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Vitalik Buterin Unveils New ‘Lean Ethereum” Strawmap

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Vitalik Buterin Unveils New ‘Lean Ethereum” Strawmap

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has named quantum resistance, scalability and privacy as three of Ethereum’s top priorities under a new “Lean Ethereum” strawmap, which lays out the network’s technical direction for the remainder of the decade. 

In a post to X on Saturday, Buterin said the collection of upgrades will roll out over the next three to four years, touching nearly every layer of Ethereum in a transformation he compared in scale to the September 2022 Merge, which shifted the network away from energy-intensive mining. 

“Quantum safety has shifted up a LOT in priority,” he said, adding that finalizing a quantum-safe solution for blobs has “become urgent.” Enhancing privacy is another priority, Buterin said, stating that it has become a “first class goal.”

The “Lean Ethereum” strawmap timeline from 2026 through to 2029. Source: Strawmap.org

The change in roadmap comes amid a series of changes at the Ethereum Foundation, which laid off roughly 20% of its staff last month in a bid to become leaner and reduce its budget by 40%.

The leaner structure comes on top of several executive departures in recent months, including Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak, while protocol contributors Tim Beiko and Barnabé Monnot also left in May.

Buterin is also pushing for the development of a new virtual machine like leanISA or RISC-V to support programmable privacy and better scalability.

Questions remain over Buterin’s timeline

Dankrad Feist, a researcher behind the payments-focused layer-1 Tempo blockchain, praised the new plan but argued the 3-4 year timeline is too slow, stating that AI could help developers ship the upgrades within a year. 

Related: Ethereum Foundation leadership exodus continues with director’s departure 

Crypto analyst Ignas Fiodorovas was also in favor of the plan but cast doubt on the Ethereum Foundation’s ability to deliver the upgrades within the stated timeline, citing the organization’s history of missing deadlines. 

Fiodorovas said the only key feature missing from the roadmap was improved tokenomics for Ether (ETH), which has continued to slide in price amid a broader market downturn. 

Magazine: Bitcoin decouples from tech stocks, Ether eyes ‘selling wave’: Market Moves

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

ESMA Warns Prediction Market Event Contracts May Fall Under EU Binary Options Ban

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ESMA Warns Prediction Market Event Contracts May Fall Under EU Binary Options Ban

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities regulator, said in a statement that many prediction market event contracts may already fall within the bloc’s existing ban on marketing binary options to retail investors. The regulator reminded firms they must assess whether…

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities regulator, said in a statement that many prediction market event contracts may already fall within the bloc’s existing ban on marketing binary options to retail investors. The regulator reminded firms they must assess whether newly offered products fall under national product intervention measures already in force.

ESMA said the statement responds to the growing popularity of prediction markets and rising retail participation globally. It defines event contracts as products with a binary outcome, a fixed payout or nothing, depending on a yes-or-no answer about a future event, and noted they may also qualify as bets under national gambling law.

Derivatives, Not Just Bets

Where an event contract qualifies as a financial instrument, ESMA said it classifies as a derivative and, because of its binary payout, falls within the scope of national binary options measures that bar marketing, distribution or sale to retail clients.

Authorization Required Even for Professionals

ESMA added that distributing such contracts in the EU requires authorization as an investment firm under MiFID II, even when offered only to non-retail clients. The regulator did not name specific platforms, but the statement lands as crypto-native prediction markets such as Polymarket have expanded trading volumes tied to political, sports and economic outcomes.

The warning follows a wave of US regulatory attention on the sector; the CFTC said in February that prediction markets should fall under federal oversight and later opened a broader review of the category. ESMA’s statement marks the first direct EU-level guidance tying event contracts to the bloc’s 2018 binary options prohibition, raising the compliance bar for any platform seeking retail or professional distribution in the region.

ESMA gave no timeline for enforcement action and did not indicate whether specific national regulators have opened investigations into individual platforms.

A plan to freeze the creator’s Bitcoin sparks fierce debate over crypto rules

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A plan to freeze the creator’s Bitcoin sparks fierce debate over crypto rules

He authored Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 361 (BIP-361), which outlines a phased migration to quantum-resistant cryptography.

“The goal is to create incentives and deadlines so users, exchanges, custodians, wallets and institutions actually migrate in a timely fashion,” saidLopp, who in April said it would be better to freeze Satoshi’s hoard and millions of other dormant bitcoins than to let hackers steal them.

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, rejected both letting the coins be stolen and freezing them outright.

Instead, he pointed to a proposal by Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter that would place Satoshi’s bitcoin into a legal trust until ownership could be proven through historical electronic records.

Avoiding philosophical challenges

“I actually like Nic Carter’s proposal,” Hougan said via email. “It avoids the philosophical challenges of both CZ’s suggestion and the ‘let whatever happens’ perspective.”

Hougan said the market already treats Satoshi’s holdings as effectively unavailable, meaning almost any change would create more risk than opportunity.

“I don’t think there is any way that developments around Satoshi’s coins are positive for the ecosystem,” he said. “The market already accounts for them as frozen forever.”

For now, the debate remains largely theoretical. Researchers are still working on practical post-quantum cryptography for Bitcoin, and no consensus has been reached on how the network should respond if its encryption does become vulnerable.

How white hat hackers with a $3,000 server found a flaw that could’ve put $70 billion in crypto at risk

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How white hat hackers with a $3,000 server found a flaw that could’ve put $70 billion in crypto at risk

Meanwhile, Grego AI, which independently verified Hexens’ proof-of-concept, calculated that approximately $250 million in Aptos-native TVL was directly at risk based on the near-90% success rate, separate from broader cross-chain exposure.

The $70 billion risk

The vulnerability, discovered by Vahe Karapetyan, CTO and co-founder of Hexens, could, if left unchecked, have exposed a far larger systemic risk surface across bridges, stablecoins, DeFi protocols and centralized exchanges, costing billions and creating a crisis far beyond Aptos itself.

And all it would’ve taken was a few thousand dollars’ worth of servers.

The total cost to spin up the infrastructure needed to run this experiment was approximately $3,000 for a server that simulated an environment designed to approximate Aptos mainnet conditions. Although if a malicious attacker were to actually go through the exploit, it would have required considerably less, without requiring validator access, insider knowledge or privileged protocol permissions.

The team ran the exploit path roughly 20 times in a simulated environment and succeeded 17 or 18 times. The two or three failed attempts didn’t stop the network, meaning the attacker could have simply had another window to try again.

The simulation was built to closely approximate real network conditions, using a cluster of more than 30 validator nodes, a mainnet-shaped stake distribution, organic transaction traffic and heavy execution contention. The Hexens team also tested what they call “non-armed calibration techniques”: dry runs that measured mempool and block-construction conditions before committing to an armed attempt. The firm said those steps materially reduced the uncertainty introduced by the exploit’s probabilistic elements, making the attack path more reliable in practice.

Tokenization’s next use case is personalized portfolios, NYLIM executive says

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Tokenization’s next use case is personalized portfolios, NYLIM executive says

NYLIM was the latest entrant to the list of asset management giants making moves in tokenization, teaming up with Centrifuge (CFG) to bring one of its high-yield corporate bond strategies onchain.

For NYLIM, tokenization is less about launching blockchain versions of existing funds than improving how portfolios are assembled.

Sy said customized investment strategies often combine ETFs, bonds, private credit and other assets, creating operational complexity that makes personalization difficult to scale.

“The end goal is to embed the customization within the asset itself, rather than the customization sitting around the operations around the different assets,” he said.

Tokenization could also streamline transfer agency, settlement and other back-office processes, reducing costs that ultimately benefit investors.

“If you can bring that down by 10% or 20%, that’s a better outcome for our clients,” Sy said.

DeFi awaits

Sy said stablecoins have become the first practical bridge bringing traditional financial institutions onchain.

The stablecoin market has grown to over $300 billion, and its increasingly used for cross-brder payments

As banks, payment firms and fintech companies adopt stablecoins for cross-border payments and treasury management, many will eventually look for institutional-grade tokenized assets where those balances can earn yield instead of remaining in cash.

“Stablecoins were probably one of the biggest unlocks in the past two years,” Sy said. “Adopting stablecoins was the gateway to get them onchain.”

Bitcoin retakes $63,000, reversing end-June losses

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Bitcoin retakes $63,000, reversing end-June losses

Bitcoin climbed above $63,000 in U.S. morning hours Saturday, up 1.4% over 24 hours and 3.6% on the week, per CoinDesk data, its highest in two weeks and a full reversal of the losses that closed out June.

XRP led the day’s majors, up 5.3% to $1.18 and nearly 10% on the week, a move that lifted it past the USDC stablecoin to fifth place by market value at about $73 billion.

The gain came alongside onchain data showing XRP holders at their deepest average losses on record – the kind of washed-out positioning some traders buy against. Ether added 3.2% on the day to about $1,793, up 11.5% over seven days, while dogecoin rose 2.6% and solana held near $82.50 with a 13.2% weekly gain.

The surge extended a week built on a friendlier macro turn. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s comment that inflation risks have come down, a soft June jobs report and a squeeze on bearish traders carried bitcoin from below $60,000 to above $63,000 in five sessions.

Trading was thin on Saturday with U.S. markets shut for the Independence Day holiday, the kind of liquidity that exaggerates moves in both directions.

Bitcoin entered the third quarter at 21-month lows and has now recovered the ground lost in June’s final slide. Whether the momentum holds turns on the coming U.S. inflation print and on whether buying continues once U.S. desks return from the holiday.

UK’s bold new crypto rules promise to unlock global trading, but huge compliance hurdles still threaten the rollout

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UK’s bold new crypto rules promise to unlock global trading, but huge compliance hurdles still threaten the rollout

“The existing AML registration process with the FCA, which is much narrower, is already incredibly demanding, with the FCA rejecting or forcing the withdrawal of over 85% of applications,” he said in an emailed comment. The new framework introduces substantially broader requirements covering Consumer Duty, prudential standards, operational resilience and senior management accountability.

Cattee also cautioned firms against delaying applications, pointing to MiCA’s rollout in Europe, where many firms waited until deadlines approached, creating licensing bottlenecks that left some businesses without authorization in time.

For institutional investors, however, the new framework represents more significant than just another crypto rulebook.

Sandy Jones, director of digital assets at Baillie Gifford, said regulation does not automatically make crypto safer but provides the legal certainty and standards of governance needed for traditional financial (TradFi) institutions to adopt blockchain-based infrastructure.

“The underlying technology is powerful, but it does not create a direct path into mainstream financial markets on its own,” Jones said. “You need legal clarity, operational resilience, proper governance and rules that investors and institutions can recognise.”

Jones also welcomed the FCA’s recent refinements to its stablecoin regime, arguing they create robust settlement infrastructure without imposing unnecessary operational friction.

The industry’s responses suggest the FCA has deliberately positioned the U.K. as a commercially pragmatic alternative to Europe’s MiCA regime. But whether that translates into firms choosing Britain over other jurisdictions will depend less on the framework’s ambition than on how predictably it is implemented over the coming months.

A massive EU regulatory crackdown is threatening the explosive boom of multibillion-dollar prediction markets

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A massive EU regulatory crackdown is threatening the explosive boom of multibillion-dollar prediction markets

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said some prediction-market contracts may be covered by the European Union’s binary options ban, warning firms that yes-or-no event contracts cannot be marketed, distributed or sold to retail clients when they qualify as financial instruments.

“This means that the marketing, distribution or sale to retail clients of event contracts that meet the definition of financial instruments is prohibited,” ESMA said in a statement.

The regulator targeted contracts whose payout is binary, usually a fixed amount or nothing, and depends on the outcome of a future event.

ESMA said the product label is irrelevant, as a contract sold as an “event contract” can still be a MiFID II financial instrument if its underlying falls within the derivatives categories.

Event contracts that qualify as financial instruments are derivatives, ESMA said. That puts them within the scope of national product intervention measures for binary options.

The warning comes as prediction markets expand across crypto and traditional finance. Kalshi and Polymarket have been discussed as potential M&A targets as operational lines blur between exchanges, brokerages and sportsbooks.

Why bitcoin’s (BTC) disconnect from record-high stocks won’t last

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Why bitcoin’s (BTC) disconnect from record-high stocks won’t last

Bitcoin’s BTC$62,829.74 lackluster performance this year has puzzled investors.

Despite record highs in equities, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has struggled to regain momentum while U.S. technology stocks have surged on enthusiasm surrounding AI as it currently trades just below the $62,000 mark, down over 50% from its peak price in October.

Two new outlooks from asset managers Hashdex and Charles Schwab argue the disconnect is temporary, albeit for different reasons.

Samir Kerbage, chief investment officer at Hashdex, said crypto’s recent weakness says more about where investors are allocating capital than about the health of the digital asset ecosystem.

“Capital follows attention and narratives,” Kerbage wrote in a midyear market outlook. “Crypto has benefited from this in the past but right now, attention is elsewhere. AI infrastructure plays, IPO pipelines, macro positioning around rate expectations, are absorbing the flows.”

That rotation, he argued, has overshadowed several structural developments that continue to strengthen crypto’s long-term investment case. Institutional infrastructure is expanding across banks, brokers and payment providers, while regulatory clarity in the U.S. has improved and could strengthen further if Congress passes the CLARITY Act this summer.

Meanwhile, crypto’s underlying usage continues to grow even as prices remain subdued.

Trump crypto token buyers are down $3.8 billion, Nansen data shows

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Trump crypto token buyers are down $3.8 billion, Nansen data shows

TRUMP trades near $1.79 today, down about 96% from its peak. Its market value is $425 million, against nearly $15 billion at the January 2025 high. Of the 722,000 wallets still holding the token, positions are worth $465 million combined. Since launch, about $71 billion in value has moved through the token.

Trump, who once was a crypto critic, embraced the technology during the 2024 campaign trail before his return to the White House, promising to make the U.S. the crypto capital of the world. Since then, he has unapologetically maintained his crypto ties even as he and his appointees have steered the federal government toward embracing the industry.

Recently, Trump has said there is nothing wrong with the income he made from his crypto-related businesses. He told CNBC that he did nothing illegal and was unaware of the extent of his holdings. Trump also added that he handed day-to-day control of his businesses to his two eldest sons before taking office without divesting.

Family ties

The crypto company that Trump and his family have maintained an ownership stake in, World Liberty Financial, saw its token add to losses under a different structure.

WLFI tokens were sold through an initial coin offering (ICO) at $0.015 in the first round and $0.05 to the public, and stayed non-transferable until Sep. 1, 2025. Secondary trading opened that day at $0.29 and reached $0.33.

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