Welcome to the Protocol, Coindesk’s weekly wrapping of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I am Margaux Nijkerk, Coindesk’s Tech & Protocol’s reporter.
In this number:
- Vitalik Barterin: Ethereum at risk if decentralization is just a catcher
- Bitcoin Layer-2 Botanix Mainnet debuts, cuts blocking times to 5 seconds
- XRPL EVM SIDECHIN goes live and unlocking Ethereum Dapps in XRP -Ecosystem
- Securitize, Redstone Pilot ‘Trusted Single Source Oracle’ to secure Tokenized Fund Navs
Network news
Butterin: Crypto should mature: Ethereum-co-founder Vitalik Barterin wants the crypto industry to grow up quickly that the industry is at a “bending point.” Bars, who spoke in front of a packed space at the Ethereum Community Conference, in Cannes, used buttin his keynote speaker to deliver a clarified reality check: Decentralization, he argued, must develop from a captive phrase to a specific set of user guarantees or risk becoming another hollow promise. As the industry has gone mainstream with endorsements from larger companies and political figures, builders have to return to the ecosystem’s central ideals of decentralization and building for users’ needs, Barterin said. In his typical jeans and casual dark T-shirt uniform, butterin laid out practical “tests”, which he said that any crypto project should pass. These include 1) Walk-Away test. If the company behind an application disappears, do users keep their assets? And 2) Insider attack test: How much damage can junk insidents or compromised frontends cause? And 3) Whether it has a trusted computer base: How many code lines have to trust to protect users’ funds or data? He warned that too many LAG-2 networks, defi-projects and “decentralized” frontends depend on hidden back doors, immediate upgrade buttons or uncertain interfaces that can be manipulated and hacked. – Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
Bitcoin Layer-2 Botanix Goes Live: The Mainnet of Botanix, a network designed to bring Ethereum-equivalent tools to the Bitcoin ecosystem, has gone live, which cuts the time it takes to add new blocks to five seconds from 10 minutes. The network is compatible with Ethereum -Virtual Machine (Evm)The software that drives Ethereum Blockchain, allowing Ethereum-based applications and smart contracts to be copied and deployed on Bitcoin, Developer Botanix Labs said in an email. Botanix is one of several projects trying to scale Bitcoin Blockchain and make it a more conducive place for decentralized funding (Defi) By improving its utility and programmability. Others include Rodstok, Stacks and Bob (“Build on Bitcoin”)As everyone has adopted the BitVM Computing paradigm, which can make complex calculations to verify on Bitcoin, which paves the way for Smart Contract Delivery, similar to Ethereums. The expansion of Bitcoin’s tool would allow developers to take advantage of the value contained in BTC, which dwarves over all other digital assets. – Jamie Crawley Read more.
XRP Ledger EVM-SideChin Mainnet launches: Ripple officially introduced XRP Ledger’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (Evm) SideChain to Mainnet in an attempt to improve the interoperability of the ecosystem and allow developers to implement their Ethereum-based decentralized applications (DAPPS) With Xrpl. The development adds EVM compatible smart contracts while maintaining a connection to XRPL, giving developers access to the ecosystem at a low price, Ripple said in a blog post. It is designed to eliminate the exchange between EVM compatibility and XRPL’s own benefits of opening the door to DAPPS to lean into XRP’s paying infrastructure. SideChain acts as a separate blockchain parallel and connected to the XRP headbox over the Axelar Bridge, an interoperability protocol. XRPLS native token, XRP, will act as the native gas token for SideChain. – Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
Securitize, Redstone releases New Oracle Model WhitePaper: Securitize, one of the largest tokenized asset issuers, and the Oracle provider Redstone has released a whitepaper, as they say, introduces a new model to safely verify the net value (NAV) Data on-chain, tailored specifically for tokenized private funds. The model, called the trusted single -source oracle (TSSO)is designed to tackle a keygap in decentralized financing (Defi) Infrastructure: How to prove reliable that each NAV update really comes from the trusted source and has not been manipulated once on the chain. In traditional crypto markets, oracles pull data from multiple pricing to protect against manipulation or errors. But for private funds, NAV is calculated by a single fund administrator. It creates a unique problem: There is no way to double control the number through the market aggregation. For defi protocols that depend on accurate security values, this single point of trust has been an adhesive point. The TSSO frame resolves this by creating a cryptographically linked chain of NAV updates, according to WhitePaper. Each update includes a secure digital signature, a timestamp, a reference to the previous mail and a hash that locks the sequence together. The system uses two keys: a cold -sized “Root key” for larger updates and a “chain load” for small, routine changes that remain within tight thresholds. This design aims to balance high security with the practical need to update NAV data without constant manual work. – Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
In other news
- Digital Mediation Robinhood (HOOD) Has a slate with new crypto offers, including its own blockchain network based on arbitration and tokenized stock trading. This week, the company debuted its stock taking, which was issued at Ethereum Layer-2 Arbitum, for European users, giving access to over 200 US shares and ETFs with trading around the clock over weekdays. With the launch, Robinhood expands its crypto-focused EU app with tokenized shares for an “all-in-one investment app driven by Crypto,” the company said. The company also confirmed that it is building its own LAG-2 blockchain network optimized for tokenized assets. The chain supports 24/7 trade, self-insurance and transverse chain broda formation of tokenized assets. A release date has not been revealed, but people who know the case said it could go live later in the year or early next year. – Krisztian Sandor Read more.
- Deutsche Bank (Db) Planning to debut a Crypto parent authority next year, Bloomberg reported first. Germany’s largest bank has verved cryptocurrency exchange bitpanda to help build the offer, according to the report, with reference to people who are familiar with the case. DB’s involvement in crypto -preserving until now has largely been through the Swiss depot Taurus, of which the bank is both an investor and a client. It is not clear how this relationship would develop if DB begins its own service internally. The bank’s other recent cryptoinitiatives are concentrated in stableecoins, with its asset management daughter DWS, which plans to issue a Euro StableCOin as part of a joint venture with flow traders and galaxy (Glxy). – Jamie Crawley Read more.
Legislative and politics
- With the US Senate’s passage of the bill, which was intended to continue most of President Donald Trump’s political agenda, the last minute changed the last moment to the one big beautiful bill a proposal to clarify and facilitate crypto taxation. Although Senator Cynthia Lummis had submerged changes in the US approach to taxing cryptocurrency transactions, including waive capital-Gains on small activities, it was not among the changes to the bill that narrowly adopted on 50-50 polls on Tuesday, when Vice President JD Vance had to step in to break the tie. The senators had worked through the night Tuesday discussing the amendment after change, most of which failed on their way to a Republican success. But Lummis’ amendments were not among them despite 11 hours of lobbying from Digital Assets Industry. – Jesse Hamilton Read more.
- New York Attorney General Latitia James sounded the alarm on the US Senate StableCOin -Bill, warning Congress on June 30 that Genius is trading – at least as it is currently – “doing[es] Does not contain the necessary protective frames to protect the US public. “In a letter on eight pages, James urged Congress to slow down his efforts to adopt stablecoin legislation and” take the time needed to prepare legislation that will improve innovation while our banking system is envy. ” Cheyenne Ligon Read more.
Calendar
- June 30. July: ETHCC, Cannes
- July 16-18: Web3 Summit, Berlin
- 22-28. September: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul
- 1-2 October: Token2049, Singapore
- November 17-22: DevConnect, Buenos Aires
- 11-13. December: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi
- 10-12. February 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong
- 5-7 May 2026: Consensus, Miami
