduces block time to 1.5 seconds, cutting latency, speeding up confirmations and improving user experience.
    • April 30, 9:30 a.m.: ProShares will launch three ETFs that will provide leveraged and inverse exposure to XRP: ​​the ProShares Ultra XRP ETF, the ProShares Short XRP ETF and the ProShares UltraShort XRP ETF.
    • April 30, 10:03 a.m.: Gnosis Chain (GNO), an Ethereum sister chain, will activate the Pectra hard fork on its mainnet at slot 21,405,696, epoch 1,337,856.
  • Macro
    • April 28, 8:00 a.m.: Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases March unemployment data.
      • Unemployment Rate Prev. 2.5%
    • April 29, 4:00 a.m.: The European Central Bank (ECB) releases eurozone March M3 money supply data.
      • M3 YoY Est. 4.1% vs. Prev. 4%
    • April 29, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases March JOLTs report (job openings, hires, and separations).
      • Job Openings Est. 7.5M vs. Prev. 7.568M
      • Job Quits Prev. 3.195M
    • April 30, 8:00 a.m.: Brazil’s Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases March unemployment rate data.
      • Unemployment Rate Prev. 6.8%
    • April 30, 8:00 a.m.: Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases (Preliminary) Q1 GDP growth data.
      • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Prev. -0.6%
      • GDP Growth Rate YoY Prev. 0.5%
    • April 30, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases (Advance) Q1 GDP growth data.
      • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Est. 0.4% vs. Prev. 2.4%
    • April 30, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases March consumer income and expenditure data.
      • Core PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.1% vs. Prev. 0.4%
      • Core PCE Price Index YoY Prev. 2.8%
      • PCE Price Index MoM Prev. 0.3%
      • PCE Price Index YoY Prev. 2.5%
      • Personal Income MoM Est. 0.4% vs. Prev. 0.8%
      • Personal Spending MoM Est. 0.4% vs. Prev. 0.4%
  • Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
    • April 29: PayPal Holdings (PYPL), pre-market, $1.16
    • April 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market, $0.33
    • May 1: Block (XYZ), post-market, $0.97
    • May 1: Reddit (RDDT), post-market, $0.02
    • May 1: Riot Platforms (RIOT), post-market, $-0.23

Token Events

  • Governance votes & calls
    • Uniswap DAO will vote on establishing a licensing and deployment framework for Uniswap v4 to accelerate its adoption across multiple chains. The proposal grants the Uniswap Foundation a blanket exemption to deploy v4 on any DAO-approved chain and gives the Uniswap Accountability Committee authority to update deployment records.Voting starts April 24 and ends on April 30.
    • Uniswap DAO is voting on a proposal to renew the Uniswap Accountability Committee (UAC) for Season 4, extending its mandate until the end of 2025. Voting ends April 29.
    • Balancer DAO is voting on allocating $250,000 worth of ARB to a multisig controlled by contributors to fund testing of new automated market maker (AMM) pool models.
    • April 30, 12 p.m.: Helium to host a community call meeting.
    • May 5, 4 p.m.: Livepeer (LPT) to host a Treasury Talk session on Discord.
  • Unlocks
    • April 30: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $24.77 million.
    • May 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.28% of its circulating supply worth $277.48 million.
    • May 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.67% of its circulating supply worth $11.63 million.
    • May 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.73% of its circulating supply worth $14.41 million.
    • May 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.56% of its circulating supply worth $13.95 million.
    • May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $11.94 million.
  • Token Launches
    • April 28: Sign (SIGN) to be listed on Binance, BingX, BitMart, Bitget, KuCoin, Gate.io and others.
    • April 28: Snek (SNEK) to be listed on Kraken.
    • May 2: Binance to delist Alpaca Finance (ALPACA), PlayDapp (PDA), Viberate (VIB), and Wing Finance (WING).
    • May 5: Sonic (S) to be listed on Kraken.

Conferences

CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

  • The attackers behind a $6 million hack of Solana-based Loopscale offered to return most of the stolen funds while demanding a 20% bounty.
  • «We are agreeable to collaborating with you to reach a white hat agreement,» the attackers said in an on-chain message sent to Loopscale. «However, we would like to negotiate the bounty percentage; our expectation is 20%. To demonstrate our commitment to a cooperative approach, we will immediately return the 5000 wSOL funds following the transmission of this message.»
  • «However, a successful collaboration is contingent on two conditions: first, a full release of liability for our actions, and second, an official reconciliation announcement from your team, along with notification to all on-chain partners to cease fund tracking and freezing,» the message added.
  • The attackers stole over 5.7 million USDC and 1,200 SOL (worth around $180,000 at the time) from Loopscale’s storage pools on April 26.
  • They manipulated the system Loopscale uses to set prices for its RateX PT token, which helps decide how much digital assets are worth when used as collateral (like a deposit for a loan).
  • The hackers tricked the system into thinking the token’s price was different, allowing them take more money than they should have. This affected 12% of all the money Loopscale was holding, specifically hurting people who had put their money into the USDC and SOL vaults.
  • Loopscale stopped all activity on the platform to prevent more theft. It initially let some users repay loans while keeping withdrawals from the vaults locked to stay safe.
  • The protocol figured out the problem was in the price-checking system, not the RateX token itself. On Sunday, it offered the hacker a deal: Return 90% of the stolen money (worth $5.3 million) and keep 10% (about $592,000) with no legal trouble.

Derivatives Positioning

  • Global open interest across all futures instruments on centralized exchanges currently totals $119 billion.
  • According to data from Laevitas, among assets with over $100 million in open interest, the largest week-over-week increases have been recorded in MemeFi, Virtuals Protocol, Bonk, TRUMP and Worldcoin.
  • Looking at the liquidations heat map of BTC/USDT pair on Binance, the next major price levels are positioned at $95,124 and $95,691, with liquidation clusters totaling $38.7 million and $31.2 million, respectively.
  • Analyzing the orderbook for the same pair, the largest sell limit orders are stacked at $97,000 and $100,000, with ask sizes of 178 BTC and 242 BTC.

Market Movements:

  • BTC is up 0.5% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $95,077 (24hrs: +1.19%)
  • ETH is up 0.51% at $1,812.79 (24hrs: +0.35%)
  • CoinDesk 20 is up 1.2% at 2,800.46 (24hrs: +2.08%)
  • Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 2 bps at 2.95%
  • BTC funding rate is at 0.0027% (2.9499% annualized) on Binance

  • DXY is up 0.14% at 99.61
  • Gold is up 0.31% at $3292.7/oz
  • Silver is down 0.15% at $32.94/oz
  • Nikkei 225 closed +0.38%% at 35839.99
  • Hang Seng closed -0.04% at 21971.96
  • FTSE is up 0.36% at 8445.32
  • Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.6% at 5185.19
  • DJIA closed on Friday +0.05% at 40,113.50
  • S&P 500 closed +0.74% at 5525.21
  • Nasdaq closed +1.26% at 17,382.94
  • S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.07% at 24,710.5
  • S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.37% at 2,530.65
  • U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 39 bps at 4.28%
  • E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.16% at 5541
  • E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.16% at 19,503
  • E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.05% at 40,232

Bitcoin Stats:

  • BTC Dominance: 64.20% (-0.11%)
  • Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01907 (-0.21%)
  • Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 829 EH/s
  • Hashprice (spot): 49.3 PH/s
  • Total Fees: 5.18 BTC / $486,920
  • CME Futures Open Interest: 143,115 BTC
  • BTC priced in gold: 28.6 oz
  • BTC vs gold market cap: 8.10%

Technical Analysis

Technical analysis for April 28, 2025

  • Bitcoin posted its strongest weekly performance since the U.S. presidential election, rallying 10.1% to reach $93,778.
  • After reclaiming the yearly open at $93,403, price action remains in a pivotal zone — trading within the weekly order block that triggered the previous breakdown from range highs.
  • For further confirmation of strength, BTC will need to secure a daily close above $94,970 to avoid forming a swing failure pattern.

Crypto Equities

  • Strategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $368.71 (+5.24%), up 0.62% at $371.00 in pre-market
  • Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $209.64 (+2.83%), down 0.20% at $209.22
  • Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$20.63 (-0.24%)
  • MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.30 (+2.07%), down 0.14% at $14.28
  • Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.77 (-0.26%)
  • Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.31 (+10.36%), down 0.36% at $8.28
  • CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.01 (+1.69%), up 0.447% at $9.04
  • CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.56 (+3.56%)
  • Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $36.84 (+6.97%), up 0.43% at $37.00
  • Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $45.50 (+0.64%), down 1.65% at $44.75

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

  • Daily net flow: $380 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $ 38.40 billion
  • Total BTC holdings ~ 1.11 million

Spot ETH ETFs

  • Daily net flow: $104.1 million
  • Cumulative net flows: $2.41 billion
  • Total ETH holdings ~ 3.38 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Chart of the Day for April 28, 2025

  • Despite dipping to new range lows of $74,458 earlier this month, bitcoin is now on track to post its largest monthly gain since November 2024.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether

Ethereum macro indexThe Cantor Equity Partners SPAC for Twenty One has surged almost 200%. Germany's economy has contracted for 6 consecutive quarters, the country's longest recession in post-unification German history Proshares Short #XRP and UltraShort #XRP ETFs are launching and betting against XRP’s rising price using futures.S&P 500 visualized:

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Nexo to Return to U.S. After 2022 Exit, Citing Renewed Crypto Optimism Under Trump

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Crypto lender Nexo said it is reentering the U.S., marking a comeback two years after regulatory friction forced its exit.

«America is back and so is Nexo,» Co-founder Antoni Trenchev said at a press event Sunday in Bulgaria with Donald Trump Jr., crediting what he described as a more favorable environment for innovation under the Trump presidency.

«Thanks to the vision and leadership of President Donald J. Trump, his administration, and his family, the United States is once again a place where innovation is championed, not stifled. A place where pioneers are celebrated,» Trenchev said, according to a press release.

Now managing $11 billion in assets, Nexo said it will offer its full suite of services to U.S. retail and institutional clients, including high-yield savings products, asset-backed credit lines, and advanced trading solutions.

Nexo withdrew from the U.S. in late 2022 after what it called a «dead end» in negotiations with state and federal regulators over its Earn Interest Product, as well as the market turmoil following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and a wider crackdown on crypto lenders, CoinDesk reported at the time.

The company said in 2022 it could no longer operate in an «impossible environment» following multiple enforcement actions, including from California and New York.

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