Solana Seeker Mobile starts shipping

Table of Contents

Welcome to Protocol, where Coindesk is a weekly summary of the most important stories in cryptocurrency technology development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk from Tech & Protocols Reporter at Coindesk.

In this issue:

Solana Seeker Phone Fixes Saga defects with easy-to-use upgrades
According to base, the sequencer failure caused a 33-minute block production halt
Solana’s Jito proposes route 100% of the block engine fee to the DAO Ministry of Finance
Cardano Community Approves a $700 million Core Development Budget to Increase ADA Leads

Network News

Solana Seeker phones will begin shipping: Solana Seeker phones are not your average smartphone and you don’t want them. The Saga, the latest device from Solana Mobile, is built on its predecessor, Saga lessons. Seeker aims to improve the user experience while doubling mobile-first crypto usability. It’s clear who this device is intended from the box. Active Solana users who regularly trade on-chain with a design that focuses on all Crypto-First. With 150,000 calls from over 50 countries pre-ordered and at a price range of $500, Seeker wants to offer Solana Ecosystem participants the ability to trade on the go in seconds. If you’re someone who uses Solana frequently, you may feel that the Seeker was built specifically for you. However, this phone is not for casual Crypto users. “Frankly, if you’re someone who trades at least once a week, you might not be full of power users, but at least you’re the normal user who makes sense to seekers,” Emmett Hollyer, general manager of Solana Mobile, told Coindesk in an interview. Check out our full review of Coindesk phone here. – Margaux nijkerk read more.

After the death of the base block production halted : Block production of the Coinbase (Coin)-based network stopped for 33 minutes early Tuesday after a sequencer failover that didn’t recover as expected, the developer said in a posthumous report. The suspension began on August 5th at 06:07 UTC. At that time, the active sequencer lags due to congestion from activity on the chain. The conductor module in Base, a core component of the OP stack designed to maintain uptime, attempted to properly shift leadership to the standby sequencer, but the new instance was not fully provisioned and could not generate blocks. It was unable to switch back automatically, so production stalled until the engineers manually fixed the issue. According to the report, the network was fully recovered by 06:40. To avoid the risk of reorganization, that is, when the blockchain temporarily rewrites history by replacing confirmed blocks with alternative blocks, the team paused the conductor and coordinated the transition of controlled leadership. This process contributed to the length of the stop. The outage highlighted the key operational risks of layer 2 rollup networks that rely on centralized sequencers to order and submit transactions. These systems rely on a rapid failover mechanism and full provisioning. This single point gap in the chain can lead to a complete network stall. – Shaurya Malwa read more.

New JITO proposals for rerouting block engine fees: Jito Labs proposed a new governance proposal called JIP-24, which aims to further distribute the network by routing all block engines and block assembly marketplace (BAM) fees directly to Jito Dao Treasury. If approved, DAO assumes control of the protocol revenue stream and directs it towards the network’s JTO token holder. This reduces the impact of Jito Labs on networks with the same name, and DAO subgroups play a greater role in development. Jito Labs hopes that the change will ultimately increase the value of Jito Token. Currently, Jito’s rewards from the block engine are evenly divided. 3% to Jito Labs, 3% to DAO. JIP-24 eliminates the split and sends a 6% charge to the DAO Ministry of Finance, along with all future BAM-related revenues. “The proposal reflects the commitment of the JITO ecosystem, ensuring that protocol fees are generated as directly as possible to the token holders, solidifying the DAO as the centre of the technical and economic governance of the JITO network,” the Jito Labs team wrote in the proposal. – Margaux nijkerk read more.

Cardano Core Devs wins a $70 million budget : Cardano’s core development team, Input Output Global (IOG), has secured approval of a $71 million financial allocation to fund a 12-month network upgrade following a elicited governance vote that raised concerns about transparency, accountability and costs. The proposal was passed at 74%, with 96 million ADAs, or about 13% of the protocol’s Treasury payments approved by the IOG. Payments are milestone-based and are overseen by Intersect, a member-led governance body. The Smart Contracts and Independent Committee will add additional surveillance, Iog said. Key deliverables include Hydra, a layer 2 scaling product for faster and cheaper transactions, and Project Acropolis, which aims to reorganize Cardano nodes to increase modularity and ease of onboarding for developers. The team also plans to reduce memory usage and improve the operating costs of validators. Such an implementation could ultimately lead to increased developer activity on the Cardano network and new use cases, contributing to the demand for ADA, the network’s gas token. – Shaurya Malwa read more.

In other news

Large banks make it more difficult and expensive for consumers to use fintech and crypto apps. This is according to Alex Rampell, a general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z). In the company’s latest Fintech newsletter, Lampel pointed to traditional financial institutions that charge high fees to access account data, access services such as Coinbase and Robinhood, and move their money, just like strangling competition. “Under the Biden administration, the Chokepoint 2.0 operation tried to encrypt cryptography for debank and deplatform,” Lampel said. “Those days are over, but now banks are aiming to implement their own chokepoint 3.0. They charge very high fees to access data and move money to Crypto and Fintech apps. — Francisco Rodriguez read more.
When Celestia aired the TIA token to 580,000 users in 2023, it was Pratt du Jours between traders and investors. The project says the release is in line with the new “modular era.” But despite rallying in the eye-opening $20 price range in September 2024, it plunged to under $1.65 in a desperate light-like spurred a series of massive cliffs on the best token schedule. Tokenomist data shows that core contributors and early supporters, especially many venture capitalists, can sell tokens purchased relatively inexpensively in the early funding round to the open market. This coincided with the TIA’s sudden move towards the downside, but it is worth noting that the market capitalization of the now $1.2 billion token actually increased by 50% despite losing 90% of its value due to an increase in supply scale. – Oliver Night read more.

Regulation and policy

The White House is preparing an executive order that will be punished by the bank for blocking customers with its own beliefs. The order reported by the Wall Street Journal is expected to be signed by President Donald Trump as early as this week. Instructs bank regulators to investigate whether financial companies violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act or other Consumer Protection Act when closing their accounts. The order may still be subject to change, but it will provide additional stability to the crypto sector. During the Biden administration, coordinated federal efforts were launched to leave the Crypto Crypto company, an effort known as the Chokepoint 2.0 operation. The draft order is not named a specific bank, but it reportedly references cases involving the US Bank and a Christian nonprofit in Uganda. The bank said it closed its accounts because it didn’t serve small businesses operating overseas. Francisco Rodriguez read more.
According to a recent official statement, a group of French lawmakers is preparing a bill that will allow Bitcoin to mine the use of surplus electricity from nuclear power plants. According to Le Monde, the proposal will install mining hardware at a facility owned by State Utility. This process utilizes the excess energy generated by these nuclear power plants. France is the largest nuclear power producer in the European Union, according to Eurostat’s 2023 data. It accounted for 338,202 gigawatt hours, or more than half of the total production of the bloc in 27 countries. The heat generated by nuclear fission is used to generate electricity, but more than two-thirds of that have been lost, the Statistical Agency said. – Francesco Rodriguez read more.