Episode Details

01st April: Crypto & Coffee at 8 
🚨 IMF suggest stablecoins and CBDCs 🟢Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum’s scaling roadmap ⚡Base sets DEX record ❗Sam Bankman-Fried update

🚨 The International Monetary Fund suggests that digital money like stablecoins and CBDCs could benefit Pacific Island countries (PICs) by improving financial inclusion and payment systems. They advocate for a two-tier CBDC model for PICs with existing currencies and mature banking systems, and foreign currency-based stablecoins for others, with robust regulation. While acknowledging the potential of private stablecoins like Tether (USDT), the IMF emphasizes the exploration of CBDCs by countries like Fiji, Palau, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva believes CBDCs can coexist with private money as a safe and low-cost alternative to cash. Info here https://lnkd.in/dT9NvG5N 

🟢 Vitalik Buterin in a blog post on Thursday, March 28 titled Ethereum has blobs. Where do we go from here? outlines the next steps in the network’s scaling journey. More info here https://lnkd.in/dP4xQrwc . Following the Dencun upgrade on Ethereum’s Layer 2 chains, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, addresses the emergence of “blobscriptions,” which are inscriptions on blobs affecting scalability and increasing fees. Buterin emphasizes the transition towards focusing on Layer 2 scaling solutions after the foundational work laid by the upgrade. He mentions data availability sampling (DAS) as a key improvement to alleviate node workload and enhance blob space efficiency. Buterin also suggests exploring data compression and Plasma techniques for Layer 2 enhancements. Despite challenges, Layer 2 fees remain lower than Ethereum mainnet fees, and the roadmap for Ethereum’s scaling continues with the focus on Layer 2 improvements.

🚨 Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network, Base, has broken its 24-hour trading volume record on decentralized exchanges (DEX), soaring by approximately 25% compared to the previous day and exceeding $1 billion in trading volume. On March 30, Base saw a trading volume of $1.21 billion on DEX platforms, marking a significant increase from the previous day’s $959.63 million, as reported by Dune data. The majority of trading activity took place on Uniswap, which contributed 64.3% of the total volume, followed by Aerodrome Finance with 9.7%, and SharkSwap with 7.8%. Info via Dune-Data https://lnkd.in/dDif3GaY

🚔 Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison by Judge Lewis Kaplan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Bankman-Fried convicted on seven felony charges including witness tampering and perjury related to FTX user funds. He’s the first person tied to FTX and Alameda Research to face prison time.