GeckoPulse: Jito Gets a Boost from a16z

a16z Crypto Invests $50M in Jito

a16z Crypto announced a deal to invest $50M in Jito via a private token sale. The terms of the deal, including a16z’s token allocation, was not disclosed. a16z was also an early backer of Solana. 

Jito is one of the core protocols of the Solana ecosystem, being the largest liquid staking protocol for SOL. Its JitoSOL LST has $2.6B in market cap, representing 2.6% of SOL’s current circulating supply. 

More recently Jito launched its Block Assembly Marketplace (BAM) in September, a new architecture for block-building on Solana. It promises to make transaction sequencing transparent and verifiable, enable programmable innovation at the blockspace layer, introduce new revenue opportunities for builders, and largely mitigate harmful MEV. 

Following the announcement, the price of JTO, Jito’s governance token, was able to remain resilient amidst the current market downturn, remaining at $1.17. 

Visa wants to be the bridge for TradFi to DeFi lending 

In a newly released report titled “Stablecoins beyond payments: The onchain lending opportunity”, Visa unveiled its ambitions to provide its partner financial institutions with “the necessary infrastructure and capabilities to participate in onchain lending and payments”.

The report  frames onchain lending as one of the key use cases for stablecoins, particularly in the context of cross-border payments and remittances. It envisions stablecoins possibly becoming the foundation for a new cross-border lending and global credit ecosystem, where smart contracts connect lenders and borrowers while automating the entire lifecycle of loan agreements between parties worldwide.

Visa envisions  its partner financial institutions acting as liquidity providers to programmable lending protocols, while it supplies the data, compliance, and infrastructure that make participation viable.

Superstate brings Fresh Equities On-chain

Tokenized RWA firm Superstate has teamed up with the Backpack exchange to introduce native on-chain stocks to the public.

Unlike other tokenized stocks which are just tokenized wrappers of off-chain stocks held in custody, these new equities are registered directly with the SEC and will live on-chain.
Additionally, the on-chain stocks will offer direct ownership to holders, along with traditional dividend and voting rights.

Issued through Superstate’s Opening Bell tokenization platform, the stocks can be freely moved and settled through the platform’s own SEC-registered transfer agent.

Through its integration with Backpack, traders from beyond the US will be able to access and purchase these native equities.

These on-chain stocks are expected to be announced and deployed in the coming weeks.

Just a Rounding Error

Earlier today, stablecoin issuer Paxos had minted over $300 trillion worth of Paypal’s PYUSD stablecoin on Ethereum.

The stablecoins were then sent to an inaccessible address just 20 minutes later, effectively removing them from circulating

According to a recent statement from Paxos, the firm admitted that they had mistakenly minted excess tokens as part of an internal transfer

Paxos claimed that the mistake arose from an internal technical error, reaffirming that there was no security breach and customer funds remained secure.

During the short period of time after the extra stablecoins were minted, the value of PYUSD remained stable without suffering any notable depegs.

In Other News

Newsmax Unveils TRUMP Treasury. Newsmax, a publicly traded media company, is building a digital asset treasury containing Bitcoin as well as Trump’s official Solana memecoin, TRUMP. Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy reasons that TRUMP will “track the success of the Trump presidency, which so far has been impressive”.

Coinbase Business Accounts. US crypto exchange Coinbase is launching an all-in-one financial platform to support small and medium businesses. The accounts will enable them to receive crypto payments and earn up to 4.1% APY on USDC stablecoins. The pilot program is set to go live “later this year”.

Solana Support on Uniswap. Through a partnership with Jupiter, a Solana based DeFi app, users can now access and purchase SOL and other Solana based tokens on Uniswap.

OpenSea Loot Boxes. The OpenSea NFT marketplace has distributed “treasure chests” to its users earlier today. These chests contain random rewards ranging from tokens such as BTC and ETH to rare NFTs such as Hypurr.

TURTLE Airdrop Checker Live. DeFi social club Turtle unveiled the airdrop checker for their upcoming TURTLE token. 13.9% of the token has been allocated for this airdrop. The TGE date is not known as of yet.

Ripple acquires GTreasury for $1B. This marks Ripple’s third major acquisition, who previously acquired prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25B in April. These expansions would support Ripple’s efforts in onboarding corporate and institutional clients onto Ripple’s ecosystem.

Daylight Raises $75M for Decentralized Energy Network. Daylight, a DePIN firm specializing in electricity infrastructure, has successfully raised $75M. Notable investors include Framework Ventures and a16z Crypto. Daylight’s goal is to allow investors to gain exposure to electricity as an asset class.

Sony Seeks Stablecoin Banking License. Sony Bank's subsidiary Connectia Trust has filed for a national banking charter to issue dollar-pegged stablecoins. Other notable crypto firms seeking OCC charters include Stripe, Paxos, Circle and Coinbase.

BitMine Adds $417M to ETH Treasury. According to onchain data through Arkham, BitMine has added $417M worth of ETH to their treasury during the market dip. BitMine’s total ETH holdings are currently worth $12.2B, making them the largest corporate ETH treasury.

Kraken Acquires “Small Exchange” for $100M. US crypto exchange Kraken has acquired Small Exchange, a US Designated Contract Market operator. The acquisition is part of Kraken’s strategy to establish a fully US based derivatives trading platform.

Introducing Wormhole DEX. Bridging solution Wormhole is entering the DEX market with the launch of its own native DEX, “Portal Swap”. The multichain DEX will be powered by Mayan Finance.

MegaETH ICO Incoming. MegaETH, an upcoming performance-focused ETH L2, announced an ICO for their upcoming token. Users have until October 27 to register and indicate interest for a chance at participating in this ICO.

LAUNCHCOIN Is Rebranding Again! LAUNCHCOIN, the rebranded PASTERNAK coin of the Solana-based crypto launchpad Believe, is changing their ticker once more. LAUNCHCOIN will be rebranded into the new ticker, BELIEVE. Users have until October 29 to migrate their tokens.